Campaigning for sweeping reform of copyright, privacy and patent laws, Sweden’s Pirate Party this weekend won enough votes in the country’s national elections to secure a seat (possibly two) in the European Parliament. Sweden is accorded 17 representatives in the EU governing legislature, and the Pirate Party’s 7.1 percent showing is enough for at least [...]

Peter Althin, the attorney representing Pirate Bay spokesperson Peter Sunde, has called for a retrial, Swedish news site The Local revealed today.
Swedish radio channel Sveriges Radio’s P3 news programme reports that the judge in the case was a member of the same copyright protection groups as several of the main entertainment industry representatives, who brought [...]

YouTube is bringing back silent movies - by censoring at least some videos that make use of unauthorized copyrighted music.
Here’s an example:
More examples here and here. 
YouTube displays this message under the videos:

These videos cry out for remixing with some alternate music, don’t they?
via Mashable

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports that Apple appears to be using the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) to limit what iPod owners can do with their portable media players:
At the heart of this is the iTunesDB file, the index that the iPod operating system uses to keep track of what playable media is on the [...]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a coalition of public interest groups today called on four television networks to stop stifling political debate on the Internet with overreaching copyright claims and proposed two measures to help YouTube protect online political speech.
In an open letter sent to CBS, the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), Fox, and NBC, [...]

The McCain/Palin campaign has found itself caught in a DMCA/Fair Use YouTube battle, after having campaign videos pulled from the site because of their use of copyrighted material.
The campaign’s letter, embedded above, makes a great against the over-zealous enforcement of DMCA claims.
Let’s hope that politicians getting ensnared in the DMCA/Fair Use battle will lead to [...]

Weddings aren’t all faith, love and happiness.
There’s usually a bit of abject terror mixed in and something - be it the bridesmaid’s dresses, the flowers or the dj - from hell itself. 
Case in point: A rivalry between two wedding podcasters has devolved into a battle to the death - at least for one of the [...]

Google’s YouTube troubles just got kicked up a notch.
Italian media company Mediaset SpA is suing YouTube and its owner, Google, for at least 500 million euros ($779 million).
Mediaset claims that Google and YouTube carried out the “illegal distribution and commercial use of audio and video files,” according to a Bloomberg report:
According to a sample analysis [...]

Google’s problem with YouTube is even bigger than many thought.
More than 97% of YouTube’s videos are deadweight - videos that the company can’t put ads on.
According to Silicon Alley Insider’s Michael Learmonth:
We know Google’s (GOOG) YouTube is a tough sell for advertisers. But video site’s sales team may be having an even tougher time than [...]

Google announced today that it had reached an agreement with Viacom that will avoid a media debacle over YouTube users privacy:
As we let you know on July 4, YouTube received a court order to produce viewing history data. We are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand [...]