An appeals court in Sweden on Friday upheld the copyright convictions of three men behind Pirate Bay, a popular file-sharing site that remains in operation despite efforts to shut it down.
STOCKHOLM (AP) — An appeals court in Sweden on Friday upheld the copyright convictions of three men behind Pirate Bay, a popular file-sharing site that remains in operation despite attempts to shut it down.
This move comes following the ruling against Universal Music this fall, where the court upheld that copyright owners must consider fair use before sending a takedown notice.
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Copyright Term Extension Act, which had added 20 years to the copyright term.* But if the old-liners continue to get their way, the public domain in the U.S. will virtually disappear.
Not only did the judges uphold IMS Health's copyright, but they also explicitly referred to the commission's investigation by saying that the brick structure could not be seen as an essential facility in Germany.
And even though Mickey himself does not figure in the law or in the Supreme Court's 7-to-2 decision to uphold the 1998 Copyright Term Extension Act on Wednesday, the smiling rodent still has a starring role in discussions of the case.
The ruling specifically upheld the Siegels' copyright in the Superman material published in Detective Comics' Action Comics Vol. 1.
In the late 1940s, a referee in a New York court upheld Detective Comics' copyright, prompting Mr. Siegel and Mr. Shuster to drop their claim in exchange for $94,000.
The announcement came on the day that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a law extending copyright protection for 20 years, a major victory for Disney which had faced the prospect of Mickey Mouse and other icons lapsing into the public domain.
Editor's note: Michael Weinberg is vice president at Public Knowledge, an organization that preserves the openness of the Internet and the public's access to knowledge; promotes creativity through balanced copyright; and upholds and protects the rights of consumers to use innovative technology lawfully.
