For an organization that is completely focused on copyright, you’d think they could at least manage to get the basics right. You would, however, be wrong.

In the August 2012 edition of their magazine, they run an article on video games, including a page indicating what parts are protected under copyright, patent and trademark law. It is on this page that the words ‘Epic Fail’ come to have new meaning.

The top of the page feature screenshots from three different games. Panzer Dragoon II:Zwei, Rez, and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

The ‘fail’ comes when all three are tagged “Photos: © SEGA. All Rights Reserved”

While Panzer Dragoon 2 is indeed a Sega game, as was Rez, anyone with even a passing knowledge of games would know that Zelda’s screenshot would be copyrighted to Nintendo, not SEGA.

Ooops

Additionally, the words ‘All Rights Reserved’ has been depreciated for the last 12 years. It arose from the Buenos Aires Convention of 1910, but has not been required since 2000, when Nicaragua became the last Buenos Aires signee to also sign the Berne Convention, which has no such requirement.

You would think that an organization like the World Intellectual Property Organization would not only understand that such terms have been superseded for the last 12 years, but would also bother to check who they’re attributing copyright to. Maybe it’s this level of fact-checking that WIPO was really afraid of when they decided to reject the Pirate Party.

Hat Tip: Brad Hall

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The membership application, which had the apparent backing of the WIPO Secretary General, was deferred until next year due to concern by some member-countries.

A report from Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) director Jamie Love has stated that the membership application was put off until 2013, apparently at the request of the French, American and Swiss members.

This morning, under agenda item 6, the WIPO General Assemblies decided to defer a decision until 2013 on the application for accreditation by Pirate Parties International. I was told that the US, Switzerland the France raised objections in the informal consultations, and that some other European countries wanted to raise objections, but found it awkward given the recent success of domestic Pirate Parties in national elections. The USA said it asked for a hold on the decision until WIPO could decide if it wanted to accept political parties as WIPO observers. One delegate said European countries were concerned that the Pirate Parties would take “political action” back home when they disagreed with positions taken by the official delegates at the WIPO meetings.

What makes this unusual is the fact that PPI is not itself a political party. It’s an association of parties, but is registered as a Belgian NGO like many other WIPO observer-members.

Thus the American concerns seem to be based on misinformation (but many would say ‘what’s new‘ when it comes to WIPO). Meanwhile the other concerns seem to be equally curious. Many WIPO members have taken political action in response to WIPO proceedings, including leaks of ACTA documents.

The PPI was unaware of the proceedings when TorrentFreak contacted them regarding the KEI notes this morning.

“Unfortunately we didn’t get any notification from WIPO,” Denis Simonet (PPI Board member and the lead on the membership application) told TorrentFreak.

“So we don’t know more than what everyone can read over the Internet. This is surprising because we fulfill all the requirements and the secretary general even recommended acceptance of our application, we’re working on getting more information from WIPO,” he added.

Meanwhile KEI is using the decision for their own political action, highlighting the revolving door between the WIPO and corporate interests, as the US delegate proposed a means to ease access to WIPO delegates and officers for Corporate CEOs; something not planned for public interest or consumer groups.

It is just as well KEI had their membership approved before they too were seen as a significant political threat with their political action really, else we’d never know about things (Like ACTA).

The fear of the pirate movement is clearly growing among entrenched bureaucrats, so while they may not always succeed at the polls, they’ve got some people scared.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

As observer members they’ll be able to participate in meetings, but not vote (that is reserved for member countries). Currently, the list of observer members (some 250+) mostly focuses on artist and ‘industry’ groups, with only a few public-interest groups, such as the EFF, IP Justice, and Union for the Public Domain in there.

“The Pirate Party movement is spreading rapidly around the globe with parties now in over 60 countries,” PPI Co-chairman Gregory Engels told TorrentFreak.

“I am glad that WIPO is interested in the dialog with this part of civil society that thinks that the time for a massive reform of the copyright systems has come.”

The vote will reportedly take place on the morning of October 6^th. Check back then for the results.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In addition to offering collaboration and noting that the site would increasingly terminate the accounts of persistent copyright infringers, the company noted that it would begin pursuing third party sites who use the Rapidshare trademark to ‘promote’ or encourage copyright infringement.

“We are extending our efforts to proceed against linking-sites, against so-called Rapidshare search engines and against individuals who abuse our trademark to distribute copyright protected content,” wrote Chang.

Just weeks later Rapidshare demanded that site owners should stop abusing its trademark, and went on to file several World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) disputes against others, hoping to take control of their domain names. Now it appears that those complaints have borne considerable fruit.

According to WIPO records, Rapidshare has successfully taken control of more than two dozen domains with ‘rapidshare’ somewhere in the URL including;

• music-rapidshare.com
• rapidshareprime.net
• rapidshare-catalog.com
• full-rapidshare.com
• easyrapidsharedownloads.com
• rapidsharese.com
• rapidshare-provider.com
• rapidshare-free-download.com
• rapidshare-premium.com
• whatsrapidshare.com
• rapidshare-deposit.com
• rapidshare-accounts.net
• atrapidshare.com
• rapidsharepremiumaccounts.com
• rapidsharedownload.org

The full list of transferred domains goes on for a while, and Rapidshare has already filed more than a dozen new disputes against search engines and link sites including rapidshareindex.com and rapidshare1.com.

While it is easy to see where Rapidshare’s trademark could be considered infringed by a domain which includes ‘rapidshare’ in its URL, not all domains did. A claim against another domain, rapidbay.net, was denied.

Firstly it was decided that not only is the word ‘rapid’ commonly used in the English language, but it is also in use by many businesses round the world unconnected with Rapidshare who wish to give the impression they are fast at what they do. Secondly, the word ‘bay’ was considered to be nothing like ‘share’ and therefore would not cause an Internet user to make a connection to Rapidshare.

While Rapidshare will be pleased that it has largely succeeded with these complaints, the domains it has taken control of represent just the tip of the iceberg. Time will tell if the file-hoster continues its aggressive actions against those it believes are not only abusing its company trademark, but also connecting it to copyright infringement.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.