The agreement is particularly significant because it marks the first time that ISPs will be "required to work with music and other rights holders" to fight digital piracy. The ISPs, which include BSkyB, BT, Virgin, Carphone Warehouse, Orange and Tiscali, will launch a pilot program that begins by sending warning letters to individuals that have been identified as suspected copyright infringers.

British telecom regulator Ofcom has been charged with overseeing the process and working with the parties to develop and approve a Code of Practice within four months that determines what actions should be taken against alleged "repeat offenders," i.e. suspension or cancellation of users' Internet accounts or criminal prosecution.

Meanwhile, while the British government says it prefers voluntary industry-led efforts, BERR is continuing to explore what it calls a co-regulatory approach that could lead to legislation. Among the regulatory options being considered by the government are:

• Requiring ISPs to provide personal data relating to a given IP address to rights holders on request, without them needing to go to Court.
• Requiring ISPs to take direct action against users who are identified by the rights holder as infringing copyright through file sharing.
• Requiring that ISPs allow the installation of filtering equipment that will block infringing content, or requiring ISPs themselves to install such filtering equipment.
• Allocating a third party body to consider evidence provided by rights holders and to direct ISPs to take action against individual users as required, or to take action directly against individual users.

Specific financial terms remain confidential, but Nokia received a license enabling it to use all of Qualcomm's patents in its mobile devices and infrastructure equipment. In turn, Nokia agreed to allow Qualcomm to use Nokia's technology in its chipsets.

Businessweek columnist Steve Wildstrom, emcee for Tech Policy Summit '08, interviewed Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs at the 2008 Summit earlier this year and his opening question for Dr. Jacobs was about the company's patent litigation. You can hear a podcast of that interview in the Media Vault. 

VON coalition founder Jeff Pulver, who's been a long-time backer of IP technologies for voice and video, celebrated it as "hugely important legislation" in a post on his blog. Below is an excerpt that explains the bill's impact on the VoIP industry and what Pulver believes it means for 911 services going forward:

This is the first major piece of telecommunications legislation signed into law this year -- and it happens to be a bill designed to help advance VoIP.

The bill provides tools that the FCC failed to provide 3 years ago when first adopting rules for VoIP 911. Even without these tools, VoIP providers have made extraordinary efforts and now provide E911 to a greater percentage of subscribers than any other kind of voice service. Its been the fastest and broadest onetime implementation of E-911 in the history of public safety. As a result of these unprecedented effort by VoIP providers, Americans who dial 911 using interconnected VoIP services can now rest assured they can reach help in an emergency. It is a particularly remarkable achievement considering that no underlying network connectivity provider can yet offer VoIP providers the ability to connect to all selective routers nationwide. This bill now gives VoIP providers a chance to expand their base, and VoIP consumers assurances that they can be safe and secure using a dependable VoIP service.

But more importantly, thanks to the work of the VON Coalition, the bill also recognizes that when we put VoIP at the heart of the 911 network itself, we can achieve breakthrough new advancements in emergency service for all Americans -- regardless of the type of service you use. It's no secret that America's 911 network is still providing 911 and E911 today using 1960s-era technology. The bill calls for a new national strategy for upgrading the nation's entire 911 network from 1960s era technology to 21st century IP and VoIP technologies at its core to help make Americans more safe and secure.

You can read more of his post here, and the text of the legislation is available here.

Despite MPAA's assertions that the arrangement would not only benefit its members by protecting their intellectual property but that it would also help consumers get access to high definition content and major theatrical releases earlier than usual, a number of public interest groups have banded together to voice their opposition to the FCC.

In a document filed with the Commission on Monday, seven organizations including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge, New America Foundation and Media Access Project urged the FCC to reject MPAA's petition on grounds that it's "unnecessary and contrary to the public interest." They argue that MPAA hasn't provided evidence that use of SOC technology would in fact curb copyright infringement; that it would frustrate consumers who wouldn't be able to use their electronics equipment as expected and that it would give "MPAA members unprecedented and undesirable control over consumer device design."

The full 25-page document is available for download.

It's the latest development in the legal saga surrounding COPA, the 1998 law that would make it a crime to publish online content that is deemed harmful to minors unless it's protected behind an age-verification or credit card screen. According to the Associated Press, the appeals court found COPA to be "overly broad and vague" and agreed with opponents who claimed it violates First Amendment protections.

The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), which had filed a briefing in the case opposing COPA, released a statement praising the ruling. Meanwhile, the AP reports that the Department of Justice will review the ruling before deciding what to do next, which may include taking COPA back to the Supreme Court.

UPDATE (7.24.08): Adam Thierer wrote this post about the COPA decision in which he points to analyses by Declan McCullagh and Susan Crawford (coincidentally, all three spoke at Tech Policy Summit '08),

The first is a controversial proposal to extend the copyright protections on musical recordings from 50 years to 95 years to bring it in line with the term already offered to authors (whose works are protected for their lifetime, plus 70 years).

The initiative has been lauded by the EU's Internal Market and Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy as a way to offer aging musicians additional income as they reach retirement. However, critics of the measure dismiss that argument as an excuse to keep copyright in the hands of recording companies. 

As a compromise, the Commission approved a so-called "use it or lose it" provision that would return copyright to the performer, if after 50 years, the record producer failed to market the song again. If neither the producer nor the performer took action within that time period, it would return to the public domain. 

Separately, the Commission also adopted a Green Paper on "Copyright in the Knowledge Economy" that is intended to open up debate on long-term copyright policy in areas like scientific and scholarly publishing by exploring what types of exceptions might be necessary to accommodate libraries, researchers, individuals with disabilities and others. The Commission is seeking comments on the issues discussed in the 22-page report through November 30th. To learn more, you can download the report here (the email address to submit comments is provided on the final page).

As he recounted during his Tech Policy Summit talk, PolyFuel had sought assistance from the Department of Energy in order to fund his startup's R&D work on a prototype of a fuel-cell-based laptop power module. Despite the red tape and challenges associated with such funding, he made a compelling case for why federal funding is sometimes necessary to advance certain technologies.

So we were excited to learn today that PolyFuel has developed a functioning prototype laptop that it plans to demonstrate to manufacturers in the next several weeks. According to News.com, the prototype relies on a direct methanol fuel cell to convert methanol to electricity in order to power the computer without relying on lithium-ion batteries.

For more info, check out News.com. You can also listen to a complete podcast of Mr. Balcom's talk at Tech Policy Summit in the Media Vault.

Blizzard had claimed that a startup named MDY Industries violated copyright law, specifically the Digital Milllennium Copyright Act (DMCA), when it created a product that allows World of Warcraft users to cheat and automatically improve their gameplay.

According to reports by News.com and Ars Technica, U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell agreed in his summary judgement that MDY Industries' MMOGlider software infringes on Blizzard's copyrights. However, he said that it does so not because it violates DMCA but because it breaks the licensing agreement that gamers must adhere to when using World of Warcraft.

Ars Technica writes, "Judge Campbell found Blizzard's argument that [MMO]Glider violates the DMCA unconvincing, and the question of whether it does will be settled at trial. That trial will also determine whether MDY violated Blizzard's copyrights, trademarks, and Blizzard's unjust enrichment claims, as well as putting a dollar figure on the damages." 

Public Knowledge had filed a 25-page amicus brief in support of MDY, which can be downloaded here.

In his opening statement, Yahoo general counsel Michael Callahan emphasized that the proposed deal to partner with Google on advertising is not a merger and that it in no way signals Yahoo's plans to exit the search business. He insisted that "Yahoo is here to stay" and that the company has every intention of fighting and winning against Google in search advertising and other arenas. He explained that the non-exclusive agreement would allow Yahoo to make similar deals with other partners.

When it was David Drummond's turn to deliver opening remarks, the chief legal officer for Google echoed most of what Mr. Callahan had already said about agreement promoting ongoing competition between the two companies. He characterized the deal as merely giving Yahoo the option to display Google's ads, not requiring it. He added that the partnership is limited to search advertising in the United States and Canada and does not include emerging markets like mobile advertising.  

Mr. Drummond also went on the offensive against rival Microsoft, accusing the company of having a desktop monopoly that he said could harm the cloud computing market. He refuted claims Microsoft has made that the Google/Yahoo ad agreement would lead to price fixing and increased costs to customers. He said that his company is looking to sell more ads, not sell ads at higher prices. 

But the most dramatic moments of the hearing, so far, came when Microsoft's senior vice president Brad Smith told Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl (D-WI) about a meeting he and three other Microsoft executives including CEO Steve Ballmer had with Yahoo execs on June 8th in San Jose. According to Mr. Smith (and paraphrased by me), Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang said at that meeting that the market for search advertising had two poles with Google on one end and Yahoo, Microsoft and others on the other end. Mr. Yang reportedly said that , if the Google/Yahoo deal went through, it would leave one pole with Google on one end and no one else able to compete on the other end.

When questioned, Michael Callahan who said he was present at that meeting as well, said he couldn't recall if Jerry Yang had made those remarks. But some of the Senators including Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) suggested that there might need to be another meeting to follow-up on that and other details of the agreement.

Unlike the French court, which ordered eBay to pay luxury goods giant LVMH over $60 million to compensate it for trademark violations, Judge Sullivan ruled that eBay had done enough through its Verified Rights Owner program to deter the sale of counterfeit goods on its site, concluding that "the law is clear: it is the trademark owner's burden to police its mark."

As Declan McCullagh wrote in News.com, while Tiffany may appeal the ruling, "for now...the decision relieves eBay--and companies such as Amazon.com, Yahoo and Google that provide auction listings or product search results--of what would have been a significant financial burden and legal uncertainty."

The full News.com article is available here, and eBay issued the following statement.

The details are still being worked out, so it's unclear how many Verizon customers will be eligible for a cut of the settlement money. Similar suits are pending in California against Sprint and AT&T.

You might remember that not that long ago we pointed to another AP story about the Verizon Wireless' proposal to the Federal Communications Commission that called for prorating and capping early termination fees and offering mandatory grace periods for customer cancellations.  Several wireless carriers, including Verizon Wireless, have taken steps on their own to implement these types of changes in hopes of avoiding regulatory and legal action.

MEP Malcolm Harbour, a key backer of the Telecoms Package, dismissed that idea, telling BBC that the amendments "have nothing to do with copyright enforcement. The interpretation of them is alarmist and scare-mongering and deflects from the intention which was to improve consumers' rights."

Opponents, led by a French group called La Quadrature du Net, warn that the legislation designed to harmonize Europe's telecom laws would instead threaten the openness of the Internet by requiring ISPs to give individuals suspected of downloading unauthorized copyright material two warnings before cutting off their Net access entirely. Another organization, Free Internet Infrastructure (FFII), went a step further, saying that a provision that would give the government the power to determine what type of software can be used online (and what can't) would lead to a "Soviet Internet" in Europe.

The European Parliament will vote on the legislation in September.

For more, read the full BBC article here.

UPDATE: John Timmer at Ars Technica tries to set the record straight on this BBC story, calling the claims about a three-strikes law "gross exaggerations." Check out his article here.

Sciencedebate 2008 hasn't been able to convince Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) to face-off in a debate on science and technology policy. Yet. 

But we're happy to report that the grassroots movement is continuing its effort to highlight the importance of science and tech issues by launching Innovation 2008, a series of 14 questions that it has submitted to the presidential contenders. Sciencedebate organizers have asked the campaigns to respond in writing, and to consider participating in a nationally televised program about the issues.

The questions were developed in consultation with 11 other groups after receiving more than 3,300 submissions from individual supporters. Here's a look at the first one, about innovation:

Science and technology have been responsible for half of the growth of the American economy since WWII. But several recent reports question America's continued leadership in these vital areas. What policies will you support to ensure that America remains the world leader in innovation?

A number of nonprofits have also banded together to pose a shortened list of seven questions to all of the 2008 congressional candidates. To see if candidates in your area have responded, search this interactive database hosted by Scientists and Engineers for America (SEA). And, if you support Sciencedebate 2008's mission, please spread the word.

Sharma profiled Allied Security Trust (AST), a consortium of tech companies that have joined forces in order to purchase intellectual property rights before so-called patent trolls do. According to the Journal, AST members like Verizon, Google, Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard "will pay roughly $250,000 to join the group and will each put about $5 million into escrow with the organization, to go toward future patent purchases."

AST's goal is to preempt costly litigation by buying patents that might be used against its members. In what it describes as a 'catch-and-release' model, AST acquires the rights and then offers its members a chance to buy a worldwide non-exclusive license, before selling the patents. The organization's CEO Brian Hinman, a former IP exec at IBM, asserted that the group isn't a profit-making entity and that it has no desire to become an "enforcement vehicle" itself.

It's the latest twist in the ongoing debate about what's wrong with software patents.

Most recently, a French court ordered eBay to pay approximately $61 million to LVMH, the parent company of luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior and Givenchy. The damages are intended to compensate LVMH for the sale of counterfeit goods that it says eBay should have prevented.

But, according to some (including eBay itself), the real debate isn't over protecting intellectual property -- it's about online business models.