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Apple’s App Store has a copyright infringement problem, business owner claims

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Software on Apple’s App Store may be reviewed by human editors and approved before distribution, but one business owner claims the iPhone maker is not doing enough to prevent copyright infringement. The Roanoke Times published a piece this week highlighting the issue of paid iOS apps scraping content from the web and packaging it in paid apps. While developer relations issues often get a lot of attention, the problem with the App Store according to Brian Raub is not a story heard often…
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Backing up your own music now illegal for Brits, and Apple Music terms may need to change

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Back in the summer, the UK’s High Court overturned legislation allowing citizens to duplicate copyrighted material for personal use. The British government has now accepted this ruling, meaning that the private-copying exception to anti-piracy laws no longer applies – and the government will not attempt to reintroduce it.

This means that we’re back where we started: doing something as simple as ripping a CD, backing-up your music to Time Machine or uploading it to a cloud service is once more illegal, reports copyright blog 1709.

So where does this leave ordinary users in the UK? Clearly some will have been unaware of the introduction of the exception last year, and possibly a larger minority will have been unaware of the rescinding of the exception, so they will no doubt continue to format shift their personally owned music and store tracks on the cloud in blissful ignorance that that is not legal in most cases.

It also means that Apple may need to change the terms of both iTunes Match and Apple Music in the UK.

Operators of cloud services may face pressure to amend their terms of service to reflect the new status quo, and some streaming services may be forced to tighten up their procedures to prevent users from creating multiple copies of the same download.

Yep, technically you can’t have the same music on your iPhone and Mac …

It seems unlikely that anyone will actually enforce the law, but these days, who knows. Just as plastic bags come with warnings that they should be kept out of the hands of infants, technology should come with a warning that it should be kept out of the hands of governments.

Via Gizmodo

Apple asks Chinese manufacturer to cease production plans for Steve Jobs figurine, claim they own his likeness

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We had a feeling it would not be long before Apple stepped in and shut down Chinese manufacturer In Icon’s plans to create an extremely realistic Steve Jobs figurine, and today The Telegraph reports the 12-inch doll originally slated for release in February is now facing legal threats from Apple if the company doesn’t cease production plans.

According to the report, Apple claimed it owns the rights to Steve Jobs’ likeness and in a letter to the company claims toys using the Apple logo, a person’s name, or likeness of Jobs is considered a criminal offense.

The 12-inch figurine, which comes complete with Jobs’s trademark blue jeans, sneakers and black turtleneck sweater, was created by Chinese company In Icons and was set for release in February. But ‘their efforts have reportedly met with’ a legal challenge with Apple allegedly threatening to sue the toy maker unless they cease trading.

In Icon’s Tandy Cheung originally told ABC News the company would not stop production in lieu of Apple’s requests, and said the technology company cannot copyright Jobs’ appearance:

“Apple can do anything they like. I will not stop, we already started production…Steve Jobs is not an actor, he’s just a celebrity… There is no copyright protection for a normal person… Steve Jobs is not a product… so I don’t think Apple has the copyright of him.”

This is not the first time Apple has put a stop to Steve Jobs figurines. MICGadget was forced to stop selling their toy in November 2010 after Apple sent the following email (excerpt below):

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