For more than a year, the American Bankers Association has pushed to limit the power and budget of the government’s newest consumer watchdog agency. The association, which includes the nation’s largest banks as members, is spending about $2 million every four months on lobbying, according to the Associated Press, most of it to limit the authority of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform act that created it.
But there’s at least one area where the ABA wants more regulation instead of less: FarmVille.
In a letter to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the bank association asked the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to consider regulating virtual currencies, like those used on FarmVille and Second Life.

The pound in your pocket may be worth even less than you thought. According to an investigation by the BBC, as many as one in 20 £1 coins may be a forgery – double the Royal Mint's estimate.
Willings, a company that specialises in detecting counterfeit coins for the banks and vending-machine industry, said that as many as 73 million may be circulating. The recession provides an additional incentive for people to turn to less legitimate methods of making money and the scale of forgery appears to be rising. In the last quarter of 2008, the Royal Mint removed 270,000 fake pound coins from circulation, compared with 97,000 for the whole of 2007. The Royal Mint said: "We are concerned at the apparent upward trend."

The number of fake £1 coins in circulation has doubled in the last five years and now stands at more than 30 million, the BBC has learned.
This means one in every 50 pound coins in circulation is counterfeit.
Experts believe the fakes are being produced by organised criminal gangs using specialist machinery.

Prospect has acquired a reputation as the most intelligent magazine of current affairs and cultural debate in Britain. Both challenging and entertaining, the magazine seeks to make complex ideas accessible and enjoyable by commissioning the best writers, editing them vigorously and packaging their work in a well designed and illustrated monthly.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance is Britain’s independent grassroots campaign for lower taxes. After years of being ignored by politicians of all parties, the TPA is committed to forcing politicians to listen to ordinary taxpayers.

French MPs reject controversial plan to crack down on illegal downloaders
• Critics feared impact of state surveillance on civil liberties
• Surprise no vote at poorly attended session
French politicians have unexpectedly rejected a bill that would have cut off the internet connections of anyone found to be repeatedly downloading music or videos without paying for them. The legislation would also have led to the creation of the world's first state surveillance system on web pirates.

Every country has legal restrictions on the reproduction of banknote images. The counterfeiting of currency is a crime, and while restrictions vary from country to country, in some countries, any reproduction of banknote images – even for artistic or advertising uses – is strictly forbidden. Even in countries that allow some limited use of banknote images, there are specific rules and requirements. This website will provide you with information about reproducing banknote images and links to country-specific websites for further guidance.

In my classes in IP law and copyright, I sometimes have difficulty conveying to students the “cost” side of the copyright regime. That is, though we often make reference to implementing the right copyright “balance” in our law, I think students (and others, for that matter) are often uncertain as to exactly what is being balanced against what. The benefits of a copyright regime are pretty obvious — if you give people a property interest in their creations, they’ll be able to work out market arrangements to receive compensation for them; knowing that in advance, they’ll create more works of art than they otherwise would absent that protection, and we’re all better off as a result. That’s easy enough to see. What’s harder to see is why that principle should ever be limited — if protection yields more creative works, why won’t more protection yield more creative works (to the benefit of all)? Why not make copyright perpetual, and copyright rights as broad and as deep as possible — won’t that get us even more creative works to enjoy? [That’s a viewpoint that many in Congress apparently share, as copyright protection has indeed gotten longer and longer and deeper and broader over the past 50 years or so — helped along, I suppose, by those stacked bundles of unmarked hundred dollar bills left in Congressional anterooms by representatives of the “copyright industries” — hey, don’t sue me, that’s just a joke).

A GANG of criminals who set up a forgery factory in an 83-year-old's living room to produce millions of pounds in counterfeit notes were jailed for a total of 14 years yesterday.
Pensioner Dennis Hancox's suburban flat in Chiswick, west London, was used to "foil" fake Bank of England £20 notes using a £12,000 industrial toner machine – a sophisticated piece of equipment never before used by crooks.

Police are warning the public of high-value scams involving forged banknotes, cheques and bank drafts as figures reveal a surge in cases.
As the credit crunch forces people to part with items such as cars, crooks are taking advantage by paying with forgeries.

The U.S. Secret Service -- the federal department that cracks down on counterfeit currency -- is getting fresh ammunition in its war against illicit desktop publishers.

At the request of the Secret Service, the U.S. Sentencing Commission -- the agency that sets punishment guidelines for federal criminals -- is proposing stiffer penalties for counterfeiters who create cash on demand with computers and printers.

The True Story Behind the Oscar® Winning Film "The Counterfeiters"
Critical praise for the definitive new book about Operation Bernhard, the greatest counterfeit in history.
"The compelling story of the Third Reich's attempt to wreck the British economy by flooding Europe with millions of counterfeit British pounds....thorough research and authoritative voice enable this fascinating chapter of history to hold interest. Gripping proof that indeed all is fair in love and war."
--Kirkus Reviews