Information May Want to Be Free But Those Who Liberate It Can be Indicted
One of the most unusual criminal hacking prosecutions recently began when a Massachusetts federal grand jury returned an indictment against Aaron Swartz, a fellow at, of all places, Harvard University’s Center for Ethics. The four count criminal indictment, available here, charges Swartz with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and [...]
The Google Book Settlement Decision & Opt-In/Opt-Out Models of IP Protection in Cyberspace
The District Court has rendered its decision rejecting the Amended Settlement Agreement (ASA) in The Authors Guild v. Google, Inc., the Google Books copyright infringement case for digitalizing books from University libraries and other sources. The decision actually nicely highlights the incompatibility between traditional copyright and other intellectual property models and the fast moving pace [...]
HAVE THE PIRATES MADE THEIR LAST STAND?
Posted By: Deborah Ilea The Pirate Bay marks its seventh anniversary this month, proving that it just may be, as it touts itself, the world’s most resilient bittorrent site. Unfortunately, this anniversary coincides with a Swedish court decision rejecting the appeal of the site’s founders making the future of the site a questionable one. Only [...]
Cyber Monday Crackdown
Posted by: Anthony Eskridge When the United States government took control over more than 80 domain names last week, Internet discussion forums were abuzz with cries of “Censorship!,” “MAFIAA strikes again!,” “Tyranny!,” and general slippery slope complaints. But is that what the Cyber Monday Crackdown was really about? Most of the domain names seized were [...]
Copyright trolling for fun and profit
Posted By: Anthony Eskridge Copyright trolling is the act of purchasing the copyright to material and suing infringers for profit. Intellectual property start-up Righthaven LLC, acting on behalf of Stephens Media, owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, has sued over a hundred Internet sites over copyright infringement of the Review-Journal’s online news articles. What Righthaven [...]
A New Model For Streaming Video On the Internet (Or Is It?)
Posted by: David Brookshire Recently demand for internet streaming of movies exploded with Netflix Instant Streaming accounting for up to 20% of total United States bandwidth use at peak hours. Dozens of competitors are vying to digitize and stream as much content as they can to attract customers. As a result, the content industry has [...]
Third Time Should Charm RIAA
Posted By: Ronald Rasmussen Chief Judge Michael J. Davis of the U.S. District Court of Minnesota needs to let stand the recent $1.5 million verdict against Jammie Thomas-Rasset. No matter what he decides, the case is likely headed to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Judge Davis is unlikely to aid in reaching a [...]
Over 75 Law Profs Call for Halt of ACTA
In an open letter to President Barack Obama, more than 75 prominent law professors criticize the content and secret manner of negotiation of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and demand a number of changes in the legislation. They also insist that Congress must be consulted about ACTA so open, public debate on the issue can [...]
Internet Censorship Bill Proposed by Congress Risks Dismantling the Internet
Posted by: Girard Kelly A bill recently introduced by Congress called S. 3804, the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) attempts to combat copyright infringement on the Internet by creating a blacklist of Internet domain names which are controlled though the U.S ICANN Dynamic [...]
Apple-HTC Patent Suit and the iPad
When Apple filed its patent infringement action against HTC in both the United States District Court for Delaware and the United States International Trade Commission, most pundits saw the Apple litigation as an indirect means of going after Google and its success in penetrating the smartphone market with its Android operating system. But perhaps the [...]