Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

DMCA Injunction Overturned. Bag and Baggage reports in "Lexmark Injunction Reversed."
Sure, Blame it on the Lawyers. Reuters reports in "Grokster Officials Settle Separate Copyright Case." From the article: "Officials with the Grokster file-trading network have agreed to pay $500,000 to settle charges they operated a separate music download service without permission, a recording-industry trade group said on Monday."

Friday, October 22, 2004

Harvard's Own Redford Look-Alike. Terry Fisher will be guest blogging over at Larry's next week.
That's One Way to Easily Prove a Copy is Fake. Reuters reports that "Garcia Marquez Has Last Laugh on Book Pirates." From the article: "Latin American literary giant Gabriel Garcia Marquez has unintentionally won the last laugh on copyright pirates by changing the ending of his latest book, the Nobel laureate's first novel in 10 years."
Don't Mess with Adu. Reuters reports that "U.S. Teen Soccer Prodigy Adu Wins Cybersquatter Case." From the article: "Fushille had contacted Adu's agent seeking majority ownership of the disputed site, participation in corporate advertising negotiations and admission to all matches."
Commercialization Creates Fiduciary Duty? Law.com reports on a recent state appeals court decision in "Calif. Court: Genentech Owes $500M in Royalties."

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Monday, October 18, 2004

Let There Be Music. Reuters reports that "Music Publishers Sign $1.7 Bln Deal on Web Radio." From the article: "The settlement, which was approved by U.S. District Court Judge William Conner in New York on Oct. 15, provides stations with the right to perform ASCAP music over the air and as part of a simultaneous stream on radio Web sites, the parties said." (Not that it does me any good now that the firm has blocked all streaming music.)

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

RIAA Not Going to Court. Reuters reports that "Top Court Won't Weigh Net Music Lawsuit Tactics." From the article: "The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to examine a lower-court ruling that forces music-industry investigators to file a lawsuit to uncover the identities of people who may be copying their songs online."

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Read Up if You're in Maryland. I just got pointed to the Maryland-based Campaign for Verifiable Voting, which is tackling issues of electronic voting in Maryland.
The Copyright Hydra. Reuters reports that "Copyright Bill Dies in Senate as Others Advance." From the article: "Peer-to-peer users who share more than 1,000 songs or other copyrighted works would face up to three years in prison under the bill. U.S. copyright investigators would be able to file civil suits, which require a lower standard of proof than criminal cases, echoing tactics already used by the recording industry."
Creative Commons Hits the Mainstream. The AP reports in "Movement Seeks Copyright Alternatives."

Friday, October 08, 2004

Was There Any Question They Were Seeking Cert? The AP reports that "Court Asked to Settle File-Sharing Dispute." Reuters has this report. Via How Appealing.
The Last Paragraph... seems to show the limitations of having your staff report about a case to which you're a party. Did the argument really to "nowhere in court"? "Freelance battle far from over, Globe executive says."
He May be the Last DJ, but Video Killed the Radio Star. E! Online reports that "Petty Running Down a Lawsuit." From the article: "A California songwriter has filed a $4.5 million breach of oral contract lawsuit against Tom Petty and Los Angeles-based disc jockey Jim Ladd, claiming they swiped his concepts for the basis of Petty's 2002 title track and album, The Last DJ."
So I Guess We Now Know What "More" Means. Law.com reports that "Verizon-Yellow Book Case Ends With Both Parties Claiming Victory." From the article: "Judge Weinstein found that Yellow Book 'violated the Lanham Act by falsely claiming, as to national and some specific geographic areas, that the usage of Yellow Book's yellow pages was substantially greater than it actually was, as compared to the usage of Verizon's SuperPages.' Verizon's directories were used more heavily than Yellow Book's, Weinstein found."

Thursday, October 07, 2004

It Ain't Over 'Til the Fat Lady Sings. Internetnews.com reports that "Appeals Court Re-Opens E-Mail Snooping Case." From the article: "This time, seven federal judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston will determine whether Bradford Councilman, former vice president of bookseller and e-mail provider Interloc, Inc. (now Alibris), violated the federal Wiretap Act when he copied inbound e-mails from Amazon.com to gain a competitive advantage."
Time to Start a Pool... on where we'll see them next? Reuters reports that "Music Industry Sues 459 European Net Song-Swappers." Reuters has more here.

Friday, October 01, 2004

ACLU: 1 The New York Times reports that "Judge Strikes Down Section of Patriot Act." From the article:
The ruling invalidated one piece of the law, finding that it violated both free speech guarantees and protection against unreasonable searches. It is thought likely to provide fuel for other court challenges.

The ruling came in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against a kind of subpoena created under the act, known as a national security letter. Such letters could be used in terrorism investigations to require Internet service companies to provide personal information about subscribers and would bar them from disclosing to anyone that they had received a subpoena.
Just Like the Energizer Bunny. Reuters reports that "Recording Industry Sues 762 for Net Music Swaps."
Is it Just Me? Or does 8 years to examine a patent seem like a long time? The AP reports that "Microsoft Vows Fight on Patent Rejection." From the article: "In a preliminary ruling, the government rejected Microsoft Corp.'s 1996 patent on technology for saving files on computers using easy-to-remember names." Update This BoingBoing post answers my question above (it was a reexamination of the patent) and confirms my belief that much of the legal reporting by the major news outlets suffers from a woeful lack of context...