Ilaw: News and Views: Difference between revisions

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==April==
==April==
'''No Attorney's Fees For You''' --  When Roland Amurao was accused of copyright infringement, he chose not to take advantage of a pre-litigation settlement offer from the RIAA.  Instead, the RIAA brought him to court.  After some investigation, they realized they had sued the wrong person.  In fact, Amurao's adult daughter was responsible for the allegedly infringing activities.  The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice last Friday, but Amurao was not awarded attorney's fees despite his efforts arguing for them.  Amurao finds himself in the curious position of being the prevailing party in a copyright infringement case, where the RIAA admittedly sued the wrong person, and left Amurao with a huge stack of legal fees. Arguments in the case also arose concerning MediaSentry's role as an investigator, which drew attention from the EFF.  [http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2008/01/riaa-withdraws-lava-v-amurao-case.html Summary of Motions Filed][http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2008/04/in-lava-v-amurao-case-closed-all.html Friday's Outcome][http://www.eff.org/cases/lava-v-amurao EFF Article] --[[User:DOBrien|DOBrien]] 11:35, 14 April 2008 (EDT)   


An analysis of industry streaming video site Hulu's Business Model.  http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/3/hulu_launches_great_product_still_screwed --[[User:Dominik|Dominik]]
An analysis of industry streaming video site Hulu's Business Model.  http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/3/hulu_launches_great_product_still_screwed --[[User:Dominik|Dominik]]

Revision as of 11:35, 14 April 2008

April

No Attorney's Fees For You -- When Roland Amurao was accused of copyright infringement, he chose not to take advantage of a pre-litigation settlement offer from the RIAA. Instead, the RIAA brought him to court. After some investigation, they realized they had sued the wrong person. In fact, Amurao's adult daughter was responsible for the allegedly infringing activities. The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice last Friday, but Amurao was not awarded attorney's fees despite his efforts arguing for them. Amurao finds himself in the curious position of being the prevailing party in a copyright infringement case, where the RIAA admittedly sued the wrong person, and left Amurao with a huge stack of legal fees. Arguments in the case also arose concerning MediaSentry's role as an investigator, which drew attention from the EFF. Summary of Motions FiledFriday's OutcomeEFF Article --DOBrien 11:35, 14 April 2008 (EDT)

An analysis of industry streaming video site Hulu's Business Model. http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/3/hulu_launches_great_product_still_screwed --Dominik

BU Music Downloaders win round in court http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/04/04/music_downloaders_win_round_in_court/

Facebook sued by claimed co-developer http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=ariFOMVAXrZw&refer=us

Couple Sues Google Over Use of Image in Google Maps A man and woman (the Borings) in Pittsburgh were upset over Google's use of an image of their home. Google introduced "street view" in 2007, a feature in Google Maps that allows you to see images at street level. The pictures are captured by vans which drive around with mounted cameras. The couple is suing for, inter alia, invasion of privacy, trespass, and conversion, claiming the images caused the value of their home to decrease and caused mental suffering. The image has since been removed. TSG Article, with Complaint and Pics--DOBrien 11:18, 5 April 2008 (EDT)

A Professor at the Univesity of Florida is claiming a copyright in his class lectures, and, as a result, students' notes from his class, as they are, he claims, derivative works. He's going after people who commercialize students notes, which Corey Doctorow seems to think is ethically murky. I say fair use, but then again, my notes usually contain snarky comments about the cases, making them more transformative than most students'. Snitty 17:15, 4 April 2008 (EDT)

Gertner rules that Boston University cannot turn over student information to the evil record companies - at least not yet. Take that, RIAA. [1]--Chriswurster

9th Circuit rules that roommates.com cannot require users to disclose their sexual orientation. [2]

Update on the Craigslist house ransacking incident - perps caught. [3]

Second Life Seeks to Reassure Congress it Can Police Itself Second Life, an online virtual world, was represented at a House hearing recently. Founder Phillip Rosedale appeared with other virtual reality experts to answer questions about the legal aspects of a virtual world on illegal activity and the company's ability to police such activity. Virtual worlds and other MMORPGs, have become incredibly popular among gamers. The article failed to raise some interesting questions, especially: What exactly is the legal status of virtual property? Could a user have potential legal remedies against other users for civil wrongs? And what are the jurisdictional problems inherent in such a world? Does the law even have a place in a virtual world? These questions, and many others, will be the subject of debate in years to come. Reuters Article--DOBrien 20:47, 1 April 2008 (EDT)

Blizzard is suing the creator of a bot program for use with World of Warcraft for breach of contract and copyright infringement. My guess is, not having seen the complaint, that they are alleging that when he violated his license by creating and using a bot he relinquished his right to copy the program into RAM, and from that comes the copyright infringement. The other part of this is the shrinkwrap license, but again, without the filings it's hard to know what's really going on. 129.10.173.46 20:12, 1 April 2008 (EDT)

T-Mobile is suing Engadget Mobile for trademark infringement of the color magenta. Specifically of 0xED008C. You can have trademark or trade dress protection in a color, but does T-Mobile rise to that level? Snitty 18:27, 1 April 2008 (EDT)

March

The United Nations-based World Intellectual Property Organization ousted a record number of "cybersquatters" from Web sites with domain names referring to trademarked companies, foundations, and celebrities in 2007. [4]--Chriswurster 15:57, 28 March 2008 (EDT)

Comcast Announces Reconfiguration of Traffic Management In a press release today, Comcast announced it is undertaking an effort to work with BitTorrent, and other third parties, concerning traffic shaping techniques they have been openly using across their network infastructure. Since May 2007, it has been widely known that Comcast has implemented technology which effectively hindered the use of certain protocols, namely those which utilize BitTorrent and other P2P networks. The technology injects TCP RST packets into streams, causing users to drop connections to peers. The rationale is that these protocols use a significant amount of bandwith, which arguably affects stream rates of other users and congests networks. In today's press release, Comcast noted it will be "migrat[ing] by year-end to a capacity management technique that is protocol agnostic." Press Release--DOBrien 17:07, 27 March 2008 (EDT)

Court holds against student copyrights to papers submitted to plagiarism scanner. A number of schools have begun using "automated plagiarism scanners" to detect plagiarized work in student papers, like turnitin.com. Students submit their work online and must agree to a clickwrap license agreement before submission. The scanner automates the plagiarism detection and generates a "originality report." Under the agreement, students' papers were also being archived on the database for use by the scanner for future originality reports. The students claimed the agreement was unenforceable and constituted copyright infringement on their papers. The court held the clickwrap agreement was enforceable over the students' arguments of infancy and duress. The court also found that even if the contract was unenforceable, the use of the papers constituted fair use. Opinion Ars Technica Article--DOBrien 09:03, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

The LATimes interviewed Rick Astley about his eponymous internet meme. Snitty 08:16, 26 March 2008 (EDT)

Some Poor Sap had an enemy post on Craig's List that all this guy's belongings were up for grabs. He got home to find 30 some odd people ransacking his house and refusing to give his belongings back, waiving their craigs list ads as proof that they had the right to take the stuff. So, is the anonymous poster allowed to keep his anonymity despite inducing 30 odd people to commit burglary? Snitty 14:39, 25 March 2008 (EDT)

The New York Times ran an article about Rickrolling. Yes, that is a link to the article. Snitty 08:14, 24 March 2008 (EDT)

In a baffling interpretation of law certain companies have been using the DMCA to coerce websites to take down 3D models of the companies products, claiming that these models, which are not being used in commerce, are violating the companies trademark. The companies are conveniently ignoring both that there is no trademark infringement, and that the DMCA is a copyright act. Snitty 14:47, 22 March 2008 (EDT)

BetaLeaks, a website specifically set up to solicit NDA-breaking information from beta testers of upcoming MMOGS and other online games. One blogger's analysis. --Dominik 16:40, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

Dismissal of Fair Housing Discrimination Lawsuit Against Craigslist Affirmed by 7th Circuit A few years ago, a consortium of Chicago attorneys sued Craigslist alleging violations of the Fair Housing Act via rental postings which contained phrases such as "NO MINORITIES" and "no children." Read some of the background here. The District Court dismissed the suit 14 November 2006, holding that Craigslist was not liable since it could not be "a publisher" of content provided by its users. The 7th Circuit affirmed. Read Chief Judge Easterbrook's opinion here. --DOBrien 19:39, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

Yale is considering blocking JuicyCampus.com an internet gossip site. The site itself raises interesting questions about liable and anonymity on the Internet. March 10, 2008.

Australian Government sticks to guns on internet porn filters, March 6, 2008 

The new Labor Government has proposed ... a clean feed. That means under law, your internet service provider 
(ISP) must, if requested, provide a family friendly service that filters out X-rated pornography.

Bank Moves to Withdraw Its Suit Against Wikileaks Site, March 5, 2008

DIA keeps Wi-Fi on the mild side: Denver International Airport filters its WiFi.

Ratemycop.com gets shutdown by its provider: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/03/godaddy-silence.html

In-Class References

March 10

March 12

March 17

March 19

March 24

March 26

March 31

April 9

Student Submissions

  • Creative Labs has not prepared software drivers for its products to work under Windows Vista - What happens when a person known as Daniel_K writes and distributes unofficial drivers? He gets a takedown notice! Stop helping us, or we'll sue
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