Technically Legal

Episode 60: Thesis, Introduction, Conclusion

Ben Snitkoff — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 03:00:49 +0000

Thesis v. WordPress and the GPL, Massachusetts and the Right to Repair, Facebook and the CFAA.

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Episode 25: Where’s My IHOP Bilski, International Copyright Treaty, and Using Facebook as an Alibi...
Episode 59: You May Not Patent this Program First Post-Bilski Decision from BPAI, Gov’t Prompts Takedown of 73k...
Episode 39: Our Patented Newsfeed (Repost) What damages for false DMCA takedown notices, employer liability for...

Librarian of Congress Eases DMCA Restrictions

Ben Snitkoff — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:29:05 +0000

The Librarian of Congress has the power to create certain excemptions from the DMCA. Some exemptions were released today, and they are doozies.

Among the things that are no longer violations of the DMCA:

Circumventing CSS for fair-use, critical, and educational purposes

Jailbreaking phones to obtain software interoperability for legally obtained software

Unlocking your phone to work on another network

Breaking game security for educational or security research purposes

Getting around obsolete computer dongles

Reading aloud eBooks for visually impaired people, even if the eBook says that feature is disabled

Now, none of this means that Apple has to make it easier to jailbreak or unlock the phone, it just means that actually jailbreaking or unlocking it is no longer punishable criminally or through a civil lawsuit.

Is the DMCA Takedown Unconstitutional? Wendy Selzter of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society...
Episode 47: DMCA TakeDownfall Gizmodo and iPod Scandal, Downfall DMCA Takedowns, Sarah Palin E-Mail...

RIAA Appeals Tenenbaum Ruling

Ben Snitkoff — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 15:07:20 +0000

The RIAA has officially filed a notice of appeal, challenging Judge Gertner’s ruling that the $675,000 award in the case was unconstitutional. We discussed the opinion in Podcast 58. Briefs won’t be filed for several months, but we will cover the case as it moves through the First Circuit Court of Appeals.

Psystar Appeals Psystar has appealed the summary judgment for Apple and permanent...
Appeals Court Reinstates SCO Suit In 2007, a Federal Judge found that there were no...
Myriad Genetics to Appeal S.D.N.Y. Ruling Yesterday, Myriad Genetics expressed their disappointment and announced their plans...

Plaintiff Drops Scribd Suit

Ben Snitkoff — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:50:00 +0000

We mentioned before that a children’s book author was suing Scribd for copyright infringement. The suit was novel in that it claimed that Scribd’s filtering mechanism to keep copyrighted works off the site violated copyright law itself. The filtering software would store a copy of each file that was taken down subject to a DMCA notice so that the filter could then block anyone who tried to re-upload the same document.

The plaintiff has dropped the suit. While the use was probably a fair use under the Copyright Act, it’s good that the plaintiff’s dropped it. I’d rather have no law in this area than risk a court getting it wrong. We went into a little more detail about the fair use defense in this post.

Scribd Sued For Copyright Infringement The online document sharing service Scribd.com is being sued for...
Is Scribd’s Filter Fair Use As we’ve mentioned before, Scribd is being sued for copyright...
Judge Takes Fair Use Defense Off Table At 1:37 this morning Judge Gertner denied Joel Tenenbaum the...

Episode 59: You May Not Patent this Program

Ben Snitkoff — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:00:53 +0000

First Post-Bilski Decision from BPAI, Gov’t Prompts Takedown of 73k Blogs, Man Claims 84% Ownership in Facebook.

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In re: Proudler

Sanity From the 1st Post-Bilski Decision from BPAI: In Re Proudler
The opinion

Gov’t gets Takedown of 73k Blogs

US Gov’t Orders 73,000 Private Websites Offline
U.S. Authorities Shut Down WordPress Host With 73,000 Blogs

Man Claims 84% Interest in Facebook

NY Man Claims 84% of Facebook, Gets Order Blocking Assets

Episode 25: Where’s My IHOP Bilski, International Copyright Treaty, and Using Facebook as an Alibi...
Episode 39: Our Patented Newsfeed (Repost) What damages for false DMCA takedown notices, employer liability for...
Death to MS Word?: Microsoft Loses i4i Appeal in Patent Infringement Case On December 22, 2009, the Federal Circuit ruled all issues...

US Copyright Group Enters Phase Two

Ben Snitkoff — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:53:47 +0000

The US Copyright Group has moved into the individual lawsuit stage of their Hurt Locker campaign. It looks like they are about to file suits against people who declined to settle after being notified that they were targets of the campaign.

This is following the same progression that the RIAA lawsuits followed. First, large John Doe suits, to identify individual infringers, then settlement demands, and finally individual suits. We’ll keep tabs on this as the lawsuits are filed and as the suits progress.

Judge Order US Copyright Group To Show Cause In what is potentially a coup for the defendants in...
Class Action Against Apple and AT&T Gets Certified One of the many suits filed against Apple and AT&T...
Capitol v. Thomas-Rasset Update In the never ending saga of the RIAA v. Jammie...

Episode 58: Judge Gertner and Joel

Ben Snitkoff — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 03:00:18 +0000

Joel gets a break, Amazon wins a patent on eBook Readers with two screens, and the Creative Commons gets a day in court.

Please download the podcast or subscribe to the feed. Feel free to e-mail us with questions, suggestions or comments.

Joel Tenenbaum Gets a Break

Judge Reduces Award in Tenenbaum Case
The Opinion

Creative Commons At Issue in Lawsuit

New copyright lawsuit involves Creative Commons
Another Lawsuit Involving Creative Commons

Kindle Patent May Threaten eBook Readers

Amazon’s original Kindle patent could spell trouble for competitors

Podcast 34: Some Relation FBI Spying, Jammie Thomas gets a Break, and Joel Tenenbaum...
Judge Takes Fair Use Defense Off Table At 1:37 this morning Judge Gertner denied Joel Tenenbaum the...
Tenenbaum Seeks To Lower Damages Joel Tenenbaum, the Boston student who lost his trial against...

Class Action Against Apple and AT&T Gets Certified

Ben Snitkoff — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 12:45:34 +0000

One of the many suits filed against Apple and AT&T recently has gotten the go-ahead from a California judge to proceed as a class action.

The suit alleges that Apple and AT&T conspired to lock people in to their AT&T contracts for more than two years because, two years after the iPhone was released, AT&T is still the only provider of service in the US. This suit was combined with another that alleges that Apple’s gatekeeper function with regard to the App Store is illegal.

I don’t expect these suits to get very far, but if Apple or AT&T want to settle, the class action certification just made the settlement a lot more expensive.

Apple Sues HTC Over iPhone Patents This is still breaking, so we’ll have more coverage as...
US Copyright Group Enters Phase Two The US Copyright Group has moved into the individual lawsuit...
Apple, Psystar, Enter into Partial Settlement AppleInsider is reporting that Apple and Psystar have entered into...

Judge Reduces Award in Tenenbaum Case

Ben Snitkoff — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 18:41:21 +0000

Judge Gertner of the Federal District Court for the District of Massachusetts has released an opinion in which she found that the jury’s verdict of $675,000 to the RIAA violated Due Process, and reduced the award to $67,500, or $2,250 per song.

It’s a 64-page opinion. So, more to come.

Tenenbaum Trial: Directed Verdict Granted Judge Nancy Gertner granted a motion for directed verdict (also...
RIAA Appeals Tenenbaum Ruling The RIAA has officially filed a notice of appeal, challenging...
Judge Takes Fair Use Defense Off Table At 1:37 this morning Judge Gertner denied Joel Tenenbaum the...

Men At Work Slapped with 5% Royalty on “Down Under”

Ben Snitkoff — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:17:14 +0000

The case in one of our most popular posts has finally come to some resolution. The band will have to pay 5% of their royalties from the song “Down Under” to the copyright holder on the famous song “Kookaburra,” going back to 2002. The Men at Work song borrows a few bars from the folk classic, which was enough for the Australian court to slap the 80s one hit wonders.

Men At Work Sued for Copyright Infringement The 80s band Men at Work were sued in Australia...
RIAA Update Two quick updates: The RIAA has rejected re remittitur in...

Technically Legal

Episode 60: Thesis, Introduction, Conclusion

Thesis v. WordPress and the GPL

Right to Repair

Facebook v. Power.com, and the CFAA

Librarian of Congress Eases DMCA Restrictions

RIAA Appeals Tenenbaum Ruling

Plaintiff Drops Scribd Suit

Episode 59: You May Not Patent this Program

In re: Proudler

Gov’t gets Takedown of 73k Blogs

Man Claims 84% Interest in Facebook

US Copyright Group Enters Phase Two

Episode 58: Judge Gertner and Joel

Joel Tenenbaum Gets a Break

Creative Commons At Issue in Lawsuit

Kindle Patent May Threaten eBook Readers

Class Action Against Apple and AT&T Gets Certified

Judge Reduces Award in Tenenbaum Case

Men At Work Slapped with 5% Royalty on “Down Under”