Law

If you’re not familiar with youtube.com, you’re missing a real treat. Thousands of videos are uploaded by people and shared for your viewing pleasure. Some aren’t so great, and some are plain stupid, but there are some real gems. I’ve gotten to see some music videos that I haven’t seen in years.
But now the [...]

Laurie J. Flynn of The New York Times writes:
A California appeals court ruled Friday that online reporters are protected by the same confidentiality laws that protect traditional journalists, striking a blow to efforts by Apple Computer to identify people who leaked confidential company data.
The three-judge panel in San Jose overturned a trial court’s ruling last [...]

Looking through Google News this morning a couple of articles about Google jumped out at me. When you’re the top dog, everyone wants to take a bite - and it seems there are some hungry people out there. The first one was about a Belgian company filing a lawsuit over search terms offered by Google [...]

As we all know, www equals World Wide Web. So it’s not surprising that conflicts come up where the laws of one nation conflict with the laws of another for Internet users. This article at Ars Technica illustrates just such a legal case.

Three men in California were arrested for selling modified Xbox consoles that would allow the users to copy and store games on the console’s hard drive. The three have been charged with conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and to violate the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).
The real violation here in my opinion is the [...]

Ho hum, right? You hear of spammers getting sued all the time.
But this time it’s different. These spammers aren’t hawking their own stuff.
Florida has sued Rik Rodriguez and North Carolina has sued Michael Abbott for spamming.
Now you might think that these are just more spammers getting sued for selling fraudulent products. But, you [...]

How do you raise the ire of a global monopolistic mega-corporation with proprietary tendencies? By telling it that it is a global monopolistic mega-corporation with proprietary tendencies. Or at least telling it that parts of its software solutions are not ‘open’ enough to meet your state’s standards for data formats. That’s what has happened in [...]

Tech News on ZDNet reports that “[a]n online dating service does not have the right to blast unsolicited e-mail at thousands of University of Texas e-mail addresses, a federal appeals court ruled.”

While I agree with the Supremes on the P2P network lawsuit, I just as strongly disagree with them on their ruling in National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. v. Brand X Internet Services. Background information: If a phone company has lines already in place, and another company wants to offer service as well, the first company [...]

Today the Supreme Court ruled that P2P networks, such as Grokster and Morpheus, could be sued for the copyright infringements of their users. The main issue is that their marketing, while it has not stated they support piracy, it does nothing to discourage piracy and in fact when Napster was taken down they claimed they [...]

Updating the Google Library entry of last week, the Google Watch.org has obtained a copy of Google’s agreement with the University of Michigan and posted it on the Internet. Start reading the saga here, and for the actual agreement, follow links here. The mystery is, of course, if the entire agreement is so confidential, why [...]

nbsp;HoustonChronicle.com reports that a Federal panel has again upheld the Texas redistricting plan:

BusinessWeek reports on a new lawsuit seeking to overturn Utah’s new anti-pornography law.

Google slipped one past me, I must admit, when it quietly announced Google Print expanding into a Library Project Through its Publisher Program. I really should have paid more attention to the now unavailable news articles listed in the French Letters March post. Google put the focus on participating libraries: “We are currently working [...]

The manufacturer of a drug used in treating Parkinson’s disease is named in a class action suit alleging it causes compulsive gambling.
Now, before you throw a hissy fit over stupid, American, tort lawsuits, let me point out two things:

Every once in a while we find a lawsuit that is such a breathtakingly stupid waste of judicial resources that I feel compelled to mention it. This lawsuit falls into that category.
Rhonda Nichols alleges in the suit that a bird flew into the back of her head while she was at the outside gardening area [...]

Did you ever wonder why Yogi Bear’s only concern about stealing “pic-a-nic” baskets was what the Ranger would do if he caught Yogi red-handed?
Now we know. Even though stealing “pic-a-nic” baskets might be a crime under federal law, there is a place where you can get away with it: The 50 square miles of Yellowstone [...]

About a month ago I mentioned coupon settlements. Now we have an example of one. If you go to www.audiocardsettlement.com you will find a coupon settlement form. This form is where people who have purchased an Audigy ES, Audigy Platinum, Audigy Platinum eX, Audigy Gamer, Audigy MP3+, or Extigy model sound card [...]

A look through the Florida Health Care Advanced Directives Statute (Ch. 765, Florida Statutes) provided me with some important insight into the Terri Schiavo case: An advance directive to physicians or living will might not have helped Terri Schiavo at all.

The legal field has been popping with interesting technology-related lawsuits lately.
From the “Disclosure in Advertising” department we have: