June 3rd 2008
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is considering blocking Facebook, the popular social networking site used in April to mobilize 80,000 supporters to protest rising food prices. As described in earlier postings, Facebook has been used around the world to coordinated even larger protests. Blogger Kareem el-Beheiri, who covered and promoted the protest was imprisioned for 73 . See […]
June 3rd 2008
Its kind of the opposite of, “do unto others”. When Universal Music lost an infringement case to Bridgeport Music, it did an unexpected thing. It apparently made a successful case that punitive damages tacked on to statutory damages are unconstitutional. As a plaintiff, Universal has argued in other cases for very high fines. It is, […]
June 2nd 2008
As reported back in November, the State of New York is now requiring e-commerce sites “doing business in the state” to collect sales tax. New Yorkers were previously required to pay sales tax, but previous court rulings had exempted out of state sites from being required to collect that tax, unless they had sufficient manpower […]
June 2nd 2008
Viacom recently amended it $1 Billion lawsuit against YouTube (Google) for copyright infringement which it filed last year. Google claims that Viacom is trying to overturn precedent by making carriers and hosting providers liable for what their users post or transmit. Viacom claims it has found over 150,000 instances of copyright infringing material on YouTube, […]
May 28th 2008
The Federal Trade Commission has issued new provisions under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. These are additional definitions and adjustments to rules, and do not significantly extend these anti-spam regulations for most marketers. The new provisions address the following main themes:
May 27th 2008
Boing Boing has a linking policy: “After years of making fun of ‘linking policies’ that set out the terms under which a website can be linked to, BoingBoing has decided to create a linking policy of our own. Here it is — now, abide by it!
May 22nd 2008
A U.S. District Judge in Los Angeles has ruled that “spam king” Sanford Wallace and his accomplice Walter Rines are liable to pay MySpace $230 million in damages. This is significant both for the verdict’s size, and because the spam happened entirely within MySpace rather than through traditional ISP based email.
May 21st 2008
ISP Charter Communications is about to start spying on its customers surfing habits in order to build profiles for advertisers. Charter is partnering with a company called NebuAd, which provides the packet-sniffing technology that knows which websites you’re visiting. And though Charter claims its customers can opt out, a review of NebuAd’s patent indicates otherwise. […]
May 20th 2008
Floyd Abrams published an Op-Ed piece in the Wall Street Journal describing how plaintiffs seeking to suppress protected speech in the US are gaining libel judgements in England. Rachel Ehrenfeld’s book Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Funded and How to Stop It, had sold only 23 copies in England. But that was enough for a UK […]
May 19th 2008
Whenever a governmental body makes a statement that voices support for an ethical principle, you should look for the real underlying reason: money. In a recent meeting, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors stated that copyright infringement “substantially interferes with the interest of the public in the quality of life and community peace, lawful […]
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