Technically Legal » Links

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...
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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...
Appeals Court Reinstates SCO Suit In 2007, a Federal Judge found that there were no...

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...

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...
Tenenbaum Seeks To Lower Damages Joel Tenenbaum, the Boston student who lost his trial against...

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...

Capitol v. Thomas-Rasset Update

Ben Snitkoff — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:10:54 +0000

In the never ending saga of the RIAA v. Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the parties have finally agreed on something: that they won’t agree on something.

The judge in the case ordered the parties to undergo mediation to settle the suit. The problem is that the RIAA is no longer willing to settle for a reasonable sum, but neither is Jammie Thomas-Rasset. The parties told the judge that settlement negotiations were just a waste of time and money, and that they should just set the case for a new trial, this time only addressing how much money Jammie Thomas-Rasset owes the RIAA.

RIAA Offers Thomas-Rasset Settlement, T-R Rejects The RIAA offered to settle Jammie Thomas-Rasset’s case for $25,000...
Damages Reduced for Jammie Thomas-Rasset The judge in the Jammie Thomas-Rasset case just reduced the...
Yet Another Thomas-Rasset Trial, Set for Oct 2010 This week, court documents were posted online indicating that Jammie...

Bilski: Business Method Patent Invalid

Ben Snitkoff — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:45:30 +0000

Today the Supreme Court handed down its long awaited opinion in Bilski v. Kappos.

The opinion, authored by Justce Kennedy, affirms the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, which held that the patent on hedging investments was invalid.

We discussed this way back in November on podcast episode 25. We’ll be doing more detailed analysis over the next few days.

City of Ontario v. Quon Released In a bit of a surprise, the Supreme Court released...
Still Waiting on Bilski The new story about the Bilski case is how long...
Bilski at the Supreme Court Today Today, the Supreme Court hears arguments on the Bilski case....

Google wins case against Viacom

Ben Snitkoff — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 20:46:41 +0000

Google has won the $1 billion lawsuit brought by Viacom against Google it’s YouTube site. There will be more coverage over the next day.

You can find Google’s official announcement on their YouTube blog, where you will also find the 30-page opinion.

Summary Judgment Filings in Viacom v. YouTube/Google Case Unsealed As of today, summary judgment filings in the Viacom v....
First Thoughts on Viacom v. Google I’ve finally had an opportunity to sit down a read...
Episode 41: Google Sandwich Summary Judgment Motions in Viacom v. YouTube, Amazon 1-Click Patent,...