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Movie Studios Sue an ISP and Seek to Disconnect Users Over BitTorrent Piracy

Justin Kerr — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 16:43:15 -0600

Seven of Hollywood’s most powerful studios which include Paramount, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Warner Bros and Disney are working together to sue an Australian ISP and set a very scary precedent. iiNet, Australia’s third largest internet service provider has been largely credited with rolling out true broadband speeds to residents. Current connection speeds range anywhere from 1.5 to a not so shabby 24 Mbit/s. With all this speed however comes abuse, and allegedly a handful of its users have turned to torrents to saturate these beefy connections with copyright protected video. According to the movie studios represented by AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) iiNet is “failing to take reasonable steps, including enforcing its own terms and conditions, to prevent known unauthorized use of copies of the companies films and TV programs”.

Adrianne Pecotic, Executive Director of AFACT claims that they were forced to take action against iiNet seeing as they weren’t pursuing the issue aggressively enough. The studios are demanding that iiNet disconnect known infringers, an action the ISP has so far refused to do. According to an iiNet spokesman, “Our view is pretty straightforward. We don’t condone or support piracy in any form, and people who choose to pirate content should face the force of the law. This is an industry issue, and we’ve been talking with the IIA, and we’ll work with them in terms of handling it.”

iiNet’s CEO Michael Malone strongly disputes AFACT’s claims saying they have merely refused to disconnect users on the basis of an outside allegation. “We can’t go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else’.” The lawsuit was filed in Australia’s Federal Court on November 20th with the first hearings to being within 30 days. A finding in favor of the AFACT will only further empower the studios and might spark future lawsuits abroad.

So has Hollywood crossed the line? Hit the jump and sound off.

Open-Source... or Freeware? You Decide!

David Murphy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:00:42 -0600

Open-source? Freeware? Which is it? Some people frequently interchange the terms as a generic way to say that a piece of software costs nothing to download or use. I mean, it's all free, right?

Wrong!

Open-source software has as much to do with freeware as an apple has to do with an orange. Both are fruits, but each offers a different enough of a texture and flavor to render it completely unique from the other. You cannot, and should not, confuse open-source software with freeware, as there can be grave consequences for such a fatal misstep. Ok, so maybe not grave. But you can get slapped with a lawsuit depending on how you're using the software, and that's certainly not fun. But we're not here to confuse you; we're here to help you. What exactly are the differences between open-source software and freeware? Find out after the jump!

Classmates.com Sued by Unpopular Man

Paul Lilly — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 10:19:07 -0600

Classmates.com user Anthony Michaels must have felt like he really left an impression on his former friends from school. After all, the social network service was emailing Michaels to let him know his past acquaintances were viewing his profile and trying to get in touch in with him, only he'd need to upgrade his membership to find out who and to be able to email these individuals. Fair enough, he thought, but after dropping $15 on a Gold Membership, Michaels claims the whole thing was a scam and in fact no one from his past was either viewing his profile or trying to contact him.

"Upon logging into his Gold Membership profile in order to view the classmate contacts … Plaintiff discovered that in fact, no former classmate of his had tried to contact him or view his profile," the complaint reads. "Of those www.classmates.com users who were characterized ... as members who viewed Plaintiff's profile, none were former classmates of Plaintiff or persons familiar with or known to Plaintiff for that matter."

Sad for Michaels? Yes. But did Classmates.com break any laws? Several, according to the San Diego resident's lawsuit, in which Classmates.com is being accused of intentional misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, negligence, fraudulent concealment, and violation of California business and professions code. Not to mention being a meanie head.

The suit alleges that there are hundreds of thousands of users just like Michaels who have been tricked into purchasing a membership to Classmates.com. The lawsuit asks the court to both refund millions in subscription feesand fine the company for its alleged deceptive advertising.

Does this lawsuit have merit? Hit the jump and post your thoughts.

LCD Firms Plead Guilty to Price Fixing, Ordered to Pay $585 Million

Paul Lilly — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:26:29 -0600

Sharp, LG, and Chunghwa have each agreed to plead guilty to a price-fixing conspiracy related to LCD display panels and will pay $585 million in criminal fines, the Justice Department said. The plea agreements were filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, California.

"These price-fixing conspiracies affected millions of America consumers who use computers, cell phones, and numerous other household electronics every day," said Thomas Barnett, Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust at the Justice Department n Washington.

The extent of the losses as a result of the alleged price fixing conspiracy remains unknown, but Barnett said he expected to outline the damages at the time of sentencing. According to the Justice Department, LG Phillips, who plead guilty to participating a conspiracy from 2001 to 2006 to set LCD panel pricing worldwide, will be hit the hardest and ordered to pay $400 million. That ranks as the second highest criminal fine ever imposed for price fixing.

Sharp will pay $120 for its alleged role in three separate conspiracies with unnamed partners who sold price-fixed panels to Dell for monitors and laptops, Motorola for Razr phones, and Apple for use in iPods. Chunghwa will pay $65 for participating with LG and other unnamed co-conspirators.

The Justice Department warned that the investigation is ongoing, meaning more charges could be brought against individuals from each firm or from other firms.

Samsung Slapped with $59.3 Million Verdict in Pioneer Suit

Paul Lilly — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 10:39:32 -0600

Pioneer has to be feeling giddy following its most recent court victory. Pioneer had accused Samsung of willfully infringing on two of its patents -- U.S. Patent Numbers 5,182,489 and 5,640,068 -- covering plasma display technology. It took an eight-day trial to convince Hon. David J. Folsom in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in Marshall, who awarded Pioneer with a $59 million verdict, part of which covers lost profits and royalties.

"We are very pleased with the jury's finding," says Mr. Baxter of McKool Smith, the firm who represented Pioneer. "This was a complicated case and we were fortunate to have jurors that closely examined the facts before reaching their verdict."

And fortunate Pioneer was. The jury ruled in favor of the company on every count brought against Samsung. Not surprisingly, Samsung has yet to comment on the ruling.

Psystar Shipping Mac Clone with Blu-ray, 9800GT

Pulkit Chandna — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:33:43 -0500

Psystar, a leading Mac clone manufacturer, has stolen a march on Apple by launching the very first OS X-compatible PCs outfitted with Blu-ray drives and GeForce 9800GT graphics cards. Psystar president Rudy Pedraza lampooned Apple, in a press release, for having still not embraced Blu-ray despite the fact that it has already won the HD format war.

He heavily extolled Blu-ray, which he believes is a huge asset for media editing professionals and enterprises - a demographic that Psystar can now serve.

Psystar is certainly trying its best to get under the skin of Apple whose patience must be wearing thin. Around a fortnight ago, Apple and Psystar agreed to an “Alternative Dispute Resolution”. Prior to that, in July, Apple had slapped a lawsuit against Psystar. The latter soon returned the favor by filing a lawsuit of its own against Apple.

Male Enhancement Spam Ring Dysfunctional after FTC Bust

Paul Lilly — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 10:58:19 -0500

We're not so naive to think that male enhancement, weight-loss, and prescription medication solicitations will stop infiltrating our inbox and filling up our spam queue, but perhaps after the Federal Trade Commission's latest bust they'll be a little less frequent. The FTC said on Tuesday it had shut down one of the largest global spam networks allegedly responsible for sending billions of unsolicited emails.

The FTC received some 3 million complaints in connection with spam tied to the HerbalKing operation, which is said to have operated in the United States, China, New Zealand, and other nations. According to the FTC, HerbalKing received $400,000 in Visa credit car charges in a single month, leading a U.S. District Court to freeze the various defendants' assets.

As is typical of spam rings, HerbalKing utilized botnets to mass-mail recipients. Mega-D, believed to be the group's largest botnet, was responsible for 35,000 zombie PCs capable of sending out a whopping 10 billion email solicitations per day. But the list of infractions goes well beyond violating the Can-Spam Act of 2003. The FTC accuses HerbalKing of unlawful operation of a pharmacy, making false claims regarding the safety of herbal products containing potentially harmful ingredients, selling medication without proof of a prescription, and more.

MP3tunes Founder is off the Hook, but the Battle for the Cloud Continues

Justin Kerr — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 13:10:50 -0500

It’s hard to read a music industry headline these days without finding the words “lawyer” and “lawsuit” somewhere in the body. This time however, the legal cannon of EMI was pointed not just at MP3tunes.com but also its founder Michael Robertson who is likely sleeping much easier this week. A federal judge has dismissed the lawsuit against Robertson, but is still allowing the case against his company to continue. Suing the CEO of a company is considered a fairly dirty tactic within the industry but is often an effective means to help intimidate leaders into a settlement. The lawsuit continuing through the courts goes right to the root of MP3tunes current business model which allows customers to upload their music to “digital lockers”. Customers are then able to access their collection on nearly any web enabled device. According to Robertson the case against MP3tunes is unique. Specifically, “it will determine if it is permissible for consumers to store their music in online commercial services for everywhere access, directly analogous to the way they currently store documents, photos, and other personal data in cloud services." The verdict on this case could set an interesting precedent when it comes to storing your copyrighted data in the cloud. Fair use is an evolving definition which is too important to be left to stakeholders to decide. The question here is will the legal system allow common sense and the greater public good to prevail?

Click the jump and let us know what you think.