Posted 11/20/09 at 10:45:44 AM by Paul Lilly

Up to 1 million Xbox modders were pretty pissed to find that they had been banned from Xbox Live following the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the biggest launch in entertainment history. The mass ban was intended to prevent pirated copies of the highly anticipated game from spreading, a notion Microsoft will now have to defend in a class action lawsuit filed against the company.

"Although modification of Xbox consoles is arguably against he terms of use for Xbox/Xbox Live, Microsoft 'conveniently' timed the Xbox console ban to coincide with the release of the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfar 2 game and less than two months after the release of the very popular Halo 3: ODST game," says AbingtonIP, the Texas-based law firm who filed th suit.

According to the lawsuit, the timing of Microsoft's widespread ban may have resulted in more Xbox Live subscription sales than if the bans had taken place before the release of Halo 3: ODST and CoDMW2. The lawsuit also claims that some of the bans locked out users who had modded their consoles for reasons other piracy.

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Posted 11/17/09 at 01:15:56 PM by Paul Lilly

It's been a wild and crazy six year run for the The Pirate Bay, the world's most popular torrent tracking site, but by all accounts, it looks as though TPB's founders are finally ready to quit sailing through legal waters and have decided to bring the torrent tracker to port.

"Now that the decentralized system for finding peers is so well developed, TPB has decided that there is no need to run a tracker anymore, so it will remain down! It's the end of an era, but the era is no longer up2date. We have put a server in a museum already, and now the tracking can be put there as well," the ever-defiant Pirate Bay bandits wrote in a blog entry.

At its peak, TPB helped coordinate the downloads of more than 25 million peers, but it's no secret that many of those were illicit downloads for everything from pirated movies and television shows, to cracked videogames and closed-source operating systems, particularly Windows. Earlier this year, TPB's legal troubles culminated in a high profile court case in which a Swedish judge ultimately sentenced the torrent tracking site's four founders to a year in jail and ordered them to pay 30 million krono ($3.6 million) to a handful of entertainment companies.

Hit the jump to find out what TPB's founders are up to next.

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Posted 11/17/09 at 07:05:34 AM by Paul Lilly

3Com's board of directors and the company's shareholders appear to be at odds over a proposed $2.7 billion merger agreement with HP that was announced last week. Displeased with the potential merger, the shareholders have filed a class action lawsuit in hopes of preventing the deal.

The complaint names the entire company's board of directors and accuses the defendants of attempting to deceive 3Com shareholders by agreeing to a deal that undermines the true value of their investment in the company, TechCrunch reports.

Under terms of the agreement, HP would pay stockholders of 3Com $7.90 per share, but the bankruptcy lawyer who filed the case on behalf of the plaintiffs argues that 3Com's directors should have insisted on a higher price.

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Posted 11/16/09 at 07:30:32 AM by Paul Lilly

Apple didn't just win its case against Psystar, it demolished the "open computer" vendor whose Mac clones triggered a legal battle over whether or not the hackintoshes violated Mac OS X's EULA. According to Judge William Alsup, it most certainly does. In fact, the judge ruled in Apple's favor on every count brought to the court's attention, although the biggest focus was on copyright.

"Psystar's use of Mac OS X has been in excess and has violated Apple's copyrights," the judge wrote at one point in his 16-page order.

According to Groklaw, there are still issues that remain for trial, including allegations of breach of contract, induced breach of contract, trademark infringement, trademark dilution, trade dress infringement, and state unfair competition under California Business and Professions. In other words, the best case scenario for Psystar at this point is that it will be held liable for damages on Apple's copyright claims, but with its primary defense now seemingly dismantled, the company appears to be in a world of hurt. Or as Groklaw puts it, "Psystar is toast."

Get all the gory details here.

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Posted 11/13/09 at 07:14:07 AM by Paul Lilly

There are a lot of winners in the $1.25 billion settlement between Intel and AMD. The most obvious one is AMD, who can use the money to pay off debt and put this longstanding legal dispute behind them. As part of the settlement, AMD also benefits from a new five-year cross licensing agreement.

In some respects, Intel can also be considered a winner, in that the chip maker could have ended up paying much more than $1.25 billion had this lawsuit gone the distance. And like AMD, Intel can put this episode behind them. And with both Intel and AMD no longer distracted by a costly court case, the two chip makers can put their full attention towards R&D.

"It's really good for the industry in general," said Roger Kay, an analyst with Endpoint Technologies Associates. "Both companies had devoted a lot of top management to the fight. It's pretty distracting. You really want top executives concentrating on the business at hand."

OEMs like HP and Dell also come out ahead by being able to choose whichever processors and platforms they want, rather than which ones they're being told to use. And that's good for consumers, too.

It's not often that a bitter legal dispute ends up having so many winners, but that's certainly the case here.

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Posted 11/12/09 at 01:30:35 PM by Paul Lilly

Ten years ago, the phrase "Where's my pancakes" wouldn't be nearly enough to get a robbery suspect off the hook. Even 6 years ago it wouldn't have worked. But that's only because Facebook was no where to be see. What are we talking about?

Rodney Bradford, a 19-year-old resident of the Farragut Houses, was arrested on October 18th for a robbery that took place the day before. His alibi? A status update on Facebook on October 17, at 11:49AM, from a computer in his father's apartment in Harlem, asking about his pancakes.

"This is the first case that I'm aware of in which a Facebook update has been used as alibi evidence," said John Browning, a lawyer and member of the Dallas Bar Association who studies social networking and the law. "We are going to see more of that because of how prevalent social networking has become."

The charges against Bradford where dropped when Facebook verified that the update, which occurred during the time of the robbery, originated from his dad's PC. Of course, this begs the question of how anyone can be sure that it was Bradford who typed the message, and not someone else.

"This implies a level of criminal genius that you would not expect from a young boy like this; he is not Dr. Evil," said defense lawyer Robert Reuland, adding that the Facebook entry was just "icing on the cake" since Bradford had other alibis.

But what about in other cases? With Facebook for the first time being used as an alibi, we wouldn't be surprised to see this type of defense being employed more often, including by those who really are guilty.

Where do you see this headed? Hit the jump and sound off!

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Posted 11/12/09 at 09:31:08 AM by Paul Lilly

Talk about vindication. AMD waited a long time for this day and took a lot of heat from the Intel faithful, but the chip maker finally got it was looking for: a huge settlement.

Finally putting to rest the longstanding antitrust dispute, Intel and AMD announced today a settlement agreement in which Intel will pay AMD $1.25 billion, as well as agree to "abide by a set of business practice provisions." In return, AMD will drop all pending litigation and withdraw all of its regulatory complaints worldwide.

"While the relationship between the two companies has been difficult in the past, this agreement ends the legal disputes and enables the companies to focus all of our efforts on product innovation and development," the chip makers said in a joint statement.

The dispute dates back to 2004 when AMD filed a case accusing Intel of unfair business practices that entailed snuffing the smaller chip maker out. Intel allegedly offered sizable rebates to key vendors in exchange for either dealing exclusively with Intel, or delaying the launch of AMD products.

While AMD has agreed to take its money and run, Intel might not be out of hot water completely. The settlement doesn't prevent governments from initiating antitrust cases against Intel.

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Posted 11/06/09 at 08:27:58 PM by Ryan Whitwam

It looks like you can expect Skype to continue functioning as normal. A settlement has finally been reached with the parties, including eBay and Skype founders, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. The legal battle started when eBay agreed to sell a 65% stake in Skype to Silver Lake Partners on September 1st. The founders sued, claiming that eBay was engaging in copyright infringement. As it turns out, eBay never actually owned the core technology behind Skype, called Global Index.

According to the settlement, Zennström and Friis, will join the investor group that is purchasing Skype. They will contribute software from their new venture, Joltid. In return, they will receive a 14% stake in Skype. When the sale is completed, eBay will be paid a cool $1.9 billion. Though, this is much less than the original purchase price for Skype. Though, the online auction house will also retain 30% of Skype.

Getting all the technology under one roof again should settle the issue of Skype’s intellectual property once and for all. Do you use Skype on a regular basis? Were you worried about its future?

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