Academic
Tech Law Prof Blog 
Written by professors of Business, Law & Technology and Legal Methods.
Post Frequency: 1.8/day Last Entry: August 16, 2009 at 15:36:18 Recent Entries: 406
By Jonathan Ezor anad Michelle Zakarin
Go to Tech Law Prof Blog, find other Academic blogs, or browse all law blogs.
Search
Posts
About Tech Law Prof Blog
Posted on August 16, 2009The Law Professor Blogs Network has ceased publication of this blog. Mark Giangrande continues to publish on tech law and other developments as co-editor of Law Librarian Blog.
My Last Post on the Tech Law Prof Blog
Posted on July 17, 2009This will be my last post on the Tech Law Prof Blog. I've recently signed on as co-editor of the Law Librarian Blog and I've found it increasingly difficult to contribute to both and provide thoughtful news and commentary. After...
Add Spam to Death and Taxes
Posted on July 15, 2009What can anyone say about email spam? My eyes glaze over my inbox sometimes because of the huge amount of sexual, pharmaceutical,or banking transaction come-ons. Moreover, they come in languages and alphabets I'll never understand. Sometimes they even purport to...
Round Up of Analysis on the Google Chrome OS Announcement
Posted on July 09, 2009This is a selected round up of views on the significance of what Google's entry into the web OS market means to consumers and to Microsoft. I published my thoughts yesterday. Here are more from others: (CNET) What Chrome OS...
Some Thoughts on the Google Chrome OS Announcement
Posted on July 08, 2009The announcement by Google of the Chrome OS penetrated well beyond the tech press into the mainstream. The news penetrated the stock market as well. Google was up and Microsoft was down. This is a development that catches the attention...
New Tech Papers From Bepress
Posted on July 07, 2009From the announcement: Announcing the Law and Technology Scholarship (Selected by the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology), part of the bepress Legal Repository found at http://law.bepress.com/repository PUBLISHER: The Berkeley Electronic Press TABLE OF CONTENTS: Molly S...
Fire Disrupts Bing Travel - Did Anyone Notice?
Posted on July 06, 2009I note that a fire in Seattle last week took down the Bing Travel Site. It took more than a day to get the site back up. What I missed were stories that suggested that Microsoft was unreliable, or could...
ASCAP Says Cell Ringtones are Public Performances - Pay Up!
Posted on July 06, 2009One of the more outrageous attempts of a dying music industry to squeeze money from consumers is coming from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP). The royalty collection agency represents song writers, among others, and has sued...
Apple Gift Card Suit Filed
Posted on June 26, 2009Apple is being sued over gift cards. The claim, filed in federal district court in Illinois says Apple markets the cards saying that songs are available for 99 cents. Low and behold, with variable pricing, songs may cost more that...
Windows 7 Pricing Announced
Posted on June 25, 2009Microsoft announced pricing for Windows 7. It gets a bit complicated given the different versions and upgrade possibilities. Ars Technica has it all in a matrix that makes sense (compared to other published reports). Cost is a bit less expensive...
7th Circuit Upholds Mass Market Sentencing Enhancement for Internet Auction Fraud
Posted on June 24, 2009The Seventh Circuit on Monday affirmed the enhanced sentencing of Jeffrey Heckel for mail fraud by using the Internet to conduct mass marketing. Heckel conducted Internet auctions for items, cashed checks by winning bidders, and sent inferior items from those...
Microsoft's Free Virus Beta Now Available
Posted on June 23, 2009Microsoft's free real time virus program is available as a beta download. It's available here. Computerworld and PC World have reviews, generally positive . One feature that stands out is the minimal use of resources for background scanning. That's something...
What Were They Thinking?
Posted on June 23, 2009Bozeman, Montana, has eliminated the practice of requiring job applicants to supply their usernames and passwords to their social networking sites. Yes, it is crazy for them to ask for that information at all. Plenty of investigations take place that...
Netbooks Disappoint Consumers
Posted on June 23, 2009What a surprise. Consumers confuse netbooks for laptops. Netbooks are light, inexpensive machines geared for web and email. Laptops have the power to run productivity and entertainment applications and do the web stuff. A significant price difference of say, $300,...
Microsoft May Do To Antivirus What It Did To Browsers
Posted on June 16, 2009Microsoft will unveil a new free antivirus app. The big players in the antivirus market have some concern. Will they complain to the European Union as everyone else does when Microsoft offers something free for which others pay? Details in...
Amazon May Open Up Kindle, e-Book Business To Other Formats
Posted on June 16, 2009Amazon is willing to separate the the e-book business from the Kindle business. Jeff Bezos is quoted in Information Week saying e-book content from Amazon will be available on a variety of platforms for the same $9.99 price point. He...
Are Lawyers Competent to Construct Keyword Searches?
Posted on June 15, 2009This issue raises its head every now and then in the context of electronic discovery. One of the latest opinions on this comes from Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Peck in the Southern District of New York. The case is William...
No IE? Europe Reacts
Posted on June 12, 2009The European Union is none too happy with Microsoft's announcement to remove Internet Explorer from Windows 7. That's not what it wanted, they essentially said. No, no, (as best said in 27 languages), we want Microsoft to offer a range...
The Day Analog TV Went Dark
Posted on June 12, 2009Finally, it's happened. Today is the day that televison stations nationwide are broadcasting in digital form, shutting down their analog transmitters forever. Instead of the old rabbit ears, consumers must get their broadcasts using a digital television with a digital...
WIndows 7 Will Not Have IE in European Editions
Posted on June 11, 2009Microsoft has announced that it will ship European copies of Windows 7 without Internet Explorer. This is an attempt to calm down European regulators who are investigating the company for abusing the browser market with pre-installed copies of Explorer...
French 3 Strikes Law Struck Down
Posted on June 10, 2009The French law Création et Internet, also known as the three strikes law, is struck down by the French Constitutional Council. Ironically, it only took two strikes, it's parliamentary defeat on initial consideration, and this decision, to be disconnected from...
Free Upgrades to Windows 7 if Purchased at the Right Time
Posted on June 08, 2009Consumers who purchase computer with the Vista operating system can get an upgrade to Windows 7 if purchased between June 26th and October 22nd of this year. This comes from a leaked Best Buy memo giving the retailer's understanding of...
Ninth Circuit Reinstates Antitrust Suit Against Verisign
Posted on June 06, 2009The Ninth Circuit has ruled that Verisgn can be sued for antitrust violations regarding the way it sets prices for domain names, among other potentially illegal conduct. The complaint was dismissed at the District Court level, but reversed last Friday...
Bing Popularity? Not So Fast
Posted on June 06, 2009CNET disputes that Bing is as popular as other reports indicate. Read it here. Will Microsoft ever become the Avis of search engines?
Wiretap Suits Against AT&T Dismissed
Posted on June 06, 2009The wiretapping suits against AT&T and other telecoms, pending in San Francisco, have been dismissed. The suits alleged constitutional violations for letting the United States have access to the various networks without a court order. Judge Vaughn Walker dismissed the...
Bing Day Three
Posted on June 05, 2009Or is it day five? Bing has transcended expectations and has become (for now) the second most popular search engine in the United States and the world. PC World reports market share numbers for Bing and Yahoo as 16.28% and...
Google Squared
Posted on June 03, 2009Google Squared is live. It is a grid representation of search results, particularly useful if building lists of comparable results. The main page has some sample searches. I used cat breeds as a sample and it brought up a list...
Windows 7 Release Date Announced
Posted on June 03, 2009It's official. Windows 7 gets to retail stores on October 22, right after back to school sales but well before the Christmas sales. There will be several versions targeted at consumers, businesses, and others. Pricing hasn't been announced but some...
Opera 10 Beta Available
Posted on June 03, 2009The public beta of Opera 10 was released today. So far, it's been gathering good initial reviews, here, and here. The new version appears to have a cleaner interface than version 9, and is faster as well. Download the beta...
Google's Android Comes to Netbooks
Posted on June 02, 2009The Associated Press is reporting that Acer will offer Google's Android operating system on netbooks as an alternative to Windows. The AP notes lower costs to manufacturers, which means lower costs to consumers. Then again, who will support Android on...
The Complete Guide to Google Wave
Posted on May 29, 2009I wrote yesterday about Google Wave. Business Week has put together the Complete Guide to Google Wave. This is going to have an impact when it finally gets to the public.
New Science Papers At SSRN
Posted on May 28, 2009A new paper titled Why Neuroscience Matters for a Rational Drug Policy by Mark A. Correro is available at SSRN. Abstract: Drug addiction reflects abnormal operation of normal neural circuitry. More than physical dependence, addiction represents changes in the brain...
Microsoft Shows Off Bing, But Google Is Not Doing the Standing Still
Posted on May 28, 2009The big news today is Microsoft's preview of Bing, the latest upgrade to the Microsoft search engine. I have a long post about it at the Law Librarian blog, so feel free to check it out here. Google has its...
Lawsuits Are the Hazzard of Blogging
Posted on May 27, 2009Blogging can get someone in trouble. Just ask Lyndal Harrington who was just released from jail yesterday on a contempt of court charge for failing to turn over a computer as part of a defamation suit against her. Harrington has...
Mac Clone Maker Files Chapter 11
Posted on May 26, 2009Psystar, the Mac clone maker and target of Apple's legal ire has filed for bankruptcy. The company has been sued earlier by Apple for selling machines capable of running the Leopard OS, and that case is pending. Apple claims that...
SP2 for Vista and Server 2008 Available for Download
Posted on May 26, 2009Microsoft has released a combined Vista and Windows Server 2008 Service Pack 2 as a stand alone download here. It's available in 5 languages and can be installed on 64 bit systems as well. The service pack will come through...
More Thoughts on Kumo
Posted on May 21, 2009Continuing in the trend of whether Microsoft is going to get any traction with Kumo, this article in CNET wonders whether Google and Yahoo have already beaten Microsoft to the punch with Kumo features. Every time Microsoft upgrades search they...
Microsoft Search Update Coming Soon?
Posted on May 20, 2009Microsoft is likely going open up access to Kumo, its upgrade to Live Search, some time next week. At least that is the rumor. Most stories that speculate on this question whether Microsoft is going to get anywhere with it,...
FTC Shuts Down Car Warranty Calls
Posted on May 18, 2009The FTC got the Northern District of Illinois to issue a temporary restraining order against the company that pushed robocalls on warranties for cars. The calls were not only annoying but seemed non-stop at times. And why not, they made...
Waste In Space
Posted on May 18, 2009Now that the Atlantis Space Shuttle Crew is spending time on extended spacewalks to repair the Hubble telescope, the question comes up: Ever wonder how astronauts relieve themselves in their spacesuits? The story is here in the Washington Post. The...
Windows 7 to Cost More?
Posted on May 18, 2009Dell implies in this article that consumers may not embrace Windows 7 as much due to higher costs for the OS to OEMs. The article does not say, how much higher can they be, though ddefinitely more than Vista or...
Another Google Outage
Posted on May 18, 2009This time, only Google News was affected. It lasted 1.5 hours on Monday morning and is over now. More here.
Google Fails for an Hour for Some
Posted on May 14, 2009Some of Google's services were unavailable this morning for about 14% of its customers. The problem was attributed to a glitchin its network that sent some of the web traffic through Asia. That caused a bottleneck which slowed down or...
Craigslist Removing Erotic Ads
Posted on May 13, 2009Craigslist is removing the erotic services section of the site, but keeping an adult category. Details are in the Chicago Sun-Times.
EU Fines Intel Over Uncompetitive Practices in Chip Sales
Posted on May 13, 2009Intel is fined a whopping $1.45 Billion for market practices the European Union considers anti-competitive. Specifically, Intel used rebates for its processors with terms that made its customers either reject or restrict the use of AMD processors. The lengthy opinion...
Recent DMCA Exemption Hearings Available as MP3s
Posted on May 12, 2009The Library of Congress held its triennial hearings for copyright exemptions under section 1201 of the DMCA, Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works. The podcasts of each hearing session are...
U Missouri Journalism School Requires an iPhone or iPod Touch
Posted on May 11, 2009The University of Missouri School of Journalism is requiring students this fall to purchasean iPhone or an iPod touch. This will be the communication device that the school will use to communicate announcements and course materials to students. Forget the...
Europe Considers Software Warranties
Posted on May 11, 2009The European Union is considering rules that would extend basic consumer protection guarantees to software and the underlying code. Software vendors are aghast at the idea, including those in the open source environment. More in CNET.
Microsoft Will Play to Google's Ad Dominance in Defending European Browser Complaint
Posted on May 07, 2009Microsoft is under the gun in the EU because of it's browser share in Europe, somewhere between 65% and 85% of the market. Microsoft is formulating its response to the chargesbrought against it by Opera and joined by other industry...
Amazon Announces Kindle DX
Posted on May 06, 2009The Kindle DX is listedfor pre-order at the Amazon.com web site with a release date listed as "summer." It sports a thickness of just 1/3 on an inch with a 9.7" diagonal display, larger than the current Kindle models. More...
Windows 7 RC Available
Posted on May 06, 2009The Windows 7 release candidate is available for download here. Here's a report on the actual use of XP Mode in Windows 7 from the Vnunet.com Labs blog. It works, but has a high hardware cost for working well. Read...
Piracy Is Bad, No Matter What
Posted on May 02, 2009The leak of the new X-Men movie last month really took a toll on the market for the film. It made $35 million at the opening and could read $90 million before the weekend is over.
Google Sued Over Android Trade Name
Posted on May 02, 2009Someone else is using the name as well, and has a registration with the PTO. Google says the suit has no merit, but that's what all defendants say. More in Vnunet.com.
Another Data Breach
Posted on May 02, 2009Sigh, this time from LexisNexis and Investigative Professionals. Data for 40,000 was compromised and 300 people were actually victimized. More in the Washington Post.
Windows 7 News
Posted on May 01, 2009It looks as if Windows 7 will show up for sale in October. The Release Candidate will be available for almost 13 months once it goes public on May 5, and XP will be around for netbooks for a while...
Minnesota Says Yes to Discovery for DUI Source Code
Posted on May 01, 2009The Minnesota Supreme Court has ok'd a discovery request for breath testing machines. This has been a ongoing issue in DUI law as the manufacturers have guarded their code as trade secrets. Access has been denied in several other states....
XP, the Operating System that will not Die
Posted on April 28, 2009Microsoft is adding an XP virtualization mode to Windows 7. Compatibility under Vista was sketchy, even when the property box was checked for earlier versions of Windows. Microsoft is adding its virtualization technology directly into Windows 7 which means XP...
Supreme Court Rules in Favor of FFC Policy on Fleeting Expletives
Posted on April 28, 2009The Supreme Court ruled today that the FCC does indeed have the authority to fine broadcast networks for fleeting expletives uttered on their shows. The ruling, however, did not address whether the FCC policy could be overturned on the First...
Congress Considers Legislation on DPI
Posted on April 24, 2009Congress considers deep packet inspection and what to do about it. The House committee on Energy and Commerce held a hearingyesterday. Because the ISPs have as many deep pockets as deep packets, expect little movement on a bill. More in...
RealDVD Trial Starts Today
Posted on April 24, 2009The wheels of justice move slowly. The trial over the legality of RealDVD, the software that lets consumers back up their DVDs starts today. More in the New York Times.
Homeland Security Cuts Newspapers
Posted on April 24, 2009The Department of Homeland Security is giving up newspaper subscriptions because the news is available on the Internet for free. Well, the President did ask his cabinet to cut a hundred million from the budget. More here.
The Third Annual Conference on
Posted on April 23, 2009The Third Annual Conference on the Law and Economics of Innovation will be held on May 7th of this year at the Hilton Arlington in Arlington, Virgnia. The conference is sponsored by George Mason University and Microsoft, and features a...
YouTube Turns 4
Posted on April 23, 2009YouTube is four years old today? It seems as if the site has been here forever, and that Google has owned it forever. Even though YouTube is, as Mark Cuban puts it, a lawsuit magnet, it is a site that...
Fourth Circuit Affirms Fair Use in Plagiarism Service Case
Posted on April 21, 2009It's widely accepted that some high school students can be too smart for their own good. One case, A.V., a minor v. iParadigms, LLC demonstrates this. The case involved the use of an archiving service by schools for student papers....
UN Digital Library Available
Posted on April 20, 2009The United Nations World Digital Library went online today. See this article in the Washington Post for details.
Windows 7 To Be Limited On Netbooks
Posted on April 20, 2009Microsoft sees the netbook craze as a threat to profits on the Windows side of the business. The company is forced to offer XP, where it makes $15 a copy, as opposed to Vista, which brings in around $55 a...
Do Network Costs Justify Tiered Pricing for Internet Access?
Posted on April 20, 2009The Time Warner Cable back down on tiered Internet pricing has brought out a debate on what this all means and where the industry is going with pricing. One one side is the New York Times, which argues that the...
Time Warner Cable Drops Bandwidth Caps
Posted on April 16, 2009Time Warner Cable's plan to add caps to Internet usage with fees for going above the caps are dead for now. The company says it didn't expect the consumer backlash it received. The caps were ridiculously low and the charges...
Computer Expertise Good Enough for Probable Cause?
Posted on April 16, 2009In the world of search and seizure, computer expertise is the rationale for probable cause that resulted in the seizure of computers and other network capable electronics from a computer science student at Boston University. The crime is the sending....
Does the RIAA Support Terrorism?
Posted on April 15, 2009The RIAA lawsuits against file sharers promotes terrorism. No, really. Read the details here.
Non to French Three Strikes Law
Posted on April 13, 2009The French Law of Creation and Internet suffered an unexpected defeat at the end of last week. The law was seen as a model and the future of copyright enforcement by content creators. Notably, Paul McGuinness, the manager of U2,...
Variable Pricing Hits Online Music Sales
Posted on April 08, 2009The Apple iTunes store raised the prices on popular singles yesterday from $0.99 to $1.29. The music industry has lusted over variable pricing as a way to squeeze more money out of new music. Older catalog items may fall to...
Newspapers Need More Online Imagination to Survive
Posted on April 08, 2009Google CEO Eric Schmidt addressed a group of newspaper publishers that Google and newspapers are friends as Google and other aggregators drive traffic to their sites. He also told them they could do more with their content, like adding hyperlinks...
Sun and IBM Talks Fail
Posted on April 06, 2009IBM and Sun have broken off talks to merge. Stocks plunge, well, Sun's at least. More from ZDNet.
Coming Soon, the Death of Newspapers, but Not the News
Posted on April 06, 2009The newspaper industry suffered another shock last week when the New York Times Co. threatened to shut down the Boston Globe if it did not receive $20 million in concessions from unions whose members work for the Globe. The union...
Google Buying Twitter?
Posted on April 03, 2009The rumors abound, and they may be based on some form of truth out there. Google's forays into social networking haven't been that successful. It's Orkut product has never taken off save for South America, and even there it was...
Online Education Becoming Attractive in Tough Economic Times
Posted on April 03, 2009One of the conundrums of education is online coursework, or specifically taking a class online rather than in a classroom. The problem is how to evaluate purely online pursuit of degrees via schools without that physical campus. The established universities...
Wikia Search To Be No More (for now)
Posted on March 31, 2009The economic downturn has claimed another tech victim. This time it's Wikia Search, the open search engine started by Jimmy Wales. Given the lack of users and contributors, it became untenable to pour resources into it. It seems as if...
Microsoft Shutters Encarta
Posted on March 31, 2009And really, why does anyone need this product with so many information sources looming at one's fingertips. I remember stories from the start of Encarta when Microsoft allegedly approached Britannica about collaborating on a product. As most print publishers believed...
Cloud Computing Manifesto Available
Posted on March 30, 2009The Open Cloud Manifesto has been floating on the web for the better part of last week. The text is now officially available. It's easy to see why Microsoft and Amazon have refused to sign the document which was essentially...
Warners Plays Hardball With YouTube Over Videos
Posted on March 24, 2009Must be time to renew a contract. Warner Brothers is making an aggressive push to remove videos from YouTube that uses copyrighted materials. The newest twist is the removal of videos where amateurs perform Warner copyrighted songs in various forms,....
Best Buy Price Matching Under Fire
Posted on March 24, 2009Best Buy's price match guarantee is under fire in a class action suit. This isn't the first time Best Buy has had funny pricing. They were once cited for having an internal web site that was different from the public...
Obama Administration Supports Damages in P2P Case, Files Brief
Posted on March 23, 2009The Obama administration has filed a brief supporting statutory damages as reasonable in the Massachusetts trial for copyright infringement via P2P. The plaintiff is the RIAA, and the defendant is Joel Tennenbaum. He's being defended by Professor Charles Nesson and...
Patent Reform in Congress
Posted on March 23, 2009Patent reform, specifically to address suits by patent trolls, is up in Congress, with a meeting scheduled before the Judiciary Committee on the Leahy-Hatch patent bill. Commentary from IPWatchdog.
IE8 Reviews
Posted on March 23, 2009USAToday publishes a roundup of reviews for Internet Explorer 8. Microsoft says it's faster than Firefox. Like any such claims, this one is subject to a lot of qualifications. Read more here.
Call For Papers: Law and Wikis
Posted on March 19, 2009This time it's tech related. Call for Papers on the Topic of ?Law and Wikis? 2010 AALS Annual Meeting, New Orleans, Jan. 6-10, 2010 The AALS Section on Law and Computers invites you to submit a request to present on...
IE 8 Out Officially
Posted on March 19, 2009Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8 today. You can get the U.S. version for XP here. There are links on the same page for other versions of Windows and other countries.
Google's missteps with security
Posted on March 18, 2009Google's missteps with security for online documents has generated a petition by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) with the FTC for unfair or deceptive acts or practices. Google's brief exposure of documents in the Google Docs service is the...
IBM to Buy Sun Microsystems?
Posted on March 18, 2009News reports indicate that IBM is interested in buying Sun Microsystems for $6.5 billion in cash. A number of reports suggest that it would be a good deal for both companies given their synergies in open source systems, servers, and...
Call For Papers: LatCrit
Posted on March 18, 2009Sometimes we step out of character and note an event not related to technology. The call for papers from The South-North Exchange on Theory, Culture and the Law is one of those events. I have been asked to publicize the...
Dell's New Adamo Notebook Raises Questions About Company Direction
Posted on March 17, 2009What's up with Dell? The company is taking pre-orders for its ultra-thin/light Adomo notebook which is comparable in several ways to the MacBook Air. Dell has pushed a lot of effort in making this machine an elegant Windows-based alternative, but...
"Exploding" iPod Prompts Suit (Of Course)
Posted on March 16, 2009PI attorneys probably salivate over cases like this. Apple is being sued over an alleged exploding iPod Touch (16 GB model). Details in ChannelWeb with links to the complaint on Justia.
Windows 7 RC Coming Soon
Posted on March 16, 2009More changes to Windows 7 and the leaked date of when the release candidate may make a public testing appearance is April 10. More in Daily Tech.
Juror's Twitter Activity the Subject of a Mistrial Motion
Posted on March 16, 2009The tweets of a juror in an Arkansas civil case may be the cause of a mistrial in the case. It's pretty standard that jurors are not allowed to discuss elements of the case outside of the jury room. More...
Anti-Counterfeiting Treaty a Matter of National Security?
Posted on March 13, 2009The Obama administration has designated the draft text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement as classified in the interest of national security. What? Read about it in CNET and be very afraid.
Utah Legislating Against Ad Words
Posted on March 11, 2009Utah doesn't like the idea that Google can sell a competitor's name as a search word. The legislature is considering a bill to discourage the practice. It allows a Utah company to get an injunction in state court if they...
Update: Lawsuit Against Real Over DVD Software
Posted on March 11, 2009What's going on with that lawsuit the studios have filed against RealNetworks over DVD copying software? Bob Barr (former congressman from Georgia and presidential candidate) wants to tell you. Read it here.
Wisconsin Sports Association Doesn't Like Newspaper Coverage of Games
Posted on March 11, 2009The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association (WIAA) is suing Gannett for covering its games. The charge involves one of Gannett's Wisconsin newspapers for streaming a playoff game on the Internet last year. The WIAA claims that it owns every possible depiction...
Turn Off a Host of Features in Windows 7
Posted on March 11, 2009The Engineering Windows 7 blog identifies any number of features that may be turned off in Windows 7, including Internet Explorer 8. The code doesn't disappear, but it becomes inaccessible to the OS. This may affect the EU's investigation in...
Google Will Target Ads Based on (Gasp!) Behavior
Posted on March 11, 2009Google will start a program that targets people's behavior when determining ad content. The idea scares some people, but in some respects it comes as no surprise that Google's finally doing this. They are an ad company, after all. More...
Defamation Case Over Email is Troubling
Posted on March 09, 2009There is an opinion involving defamation via an email message released last month by the First Circuit Court of Appeals that is raising some eyebrows. The concepts of truth as an absolute defense took a hit when the Court decided...
Cook County Sheriff Sues Craigslist
Posted on March 09, 2009Sheriff Tom Dart of Cook County, IL, has civilly sued Craigslist over the Internet site's Erotic Listings. The suit seems a bit unusual as there is no indication that Dart is planning to run for higher office. Dart believes that...
California Bill Would Require Bluring of Churches, Schools, and Hospitals in Satellite Pictures
Posted on March 04, 2009Electronic Books and the Myth of Ownership
Posted on February 25, 2009Some details have leaked out about the impending Google book store. Richard Sarnoff, chairman of the Association of American Publishers identified some of the restrictions publishers are placing on electronic content. One is that all purchases will stay on Google's...
Facebook Change of Terms Analysis
Posted on February 19, 2009A more thoughtful analysis on what happened with Facebook's change of terms from the Washington Post. My take, Facebook is just trying to reserve rights to better monetize its user base. What's the point to exist otherwise? Facebook is not...
Google's Lawsuit Problem
Posted on February 19, 2009Google, as ever, is the lawsuit magnet based on its supremacy in the search and advertising markets. Sometimes it wins a few, and sometimes it just sits there as a juicy target for (self) righteous individuals who want to take...
Sirius XM Slow Death Extended by Liberty Media
Posted on February 17, 2009Liberty Media, whose assets include DirecTV, have saved Sirius XM from going bankrupt today with a $530 million loan. The economics of satellite radio and the terms of this deal suggest that Sirius XM will ultimately be absorbed by Liberty...
NAB and SoundExchange Come to Agreement
Posted on February 17, 2009The National Association of Broadcasters and SoundExchange have reached an agreement over royalties paid by radio stations who simulcast their broadcasts over the Internet. The rates will have the stations pay $1.50 for every song heard per 1,000 listeners in...
Microsoft Stores, What A Concept
Posted on February 16, 2009Microsoft has decided to open retail stores to compete with Apple and to better position its products. I can't for the life of me imagine what they expect to accomplish beyond extending their media advertising campaign to physical locations. Apple...
Sirius XM Contemplating Bankruptcy
Posted on February 13, 2009So sad about Sirius XM. When the two companies were urging the feds to approve their merger they argued that the market wasn't just satellite radio but all entertainment sources such as iPods, CDs, terrestrial and Internet radio, etc. They...
FTC Issues Ad Privacy Guidelines
Posted on February 13, 2009The FTC announced principles for targeting online behavioral advertising. Criticism flows immediately that they don't go far enough. Find the FTC announcement and texts here. [MG]
Texas Judge Orders Site to Give Up Info on Anonymous Posters
Posted on February 11, 2009There is a story in TechDirt regarding a Texas judge who has ordered the Topix web site to reveal the identity of 178 commentators. They made statements about a couple accused and acquitted of sexual assault charges. The article complains...
FTC Finally Shuts Down Qchex.com
Posted on February 10, 2009The FTC has finally shut down Qchex.com for unfair business practices. The case had started in 2006. Qchex basically allowed its users to create checks and draw on accounts without any verification whatsoever. The site was a magnet for fraudulent...
UMG Loses Summary Judgment Motion on Safe Harbor Application
Posted on February 09, 2009A case that may have some impact on the Viacom-Google litigation has some dim news for copyright holders. The litigation is between UMG Recordings, Inc., and Veoh Networks. UMG sued Veoh, for what else, copyright violation due to some UMG...
Google Attacked on Latitude Introduction
Posted on February 06, 2009Google introduced Latitude earlier this week. It's a service that lets people track each other through enabled devices, typically a cell phone, with real time location hits through Google Maps.Computerworld has a FAQ on how it works. The service was....
Shiny Things Are Fun
Posted on February 06, 2009Apple Introduces Revolutionary New Laptop With No Keyboard
GPO Debuts New Document Delivery System
Posted on February 04, 2009GPO is presenting a new interface for finding and authenticating federal government documents. The system is currently in beta but may be accessed here. From the web site's description of itself: GPO?s Federal Digital System (FDsys) is an advanced digital...
Tuesday In The News
Posted on February 03, 2009Opera is poised to grab market share in the mobile browser market, according to this article in the Washington Post. Their 0.7% in the standard market is even below Google's Chrome browser. AT&T is in trouble with local officials in...
Google Makes A Mistake, Scares Pundits
Posted on February 02, 2009Google had an error on Saturday morning that flagged every website in search results as being malicious. Google caught the error and everything was back to normal after about 40 minutes. The cause was a stray slash in a definition...
Yahoo Results Better Than Expected
Posted on January 28, 2009Yahoo beat analyst estimates on earnings though the company wound up with a net loss for the last quarter of 2008. Speculation is rising over a potential deal with Microsoft. New CEO Carol Bartz said she didn't come to Yahoo...
Offline Gmail
Posted on January 28, 2009Gmail finally allows offline access. TG Daily has the details on how it works.
Quick Takes
Posted on January 27, 2009The flu is a terrible thing. Even though you stop, the world around you does not. Let's catch up with what's been going on. The Senate approved a delay in the DTV transition from the current date of February 17th...
As for COPA, There Was No Hopa
Posted on January 21, 2009COPA is finally dead. Ten years of no enforcement, a ride up and down the court system several times, controversial attempts to grab data from search engines to prove the case, and it's come to this. Filters may not be...
FCC Blasts Comcast Over VoIP Practices
Posted on January 21, 2009Kevin Martin's last gasp at the FCC had the agency question Comcast's VoIP practices. It seems that users who consume more than 70% of their alloted bandwidth for more than 15 minutes will hear choppy VoIP calls. Not so if...
Circuit City Not Dying Fast Enough to Lower Prices in Liquidation
Posted on January 21, 2009Circuit City is starting to liquidate its inventory. The so-called sale prices have not impressed consumers and aren't competitive with what's online, if this story is to be believed. Other than going out of business, has anything changed?
Circuit City, We Hardly Knew Ye
Posted on January 19, 2009Because every time we ventured into a store to comparison shop we were confronted with older technology stickered with a premium price. It didn't help that popular DVDs priced at $14.95 to $18.95 at other stores sold for $24.99 at...
Fair Use Isn't Fair Sometimes, and the Linux Desktop
Posted on January 16, 2009There are a couple of news stories floating on the tech news sites that struck me. One is this tale of DMCA takedown notices and YouTube. Kevin Lee blogs about films. He also created video essays using film clips and...
Genachowski To Be Nominated as Head of FCC
Posted on January 13, 2009Julius Genachowski will be nominated to be FCC Chairman. His nomination is praised by public advocacy groups. Industry associations seem a bit muted on the development. Genachowski is credited with the Obama campaign's deft use of the Internet to get...
Rambus Loses Patent Case Due to Spoliation
Posted on January 13, 2009Rambus lost a patent case against Micron litigated in federal district court in Delaware on a spoliation issue. The judge accused the company of destroying relevant evidence when it should have known the documents could have been used in litigation.....
Will Searching Google Destroy the Planet?
Posted on January 12, 2009News appeared yesterday taking Google to task over how much CO2 is produced by searching Google. Alex Wissner-Gross, a physicist of Harvard, claims two Google searches are enough to produce the same amount of CO2 as boiling a kettle. Google...
Windows 7 Beta and Cheap MS Office for Students
Posted on January 12, 2009Microsoft released the Windows 7 Beta on Friday to frustrated customers. Frustrated because the traffic caused the servers to crash resulting in few or no one getting one of the 2.5 million download and keys to run the software. Microsoft...
Windows 7 Beta To Be Generally Available Tomorrow
Posted on January 08, 2009Windows 7 beta will be available to the general public for ISO image download on Friday. More here. Most of the pre-release testing sounds positive compared to Vista. Aside from quibbles about the interface, Windows 7 doesn't consume nearly as...
Another Upgrade Coupon Program from Microsoft?
Posted on January 07, 2009Another report suggests that Microsoft will introduce a program to offer free Windows 7 upgrades to those who purchase Vista machines after July 1. The economy is precarious enough without stifling computer sales in anticipation of a new operating system...
iTunes Going DRM-less
Posted on January 07, 2009One announcement from MacWorld yesterday is that the iTunes store will remove DRM from the entire catalog. Apple will also introduce variable pricing, though the price points are fixed at 69 cents, 99 cents, and $1.29. As with any number...
RIAA Gets It's Man in the Justice Department
Posted on January 07, 2009The new number three man in the Obama Justice Department is Tom Pirelli. His clients in private practice included the RIAA and he litigated several file sharing cases on behalf of the trade association. He also defended the Copyright Term...
FTC Interested in DRM Implementations
Posted on January 07, 2009The Federal Trade Commission is requesting comment, due by January 30th, on DRM technology. This in in conjunction with an FTC Town Hall to Address Digital Rights Management Technologies. The comment form is here. From the press release: The Federal....
A Little Bit of Sony in Every Xbox, and Thoughts on Blu-Ray
Posted on January 06, 2009Recent news is that Microsoft's XBox is outselling Sony's Playstation 3 by over 8 million units worldwide. That's a whole lot of XBoxes. What makes this competition ironic is an article in Ars Technica about the development of the chip...
News and Comments Now that the Holidays are Over
Posted on January 02, 2009It's been a while, but sometimes a vacation is good. Over the holiday break we found out a few things: VHS is dead, but you probably knew that. Here's the official notice courtesy of the Chicago Tribune. Texting costs phone...
RIAA Changes Course on Piracy Strategy
Posted on December 22, 2008The RIAA announced on Friday that it was going to drop its strategy of suing file sharers and focus on working with ISPs to identify and warn egregious users. Those who ignore the ISP warnings would likely lose their Internet...
Pew Report Predicts Life on the Interent in 2020
Posted on December 17, 2008The Pew Internet American Life Project released its report called the Future of the Internet III. The report predicts how the Internet (and how we use it) will appear in 2020. From the summary of findings: The mobile device...
Yahoo Proposes Keeping Search Data for Only 90 Days
Posted on December 17, 2008Yahoo has upped the ante, so to speak, on data retention of the information it collects on its users. The company proposes to anonymize search data after 90 days, unless there was fraud or security concerns. In that situation, the...
Is the Economic Downturn Affecting Facebook?
Posted on December 12, 2008This story in Fortune suggests that Facebook is in short supply of cash. Hard to believe the site isn't overtly squeezing as many dollars as it can from its 130 million or so users. [MG]
Google Chrome Goes Into General Release
Posted on December 12, 2008Google removed the "Beta" designation from Chrome, the new browser from Google. That must have been one of the shortest betas for Google. Gmail has been out for, what, years now and still has the beta tag. The announcement on...
A Used MP3 Store?
Posted on December 11, 2008As ham fisted as the RIAA and labels can be about dealing with piracy issues, there are times when someone comes up with an idea to sell music that is so bad, it makes the labels' position look good. Enter...
Google Adds Magazines to the Mix
Posted on December 10, 2008I was commenting to a friend and fellow staff member at the DePaul Law Library about Google's announcement that it would include magazine articles in its book search results. Some of the magazine titles highlighted on the Google Official Blog...
SF Street Cams Raise Eyebrows, Entertain
Posted on December 08, 2008high crime areas. Commercial properties routinely place cameras on loading docks and in parking lots. Government monitors federal and state buildings to keep them safe. All of this seems uneasily normal to a population accounting for terrorism and other mayhem,...
Yahoo Rumors Abound
Posted on December 03, 2008The other news buzz is the possibility of former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller looking to take Yahoo private. The stock is up on the news though few believe the deal is viable. Good luck getting the financing in these times....
Facebook Connect Going Live
Posted on December 03, 2008The New York Times focuses on the new Facebook Connect program. Now that the web is social and it's not Microsoft managing all the connected site logins, I guess it's ok now. [MG]
Apple Changes its Mind, Macs Are Safe
Posted on December 03, 2008Apple fudges its antivirus recommendation and removes the article from its knowledge base. The company says Macs are safe out of the box. Apostasy renounced. Details in CNET. [MG]
Apple Promotes Antvirus Software, Send Users into Tizzy
Posted on December 02, 2008Whenever Apple suggests a practice that is contra to the Mac user orthodoxy, the press pounces on it. In this case it's the suggestion that Mac users add antivirus software to their systems. The reaction was swift from the user...
Beatle Recordings in Digital Download Limbo for Now
Posted on November 25, 2008The Beatles and their various estates and representatives have not come to any agreement with EMI to release the band's catalog as a digital download. Paul McCartney would like to see this happen, "because I think it should," as he's...
SCO Owes Novell $2.5 Million Plus in Final Judgment Order From Linux Copyright Case
Posted on November 25, 2008The last chapter in the SCO suit against Novell, IBM, and the Linux operating system (figuratively, not a defendant), has been written. Judge Dale Kimball reiterated the terms of his July, 2008 order that effectively ended the case. SCO's copyright...
Microsoft Emails Show Disorganized Vista Effort
Posted on November 24, 2008The recent release of corporate emails in the class action suit against Microsoft over its "Vista Capable program is drawing reactions ranging from move along, nothing to see here, to this is a corporate train wreck. At issue is the...
MacArthur Study Says Teen Tech A Good Thing
Posted on November 20, 2008It seems that the embrace of technology by youth to communicate and learn is something positive and not the decline of the world as we know it. The MacArthur Foundation commissioned a two year study called Living and Learning With...
Founder Jerry Yang Giving Up CEO Position at Yahoo!
Posted on November 18, 2008So Jerry Yang is leaving his CEO role at Yahoo, staying as a board member and "Chief Yahoo." Speculation leads to another Microsoft deal? Steve Ballmer was pretty clear that Yang was an impediment in doing a deal. The price...
Classmate.com Marketing Spawns Class Action Suit
Posted on November 17, 2008Consider Classmates.com and their latest marketing effort. Last year they told at least one free user (and probably more) that he had email messages from former classmates who were trying to get hold of him. However, they only way to...
Net Neutrality Back in the Spotlight
Posted on November 14, 2008The latest question related to tech due to the Obama election is concerning net neutrality legislation. The telco and cable providers are wary because the Republican legislative ability to shield them is diminished. Obama and his team understand the Internet...
Google Adds Video to Chat
Posted on November 11, 2008It's not necessarily revolutionary. Microsoft, Yahoo, and just about everyone else has some form of video for their IM clients. But for GoogleTalk users, it's welcome and it works. Details are in the Google Blog announcing the feature, which becomes....
AVG Thinks Windows is a Virus
Posted on November 11, 2008Oops. AVG anti-virus software is telling users that user32.dll on Windows XP systems are infected and should be deleted. Problem is, the result is a false positive and deleting the file cripples an XP system. The problem is fixed with...
Longhorn Loses Roster Spot Over Facebook Obama Comment
Posted on November 11, 2008Here's another sad tale of Facebook coming back to bite someone in the backside. A sophomore offensive lineman at the University of Texas-Austin posted a derogatory message to his Facebook page concerning the election of Barack Obama, using racist terms...
Everyone Agrees Obama Knows How To Leverage Tech
Posted on November 10, 2008Follow the Obama transition team via change.gov, the official site of the President-elect. Many commentators note that Obama's successful campaign and election was due in part to a proactive use of the Internet to reach out to the electorate. Aside...
Supreme Court Hears FCC Fleeting Expletive Case
Posted on November 04, 2008The Supreme Court held oral arguments this morning in the case of FCC. Fox Television Stations, Inc. The case came via the Second Circuit, which threw out the FCC's fleeting expletive ban. The FCC changed its policy of some tolerance...
Ooops Sony Does It Again
Posted on November 03, 2008And what would a year be without a battery recall by Sony, this time around 100,000 units. Details from the Wall Street Journal. Here's a little history from ChannelWeb. [MG]
Obama, McCain Tech Policies
Posted on November 03, 2008Tech policies of the two presidential candidates are compared. See Rob Pegoraro's post in his blog at the Washington Post. [MG]
FiveThirtyEight.com
Posted on November 03, 2008One of my favorite sites for following election polls is fivethirtyeight.com. CNET has an interview with site founder Nate Silver. For the record, Silver's site is predicting 340.2 electoral votes for Barack Obama to 197.8 votes to John McCain. Their...
Windows 7 Appears In Public
Posted on October 30, 2008Microsoft is showing off Windows 7, in its pre-beta form, at the company's Professional Developer Conference. Everyone who attends the conference will walk away with a copy of the OS. Initial reports indicate that Microsoft learned its lesson from the...
Google Settles Author Suit
Posted on October 28, 2008Google has made nice with book publishers upset over Google's book scanning project. They had sued over copyright concerns given that Google hadn't asked for permission to scan complete titles and place snippets of in-copyright titles in the search engine...
CSM to go Native on the Internet
Posted on October 28, 2008People say that the Internet is killing newspapers. Poor Sam Zell, buying the Tribune Co. and discovering that cutting staff and a redesign of the flagship paper doesn't bring in the readers for the physical copy. The Tribune is not...
Army Fears Twitter As A Terrorist Tool
Posted on October 27, 2008The army (ours) thinks that Twitter could be used by terrorists to coordinate attacks. The reason? Protesters at the Republican National Convention used Twitter to coordinate the protest. From the report (page 8): Twitter has also become a social activism...
Colbert on How Computers Helped Create The Current Economic Crisis
Posted on October 24, 2008From the October 13th show, the one day the market went up significantly. [MG]
Vista SP2 and Windows 7 News
Posted on October 24, 2008Hot on the heels of Service Pack 1, at least in computer terms, Vista Service Pack 2 is getting ready for beta testing. In the meantime, PC World takes a look in survey form what will be that creature known...
Turkey Finds A Way To Beat Encryption
Posted on October 24, 2008It is sometimes frustrating to law enforcement agents in getting electronic evidence from a suspected wrong-doer when that evidence is encrypted. There are methods of breaking the encryption, but these may outlast the lives of those involved depending on the...
Virtual World Actions, Real World Consequences
Posted on October 23, 2008One of the more fascinating issues that bubble to the surface from time to time are real world legal consequences for things that happen in the virtual world. A running story line that appears from time to time is about...
PACER Adds Audio to Docket
Posted on October 21, 2008Pacer has added audio from selected District and Bankruptcy courts to the docket listings in the service. These recordings will be available for download for a fee of 8 cents aside from any fees associated with the docket reports. Some...
DARPA Builds Video Database To Be Analyzed By Computers
Posted on October 21, 2008The federal government, DARPA specifically, is going to build a database of surveillance footage where computers can do the initial analysis and tagging. Biometrics will not be part of the organizing features of the collection. Rather, tagging videos will cover...
Google Makes Us Stupid While Keeping Us Smart
Posted on October 16, 2008Scientists generally understand that as people age, their brains shrink to a degree. Many recommend doing ?brain exercises? which stimulate brain activity, keeping it sharp. A recent study concludes that Internet searching stimulates the brain in a better way than...
Windows 7 Will Be Called Windows 7
Posted on October 15, 2008Microsoft has said that the replacement for Vista will simply be called Windows 7, the same name being used in the development phase. What, nothing trendy? I was expecting hoping for something like Windows Omnivore, coming in flavors such as...
Government Moves Against Major Spammer
Posted on October 15, 2008The FTC won a court order yesterday halting the operations of one of the largest spammers on the planet. The action was coordinated with New Zealand authorities who moved against a citizen of that country living in Australia. The New...
Obscenity Convictions Raise Issues
Posted on October 13, 2008PC World takes a look at two federal pornography/obscenity convictions involving distribution via the Internet. The first involves Paul F. Little, also known as Max Hardcore. Little was convicted in Florida though his production company was in California...
Government Surviellance Pays Lip Service to Privcacy Concerns
Posted on October 09, 2008Stories about how technological surveillance of individuals by the government isn't exactly safeguarding privacy while keeping us "safe" (whatever that means) seem to be cropping up lately. Take this one on ABC News that reports that NSA workers would routinely...
Real Halts Distribution of RealDVD For Now
Posted on October 06, 2008RealDVD has been placed on hold at least through Tuesday by a federal judge until the Court gets a chance to look through arguments in the case. [MG]
Google Search Circa 2001
Posted on October 06, 2008In honor of Google's 10th Birthday, the company has placed online their index as of January, 2001. Feel free to search 1,326,920,000 web pages as they were listed back then. There is no "I Feel Lucky" button. How soon we...
Yet Another Microsoft Pay-To-Search (And More) Attempt
Posted on October 02, 2008Microsoft has announced yet another pay-to-search Windows Live promotion, called SearchPerks!. Even though MS didn't purchase Yahoo! they still managed to appropriate the ! for something associated with search, so that gambit wasn't a complete loss. SearchPerks! stands along side...
Apple Threatens to Take Its iBall and Go Home if Artist Royalties Rise
Posted on October 01, 2008The timing of Apple's statement to the Copyright Royalty Board regarding a proposed raise is royalty rates to music publishers is curious. Apple has said that it would likely close the iTunes Store if it could not run it at...
Real Sues Over DVD Ripping Software
Posted on September 30, 2008Real is suing DVD Copy Control Association and a number of high profile studios over its RealDVD software. The suit seeks a declaratory judgment that the software is legal, using the DVD Copy Control Association v. Kaleidescape case as justification....
Jammie Thomas Gets A New Trial
Posted on September 29, 2008Jammie Thomas won a retrial in the RIAA's file-sharing case brought against her in Minnesota. The Judge ruled that his instructions in the original trial were wrong. There he said files that could be shared (but weren't necessarily) was enough...
Windows 7 To Go Public, Sort Of
Posted on September 29, 2008Windows 7 is going to developers at next month's Professional Developer Conference. More details about the OS replacement should come out shortly thereafter, depending on the non-disclosure agreements in place. Ars Technica has the details.
TiVo Comes to the PC (Only)
Posted on September 29, 2008Nero and TiVo are teaming up to create a hardware software combination that allows a (Vista or XP) PC to be used as a TiVo. The product is called Nero LiquidTV and it can do everything a standard TiVo box...
Reports Are That Jack Thompson Disbarred
Posted on September 25, 2008Multiple sources have reported that Jack Thompson, notorious in is pursuit of the gaming industry for a variety of reasons, has been disbarred. The Referee appointed by the Florida Supreme Court has submitted a 169 page opinion to the Court...
Windows 7 Losing Features, And That is Good
Posted on September 23, 2008CNET is reporting that the next version of Windows will not have the email, photo and video editors baked in as they are with Vista and XP. They will be replaced by optional downloads that connect to comparable Windows Live...
No Privacy Interest in Fired Employee's Computers
Posted on September 19, 2008A New Jersey Appeals court sided with the criminal trial courts ruling that a fired employee had no privacy interest in computers that he had sold to his employer and had protected with his own password. The New Jersey court...
Blu-Ray Prices Not Going Anywhere (or Down)
Posted on September 17, 2008PC World is reporting that Blu-Ray discs will not drop in price anytime soon. The problem? Not enough market share for high definition discs despite the sales of high-definition televisions. So, let's work this one through. Blu-Ray players are still....
HP to Sell Mainstream Linux Machines?
Posted on September 15, 2008An odd story showed up in CNET News. This one had a tease about HP creating its own operating system as a way of becoming less dependent on Microsoft. As it turns out, the company is really looking to see...
Court Says No Relaxed Standard for Government Accessed Cell Phone Records
Posted on September 11, 2008The Federal District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania opines that the government must secure a court order to get historical geographical records for cell phone (and suspect) location using the probable cause standard under the Fourth Amendment rather...
LHC Goes Live, World, Sadly, Does Not End
Posted on September 10, 2008The world did not today end due to the start-up activity of the Large Hadron Collider. The fear of some was that the power of the Collider would cause a black hole to form which would swallow the earth and...
Chrome Browser Has Impact
Posted on September 10, 2008Google's Chrome browser has made a slight indent in Internet Explorer's market share. More from Computerworld. [MG]
Tips on Chrome
Posted on September 09, 2008Nine tips from Google on using the new Chrome browser are available from Google Operating System, the unofficial blog that watches Google's attempts to move the OS online. Thanks to BNET for this one. [MG]
RealDVD Claims Legitimate DVD Copying
Posted on September 09, 2008The news is buzzing with reports that Real is set to release (today) a DVD ripper, RealDVD, the company claims is legal. The legality of Real's software is based on the Kaleidescape case. That action had a manufacturer of a...
Happy Birthday Google
Posted on September 08, 2008Google first appeared on September 7, 1998 then a merely a search engine, now an omnivore of commerce, culture, and technology (and a lawsuit magnet). Reactions to the anniversary range from how can we live without it to how could...
Classic Colbert on Wikipedia
Posted on September 05, 2008Earlier this week I mentioned Stephen Colbert and how he got fans to manipulate Wikipedia to change the reality of the status of the African Elephant. Here's the clip. [MG]
More Buzz on Chrome
Posted on September 05, 2008Google's new browser, Chrome, is a traffic generator as people look for the download. Information Week has the story. There was some backlash over harsh terms in the Chrome EULA. Google has said the language was a mistake and has...
8th Circuit Says No to Wikipedia as Evidence
Posted on September 03, 2008The Eight Circuit is not a fan of Wikipedia, at least when the online source is used for the legal basis of a ruling of the Board of Immigrant Appeals. The case is Lamilem Badasa v. Michael Mukasey, (07-2276, 2008...
Google's New Browser -- Chrome
Posted on September 02, 2008This post is coming to the blog via the new Google browser, Chrome, almost. See below. When AT&t decided to build a browser, many commentators wondered why. When Google builds one, the online world is filled with intrigue and speculation....
New IE8 Features Detailed
Posted on August 28, 2008Microsoft's new beta of Internet Explorer 8 has a host of new features, as detailed here with screen shots from Ars Technica. One feature is of way more interest than the others, and that is "privacy mode." The short of...
No Texting While Driving Almost law in California
Posted on August 25, 2008The California legislature has sent a bill outlawing texting while driving to the Governor. Nothing is being signed into law just yet due to a budget dispute. Details in the Los Angeles Times. [MG]
Identifying Digital Content Explained
Posted on August 25, 2008Ever wonder how digital fingerprinting and watermarking of online content works? TechNewsWorld has an overview. [MG]
Joe Biden's Tech Record
Posted on August 25, 2008Barack Obama's Vice-President pick of Joe Biden has pundits looking at his record on tech and copyright issues. Biden is characterized as pro-RIAA and pro-FBI in his legislative record. Declan McCullagh at CNET looks at the details. [MG]
Court Says Fair Use is a Factor in Sending DMCA Notices
Posted on August 22, 2008The Fair Use doctrine will get a day in court thanks to a decision by United States District Judge Fogel. Universal issued a DMCA take-down notice to YouTube over a 29 second video of a baby dancing to a barely...
China Says No to iTunes
Posted on August 22, 2008iTunes is blocked in China because of a pro-Tibet compilation album for sale on the store. So, instead of twisting Apple's arm to surgically remove the offending content (We must obey local laws in order to do business in China),...
FCC Issues its Comcast Order
Posted on August 21, 2008The FCC issued its order prohibiting Comcast from interfering with specific network applications and requiring the company to disclose its network practices to its customers. A good portion of the order (pages 6 through 23) defends the Commission's jurisdiction to...
Will Digital Television Make It To Cell Phones?
Posted on August 18, 2008Now that the transition to digital television is getting close, there is one market in the United States that is getting shut down before it even gets a chance to fly, and that is free TV on a cell phone....
OOXML Is Now a Standard
Posted on August 15, 2008The ISO rejected appeals to reconsider making Microsoft's Open Office XML format a standard. More in Information Week. [MG]
Friday Fun
Posted on August 15, 2008Check Out IT World's Lame and Lamer: 10 Dumbest Viral Marketing Campaigns. Some of them are downright painful in their conception. Find it here. [MG]
Appeals Court Upholds Open Source Licensing
Posted on August 14, 2008The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals upholds open source licensing for software. The analysis is in BetaNews, with links to the opinion and other litigation documents. [MG]
More Fake Spam
Posted on August 13, 2008Those fake CNN Alerts mentioned in Monday's blog posts are now joined by fake MSNBC Alerts. Be advised. [MG]
Google (yawn) Tops Lastest Search Market Share Figures
Posted on August 13, 2008July search market share is in. Hitwise says Google is up to 70.77%, Microsoft is down to 5.36%, and Yahoo declined to 18.65%. Note to Steve Ballmer, keep those investments coming. Microsoft's share of search might increase a few hundredths...
MBTA to MIT Student Hackers: Let's Talk
Posted on August 13, 2008Here's the latest on the tiff between the MIT students who have discovered vulnerabilities in the Mass Bay Transportation Authority's fare cards and the MBTA. There's a lot of gnashing of teeth over the prior restraint and First Amendment issues....
Another Patch Tuesday from MS
Posted on August 13, 2008It's patch Tuesday for Microsoft, and today it's a big one. There are 26 vulnerabilities to correct, including two with exploits in the wild. More details from Computerworld. [MG]
Fake CNN Alerts Spread Malware Via Fake Flash
Posted on August 11, 2008Are CNN Alerts showing up in your mailbox lately? Unless you actually signed up for Alerts, they are fake and clicking on a link to a story will install malware on your machine. You may see a message that asks...
iPhone Has A Kill Switch
Posted on August 11, 2008Steve Jobs confirms the existence of a kill switch in the iPhone. He justifies it in case of a rogue application that can steal a customer's personal data. He hopes Apple never has to use it. And if Apple does...
DNS Software Flaws
Posted on August 11, 2008It seems as though the patch for the flaws in DNS software has flaws of its own. Read about it in the New York Times.
Another Patent Lawsuit Against Google
Posted on August 08, 2008This is a headline we'll be using forever. This time it's over the method for reporting statistics to advertisers over ads placed on third party sites. The story and related implications (yes, there are some) are in Information Week.
Pennsylvania Woman Pleads Guilty to Web Distribution of Obscenity
Posted on August 08, 2008The case involved fictional stories of child molestation and worse that appeared as text or audio files. While the subject of the stories is horrific, there are some who claim that what happened here was protected constitutional speech, and that...
The Internet is a Vast Place of Stupidity At Times
Posted on August 08, 2008Here are two stories, one and two. One is real, one isn't. You decide which is which.
Cablevision Wins Appeal on Remote DVR Service
Posted on August 06, 2008Does it make a difference when someone records a television broadcast for personal use that the recorder happens to be in cable company's tech center rather than the living room? The Second Circuit said no, reversing a District Court's ruling...
Internet providers under microscope for tracking customers
Posted on August 04, 2008Senior members of the House Energy and Commerce Committe are questioning the tracking patterns of some of the largest Internet providers in the United States. A letter was sent to each company asking for specific information on how the company...
Control and Track Employee Web Habits
Posted on August 04, 2008At last, a new service that controls and monitors employee behavior on the web. Welcome to the brave new world of Zscaler, a security company that places corporate control of computers in the cloud, acting as a proxy and filtering...
Where to Find Comments on ACTA
Posted on August 04, 2008The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement chugs along, with comments by rights holders that urge imposition of liability on ISPs for failing to block pirated material, among others. Another provision sought by the RIAA would hold the principle of "making available" equaling...
It's Official, FCC Slaps Comcast
Posted on August 01, 2008Well, on a 3 to 2 (the Chair and two Dems in the majority) vote, the FCC ordered Comcast to be more transparent in its broadband network management, though no fine was issued. Comcast, as does it's industry supporters, disagrees...
LG Announces Combined Blu-Ray, Streaming Video Player
Posted on July 31, 2008One of the reasons pundits thought that Sony's victory in the HD media war was Pyhrric had to do with streaming video. There are options out there, such as Apple TV, the Xbox Extender, Amazon's Unbox, the Media PC, and...
Italian Media Company Sues Google, YouTube
Posted on July 30, 2008Google and YouTube are being sued by Italian media company Mediaset SpA for copyright violation. Mediaset found some 4,643 videos and clips they owned appearing on YouTube without permission. Mediaset wants 500 million euros as damages, or about $780 million...
Computer hacker loses extradition appeal
Posted on July 30, 2008Gary McKinnon lost his appeal in Great Britain's high court yesterday, and will be subject to extradition to the United States, where he faces charges in the United States for computer hacking. In fact, "[p]rosecutors allege that McKinnon hacked into...
New Search Engine Cuil
Posted on July 28, 2008The new search engine, Cuil, debuted Sunday night. The servers are running slow because of the interest in the offering from ex-Googlers. Reviews are starting to pop in, and here's one from PC Magazine. The notable features are that it...
FCC Expected to Hit Comcast on Net Management Practices
Posted on July 28, 2008The FCC will be holding a meeting on Friday, August 1st, where the five commissioners will be considering a memorandum opinion and order addressing Comcast's network management practices. News reports indicate that there are at least three votes for penalizing...
Sirius and XM merger approved by FCC
Posted on July 27, 2008What the monopoly merger will look like after the buy-out is still unclear, but with the final tie-breaking FCC vote in late Friday night, they are well on their way to one monolithic satellite radio offering for consumers. The companies...
Nokia and Qualcomm settle their differences
Posted on July 27, 2008Finally ending "a bitter legal battle that has lasted nearly three years and spanned three continents" (quoted from CNN.com), Nokia and Qualcomm have agreed to settlement terms. Nokia has agreed to withdraw an antitrust complaint pending against Qualcomm at the...
Google Hit With Trade Secret Lawsuit Over email Tool
Posted on July 25, 2008Another lawsuit is filed against Google, this time for misappropriating trade secrets. LimitNone worked with Google to create and market a tool that helped Outlook users migrate email, calendar, and contact information to Gmail. Google worked with LimitNone as part...
Novell Gets $2.5 Million From SCO
Posted on July 25, 2008SCO owes Novell $2.5 million in licensing fees for Unix, which is less than the $20 million or so that Novell sought. Federal Judge Dale Kimball ruled that SCO was entitled to make some licensing deals, but one to Sun...
Another Mac Cloner With a Twist
Posted on July 25, 2008Another company will potentially fall on Apple's bad list by creating a Mac clone. The last company, Psystar, got hit with a lawsuit that demanded that all machines sold by the company be recalled. The latest attempt to clone the...
New York governor signs law designed to restrict video games
Posted on July 23, 2008Building on the 2007 initiative of former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, current Governor David Paterson signed into law New York Senate bill s.6401-A. The bill's stated purpose is to "take steps to crack down on video game violence and...
At the COPA, No Constitutional Hope-A
Posted on July 23, 2008The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the District Court's determination that the Child Online Protection Act, COPA, is impermissibly overbroad in attempting to limit a child's access to commercial pornography. This is the third time the Appellate Court...
Viacom and Google Settle Discovery Request
Posted on July 22, 2008In an update to Viacom's YouTube discovery request, and subsequent whirlwind of publicity regarding the private information of YouTube viewer's usernames and IP addressses, Viacom and other parties to the copyright infringement lawsuit, have formally agreed to allow Google to...
TiVo and Amazon Team Up to Pump Impulse Shopping
Posted on July 22, 2008TiVo in partnership with Amazon has announced a "feature" where customers can use their remote controls to purchase items featured on selected television shows. Unlike past interactive television efforts, a viewer can buy something on the fly without missing any...
Third Circuit Sends Janet Jackson Nipple Case Back to the FCC
Posted on July 21, 2008The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down the FCC's $550,000 fine against CBS for displaying Janet Jackson's nipple for nine-sixteenths of a second during the Superbowl broadcast of February 1, 2004. The commercials didn't cost that much. From...
Yahoo! and Icahn Settle Proxy Fight, Questions Linger
Posted on July 21, 2008Carl Icahn has settled his proxy fight with the Yahoo! board. The settlement calls for the board to expand from nine to eleven members, and Icahn to get three seats. Eight of the existing nine members will run for re-election...
Google Ad Revenue Share Up, and Spam is Most of Your Email
Posted on July 17, 2008Statistics, we've got statistics. Google's share of online ad market revenue is 77%. Google really knows how to monetize search, but we all knew that. Yahoo! comes in at 17.8% and Microsoft at 4.8%. Microsoft is trying to buy the...
Google Search Share Up, Microsoft and Yahoo! Squabble
Posted on July 15, 2008Google's share of search is just about 70% according to the latest figures from Hitwise. Yahoo! and Microsoft dropped fractions of a percent to 19.62 and 5.46 respectively. That cash bribe rebate program announced a while back for Live Search...
Tiffany Loses Infringement Suit Against eBay
Posted on July 14, 2008eBay has successfully defended a suit brought by Tiffany for trademark infringement and sale of counterfeit Tiffany goods on the auction site. The Court describes the issues and its conclusions in a series of paragraphs prior to the analysis. From...
No "iPod" Tax for Japan
Posted on July 10, 2008Legislation in Japan that would attach a tax on portable media players to benefit artists is dead. Seems they have a pretty good electronics manufacturer lobby over there. Will this development make Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi sad? CNNMoney has...
Bush Signs FISA Bill, ACLU Files Suit
Posted on July 10, 2008The Senate passed the controversial FISA Amendments Act of 2008 yesterday. It's controversial in that it includes the telecom immunity provision that the President said was crucial to the law. He signed it today. For the record, Obama voted for...
Google Government
Posted on July 09, 2008A little note on the CNET site goes into some detail of predicting what Google services may be in the offing. The analysis come from looking at the traffic generated from Google searches and broken into 20 industrial categories. The...
Viacom Discovery Request Troubling
Posted on July 08, 2008The announcement that Viacom got a court to bless its discovery request for YouTube user data was a little troubling for some. Viacom gets a database of what videos were watched, the IP addresses that access them, and the user...
Microsoft Buyout of Yahoo! Heating Up
Posted on July 07, 2008This Yahoo! proxy fight is going to be a real mess now that Carl Icahn and Microsoft have both issued letters suggesting that Microsoft is ready to do a deal if a new board is elected. No one knows whether...
Is Google Our Mirror? No Answer Yet
Posted on July 03, 2008The obscenity case that attempted to use Google searches as a measure of community values has been settled out of court. More in the Washington Post.
New Tool Allows Flash Files to be Indexed in Search Engines
Posted on July 01, 2008Flash files will be indexed a bit better in Google, Yahoo! and other search engines thanks to Adobe. The company is creating a search engine optimized version of the Flash player. The functionality allows it to read and index text...
Google Taps Family Guy Creator McFarlane for Content, Ads
Posted on June 30, 2008Is there any serious doubt that the Internet is commercial in the sense that just about everything service or site seems to be a vehicle for ads? Not that there is anything wrong with that. Why, even these words are...
New rumblings About ACTA
Posted on June 30, 2008There are reports popping up every now an then about the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement(ACTA) that's being negotiated in secret. The latest sheds some light on the RIAA's (and presumably other content trade groups) desired provisions. The highlights, if you...
Charter Calls Off Deep Packet Advertising Scheme, For Now
Posted on June 26, 2008Charter Communications has suspended the controversial program where partner NebuAd would deep-scan packets to send targeted advertising to Charter customers. While some reports consider the program dead, that may not be the case. There were some rumblings that Charter would...
New Top Level Domains on the Way
Posted on June 26, 2008ICANN voted to create any number of top-level domains as the imagination could conceive. It will only cost between $100,000 and $500,000 and the expense of being responsible for everything running on that domain. Does this mean there will be...
Defining Obscenity By Search Terms Within a Community
Posted on June 24, 2008Obscenity is always one of those conundrums for the courts, what with contemporary community standards as the measuring stick. But how is the measuring stick measured? Usually it's by testimony and the biases of the jurors trying the case. As...
ICANN Holds Conference on Globalizing Domain System
Posted on June 24, 2008Globalizing the domain name system isn't going to be easy. It's not just a matter of non-roman alphabets. There are dialects within a language and the politics associated with those dialects. The issues are being discussed at an ICANN conference...
XP: Soon To Be Gone, But Hardly Forgotten
Posted on June 23, 2008Microsoft cuts off XP to the world on June 30, and Dell is willing to sell you a machine with XP through June 26th. After that, you can buy Vista with an XP downgrade. The difference is that you will...
Statistics, We Have Statistics: Apple and Firefox
Posted on June 19, 2008Apple announced today that song sales on the iTunes store topped 5 billion tracks. Reports are that the labels get around 70% of that. Of course, they want more as the price of gas has gone up for all those...
Harvard Journal of Law & Techonology (JOLT)
Posted on June 18, 2008The Harvard Journal of Law & Technology is proud to announce that its new online companion, the JOLT Digest, is up and running after a short administrative hiatus. The Digest will continue to post law and technology news over the...
Introduction to Information Retrieval
Posted on June 18, 2008The pre-publication text and companion PowerPoint slides to Introduction to Information Retrieval (Cambridge, 2008) by Christopher D. Manning, Prabhakar Raghavan and Hinrich Schütze is available here. From the web page: The book aims to provide a modern approach to information...
Another View of the Judge Kozinski Story
Posted on June 18, 2008Computerworld has a good summary of of the developments in the story about Judge Kozinski and the case of the porn on his home server that was misconfigured to allow access from the web. You can read it here.
UMG Loses Promo CD Sale Suit
Posted on June 12, 2008A federal judge handed a loss to Universal Music Group yesterday over the issue of whether promotional items given out may be resold. Universal said they were licensed and the First Sale Doctrine does not apply. The judge said they...
Trade Association Lobbies Against Google
Posted on June 11, 2008Why do corn growers care if Google hooks up with Yahoo! for an ad deal? Apparently "they" do. The puzzling details are at CNET.
Carbon Belch Day Coming Tomorrow
Posted on June 11, 2008June 12 is the very politically uncorrect Carbon Belch Day. No, really. I plan to celebrate by using a lead pencil. Read about it in the Huffington Post and follow the links.
A New iPhone Is Revealed
Posted on June 10, 2008An Apple 3G phone at $199? It must suck to be an early adopter, unless waving the thing in other people's faces was worth the money. How will it be special if more people can afford one? The unit's features...
Yahoo! and Icahn: Letters, We've Got Letters
Posted on June 10, 2008Yahoo! and Carl Icahn keep sending nasty letters to each other. Icahn accuses the Yahoo!'s Board of mismanagement, especially in regard to the employee compensation plan that Icahn (and other commentators) characterize as a poison pill. No sense in recounting...
Mighty Mouse Suit Targets Apple Product
Posted on June 10, 2008Here he comes to clog the courts. It's Mighty Mouse and he/it is part of a lawsuit involving Apple, CBS, and the company that brought the suit, Man & Machine. It seems as if CBS licensed the cartoon character name...
Sony Settles Blu-Ray Infringement Suit
Posted on June 09, 2008Blu-Ray is safe again as Sony settles the lawsuit brought by Columbia Professor Gurtrude Rothschild. The suit involved underlying technology that makes blue lasers blue and able to read high density discs. Terms weren't disclosed, but Professor Rotschild is said...
Lessons in e-Discovery
Posted on June 09, 2008Remember the scandal over text messages sent by Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick? Those were messages sent to a paramour, another city employee, via city-owned hand held. Aside from being personally dangerous to a career, the lessons were repeated recently at...
AT&T Says BitTorrent Users Are Fine With Us
Posted on June 09, 2008John Donovan, AT&T's chief technology officer, says the company does not block or slow down BitTorrent users or discriminate against any other applications. But he says that the company will be testing usage-based pricing this fall. Money quote: "I don't...
Ars Interviews FCC Commissioner
Posted on June 06, 2008There's an interesting interview with FCC Commissioner Jonathan Adlestein on the Ars Technica web site. Public comments do affect the Commission's decisions. Who knew?
PDF Format to Host Flash Files in Acrobat Version 9
Posted on June 05, 2008Adobe has announced that the upcoming release of Acrobat 9 will include the capability to embed Flash animation and videos. An article in PC World wonders whether this "weakens" the PDF format. Most of the article comments agree that this...
Icahn is Miffed at Yahoo!
Posted on June 04, 2008Carl Icahn is angry at Yahoo! and Jerry Yang in particular. He says that the employee escape plan implemented by the Yahoo! board without telling the shareholders is what really scuttled the proposed merger with Microsoft. The plan essentially gives....
Time Warner Goes Ahead With Bandwidth Cap Test
Posted on June 03, 2008Time Warner Cable is going ahead with its test of metered Internet services, using Beaumont, Texas as the test market. As noted in several stories on this, Time Warner doesn't have much competition in Beaumont. The company can put the...
Fanatasy Baseball Lives Despite MLB's best Efforts
Posted on June 02, 2008Fantasy baseball, as spawned by the Internet, is safe thanks to the Supreme Court deciding not to get involved. Major League Baseball wanted to restrict the use of players names and statistics, but the pesky First Amendment got in the...
MS Signs Search Deal with HP
Posted on June 02, 2008Microsoft strategy for search becomes a bit clearer as the company signs a deal with HP to make Microsoft Live Search the default on HP computers sold in the U.S. and Canada starting in January. It's not available in Europe,...
A Note on Privacy in Electronics and the Border
Posted on June 02, 2008Canadian firm Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP has a nice discussion of the law of searching electronic devices at the border, including a survey of applicable U.S. precedents. Find it here.
Windows 7 News
Posted on May 29, 2008Windows 7 is all over the news lately because of statements by Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, and other Microsoft representatives. The biggest news is that it will have native touch screen capabilities and compatible with existing touch screens. Microsoft really...
Microsoft Dumps Book Scanning Project
Posted on May 27, 2008Microsoft last Friday announced that it is closing the book scanning project it started in 2005. That leaves Google and Amazon with scanning projects. Microsoft has decided to crawl content rather than to host it. The company also closed its...
Durbin Decries Cooperation With Chinese Internet Censorship
Posted on May 21, 2008Senator Richard Durbin (D-ILL) held a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on May 20th titled "Global Internet Freedom: Corporate Responsibility and the Rule of Law." The witnesses included general counsel representatives from Google, Yahoo!, and Cisco, as well as various representatives...
Microsoft Search: It's Payback Time
Posted on May 21, 2008Microsoft's latest foray into search and advertising comes in the form of rebates if a user shops through Windows Live Search. Certain products listed in search results will have symbols that indicate rebates from 2% to 30% if purchased through...
More Redacted Data Blues
Posted on May 20, 2008There's another sensitive report issued by the Justice Department Office of Inspector General that had redacted data that actually wasn't too hard to unredact. The report concerning payments to telecoms to upgrade their switches to comply with CALEA had dollar...
Yahoo! No Longer Top Web Destination
Posted on May 15, 2008Yahoo! certainly has its work cut out for it. Having dodged the Microsoft bullet it now finds itself on the other end of a proxy fight brought on by Carl Icahn to oust the current Yahoo! board and work a...
Charter Communications to Track its Subscriber Web Habits
Posted on May 14, 2008Charter Communications is planning on mining customer web surfing habits as a way to raise revenues. The company will collect data against a range of product types and give that information to a company called NebuAd who will then send...
Facebook Sued To Reveal Identity of Fake Poster
Posted on May 12, 2008A Dean of Students of a Roman Catholic school in Indianapolis is suing Facebook over a prank page depicting which depicts that individual as acting inappropriately for a person in that position. The issue for Tim Puntarelli is not to...
Microsoft to Make Zune More Useful by Adding...DRM
Posted on May 08, 2008The New York Times is reporting that NBC Universal is adding television shows to the Zune Marketplace. NBC is in a snit with Apple, having pulled its content from the iTunes store over pricing. NBC wants to charge more for...
Speaking of safe harbor issues,
Posted on May 07, 2008Speaking of safe harbor issues, here's a report of a lawsuit filed against the Sign of the Times web site by Eric Pepin and his company, the Higher Balance Institute. It seems that forum members criticized the HBI program. The...
Emails Ordered Destroyed by Missouri Governor May Survive
Posted on May 07, 2008Ugly things are going on in Missouri over the preservation of email back-up tapes from the Missouri governor's office. The AP filed an open-records request for emails, and apparently the governor ordered the tapes destroyed. Lower level tech managers did...
TorrentSpy Order to Pay Big Bucks for Piracy
Posted on May 07, 2008TorrentSpy's damages to the MPAA come in at a whopping $110 million. Trying to destroy evidence didn't help their case. More details here. Now on to the isoHunt case.
Another Jolt to the Music Labels
Posted on May 05, 2008Verizon is doing something quite interesting in the mobile music market. It's sending a portable studio around the country to give musicians the opportunity to record tracks which it will distribute through it's V-Cast Music service. The company says it...
Microsoft Walks Away From Yahoo!
Posted on May 04, 2008So, it's come to this. Microsoft negotiated with Yahoo!. It offered to raise the bid from $31 to $33 a share. That's $47.5 billion. Steve Ballmer earlier made the statement that he knew how much Yahoo! was worth to Microsoft...
MS Quietly Talks More to Yahoo!, Maybe
Posted on May 02, 2008It's Friday and still nothing really on the Microsoft - Yahoo! front. One story in CNET notes that there are reports that the two sides are actively talking about what it takes to do an amicable deal. That's nice. Beyond...
MS Still Trying to Figure Out What to do With Yahoo!
Posted on May 01, 2008I wasn't sure if I should have waited on that headline until after Microsoft buys Yahoo!. In spite of all the press accounts about the proposed Microsoft purchase, very little is new. Last Saturday was the deadline Microsoft gave Yahoo!...
Microsoft Has a New Forensic Device for Windows Computers
Posted on April 30, 2008Microsoft is working with law enforcement by creating a USB jump drive that can extract forensic evidence from a computer at the scene of a crime. It's called COFEE, or Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor. The item was distributed to...
XP and Vista Service Packs Pulled from Update
Posted on April 29, 2008XP Service Pack 3 and Vista Service Pack 1 have been pulled from automatic updates because of a glitch with the Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management System. Customers of this software should not upgrade to either Service Pack for the time...
FBI Wants Power to Monitor Most Internet Traffic
Posted on April 28, 2008FBI Director Robert Mueller is proposing legislation that would give the FBI the ability to monitor the content of Internet traffic. The Internet is a fertile place to facilitate crime, and monitoring it would prevent that. Crime takes many forms....
So Many Books -- How Does Google Do It?
Posted on April 25, 2008Ever wonder how Google digitizes all of those books available in Book Search? CNN spills some details about the process as it takes place at Michigan. As Google's methods are proprietary, the technical information is not disclosed. Still, it's fascinating...
Ninth Circuit OKs Laptop Searches at the Border
Posted on April 23, 2008The Ninth Circuit ruled on Monday that border control officers can search laptops of passengers upon their arrival in the United States from foreign destinations. The case is United States v. Arnold. Arnold came into the United States at Los...
Meta-Tags of Trademarks can Violate Lanham Act When Used By Competitors
Posted on April 22, 2008The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a company who uses meta-tags of their competitor's trademarks in their web site violates the Lanham Act. The case is North American Medical Corp. v. Axiom Worldwide, Inc., ___F.3d___, 2008 WL...
AT&T Says Internet Full By 2010
Posted on April 21, 2008AT&T is estimating that the Internet will reach full capacity by 2010. They base this conclusion on the expected demand for high definition video and more user-generated content passing around. AT&T additionally offers high definition television services in selected markets,...
Inmate Sues Over Video Games
Posted on April 21, 2008An inmate at a U.S. correctional institution has filed a hand written complaint against Rock Star and Take-Two. He says they put him in prison and show sex and violence in their games, which offends him. He wants a restraining...
Blockbuster Sued Over Video Disclosure to Facebook's Beacon
Posted on April 18, 2008Blockbuster is being sued over providing Facebook with rental information for Facebook users as part of the Beacon marketing program. This allegedly violates the Video Tape Rental and Sale Records Act. Facebook and its partners track sales and other online...
OUP, Others, Sue Georgia State University Over eReserve Course Packs
Posted on April 17, 2008Three publishers, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Sage Publications filed suit against Georgia State University over use of electronic materials in course reserve and online course sites such as Blackboard. The suit was filed on April 15...
AT&T Creating a New Browser
Posted on April 15, 2008Ars Technica has a story on the first iteration of a browser from AT&T called Pogo. It's based on Mozilla rather than IE, and it requires a relatively beefed up graphics card to function. The browser is in private test...
Australia Wants to Give Employers Power to Snoop on Worker Email
Posted on April 14, 2008Australia wants to give employers the right to scan employee emails without employee consent. Apparently employers in Oz don't have that right now, unlike here in the United States. The reason: to prevent terrorism. Who knows what the individual Bruce...
Mac Clone Maker Tempts Fate
Posted on April 14, 2008Fortune asks the question, "What's wrong with a $399 Mac?" The answer is that it didn't come from Apple. Yet another company risks the wrath of Apple with a Mac clone. Psystar is offering a Mac mini with twice the...
Yahoo! and Microsoft -- The Beat Goes On
Posted on April 10, 2008There seems to be some life in Yahoo! after all, although the jury's out as to what end. Microsoft gave the company a three week deadline to accept its buyout offer otherwise face a proxy fight and a lower offer....
Yawn, Adobe Releases AMP to the Public
Posted on April 09, 2008Adobe released its Adobe Media Player (AMP) to the public today. It plays local and streaming flash, H.264 videos, and not much more. No DVDs, no other standard formats, and no audio. The interface is nice, with a clean black...
Yahoo! and Microsoft Continue their "Talks"
Posted on April 07, 2008Yahoo! and Microsoft are getting closer but the sniping continues. Yahoo! seems reconciled to the idea of becoming a Microsoft property as long as the price is right. So far, the Yahoo! board seems to think it's not. Microsoft offered...
Ninth Circuit Says No to CDA Safe Harbour to Roommates.con in Housing Case
Posted on April 04, 2008Roommates.com has lost an appeal in the Ninth Circuit over whether questions asked in creating a profile of its users violates the Fair Housing Act. The case was brought by the Fair Housing Council of San Fernando Valley and the...
Congress Meets Second Life
Posted on April 02, 2008As if it had a first life. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has a Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet. The members held a virtual hearing yesterday online in Second Life. The hearing's subject is Online Virtual Worlds:...
April 1st Pranks on the Web, and Some That are Not
Posted on April 01, 2008April 1st is marked across the web with little practical jokes. Google gets into it in a big way and gets a lot of publicity out of their good humor. This year's edition has the links to the Gmail custom...
Earliest Recorded Sound Available as Free MP3
Posted on March 30, 2008The news of recovery of what is now the first recorded sounds in history, dating from April 9, 1860, is short of remarkable given the methodology of recording sound waves etched on smoky paper. In a historical perspective, U.S. President...
Vista Capable Suit Updates
Posted on March 30, 2008A good source for news on the Vista Capable lawsuit and other news Microsoft is Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. There are interesting and provocative notes on the suit, and links to documents when available. There are....
Comcast and BitTorrent Work Out a Deal on Net Management
Posted on March 27, 2008Comcast and BitTorrent have decided to work things out for themselves. Their corporate personas have probably decided that a pending decision from the FCC on Comcast's network management practices would not be in anyone's interest. The FCC had said a...
TorrentSpy Gone, Next Up, IsoHunt
Posted on March 27, 2008In other Torrent news, TorrentSpy shut down, beaten down by litigation by the MPAA. The issue of whether search engines can be held responsible for copyright infringement will come in the MPAA's litigation against IsoHunt, another Torrent search engine...
Attorney's Fee Award in RIAA Case Appealed to U.S. Supreme Court
Posted on March 25, 2008One man's tangle with the RIAA is on appeal to the United States Supreme Court over whether he is entitled to attorney fees. Cliff Thompson was sued by the RIAA for file sharing, but later dismissed the suit when they...
Sirius-XM Merger Clears Justice Department
Posted on March 24, 2008From the Press Release: ?The Division?s investigation indicated that the parties are not likely to compete with respect to many segments of the satellite radio business even in the absence of the merger. Because customers must acquire equipment that is...
FBI Fake Links Snare Would-Be Child Porn Downloaders
Posted on March 24, 2008Declan McCullagh posts a sad story of Roderick Vosburgh, who is about to be sentenced for attempting to download child pornography. Vosburgh clicked on a link that purported to lead to child pornography. The link which did not contain any...
Patent Problems May Limit Imports of Cell Phones, Blu-Ray Players
Posted on March 24, 2008The U.S. International Trade Commission is investigating whether certain imports violate patents by Gertrude Neumark Rothschild, Professor Emerita of Material Science and Engineering and Professor Emerita of Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics at Columbia University...
Vista SP1 Has An Ooops Moment
Posted on March 20, 2008Vista Service Pack 1 won't work with certain drivers for commonly available components such as the Intel 945G chip set, or the Realtek High Definition audio driver. The complete list is here. Microsoft recommends updating drivers before installing SP1...
Verizon Wins FCC Aution - Google Gets Nothing
Posted on March 20, 2008Verizon is the big winner in the FCC spectrum auction, along with AT&T. Google does not have a successful bid. Was that the strategy all along? They got rules associated with parts of the spectrum that allows for open access...
Win on Appeal for Craigslist Over Housing Discrimination Case
Posted on March 17, 2008Craigslist won an appeal at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in a suit that charged the company with housing discrimination by allowing posters to submit ads for housing that were illegal under section 804(a) of the Fair Housing Act....
Plaintiff in AT&T Spying Case Profiled
Posted on March 13, 2008Who is this Hepting fellow, who is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against AT&T for allegedly cooperating with the government illegally in domestic spying. Wired profiles the guy and has a short interview with him. Unlike the government, he...
Steve Ballmer Speaks
Posted on March 13, 2008For those follow such things, Steve Ballmer's keynote speech at Microsoft's Convergence Conference is online here.
Another Patent Suit Against (Yawn) Apple and iTunes
Posted on March 13, 2008It covers transport for songs between us and them (cue Pink Floyd). Macworld covers it.
Digital Content is Greater Than Storage Capacity
Posted on March 13, 2008That's the conclusion of an IDC study sponsored by EMC. We hit about 281 billion Gigabytes in 2007. IDC thinks that only half of digital created content will be stored by 2011. I wonder if they are including the data...
YouTube's Big Deal
Posted on March 12, 2008The big YouTube announcement that everyone anticipated for today was not that Google finally figured out how to make money from the site, or that copyright holders stopped suing the site (not as if that's going to happen soon). Instead,...
Cops Don't Like Rate My Cop
Posted on March 12, 2008The "Rate My..." trend in web sites can get to be a little ridiculous at times, what with sites such as Rate My Mullet, Rate My Fish Tank, and Rate My Kitten (no wait, kittens are cute). There are even...
Microsoft Appeals Vista Class Action Certification
Posted on March 11, 2008Microsoft is appealing the class action certification in the Vista Capable lawsuit. The company is asking the judge to delay the suit until the 9th Circuit can decide whether class plaintiffs from around the country can sue under Washington State...
EU Clears Google-DoubleClick, Privacy Out In the Cold
Posted on March 11, 2008The European Union cleared the merger between Google and DoubleClick today without any particular conditions attached. The U.S Department of Justice cleared the deal some months ago. Now all that remains is for Google to take possession and integrate DoubleClick...
IE 8, Firefox 3 Betas Out
Posted on March 10, 2008Internet Explorer 8 beta 1 is available here. It passes the Acid2 test. So far. And not to be left out, Firefox 4 beta 4 for Vista is also available, here. Is any of this destined to get market share...
EMI Keeps Membership in IFPI
Posted on March 10, 2008EMI has struck a deal withe the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) for reduced membership rates. The organization represents music labels on an international basis. Venture capitalists took over the label some time back and threatened to leave...
New at SSRN
Posted on March 05, 2008Online Satellite and Aerial Images: Issues and Analysis by BRIAN J. CRAIG University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - School of Law North Dakota Law Review, Vol. 83, p. 547, 2007 Link to SSRN. Abstract: Online satellite and aerial imagery...
RIAA Investigation Methods Subpoenaed
Posted on March 05, 2008There's an interesting story over at Ars Technica about the latest move from a file-sharing defendant that the RIAA is furiously fighting. The defendant in UMG v. Lindor has subpoenaed information about the software and techniques used by MediaSentry, the...
Apple is Most Admired Company According to Fortune Magazine
Posted on March 03, 2008Fortune has published its list of America's Most Admired Companies. Apple ranks number 1 overall. For tech related companies in the top 20, Google comes in at number 4, and Microsoft rounds out the bottom of the list at number...
MS Cuts Vista Prices for XP Upgrade Versions
Posted on February 29, 2008I posted a comment on the blog yesterday about Microsoft's record fine by the European Union and suggested they raise Vista prices to pay it off. In one day after that bit of sarcasm over the price of Vista, Microsoft...
MS Emails Concerning Vista Capable Emerge
Posted on February 28, 2008Microsoft internal emails have come out in the "Vista Capable" litigation, and they aren't pretty. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer posts PDFs of the texts and has a story highlighting the content. Among those highlights are Microsoft employees confused and disappointed about...
eBay Settles With MercExchange Over Patents
Posted on February 28, 2008In a somewhat anticlimactic move, eBay and MercExchange have settled their litigation over the use of three MercExchange patents involving the "But It Now" feature on eBay. The settlement has eBay buying the patents from MercExchange and MercExchange dismissing all...
Microsoft Fined $1.3B by the EU Over Antitrust Non-Compliance
Posted on February 27, 2008Microsoft gets fined to the tune of ?899 million for failing to charge a reasonable rate for licensing communication protocol information to third parties. The EU required Microsoft to open up their licensing of these protocols as part of the...
Comcast Appeared Before the FCC on Monday
Posted on February 27, 2008The Comcast hearing yesterday at the Harvard Law School over Comcast's network management practices proved interesting, if for no other reason Chairman Kevin Martin's aggressive questions to Comcast executives. The Commission has stayed away from overt statements of network neutrality,...
Do Utilities Safeguard Your Information?
Posted on February 23, 2008Another story on privacy or lack of it in customer relations databases maintained by public utilities. One report suggests that this is one of those areas where utility employees may be dipping into to customer information without a business reason.....
What Happens to Old Personal Data on Facebook?
Posted on February 23, 2008Privacy at Facebook may not be what it appears. One commentator in the Washington Post is concerned about profile data that is retained by the company even after it is revised or deleted by the user. Just what do they...
MS "Vista Capable" Suit Is a Class Action
Posted on February 23, 2008The suit against Microsoft's labels of some computers as "Vista Capable" even though they could only run the most basic version of Vista has been certified as a class action suit. More in CNN Money.
Computer Tech Repair Questionable Practices
Posted on February 21, 2008For those individuals who may require "professional" help in restoring order on a wayward computer, consider the lesson of the Geek Squad staff who harvest porn from customer hard drives. There's a sad story about this on the SFGate web...
Encryption Not What It's Cracked Up To Be
Posted on February 21, 2008Disk encryption is one of those darlings that businesses, the prudent, and the paranoid turn to as a matter of preserving confidentiality in digital content. Law enforcement tend to disfavor encryption as it is an impediment in their work of...
Another Legal Research Site
Posted on February 20, 2008Meet the Public Library of Law. Newsweek has a nice story on them along with Fastcase, which is not free.
Wikileaks Lives
Posted on February 20, 2008Use the IP address rather than the name. Go to 88.80.13.160 and you'll find stories about the shut down and the correspondence between the site and the Swiss bank, among other items of interest. A nice analysis of where everything...
Microsoft to Go Hostile on Yahoo! Bid
Posted on February 19, 2008The latest chapter in our soap opera involving Microsoft and Yahoo! finds Microsoft peeved at being spurned and will likely go the route of a proxy fight to get a board of directors sympathetic to its offer. Maybe it will...
Wikileaks Access Barred by Federal Court
Posted on February 19, 2008Wikileaks.org is offline thanks to an order by a federal judge in the United States that commands Dynadot, the registrar for Wikileaks, to lock the domain name and disable it's use in the DNS system. Dynadot complied. The struggle is...
HD-DVD on Death's Door
Posted on February 18, 2008The last official act to end the high definition DVD format war is expected when Toshiba announces that they are pulling the plug on HD-DVD. The writing's been on the wall with Warner Brothers moving to Blu-Ray exclusively, and the...
New Postal Code Allows Tracking for Ordinary Mail
Posted on February 18, 2008Learn about the Post Office's new 31 digit code to allow users to track ordinary pieces of mail from mail drop to delivery. You say you mailed that check when? That's not what the tracking says. Details in the Washington...
It (SCO) Lives!
Posted on February 14, 2008SCO, the company that refuses to die, is getting a cash transfusion from venture capitalists and unnamed Arab funding. This is somewhere around $100 million. This will either pay the legal bills and the money SCO owes Novell in royalties,...
New Game All About the Shooting
Posted on February 14, 2008There's an interesting story about the game The Club on CNET. Apparently points are racked up for shooting everyone and everything, and as fast a possible. That, apparently, is the only point of the game. Where is Jack Thompson when...
Yahoo! and News Corp. Getting Squishy?
Posted on February 14, 2008The Yahoo!/Microsoft soap opera continues. In our last episode, Yahoo! had turned down Microsoft's offer of $44.6 billion offer to buy the company. Yahoo!'s stock rose and Microsoft's fell, affecting the real value of the deal. Google swooped in to...
Microsoft Won't Give Up Pursuit of Yahoo!
Posted on February 12, 2008And why should it? Investors will likely sell Yahoo! out to Microsoft if the price were better. Consider this article for that point of view. Speculation on Microsoft's next step is here. Oh, and 1,100 or so Yahoo! employees were...
Senate Supports Telecom Immunity in Spy Suits
Posted on February 12, 2008The Senate voted to deny an amendment to the revision of the intelligence laws that would prevent the telecoms from receiving retroactive immunity for cooperating with the government for spying. Obama votes for the amendment. Clinton and McCain vote against...
Patch Tuesday
Posted on February 12, 2008It's patch Tuesday from Microsoft. There are 11 patches covering 17 vulnerabilities. More details are here.
Yahoo Rejects Microsoft Offer
Posted on February 11, 2008Yahoo! has formally rejected Microsoft's unsolicited offer for the company. The board basically thought the offer of $44.6 billion undervalued the company. This will either prompt Microsoft to raise their offer, or pursue a host of other tactics to get...
California Court Quashes Subpoena to Name Web Forum Critic
Posted on February 07, 2008There is a First Amendment right to say terrible things about someone anonymously on the Internet as long as they are not assertions of fact, or at least rise to the level of establishing a prima faciae case of defamation....
West Virginia Assessor Fighting Online Tax Maps by Private Company
Posted on February 07, 2008West Virginia doesn't want you to have it's tax assessment maps unless you pay the state for them. The are fighting one company who successfully challenged the state in court to get the maps in a FOIA case by asking...
Vista SP1 Coming: Some Early First Looks
Posted on February 07, 2008Vista SP1 has been released to manufacturing and will be available for download some time in April. Here are some previews of good and bad reactions to the final code. Two are from ZDNET, here and here, and one from...
Ballmer: Yahoo! Brand Survives
Posted on February 07, 2008All other bets are off. Steve Ballmer says that the Yahoo! brand will live (his words) past the merger. But a "powered by Microsoft" label may not exactly thrill users or Yahoo! employees, or even resemble Yahoo! as people know...
Some Thoughts on the Microsoft Proposal to Buy Yahoo!
Posted on February 04, 2008Friday's announcement of Microsoft's $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo! shook the tech world. Not so much because it was unthinkable. Pundits have worked that one out from time to time in the last year. The surprise was that Microsoft finally...
Yahoo! Still at Crossroads
Posted on January 30, 2008Everyone is dumping on Yahoo! due to its lack of financial performance in line with analysts' estimates. No matter how much money the company makes (or doesn't), they are not in Google earnings territory. The stock values are light years...
European Cases On Copyright and the Internet
Posted on January 30, 2008Two cases of interest come out of Europe. The first comes from the European Court of Justice in the case of Promusicae v. Telefónica de España. The music association brought suit against the ISP to determine the identity of P2P...
Microsoft Consent Decree Extended
Posted on January 30, 2008The federal court overseeing Microsoft's consent decree has extended oversight to November of 2009 due to the fact that certain protocols and specifications have not been fully published by Microsoft. The states wanted an extension of five years. More on...
Yahoo Working on a Major DRM Free Music Store
Posted on January 28, 2008Yahoo is working on a DRM free music store. Don't expect anything imminent, but that end would be welcome on the competition front. One of the problems with the brave new world of legal music downloads is that outside of...
The Computer In Your Eyes
Posted on January 28, 2008Imagine contact lenses as your next computer monitor or high definition television. Something like it is in development now. Read about it here.
Are Text Messages Private?
Posted on January 26, 2008In some cases yes, and some cases no. An article in the Chicago Tribune surveys various wireless carrier policies in light of the scandal over romantic messages exchanged between the Mayor of Detroit and an aide. The Detroit Free Press...
Florida School Officer on Hot Seat For Indirectly Linking to Porn on MySpace Page
Posted on January 26, 2008There's a great story on what appears to be an investigation getting out of hand. Officer John Nohejl is the Gulf Middle School resource officer. He put up a MySpace page in order to communicate with students. Now he's being...
Spectrum Auction News
Posted on January 26, 2008The spectrum auction has gone three rounds now. Read the latest at PC World.
Can the Police Search Your Electronics In Public
Posted on January 26, 2008Can your smartphone or laptop be searched incident to a traffic stop? Sounds unreasonable, but given Fourth Amendment law, it may not. Read the sticky details here.
Computer Can Identity Faces With 100% Accuracy
Posted on January 24, 2008Being a face in the crowd usually confers some type of anonymity, but with technological developments that is changing. Face recognition software has the power to reduce that anonymity, though getting a computer to match a moving face in a...
AT&T To Offer Free Wi-Fi to New and Existing Broadband Subscribers
Posted on January 24, 2008AT&T is offering free Wi-Fi access to all but the lowest tier subscribers to an AT&T broadband subscriptions. The announcement came yesterday with details yet to come for subscribers as to how to access the AT&T hot spots. The press...
How Much Tax Do You Pay on Your Cell Phone Bill?
Posted on January 22, 2008Here's another one of those stupid things in life. Some states are prohibiting wireless carriers from disclosing the amount of state taxes paid on cell phone service. The net effect is hiding charges in a bill. Wireless carriers would like...
FBI Warns of New Cyberscam
Posted on January 22, 2008There's a new twist to getting personal information out of people these days. Emails that claim to be a bank or other institution give phone numbers for the unwary to call and resolve whatever "problem" was stated in the email....
Fights Staged for YouTube Videos
Posted on January 21, 2008Who would have thought that fight videos posted to YouTube are the rage among teenagers and young adults? Who would have thought that some of these video are actually staged by some individuals to promote a their own bravado for...
TWC To Test Bandwidth Caps for Heavy Users
Posted on January 17, 2008Time Warner Cable has confirmed that it is planning to test bandwidth caps for residential Internet access customers. From Time Warner's perspective, the cap will affect only 5% of customers. These individuals are most likely to use P2P services at...
RIAA Faces Potential Class Action Over Tactics
Posted on January 17, 2008The RIAA wins some (Jammie Thomas) and sometimes loses, though their legal strategy is to walk away from cases where it looks as if they are going to lose. They tried that with one Tanya Andersen, a disabled Oregon mother...
Enycryption In Child Porn Case Raises Constitutional Issues
Posted on January 16, 2008The Washington Post is reporting on the Case of In Re Boucher, 2007 WL 4246473, decided November 29th 2007. Approximately a year before, on December 17, 2006, Boucher and his father crossed from Canada into the United States at a...
Mac Cleaner Program is a Fake According to Reports
Posted on January 15, 2008Reports indicate that a software program designed to clean Mac computers from spyware and the like is a scam. See the details about MacSweeper at the CNET News blogs.
News From the FCC
Posted on January 15, 2008The FCC announced yesterday that 214 bidders have qualified to participate in the 700 MHz band auction. Among the obvious - AT&T, Verizon, Google - are the not so obvious. Chevron? The press release is here and Attachment A (the...
Patent Suit Hits Sony, Nintendo Over Game Remotes
Posted on January 14, 2008Another patent suit has crawled out of the woodwork. This time it's over how wireless game controllers identify themselves to the game host. Cooper Innovation Group holds a patent on this, issued in 1996. They claim Sony and Nintendo violate...
Microsoft Targeted in Another EU Competition Investigation
Posted on January 14, 2008The EU is following up on complaints by Opera and others that Microsoft is stifling competition by tying Internet Explorer to Windows and not following standards by opening a formal investigation. The investigation merely means that the EU is looking...
Wired Details the iPhone Backstory
Posted on January 10, 2008There's a great story in Wired on the development and impact of the iPhone on the wireless industry. The Untold Story: How the iPhone Blew Up the Wireless Industry is a good read and worth checking out. What's missing, however,...
Spam Comes to Network Printing, Maybe
Posted on January 10, 2008Spam is one thing, and fax spam is another. Now, it seems, that spammers printing directly to network printers is possible. Read the story in Computerworld for more details.
FCC Will Investigate Complaints Against Comcast Network Management Practices
Posted on January 09, 2008Ars Technica is reporting that the FCC will investigate the reasonableness of Comcast's network management practices. Comcast has claimed that it slows down file-sharing traffic, but does not stop it. The Associated Press and other consumer friendly groups have developed...
Apple Promises Uniform Pricing in EU, Ending Antitrust Investigation
Posted on January 09, 2008The European Union is dropping its antitrust investigation against Apple as Apple has announced similar pricing for music tracks in all EU countries. U.K. customers paid approximately 10% more for tracks than did continental subscribers. Left in place are restrictions...
Is the Hi Def DVD Format War Over?
Posted on January 08, 2008It looks as if Blu-Ray may win the format war. Warner Brothers decided to issue movies only in that format after working with both. Now reports are saying that Paramount had a clause in its contract with the HD-Disc people...
MS Issues Patches to Undo File Blocks in Office 2003
Posted on January 07, 2008Microsoft has created four patches to Office 2003 that re-enables a user to open certain file formats it blocked via Service Pack 3. In an article on CNET Microsoft representatives suggest that they were wrong to assume that their heavy-handed...
Wikia Alpha Search Engine Goes Public Today
Posted on January 07, 2008The address is http://alpha.search.wikia.com/. Try it. Initial impression: Various searches show that commercial hits do not get high placement in the result list. Here's a story about it in the New York Times. Interesting that in quotes founder Jimmy Wales...
RIAA Disputes Report on Illegality of Copying Legal CDs to a Computer
Posted on January 04, 2008NPR hosted a debate between Marc Fisher, the Washington Post reporter who claims that the RIAA is making legal arguments that copying MP3s to a computer is essentially piracy ("unauthorized copies") and Cary Sherman, head of the RIAA. Sherman flatly....
Sony Caves in on DRM for Digital Downloads
Posted on January 04, 2008Sony BMG has announced that it, too, will sell it's music without DRM technology, thus joining the other three major labels in offering truly portable music playable on any MP3 player. No one would have thought this possible a year...
Office 2003 SP3 Blocks Older Office Files From Opening
Posted on January 03, 2008Microsoft has added a "feature" to Office 2003 SP3. It blocks files from older versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint from opening or saving. The service pack also blocks files from Lotus, Quattro, and Corel Draw. These formats are a...
More On The RIAA's Efforts
Posted on January 03, 2008This YouTube takes the RIAA efforts to its absurd conclusion. Just for fun, view it here.
Copy Your Own CDs, Face Liability
Posted on January 02, 2008The music industry is in trouble. Nielson Soundscan stated that CD sales fell 21.4% for the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2007 compared to the same stretch of time in 2006. Apparently giving the gift of music means a...
Related Law Questions
Is it libel to write blog posts and/or online reviews about a local business that defames one's reputation?
Libel is the form of defamation expressed in fixed-- usually written form. Sland...
#1 Online Legal Resource
On 08-28 at 21:13PM
Ten months later, Fed must reveal names of emergency lending recipients #FOIA
On 08-25 at 19:02PM
Squeaky Fromme, would-be Ford assassin and Manson devotee, released from prison
On 08-14 at 15:19PM
Likely unintended consequence of cash-for-clunkers stimulus is dampening of 2010 spending
On 08-14 at 14:34PM
Palm seeks to halt Palm Pre Android theme on copyright and trademark ground
On 08-12 at 17:30PM
Congressional investigation demonstrates Karl Rove lied about his active role in US attorney's firing
On 08-12 at 16:20PM
Family of New York City swine flu victim to sue city for failure to secure school #nyc #swineflu
On 08-12 at 12:59PM
Real Network's DVD copying software deemed to break DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions
On 08-12 at 12:57PM
Prepaid funeral operators indicted for $100 Million fraud
On 08-12 at 12:53PM
NY Jets join Cincinnati, Dallas, Green Bay, Houston & Seattle #NFL teams offering branded state lottery games
On 08-12 at 12:43PM
Are you the author of this blog? Adding USLaw.com to your Blogroll increases relevance. You qualify to display a USLaw Network badge.
Suggest changes to this blog's description or nominate another for inclusion. Register for updates.
Is it libel to write blog posts and/or online reviews about a local business that defames one's reputation?
Libel is the form of defamation expressed in fixed-- usually written form. Sland...
 |
|
Contact Us | About Us | Celebrity Law Blog |
Our Partners | Disclaimer
| Law Blog Directory
| Law Jobs
| Law Tweets
| GoDaddy Hosting
All original material © 1999-2009 by USLaw.com. |