316261
submission
johndierks writes:
Jammie Thomas, a single mother of two, was found liable Thursday for copyright infringement in the nation's first file-sharing case to go before a jury. Twelve jurors here said the Minnesota woman must pay $9,250 for each of 24 shared songs that were the subject of the lawsuit, amounting to $222,000 in penalties. They could have dinged her for up to $3.6 million in damages, or awarded as little as $18,000. She was found liable for infringing songs from bands such as Journey, Green Day, AFI, Aerosmith and others. After the verdict was read, Thomas and her attorney left the courthouse without comment. The jurors also declined to talk to reporters.
211091
submission
John writes:
"The Universal Music Group of Vivendi, the world's biggest music corporation, last week notified Apple that it will not renew its annual contract to sell music through iTunes....
Instead, Universal said that it would market music to Apple at will, a move that could allow Universal to remove its songs from the iTunes service on short notice if the two sides do not agree on pricing or other terms in the future, these executives said."
Seems like a game of chicken. Who will flinch first, the world's largest music label or the world's third largest music retailer?
139333
submission
mrneutron2004 writes:
Finally, someone on Capital Hill woke up and noticed how utterly absurd modern patent law. Abuse of patent law has spiraled out of control in the digital age, with many companies being taken to the cleaners for significantly huge sums over what we feel are extremely vague patents. Two congressmen from both parties have begun forcing through legislation to significantly cap patent infringement awards. Let's hope that alongside this potentially positive development, the U.S. Judiciary will get involved in self-education. As large an issue is a judiciary that fundamentally doesn't understand technology, and the absurdly vague patents and suits thereof that cycle through our legal system.
http://www.fastsilicon.com/latest-news/patent-refo rm-legislation-hits-the-u.s.-congress.html?Itemid= 60
139251
submission
sfjoe writes:
Intuit says as many as 100,000 users of TurboTax may have had their IRS filings delayed due to server overload. A story in the San Francisco Chronicle says, "Intuit blamed the problem on an unexpected increase in e-filing, which overloaded its computer system". Intuit has gotten the IRS to give e-filers a break. On the TurboTax site, they say, "Intuit customers using TurboTax software to electronically file their U.S. federal income taxes won't be penalized as long as they e-file their returns by midnight April 19th".
