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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 260 declined, 276 accepted (536 total, 51.49% accepted)

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Verizon

Submission + - Verizon answers John Doe subpoena BEFORE it was due (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Verizon has just committed serious misconduct, by taking it upon itself to answer a subpoena 5 days before its answer was due. In a bittorrent movie downloading "John Doe" case, Malibu Media v. Does 1-13, in Central Islip, New York, on Long Island, a John Doe defendant had, back in April, moved to quash the subpoena (PDF), which was returnable May 12th. The Court, on May 10th, issued an order staying enforcement of the subpoena, and directing Malibu's lawyers to notify Verizon immediately. Unfortunately, the stay order wasn't worth the paper it was printed on, since, it now turns out, Verizon had turned over the John Does' names on May 7th, a full 5 days prior the date its response was due. Apart from wondering what gave Verizon the right to deprive the Court of its authority to review a subpoena prior to its return date, one might also wonder why it took the plaintiff's lawyers 10 days to notify the Court of Verizon's misconduct."

Submission + - Capitol Records Motion to Enjoin ReDigi Denied (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The motion by Capitol Records for a preliminary injunction against used digital music marketplace ReDigi has been denied. After hearing almost 2 hours of oral argument by attorneys for both sides, Judge Richard J. Sullivan ruled from the bench (PDF), holding that plaintiff had failed to show "irreparable harm"."
Google

Submission + - Google asks court not to enjoin ReDigi (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Google has sought leave to submit an amicus curiae brief against Capitol Records' preliminary injunction motion in Capitol Records v. ReDigi. In their letter seeking pre-motion conference or permission to file (PDF) Google argued that "[t]he continued vitality of the cloud computing industry—which constituted an estimated $41 billion dollar global market in 2010—depends in large part on a few key legal principles that the preliminary injunction motion implicates." Among them, Google argued, is the fact that mp3 files either are not "material objects" and therefore not subject to the distribution right articulated in 17 USC 106(3) for "copies and phonorecords", or they are "material objects" and therefore subject to the "first sale" exception to the distribution right articulated in 17 USC 109, but they can't be — as Capitol Records contends — material objects under one and not the other."

Submission + - ReDigi defends used digital music market (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "ReDigi has fired back, opposing Capitol Records's motion for a preliminary injunction. In his opposition declaration, ReDigi's CTO Larry Rudolph explains in detail (PDF) how the technology employed by ReDigi's used digital music marketplace effects transfer of a music file without copying, but by modifying the record locator in an 'atomic transaction', and how it verifies that only a single instance of a unique file can enter the ReDigi cloud system. ReDigi's opposition papers also point out plaintiff's own admissions that mp3 files are not "material objects" or "phonorecords" under the Copyright Act, and therefore not subject to the Copyright Act's distribution right, and defend ReDigi's used digital music marketplace and cloud storage system (PDF) on a number of grounds, including the First Sale exception to the distribution right applicable to a "particular" copy, the Essential Step exception to the distribution right applicable to a copy essential to the running of a computer program, and Fair Use space shifting."

Submission + - ReDigi answers Capitol Records (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In Capitol Records's case against online digital used marketplace ReDigi, ReDigi has joined issue, filing its answer and requesting a conference in anticipation of making a summary judgment motion. The answer and summary judgment conference request explain how the ReDigi file transfer process works without copying the file, but by modifying the file pointer from the seller to the purchaser. They also explain why digital files are not subject to the Copyright Act's "distribution right", and why — even if they were — the "first sale" doctrine would be applicable to a transfer of a "particular" file."

Submission + - Capitol Records sues ReDigi (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "On January 6th, Capitol Records filed a copyright infringement lawsuit, in federal court in Manhattan, against ReDigi Inc., a website which provides a used marketplace for digital music. The judges assigned to the case are U. S. District Judge Richard J. Sullivan and U. S. Magistrate Judge Andrew J. Peck. Attorneys for plaintiff are Cowan Leibowitz & Latman. Attorneys for defendant are Ray Beckerman, P.C. ("NewYorkCountryLawyer"). Defendant's time to respond to the complaint (PDF) expires January 27th."

Submission + - Actual damages for single download = single licens (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "In Real View v 20-20 Technologies, it was held that the actual copyright infringement damages for a single unauthorized download of a computer program was the lost license fee that would have been charged. The judge, in the District Court of Massachusetts, granted remittitur, reducing the jury's verdict from $1,370,590.00 to $4200 unless the plaintiff seeks a new trial. Something tells me the plaintiff will seek a new trial."

Submission + - Righthaven domain name up for sale (mediapost.com)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Copyright enforcer Righthaven has lost its domain name after failing to reimburse defense attorneys who successfully represented a blogger. Righthaven's URL is currently being auctioned off by Lara Pearson, an attorney appointed by U.S. District Court Judge Philip Pro to sell Righthaven's assets at auction. Pro ordered the domain name, as well as Righthaven's portfolio of copyrights, auctioned after the company failed to reimburse defense attorneys $63,000 for representing Web user Wayne Hoehn. The auction began this week and is slated to go through Jan. 6. (If anyone wants to buy the domain name for me, it would be a nice Chanukah present :) Just kidding, I'll take the money instead.)"

Submission + - RipoffReport.com immune from suit for post (blogspot.com) 1

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "ripoffreport.com contained an admittedly defamatory posting, by one of its users, about a person who operated a Florida corporation providing addiction treatment services. Although the site was asked by the poster herself to remove the post, it refused. A Florida appeals court has ruled that the site is absolutely immune from suit, and cannot even be directed to remove the offending post, since under the Communications Decency Act (27 USC 230) "no cause of action may be brought" against a provider of an "interactive computer service" based upon information provided by a 3rd party."

Submission + - FDA backtracks on antibiotic-resistant bacteria (nrdc.org)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "The FDA recognized, 35 years ago, that feeding animals low-doses of certain antibiotics used in human medicine — namely, penicillin and tetracyclines — could promote antibiotic-resistant bacteria capable of infecting people who eat meat, and proposed to withdraw approval for the use of those antibiotics in animal feed. Instead of acting upon the proposal, the FDA has now withdrawn it. Although admitting that it continues to have “concerns” about the safety of the use of antibiotics in animal feed, the FDA says that it will just continue to rely on "voluntary self-policing" by the industry, the same "method" which hasn’t worked out too well during the past 35 years, as antibiotic use in livestock and antibiotic resistance have continued to rise throughout the entire period."
Canada

Submission + - What happens when you turn Boreal forest into tar (grist.org)

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Here are some new overhead photos which depict the expansion of the tar sands extraction mine in Alberta, Canada, from 2001 to 2011, and some closer-to-the-ground photos which give a more qualitative insight into the actual impact of converting a carbon sink, like the Boreal forest, into a carbon-spewing pit of tar sands. Nice."

Submission + - What was the beginning of #OccupyWallStreet ? (blogspot.com) 3

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "What do you think was the beginning of Occupy Wall Street? For me, it was December 10, 2010, the day of the 8 1/2-hour filibuster delivered by Senator Bernie Sanders. On that day he laid out, in exquisite detail the fraudulent nature of 'Reagonomics" aka "Trickledown theory" aka "Supply side economics" aka "Voodoo economics" (the last term having been coined by George H. W. Bush in the 1980 Republican primary campaign). Although the mainstream media, President Obama, and former President Clinton did all they could to divert public attention from the filibuster, Senator Sanders's speech was the number one trending topic on Twitter throughout the world the entire day (I should know, I was glued to the computer screen watching it throughout the day, breaking away occasionally to see if it was still the number one topic worldwide on Twitter... and it was). Senator Sanders showed how income inequality had increased geometrically under Reaganomics, and how the same policies had led, decades earlier, to the 1929 stock market crash, and the Great Depression which followed it."

Submission + - Technical issues in new mass downloading cases? (beckermanlegal.com) 3

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "As most of you know, the last wave of mass copyright infringement lawsuits was brought by the RIAA against individuals, supposedly for downloading, but actually for 'making available' for upload, mp3 files shared through FastTrack (Kazaa, Bearshare, etc) and Gnutella (Limewire) protocols. The new wave of mass lawsuits, which borrowed, and even expanded upon, the RIAA's technique of using fake copyright cases against "John Does" in order to find out their names and addresses, is actually about : (a) single downloads of (b) low budget film files over the (c) BitTorrent protocol. Here is the supporting affidavit seeking "discovery" (PDF) in a case typical of the new BitTorrent-single movie-download cases, New Sensations v Does 1-1474. I would appreciate the input of the tech community on whether there are technical issues that come to mind in the plaintiff's presentation. I won't be able to engage in my usual dialogue, because my firm is being retained by some of the victims of this new wave of suits, and I can't give away any information on my own trains of thought."

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