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The Courts

RIAA Short on Funds? Fails to Pay Attorney Fees 341

Posted by Zonk from the must-be-because-of-all-those-lost-record-sales dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Can it be that the RIAA, or the "Big 4" record companies it represents, are short on funds? It turns out that despite the Judge's order, entered a month ago, telling them to pay Debbie Foster $68,685.23 in attorneys fees, in Capitol v. Foster, they have failed to make payment. Ms. Foster has now had to ask the Court to enter Judgment, so that she can commence 'post judgment collection proceedings'. According to Ms. Foster's motion papers (pdf), her attorneys received no response to their email inquiry about payment. Perhaps the RIAA should ask their lawyers for a loan?"
Google

YouTube Begins Defense, Seeks Depositions 106

Posted by Zonk from the calling-in-the-big-guns dept.
eldavojohn writes "YouTube has begun their defense against Viacom by first calling on 30 depositions from people like Jon Stewart & Stephen Colbert. While the article mentions that YouTube has not revealed what they hope to gain in these depositions, I think Jon Stewart's opinions will weigh in favor of YouTube. Comedy Central's parent company, Viacom, objects to YouTube's hosting of their content. Comedy Central hosts many Daily Show & Colbert Report clips on its own site, bringing in its own ad revenue."
Privacy

Submission + - A word means whatever we want it to mean (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A recent article in the New York Times (courtesy BugMeNot link) lists some of the evidence against accused I'm-not-sure-what-exactly-he's-supposed-to-have-do ne-anymore Jose Padilla, and much of the prosecution's evidence seems to hinge on innocent words being code for something else. For example, "Playing football" meant engaging in jihad, prosecutors said, "the dogs" meant the United States government, and "zucchini" meant weapons. Where does that leave the rest of us though? What will the spooks make of "pwned" or "l33t"? Is there anything you can do to protect yourself from having your facebook "I think I'll go have a coffee" turn up at your trial as "Well Your Honor, when we replace the word coffee with 'weapon of mass destruction' we see this man is clearly a terrorist!", or is the only defence total silence?

And remember, anything you say really can and will be used against you now.
Privacy

Submission + - ATT + NSA = Busted? (msn.com)

Submitted by
DynaSoar
DynaSoar writes: ""In 2003, Room 641A of a large telecommunications building in downtown San Francisco was filled with powerful data-mining equipment for a "special job" by the National Security Agency, according to a former AT&T technician. It was fed by fiber-optic cables that siphoned copies of e-mails and other online traffic from one of the largest Internet hubs in the United States, the former employee says in court filings." The article elaborates on the nature of the system in San Francisco (and others elsewhere) and the whistleblower's part in things. The Justice Department wants the case dismissed because it claims it can't defend itself without revealing state secrets. It also claims that the real issue is whether this was done in accordance with the constitution. Sadly, that may be true."
The Internet

Submission + - Net Neutrality Debate crosses the Atlantic (independent.co.uk)

Submitted by smallfries
smallfries writes: The network neutrality debate has raged on in the States for some time now. Now broadband providers in the UK have banded together to threaten the BBC that plans to provide programming over "their" network could disrupt operations. The BBC is being asked to cough up the readies to pay for bandwidth charges, otherwise traffic shaping will be used to limit access to the iPlayer. Strange really, I thought that the monthly fee we pay already was to cover access ... but maybe it only covers the final mile and they need to be paid twice to cover the rest of the journey.
The Courts

Submission + - Sex Suit in Second Life Develops (physorg.com)

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Second Life has become a growing source of income for some & has recently been the scene of a lawsuit centered around the sale of sexual acts. This story is a follow up of from last month where the plaintiff was seeking the defendant's real name and now have brought suit against the owner of the avatar "Volkov Catteneo." This is a case of copyright law, the lawyer for the plaintiff said, "It's a piece of software and software is copyrightable. It's also expressed in graphics, which also are copyrightable. There is some sizzle. People like to say it's really far out there, but at the end of the day I equate it to basic intellectual property principles ... In a virtual world, you have the ability to gather evidence you don't have in the real world. Everything that happens in 'Second Life' is reflected on computer servers. Depending on how long they keep the records, you could actually replay the event as it happens.""
Privacy

Submission + - UCLA Probe Finds Taser Incident Out Of Policy (ucla.edu)

Submitted by Bandor Mia
Bandor Mia writes: Last November, it was reported that UCLA cops Tasered a student, who forgot to bring his ID, at the UCLA library. While an internal probe by UCLAPD cleared the officers of any wrongdoing, an outside probe by Police Assessment Resource Center has found that the police actions on Mostafa Tabatabainejad were indeed out of UCLA policy. The probe was conducted at the behest of acting UCLA Chancellor Norman Abrams.

From the report:
"In light of UCLAPD's general use of force policy and its specific policies on pain compliance techniques, Officer 2's three applications of the Taser, taken together, were out of policy. Officer 2 did not take advantage of other options and opportunities reasonably available to de-escalate the situation without the use of the Taser. Reasonable campus police officers, upon assessing the circumstances, likely would have embraced different choices and options that appear likely to have been more consistent both with UCLAPD policy and general best law enforcement practices."
Music

Submission + - German court: No P2P IP lookup for music industry (heise.de)

Submitted by RichiH
RichiH writes: German news site heise.de reports (Babelfish) that a court in Offenburg rejected the state attorney's request to get the private data of a file sharer because it was 'obviously unreasonable'. 'Based on logic', the study speaking of 5 billion traded files per year in 2001 and 2002 which the music industry in Germany often cites can not apply as the user in question uploaded only a single song that the music industry knows of. The court also said that many p2p users are not aware that the programs automatically starts hidden and mandatory upload of files it has access to, so that, unless proven otherwise, the person in question did not upload anything on purpose. Furthermore, the court said that the claim of high damages does not hold water as a song typically costs less than a Euro and 'at a price of 0, someone who will not even spend a single cent will still want to get a product', citing a study that shows no negative impact of p2p on revenues. Finally, the court said that the music simply wants the data of the person in question so it can sue them in civil court and that it did not have any right to the data trying 'via several tens of thousands of criminal charges' to 'get at information the law is explicitly keeping from them'. Several state attorneys said, under strict promise of anonymity, that they would now try to get similar rules so that they 'dedicate their time to more severe crimes'. Go ahead, tag this one 'haha' :)
Anime

Submission + - Dattebayo Fansub Staff Arrested at Otakon (dattebayo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Talk about overreaction, Dattebayo fansub reports that some of their staff was arrested on Saturday at Otakon. To make matters worse today's update describes the authorities shooting and tasering a staff member while searching his home.
Privacy

Submission + - FBI Requires a Warrant to Install Spyware

Submitted by mrogers
mrogers writes: The FBI requires a warrant to install spyware on a suspect's computer, according to a new appeals court ruling. An earlier ruling had appeared to grant the FBI permission to install spyware under the weaker provisions applied to pen registers, which record the telephone numbers or IP addresses contacted by a suspect. However, yesterday's amendment made it clear that the pen register provisions only apply to equipment installed at the suspect's ISP.

The FBI recently used spyware to determine the source of a hoax bomb threat, as reported here and here.
The Courts

Submission + - Drink Or Die leader jailed

Submitted by docfisher
docfisher writes: According to AustralianIT (news.com.au), Hew Raymond Griffiths has been sentenced to 51 months in prison for copyright infringement. The Australian-resident British National pleaded guilty to copyright infringement charges on April 20 after being extradited to the US as part of 'Operation Buccaneer", which, according to US officials "has resulted in more than 30 felony convictions in the United States and 11 convictions of foreign nationals overseas".
Privacy

Submission + - "John Doe" ISP wins civil liberties award (pressesc.com)

Submitted by
amigoro
amigoro writes: "Here's irony for you: A president of a New York Internet Service Provider (ISP) who stood up against the Patriot Act and refused to violate the privacy of his clients has won a top civil liberties award, but the recipient cannot be named because of FBI gag orders. An anonymous ISP legally challenged the NSL statute after the FBI demanded personal information on costumers using the statute, and the judge ruled that NSL violates First amendment rights. But the FBI's gag order on the ISP is still in place."
Republicans

Submission + - Congressman Orrin Hatch caught pirating software

Submitted by
Rocketship Underpant
Rocketship Underpant writes: "Orrin Hatch, the Congressman viewed by many as a shill for corporate copyright interests, recently stated that people who download copyrighted materials should have their computers destroyed as punishment. However, as Wired.com reports, Hatch's own website uses copyrighted software without permission — a Javascript menu system developed by a British company. Is Mr. Hatch accepting volunteers to go through his home and office destroying all his computers, or were his comments to Congress just a bunch of hypocritical hot air?"
Biotech

Submission + - Slow Drug Tests Cause False Positives

Submitted by MissDemeanor
MissDemeanor writes: Wired science reports that chemists at the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia have proven that the illicit drug Gamma Hydroxy Butyrate is slowly produced in refrigerated urine samples, which could cause innocent people to accidentally test positive. Drug testing labs often have a massive backlog of samples. This means that a urine sample could be left in a refrigerator for months before it is tested. During that time, the drug known as liquid ecstasy, forms naturally and can lead to a false positive result that fools even the most rigorous laboratory testing by gas chromatography mass spectrometry. To make matters worse, the field test for GHB gives a false positive when exposed to natural soaps.
Privacy

Submission + - Bush derails attempts to end illegal wiretapping

Submitted by
P. Rivacy
P. Rivacy writes: "Remember how the Congress tried to outlaw the already illegal NSA wiretaps authorized by the President?

Bush is now using delaying tactics to derail the passage of that bill by not providing documents related to the President's warrantless wiretapping program to the Senate Intelligence Committee that is currently reviewing the proposed legislation."

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