Verizon employees fired after peeping Obama cell records

Several Verizon Wireless employees have been suspended after the company learned that some had accessed Barack Obama's cell phone records without authorization. Whether they'll face criminal charges is not clear.

November 21, 2008 - 04:50PM CT - by Julian Sanchez

IBM antes $3 million bond to pursue case against Papermaster

Pursuant to a judge's order, IBM has posted a $3 million dollar bond should its injunction barring Mark Papermaster from working at Apple prove unwarranted.

November 21, 2008 - 12:24PM CT - by Chris Foresman

Inaction on disconnect pleas at root of Aussie ISP lawsuit

Major movie studios aren't happy that Australian ISP iiNet won't disconnect users after receiving evidence that they have been sharing movies over BitTorrent. iiNet doesn't want to play traffic cop, but Australian law does demand it have (and act on) a disconnection policy for copyright infringers.

November 21, 2008 - 12:21PM CT - by Nate Anderson

Coupons, Inc. drops DMCA lawsuit against coupon hacker

A copyright lawsuit against a man who posted instructions on how to print unlimited coupons online has finally been dropped after he argued that he didn't circumvent anyone's copyright protection in order to produce his "hack."

November 21, 2008 - 11:45AM CT - by Jacqui Cheng

Apple lawyers hand iPod hash cracking site a DMCA notice

Apple has served the "iPodhash" project with a DMCA takedown notice and is claiming that the project's attempts to reverse engineer the iTunesDB file found on iPods circumvents Apple's FairPlay DRM.

November 21, 2008 - 09:49AM CT - by Justin Berka

CTA bans violent game ads following GTA IV debacle

The Chicago Transit Authority, following the conclusion of a drawn-out law suit with Take-Two over Grand Theft Auto IV ads, has banned all ads for violent video games from its buses and facilities.

November 20, 2008 - 10:07AM CT - by Frank Caron

Antipiracy group pushes 10 years jail time for UK infringers

The Federation Against Software Theft is miffed at the UK Intellectual Property Office for not considering "recommended" changes to the copyright law that would punish online copyright infringers with 10 years of imprisonment in order to "bring parity with commercial dealing in pirated works."

November 19, 2008 - 11:00AM CT - by Jacqui Cheng

Tennessee anti-P2P law to cost colleges over $13 million

Big Content got an early Christmas present from the state of Tennessee. A new law will force Tennessee colleges and universities to pay in excess of $13 million over the next two years in what is likely to be a futile attempt to stamp out campus copyright infringement.

November 18, 2008 - 08:42PM CT - by Eric Bangeman

Judge slaps down Psystar's antitrust claims against Apple

US District Judge William Alsup has dismissed Psystar's legal counterclaims against Apple, saying that Apple has not violated various antitrust laws by tying its OS to its hardware, and that Psystar failed to provide sufficient legal support for its claims. With Apple's suit against Psystar still going strong, the clone-maker looks to be on thin ice.

November 18, 2008 - 04:39PM CT - by Jacqui Cheng

Conceptual Art and IP

Some ruminations on copyright in the age of conceptual art.

November 18, 2008 - 04:20PM CT - by Julian Sanchez

Kodak sues LG and Samsung over alleged patent violations

Kodak has filed suit against LG and Samsung in New York district court, alleging that both companies are infringing on two of its patents related to digital imaging. The company has also filed a complaint with the International Trade Organization to bar the companies form importing infringing products into the US.

November 18, 2008 - 01:31PM CT - by Chris Foresman

Crowdsourcing patent startup could use dose of own medicine

Article One Partners wants to use crowdsourcing—and the promise of handsome payoffs—to uncover invalid patent applications. They could start with their own.

November 18, 2008 - 01:00PM CT - by Julian Sanchez

Internet, IP legislation gets promoted to House big leagues

In recognition of the growing importance and influence of Internet- and IP-related legislation, House Judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers is taking over IP issues from the body's Courts subcommittee—and giving it discretion over antitrust issues (including net neutrality) instead.

November 17, 2008 - 08:05PM CT - by Julian Sanchez

Cuban a little too maverick for SEC

Mark Cuban faces insider trading charges

November 17, 2008 - 02:13PM CT - by Julian Sanchez

French court green lights lawsuits against P2P vendors

Limewire, Vuze, Shareaza, and Morpheus can all be sued on French soil, a court has ruled. Recent copyright law changes in France mean that creators and distributors of software "manifestly" designed to swap content illegally can be prosecuted, fined, and even tossed in jail.

November 17, 2008 - 01:06PM CT - by Nate Anderson

Papermaster's counterclaim: IBM and Apple are not competitors

Ex-IBM exec Mark Papermaster has filed a response to IBM's complaint, and included a counterclaim of his own arguing that Apple and IBM are not competitors and that his noncompete from IBM is too broad.

November 17, 2008 - 08:50AM CT - by Justin Berka

FOIA docs show feds can lojack mobiles without telco help

Documents obtained by civil liberties groups suggest the feds can track cell phone locations without the help of providers.

November 16, 2008 - 10:45PM CT - by Julian Sanchez

Analysis: Duke's new P2P policy won't stop RIAA lawsuits

Duke University says it's not going to cough up any student info to the RIAA without proof of illegal behavior. It sounds good in theory, but it's not going to slow down the RIAA's legal juggernaut.

November 16, 2008 - 03:02PM CT - by Eric Bangeman

Don't call me "hacker," not fair to me

The trial of David Kernell, the student charged with hacking Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail, has been pushed to next spring, as lawyers ask

November 14, 2008 - 02:53PM CT - by Julian Sanchez

This message will not self destruct: NSA internal history released

The NSA's internal history is published online. Well, parts, anyway.

November 14, 2008 - 02:27PM CT - by Julian Sanchez