When you receive an official law enforcement document/request, like a subpoena, it can actually be pretty scary. An official-looking document from a court in association with law enforcement may leave many people with the impression that they absolutely have to comply. While there are circumstances in which you do need to comply, you can often fight back. Tragically, many companies don't. They just roll over and hand over the info, even if it violates their own policies (and sense of right and wrong). There are (unfortunately few and far between) cases like Twitter, who has shown a willin... Similar News >>

If you don't recall, among the various domains that ICE and the DOJ seized last year were two domains -- rojadirecta.com and rojadirecta.org -- held by a Spanish company, Puerto 80. After extended negotiations to try to get the government to return the domain names, Puerto 80 finally sued the government to get them back. Almost immediately after, the government filed to forfeit the domains (seizing property is supposed to be a temporary thing -- if the owner wants it back, the government has to file for forfeiture to keep it permanently). Thus there are two semi-parallel issues going on her... Similar News >>

Remember Bitcoin? The online cryptographic currency that got a lot of attention last year, but quickly faded? There was some political grandstanding against it, like when Senator Chuck Schumer declared that Bitcoin was a form of money laundering. And, now, the FBI is trying to understand Bitcoin, sending around a document warning that criminals might (*gasp*) use Bitcoin. The report is pretty even-handed, actually. It notes that there's a reasonable likelihood that "malicious actors will exploit Bitcoin to launder money." However, it at least admits, noting that this is no different than... Similar News >>

A few years back, we wrote about how a sculptor who had been contracted by the US government to create the Korean War Memorial in Washington DC was suing the US Postal Service because it had released a stamp using a photograph of the Memorial. There were all sorts of issues with this, starting with the fact that the US government should never commission a monument in which it does not also get the copyright. Leaving it with the artist is ridiculous, because now we have a public memorial, which gets photographed a ton, and a single photographer has control over it? Why would the government a... Similar News >>

Music reality TV has become a key feeding ground for the major labels lately. Shows like American Idol, the Voice, X Factor and the like seem to be where the labels have been picking up some of their bigger name stars lately -- allowing the shows to help build up an initial following and then picking off the stars with typical record label deals. Except... it appears that some of those musicians are realizing that they don't need the labels any more. Jordis Unga, a singer who has appeared on two reality TV shows (Rock Star: INXS and The Voice), has decided that she doesn't need to sign a la... Similar News >>

Well, well, well. It's been a long while since this has happened, but we finally have yet another case where the comment that got the most votes for "insightful" also got the most votes for "funny." Yes, one comment stands alone this week as your favorite -- by far (the voting wasn't even close) -- comment in both categories. Step on up Jesse for taking the ultimate prize. The comment was in response to Leigh's post about the new FBI/ICE anti-piracy movie warnings, where Leigh compared ICE boss John Morton to a shaman, by noting: "Apparently Morton sees method in his madness, though, much ... Similar News >>

A recent study (pdf) by Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell at Harvard is getting some press for pointing out that sharing information about yourself is "intrinsically rewarding." In other words, the reason people use Twitter to tell you about what they're eating for lunch, is because it feels good to do so. I don't think that's a particularly surprising finding, but it might counteract some of the claims about how using such sites are making everyone lonely. Of course, the attention getting line is the part about triggering the same parts of the brain as sex -- though the details suggest it's r... Similar News >>

It's long been known that law enforcement relies heavily on mobile phone providers to give them data on where people are, based on the location info on their mobile devices. Back in 2009, a Freedom of Information Act request revealed, for example, that Sprint had provided law enforcement officials with GPS data a staggering 8 million times in the previous year. Now, it's important to note that many of those times were apparently multiple "pings" on the same person/device. But, still. You can bet those numbers have only gone up. Last year, Senator Wyden proposed legislation requiring that ... Similar News >>

We've noted how frequently the entertainment industry -- especially the big record labels with the help of the RIAA -- seem to sue innovative upstarts. They usually do this as part of a two-part plan: they either want to kill off the innovation, or they use the lawsuit as the opening gambit in trying to get a big chunk of the equity of the startup (which they then stifle and kill). News broke recently that online music storage locker MP3Tunes, one of the first of its kind, filed for bankruptcy in large part due to the years-long legal attacks from EMI. The thing is, MP3Tunes basically won i... Similar News >>

In copyright circles, Mark Twain's speech to Congress in 1906 is well known as being the point at which he made clear his desire that copyright should be vastly expanded to make sure his kids kept earning money: My copyrights produce to me annually a good deal more money than I have any use for. But those children of mine have use for that. I can take care of myself as long as I live. I know half a dozen trades, and I can invent a half a dozen more. I can get along. But I like the fifty years' extension, because that benefits my two daughter, who are not as competent to earn a living as I am,... Similar News >>

We've been covering the attempts by Dutch anti-piracy operator BREIN to play a legal game of whac-a-mole to block The Pirate Bay by forcing ISPs to block access, then blocking proxies that provide access, and now blocking anyone from even talking about ways to get to The Pirate Bay. Bizarrely, a court in The Hague has agreed, and has come out in favor of blocking the Dutch Pirate Party from even discussing some of this stuff: The Court specifically ruled that the Party’s reverse proxy has to remain offline. It was further ordered that Pirate Bay domains and IP-addresses have to be filt... Similar News >>

We've been warning for a while about the TPP negotiations, and how the big interests who pushed SOPA were making a concerted effort to use the (very questionable and extremely secretive) nature of international trade negotiations to sneak through many of the things they wanted in SOPA, without any scrutiny. Make no mistake: while the public has no access to, or information about, what the federal government is negotiating, the big special interests are well informed. As pressure has been mounting against TPP, it appears that the US Chamber of Commerce has "brought the band back together," pu... Similar News >>

We've written tons of stuff on the ridiculousness of statutory damages for copyright infringement -- which can put damages for a single infringement at up to $150,000 (for willful infringement). When you're talking about a $0.99 song, that seems completely out of line. The reason for statutory damages (supposedly) is that figuring out actual damages is simply too difficult, so a statutory range lets you ignore any discussion of having to prove real damages. In most copyright lawsuits, plaintiffs automatically take the statutory damages rates. It's pretty rare for anyone to opt-out. Howeve... Similar News >>

The internet sometimes has a short memory. While Verizon is often (quite accurately) seen as a big company that does some ridiculous things, one issue that the company has been good about for many years is fighting against overly aggressive attempts by copyright holders to identify IP address holders. A decade ago, Verizon was the key player in pushing back on the RIAA's attempts to identify people it accused of file sharing without filing a lawsuit. If you don't recall, the RIAA used a rather unique (i.e. totally bogus) interpretation of the DMCA to mean that it could issue subpoenas to IS... Similar News >>

As we mentioned earlier this week, we're experimenting with doing a live discussion for the Techdirt book club. For April, the book was Copyfraud by Jason Mazzone who will be joining us today to talk about it at noon PT (3pm ET). Techdirt Book Club: Chat With Copyfraud Author Jason Mazzone And don't forget that the book club book for May is Reclaiming Fair Use by Patricia Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi. We'll be publishing more excerpts in the coming weeks...Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Similar News >>

The big antitrust case in the US against Microsoft about a decade ago focused on Microsoft's efforts in the browser war to lock out Netscape. While Microsoft lost that case, regime change at the DOJ meant that Microsoft got a slap on the wrist, rather than being broken up (as was originally proposed). In the long run, this may have been the best solution anyway. The market itself realized soon after that there was a pretty big opening for an innovative and effective web browser, and new competitors sprung up and took market share away from Microsoft: first Mozilla's Firefox, then Apple's Saf... Similar News >>

Well this would be funny if it weren't so sad and didn't involve mass censorship. Iran has been getting a lot of attention lately for its plans to increase its internet filtering -- and potentially even set up its own "safe" (read: heavily monitored) local internet. For now, as the filters have been going up, apparently lots of sophisticated internet users in Iran have been figuring out how to get around them. No problem. Iran's "supreme leader" Ayatollah Ali Khamenei simply issued a "fatwa" against using anti-filtering tools -- and that was published to the web.... where it was promptly f... Similar News >>

A recent study (pdf) by Diana Tamir and Jason Mitchell at Harvard is getting some press for pointing out that sharing information about yourself is "intrinsically rewarding." In other words, the reason people use Twitter to tell you about what they're eating for lunch, is because it feels good to do so. I don't think that's a particularly surprising finding, but it might counteract some of the claims about how using such sites are making everyone lonely. Of course, the attention getting line is the part about triggering the same parts of the brain as sex -- though the details suggest it's r... Similar News >>