Legal and Legislative News

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The RIAA vs. John Doe, a layperson's guide to filesharing lawsuits

The Digital Music Weblog

by Grant Robertson

August 18, 2006

The RIAA lawsuits pit a very few, very large record labels (sometimes referred to as "The Big Four") against average people who are customers of an Internet Service Provider.

These average people are also mothers, grandmothers, dialysis patients and university students. In some cases they're even deceased. In one very highly publicized case, the person was actually not-very average at all; they didn't even own a computer.

The RIAA does not involve musicians in the lawsuits it files. For example, if you're sued for the alleged swapping of a song by Puff Daddy, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs name isn't on the lawsuit in the place where it says "Plaintiff". The Plaintiff in these cases are one or more of the very large record labels (i.e. Warner Music Group, Sony BMG, etc). The person being sued may have never shared a file, or logged on to a P2P network.

Secrets of the Pirate Bay

Wired News

by Quinn Norton

August 18, 2006

Barely a month after Swedish police raided their server room and carted two administrators and their legal help off in handcuffs, the lanky co-operator of the Pirate Bay settles back to watch a pirated copy of Spanglish.

May 31, Swedish police finally arrived with a search warrant and carted off enough servers to fill three rental trucks, the entertainment industry was quick to proclaim victory. The Motion Picture Association of America issued a press release announcing a milestone. "The actions today taken in Sweden serve as a reminder to pirates all over the world that there are no safe harbors for internet copyright thieves," trumpeted MPAA chairman Dan Glickman. But the three stewards of the site -- 27-year-old Peter; Fredrik Neij, 28; and Gottfrid Svartholm, 21 -- were already preparing their response. Coordinating with volunteers around the world in an IRC chat room, the trio scrambled to relaunch the Bay at a new location.

Judge Rules Against Wiretaps

The Washington Post (MI)

by Dan Eggen and Dafna Linzer

August 18, 2006

A federal judge in Detroit ruled yesterday that the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional.

Delivering the first decision that the Bush administration's effort to monitor communications without court oversight runs afoul of the Bill of Rights and federal law. U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ordered a halt to the wiretap program, secretly authorized by President Bush in 2001, but both sides in the lawsuit agreed to delay that action until a Sept. 7 hearing. Legal scholars said Taylor's decision is likely to receive heavy scrutiny from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit when the Justice Department appeals, and some criticized her ruling as poorly reasoned.

Marion County Jail Employee Fired After Witness and Suspect Put in Same Cell Block

Wish (IN)

by Jim Shella

August 17, 2006

A clerk in the Marion County jail who was fired yesterday now faces a criminal investigation. The sheriff fired Lashonna Collins for placing Brandon Rider in the same cell block with two men he had testified against.

Rider's testimony later helped convict David Owens and Lee Guzman of murder, but first rider wrote a letter changing his story. A grand jury will decide what charges Lashonna Collins may face. Possibilities include official misconduct, obstruction of justice, and intimidation.

A Nation Divided Over Piracy

Wired News (Sweden)

by Quinn Norton

August 17, 2006

STOCKHOLM -- Last Jan. 1, almost on a whim, 35-year-old IT manager Rickard Falkvinge got into politics.

Concerned about the reach of copyright and patent law, Falkvinge erected a web page with a sign-up form for a radical new pro-piracy party to compete in Sweden's parliamentary system. He didn't know if anyone would care, but the next day the national media picked it up, and two days later international media started calling. The site was flooded with new members...

NSA surveillance lawsuits consolidated to San Francisco

Homeland Stupidity

by Michael Hampton

August 14, 2006

A U.S. court has sent seventeen lawsuits filed against telephone companies in various jurisdictions for allegedly breaking the law in assisting the government in domestic surveillance to San Francisco to join another lawsuit in progress.

District Court Judge Vaughn Walker last month rejected the governmnent's motion to dismiss the EFF case under the state secrets privilege, but agreed to stay further proceedings until the government could appeal. Most of the lawsuits were filed after an April USA TODAY story alleging that Verizon, AT&T and BellSouth provided telephone call detail records to the NSA without legal authority.

Bill to Protect America From Activist Judges Needs Co-sponsors

News With Views

by Tom DeWeese

August 13, 2006

Activist judges have been a plague on American liberty for decades. Many of their rulings, based more on political agendas than the rule of law, are affecting individual states' authority to their 10th Amendment right to republican rule.

So great is the power of activist judges that school boards are literally banning everything from voluntary prayer in schools, to wearing a tee shirt with a Christian message, for fear federal courts will take action against school officials. Across the nation, the outrageous spectacle of communities banned from displaying nativity scenes during the Christmas season is all too common.

Constitution threatened by homeschool case

World Net Daily

August 12, 2006

A couple in Brussels has been threatened with criminal neglect for schooling their children at home, and a U.S. expert on the issue told WorldNetDaily the case actually could pose a threat to the sovereignty of the U.S. Constitution.

That's because if the basis for the legal arguments being made by Belgian prosecutors ever were accepted in - or imposed upon -- the United States, that fact would make the U.N. protocol equal to the Constitution. "...Belgian authorities are of the opinion that, as a homeschooler, he has not adequately educated his children and, hence, is neglecting his duty as a parent, which is a criminal offense," she wrote.

U.S. Threatens Suit if Maine Probes Verizon Ties to NSA

Common Dreams

by Kevin Wack

August 4, 2006

The Bush administration is threatening to sue if Maine regulators decide to investigate whether Verizon Communications illegally turned over customer information to the National Security Agency.

Verizon customers in Maine have asked the state's Public Utilities Commission to investigate whether the telecom giant violated privacy laws by cooperating with a domestic surveillance program. The PUC is expected to decide Monday whether to open such a probe.

Senators offer sweeping patent system changes

CNET News

by Anne Broache

August 4, 2006

The U.S. patent system could be inching closer to an overhaul long desired by the technology industry.

Just before departing for their summer recess on Thursday, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch and Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy, who serve as chairmen of the U.S. Senate's intellectual-property panel, introduced a 45-page bill that proposes a number of changes to the way American patents are awarded and challenged.

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