Tech Law

Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the Minnesota woman who was twice found liable for copyright infringement for sharing two dozen songs using an online file-sharing application, has turned down an offer to settle her $54,000 penalty for less than half that amount. The Recording Industry Association of America g...

The online poker scene was set on its ear with the arrival of the Swedish phenom known only by his Tolkien-esque moniker of "Isildur1." Isildur1 burst onto the scene in September 2009 and soon began to frequent the nosebleed seats of $1000/$2000 Pot Limit Omaha reserved for the true high stakes game...

Minnesota federal judge Michael Davis has reduced the fine imposed on Jammie Thomas-Rasset for illegally sharing music on the Internet from $1.92 million to $54,000. Davis, who presided over the trial, said that the original calculations to determine Thomas-Rasset's penalty -- more than $83,000 per ...

Microsoft is asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for a rehearing of its affirmation in December of a lower court's jury verdict that Microsoft infringed on patents held by a Toronto-based company, i4i. While awaiting the court's decision, though, Microsoft has scrambled to compl...

General P2P file-sharing systems have been ubiquitous throughout the Internet since the mid-1990s. While such systems were made famous -- or infamous -- by the likes of Napster, the common thread with those systems was the general architecture. P2P systems consist of a distributed network architect...

The Electronic Privacy Information Center, key privacy group, has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission arguing that the privacy changes Facebook made a little more than a week ago were unfair and deceptive. "We think this is the most important matter now before the FTC, and the reason...

In an effort to beef up internal controls and data security, service organizations have sought out SAS 70 reports to demonstrate their level of compliance. When businesses choose to outsource critical processes, the SAS 70 helps them assess and select potential providers. This assessment tool can ...

The European Commission is concluding its latest antitrust case against Microsoft by accepting the company's promise to offer Windows users a choice of Web browsers, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes announced on Wednesday. Specifically, in March Microsoft will issue an update that enables the m...

Wednesday's announcement by the Federal Trade Commission that it is suing Intel over its business practices must have looked like computer-generated deja vu to the technology industry. Those who were around for the Clinton Justice Department's case against Microsoft in the late 1990s are hearing fam...

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear a case that centers on text-messaging privacy policies for employees in the workplace. The Court could reinforce employees' rights, prompting employers to issue ever more stringent policies on workplace communications, including stepped-up monitoring in ord...

Oracle has pledged it will not assert copyright claims over MySQL and that it will extend terms and conditions of existing commercial licenses of the database for five years in the hope that the European Commission will approve its $7.4 billion pending acquisition of Sun Microsystems. The EC has ind...

Comcast just bought itself a nice little present for the holidays: NBC Universal. The cable network will have a controlling stake in NBC once the deal is flattened out, and in return, it's giving General Electric $6.5 billion along with $7.25 billion worth of programming. If everything passes muster...

Interested parties the world over anxiously wait as the U.S. top court prepares its ruling regarding the patentability of business methods. The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments in the matter of Bernard Bilski and Rand Warsaw v. David Kappos in an appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for...

The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee has released a report slamming the online business practices of three direct marketing companies -- Affinion, Vertrue and Webloyalty -- along with hundreds of online Web sites and retailers that participate in these practices. Many of the participating retailers a...

Verizon has filed a response to the lawsuit AT&T brought against its snarky "We've Got a Map for That" advertising campaign. Unlike typical legal briefs, the carrier's filing is replete with witty rejoinders and sarcasm, echoing the ridiculing tone of the ads at the center of the dispute. "Betwe...