Tech Law

The relationship between Activision and Gibson Guitar went off-key Tuesday. The two companies had until now worked in concert with one another after the hugely successful release of the third installment of the "Guitar Hero" series. Recently, however, Activision filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Cour...

Net neutrality would make it harder for the movie industry to fight piracy, Dan Glickman, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, told attendees at the movie industry's annual ShoWest convention in Las Vegas. Net neutrality is "a clever name," Glickman said. "But at the end of...

The House Judiciary Committee held a panel hearing on the issue of net neutrality Tuesday, hearing testimony from such diverse interests as a rock band, an abortion rights advocacy group and the Christian Coalition of America. The unlikely trio converged on the Hill to call for legislation that woul...

German police raided 51 booths of companies suspected of showing pirated products at electronics show CeBIT 2008, which runs through Sunday in Hannover, Germany. More than 180 police and customs officials participated in the swoop. They removed 68 cartons filled with devices, documents and advertisi...

A spammer is going to prison, thanks to a ruling by a divided Virginia Supreme Court. The state's high court on Friday upheld the first felony conviction for illegal spamming in the U.S. when it ruled 4-3 that Virginia's antispamming law did not violate the free speech rights of Jeremy Jaynes. "This...

Ever since Microsoft made an unsolicited takeover bid for Yahoo -- a $44.6 billion proposition -- Yahoo has been beset with distractions, which the company readily acknowledged in making its annual report. The loss of key employees and the exodus of advertisers from its platform have been among the ...

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice for not responding in a timely manner to a request it made six months ago under the Freedom of Information Act. The organization had asked for any communications between former DoJ attorney Jane Horvath and...

eBay has reached a settlement with MercExchange in a case that had bounced around several courts and prompted a landmark Supreme Court decision. The San Jose, Calif.-based online auctioneer will purchase three patents, including technology central to its vaunted "Buy It Now" feature, from Great Fall...

Tension appears to be rising days after a hearing that was meant to help clear the air over the flap involving Comcast's management of Internet traffic. Some groups claim the public was deliberately shut out of the hearing by Comcast, and New York State investigators are asking the cable company to ...

President George W. Bush, speaking at the White House in a press conference Thursday morning, called on the House of Representatives to pass surveillance legislation that would provide retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that provided the government access to their networks without ...

The European Union has slapped Microsoft with a record $1.35 billion fine. "Microsoft was the first company in 50 years of EU competition policy that the Commission has had to fine for failure to comply with an antitrust decision," said European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. $1.35 billion i...

The Federal Communications Commission is prepared to step in and prevent Internet service providers from arbitrarily regulating Web traffic to control demand on their networks if it deems such moves are necessary. At the start of a day-long hearing on the topic of network traffic management -- a hea...

Another lawsuit against Microsoft reportedly has received the go-ahead to proceed. This time, a federal judge in Seattle approved a class action suit against the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant over alleged marketing claims that various computers labeled as "Vista Capable" actually were not suit...

The European Union is looking at Microsoft's vow to commit to openness and interoperability with a jaundiced eye. The EU's executive branch, the European Commission, will welcome "any move towards genuine interoperability," it said, while pointing out that Microsoft had made "at least four similar s...

HP on Wednesday reached a financial settlement with the New York Times and four reporters who were spied upon as part of a scandal dating back to 2006 that brought about the downfall of the company's chairwoman, Patricia C. Dunn, along with several high-ranking executives. The reporters were Busines...