Legal Archive

Not too long ago we had a semi-loss for The Pirate Bay in The Netherlands, which was convicted 'by default' because the defendants did not show up in court to plea their case. Today, The Netherlands once again saw a ruling in a high-profile piracy case, and again, there's a loss for the defendants. Update: Oh, and by the way - thought about putting some lyrics you like on your website or blog? Think again. We live in a crazy world, people.

Not too long ago, Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw explained he had found the perfect husband for Lara Croft: Jason Voorhees. They both have way too many sequels all following a default plot, they both murder a lot and spend a lot of time underground, but most of all: none of them will ever just die. In that light, I suggest another husband for Miss Croft: Darl McBride. Instant update: Darl McBride responds. See inside.

Another week, and another set of filings in the Apple vs. Psystar case. And yes, the case continues to get grittier and grittier. Last week Apple accused Psystar of destroying evidence, and this week Psystar is kicking it up a notch. The depositions of key Apple employees are currently under way, and August 14, it was Phil Schiller's turn. According to Psystar, Schiller was "wholly unprepared and unwilling to testify". At the same time, Apple has suddenly told the courts it will no longer seek recovery of lost profits from Psystar, because that would require Apple to give out its profit margins - and Apple doesn't want to do that.

The legal bickering between Apple and Psystar is almost getting uglier and grittier by the day. In a filing made last week, the Cupertino giant accused Psystar of destroying evidence, but today the clone maker has vigorously denied ever having done such a thing.

In what some will undoubtedly call ironic, Microsoft has been declared guilty of wilfully infringing upon an XML patent held by the Canadian company i4i. The judge has ordered Microsoft to pay a fine of 290 million USD, and has barred Microsoft from selling Word in the United States if the company doesn't comply within 60 days (a detail omitted by many). Microsoft has already announced it will appeal the judge's decision.

Earlier this year, the European Commission slammed Intel with a massive fine, penalising the chip maker for its anticompetitive practices. A report by the European Union's ombudsman has now criticised the EC for its conduct, as the EC did not perform proper record keeping, leading to the loss of some evidence. It won't turn the tide for Intel, but it does raise an important question: how fair are these EC antitrust proceedings?

Yesterday, the Dutch online community was surprised by a verdict from a judge who declared that The Pirate Bay had to make itself unavailable in The Netherlands. This verdict was cast in a case the Dutch RIAA/MPAA-like organisation BREIN had started against The Pirate Bay. With it being a widely known and established fact that downloading copyrighted content off the internet - even if the upload was illegal - is not illegal in The Netherlands, where does this verdict come from? Is it truly a win for the entertainment industry, and a loss for Dutch consumers? Not really - the situation is much, much simpler than that.

A win for people who hate the DMCA and censorship. As we reported on earlier this year, Apple pressured the public wiki site Bluwiki into removing several pages about how to sync iPods and other devices with the iTunes database without actually going through iTunes. Apple invoked the DMCA and sent several cease and desist letters, after which Bluwiki removed the pages in question. However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation got involved, and together with law firm Keker & Van Nest they sued Apple. It worked.

Back in April after the four involved in the Pirate Bay scuffle were declared guilty of helping to break copyright law, the judge who gave the verdict, Thomas Norstrom, was found to probably be biased due to his involvement in several pro-copyright groups. After a long, cold, hard bout of deliberation, the Swedish Court of Appeals has actually found Norstrom unbiased, something rather surprising. This means that the charges against the guilty still stand.

"After considering Apple's motion to lift the automatic stay that put its lawsuit against Mac cloner Psystar on hold, bankruptcy judge Robert Mark has ordered the stay lifted. This will allow the legal process to move forward towards the trial between Apple and Psystar, which is set to begin this November."

Intel, which helped create the market for netbooks when it introduced its Atom processor in 2008, has now ended its trademark dispute with Psion, a company that specialises in developing rugged devices and RFID technology. The fight centered on whether a company could own the right to the term 'netbook'.

Even though we make fun of Wikipedia, and even though any serious scientific piece shouldn't cite Wikipedia, fact remains that the community-created and maintained encyclopaedia has turned into an impressive database of knowledge. Even though I don't think you should trust it blindly, it's usually an excellent starting point for information, especially when used in a casual setting. Still, its open nature is also a threat to Wikipedia, this week exemplified by the Wikipedia Arbitration Committee banning Scientology from editing Wikipedia pages.

Mid-April, the four founders of The Pirate Bay were found guilty of being accessories to breaching copyright law; they aided in breaching copyright of 33 files. As a result, they were sentenced to one year in jail and a 2.75 million EUR fine. However, it was quickly revealed that the judge in the case was heavily biased, and ever since then there's been a search for a judge who is actually not involved with any pro-copyright groups or with the lawyers working for the entertainment industry in this case. Turns out that's actually kind of hard.

Soft and hardware makers, closed ones that is, are extremely secretive over their code and hardware. If there's a flaw, bug, or error, you are at their mercy to fix their code or issue a recall or something; you can't fix it yourself. In fact, fixing your own hardware will most certainly void warranty. Since we haven't had a decent car analogy on OSNews in a while, US Congress handed us one on a silver platter.