Legal Archive

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.

With things like the Pirate Bay trial and the French three strikes law still very fresh in memory, it's easy to forget that sometimes, offence can be the best defence. In light of this ancient wisdom, Dutch website FTD.nu has filed a lawsuit against the Dutch variant of the RIAA, BREIN. FTD.nu is backed and supported by two key Dutch copyright lawyers. Note that most links in this story will be written in Foreign for most of you.

Two weekends ago, Apple accused Psystar of withholding information in the ongoing lawsuit between the two companies, and the Cupertino company asked the judge to order Psystar to reveal said information. Psystar replied, explaining that some documents simply did not exist, and some were lost during a move of offices. Apparently, judge Alsup wasn't impressed with the defence, and sided with Apple.

The Federal Trade Commission in the United States has started an inquiry into the close ties between the boards of Apple and Google. They are wondering if the close ties constitute a violation of antitrust laws now that the two companies are increasingly participating in the same markets.

This past weekend, Apple accused Psystar of withholding information in the ongoing lawsuit between the two companies. The letter made it onto the internet, and was widely reported on. Psystar has now replied to Apple's letter, and there's some serious venom in there.

The Open Innovation Network has found a few of Microsoft's patents in dealing with the past TomTom/FAT case a bit fishy and have therefore submitted them for review of prior-art to the Linux community at large.

"It's possible to use Apple's iPods and iPhone with third-party software, and BluWiki's users wanted to make sure the world could find out how. Apple, however, was not fond of the situation and threatened BluWiki with legal action if the information was not removed. Now, BluWiki's operators are suing Apple in hopes of protecting the free speech of their users and getting a declaratory judgment that posting information does not violate the DMCA."

Old World 1, New World 0. The four defendants in the landmark The Pirate Bay case, taking place in Sweden, have all been found guilty, and sentenced to one year in jail. They also received a hefty fine of USD 3.58 million to 17 American media companies, among which are Warner Bros. Entertainment, MGM Pictures, Columbia Pictures Industries, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Sony BMG, Universal, EMI, Blizzard Entertainment, Sierra Entertainment, and Activision. The defendants have already stated they will appeal the decision.

Microsoft on Wednesday confirmed a report that it had received a one-week extension from European antitrust regulators to respond to charges that it had sought to thwart rivals by bundling its web browser with Windows systems. "Microsoft confirms that the new deadline for the company to respond to the Commission's statement of objections is 28 April," a spokeswoman said, referring to an unsourced reference to a new deadline reported on the website of the Financial Times. A spokeswoman for the European Commission said she could not immediately comment.