| Good News: Jammie Thomas’ File-Sharing Verdict Is Reduced By 97% |
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Bad news: it’s still more money than she can afford — $54,000. (But it’s better than $2 million.) Anyway, U.S. District Judge Michael Davis said in his ruling: “The need for deterrence cannot justify a $2 million verdict for stealing and illegally distributing 24 songs for the sole purpose of obtaining free music. Moreover, although plaintiffs were not required to prove their actual damages, statutory damages must bear some relation to actual damages.” Thomas, always ready to provide us with a good soundbite — back in June she talked about squeezing blood from a turnip — said she appreciates the effort but still can’t pay: “It’s not like I have a money tree in the backyard.” Link via Wired. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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Comments (0)December 29, 2009
| No Safe Harbor For BitTorrent Search Engine isoHunt |
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Wired reports that Judge Stephen V. Wilson of the U.S. District Court for Central California ruled last week that BitTorrent search engine isoHunt, as well as other torrent sites operated by Gary Fung, violates copyright. (Rick, I’m shocked — shocked! — to find that gambling is going on in here!) Anyway, this is the next step in a story that began with Sweden’s crackdown on The Pirate Bay eight months ago. Judge Wilson has set up a status conference for January 11. We’ll see what happens then. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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December 28, 2009
| Flying’s Becoming More and More Like Riding the El [UPDATED] |
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Thanks to a moronic terrorist wannabe, The TSA has enacted more fun rules and regs for your comfort and protection on international flights: “Passengers flying into the United States from abroad can expect to see additional security measures at international airports such as increased gate screening including pat-downs and bag searches. During flight, passengers will be asked to follow flight crew instructions, such as stowing personal items, turning off electronic equipment and remaining seated during certain portions of the flight.” The NY Times translates that for us: “The airlines said the new T.S.A. measures required an additional round of searches, including body pat-downs at airport gates overseas. International travelers were also told that they could not leave their seats for the last hour of a flight, during which time they also could not use a pillow or blanket. They were also limited to one piece of carry-on baggage, including a purse or briefcase, and that piece had to be stowed in an overhead compartment for the last hour of a flight. Airlines were ordered to turn off in-flight entertainment systems with maps showing a plane’s location, and pilots and flight crews were told not to make comments about cities or landmarks below the flight path.” Gizmodo also reports on how some passengers were required to turn off and stow electronic devices, including iPods. I figure after 20+ years of riding the El — being crammed into an aluminum tube with no space and no rest rooms, receiving a pat-down from my fellow passengers (Hey … where’s my wallet?!) and getting no information about why the car has unexpectedly stopped in the middle of the tunnel — these new airline security regs are like second nature to me. UPDATE, 1:55 pm - Xeni Jardin of BoingBoing wonders if the new regs are the end of in-flight wifi. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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December 23, 2009
| An Eye For An Eye Makes Microsoft $290M Poorer |
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Yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that Microsoft must remove the custom XML code from its Office software suite by January 11, 2010 and pay Canadian firm i4i $290 million for infringing on its patents. You may recall that back in early September Microsoft asked the Fed Circuit to stay an injunction handed down in U.S. District Court in Texas. The Fed Circuit heard the case and sided with i4i. Microsoft says that, aside from the money, it’s no real biggie: “With respect to Microsoft Word 2007 and Microsoft Office 2007, we have been preparing for this possibility since the District Court issued its injunction in August 2009 and have put the wheels in motion to remove this little-used feature from these products. Therefore, we expect to have copies of Microsoft Word 2007 and Office 2007, with this feature removed, available for U.S. sale and distribution by the injunction date. In addition, the beta versions of Microsoft Word 2010 and Microsoft Office 2010, which are available now for downloading, do not contain the technology covered by the injunction.” Notice that first sentence, in which Microsoft calls the custom XML a “little-used feature.” Reading that, I immediately thought of Neal Stephenson’s book In The Beginning Was The Command Line — still fresh and relevant, even after 10 years — in which he calls MS Office an “omnibus software package” and compares it to Wal-Mart: “As [graphical user interfaces] get more complex, and impose more and more overhead, this tendency becomes more pervasive, and the software packages grow ever more colossal; after a point they begin to merge with each other, as Microsoft Word and Excel and PowerPoint have merged into Microsoft Office: a stupendous software Wal-Mart sitting on the edge of a town filled with tiny shops that are all boarded up … The most serious drawback to the Wal-Mart approach is that most users only want or need a tiny fraction of what is contained in these giant software packages. The remainder is clutter, dead weight.” What’s the app that I use most at work? Notepad. And at home? TextEdit on the Mac. Keep it simple. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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December 3, 2009
| Malamud Says DOJ Pays $4 Mil For PACER. That Doesn’t Even Qualify As a Rounding Error, Budget-Wise |
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Wired has a story about how Carl Malamud of Public.Resource.org FOIA’d documents from the Department of Justice showing that it paid the U.S. courts system $4 million for PACER access. I think the work Malamud’s been doing is great. I’m a fan. But he *does* have an axe to grind wrt PACER. As the article says, “it’s not so odd for one agency to pay another one for services.” They charge each other for stuff all the time. And for a department with a $26 billion budget, $4 million is so small it’s beyond a rounding error. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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November 17, 2009
| Skins Can Keep Their Name (Small Comfort to DC Fans) |
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Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court denied cert in a trademark case regarding the Washington Redskins. According to The Christian Science Monitor: “Lawyers for the native Americans say the name was disparaging and offensive in 1967 and that the trademark should never have been issued. They argued that the law permits them to bring a disparagement lawsuit at any time. An appeals board at the U.S. trademark office agreed with the native Americans that the term ‘redskins’ is today and has historically been a disparaging racial epithet. But that decision was overturned by a federal judge and the Washington-based appeals court in subsequent rulings that the group had waited too long [25 years] to bring its challenge.” Given how things have gone for the ‘Skins this year, the team’s name is the least of their worries. FWIW, here’s the Supreme Court November 16 order list. See page 3, Harjo, Suzan S., et al. v. Pro-Football, Inc. (09-326). |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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| Quick Hits |
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The New Oxford American Dictionary has anointed “unfriend” as 2009’s Word of the Year. Um … OK. Beats “tramp stamp”, I guess. Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft and owner of the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trail Blazers has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. I wish him well. Lexis now has an iPhone app that allows you to search for a case by citation and review its Shepard’s Summary. (Link via ResourceShelf.) Google Scholar now searches federal and state cases, plus law journals. (Link via BeSpacific.) … And speaking of hits, here’s why I’m glad, apart from the cost, why my son has chosen cross-country/track over hockey. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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November 9, 2009
| Skype Saga’s Settled |
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Last week the founders of Skype settled their suit(s) against eBay and a host of others. Thus, the sale of Skype can now proceed. Here are the highlights:
The NY Times is pondering the 3 lessons from the Skype War:
To which I’d add, given the sort of hardball that Zennstrom and Friis like to play, “Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.” |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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October 13, 2009
| There … Are You Happy Now? |
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The NY Times reported yesterday that Arthur D. Levinson, CEO of Genentech and one of my favorite people search examples, has resigned from Google’s board. You may remember back in August Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, resigned from Apple’s board. The FTC mandated this game of musical chairs when it announced in May that it was investigating Apple and Google for violations of the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 because the companies — competitors in the smartphone and OS markets — had common directors. Now that this is all tidied up, the FTC will leave them alone now. And now that the Google Books settlement will be squared away in November, the award-winning Obama Administration is focusing its anti-trust searchlight on … IBM. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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October 7, 2009
| November 9 Is New Date For Google Books Deal |
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The parties in the Google Books-Authors Guild case met as scheduled today for a status update. The NY Times reports that Judge Denny Chin gave Google and its partners another month to come up with a revised version of the settlement. The due date is November 9. Stay tuned. |
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Submitted by: Dan Giancaterino, Education Services Manager
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