Woman Sues Mayor For Order Demanding She Remove City Links From Her Website

from the abuse-of-power dept

GigaLaw points us to the news of a lawsuit filed by a woman in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, against that city's mayor and other officials for demanding that she remove links to the city's police department from her website. The woman believes that the demand was in response to her own support of an effort to recall the mayor.

Apparently, sometime after this effort, the mayor's secretary asked the city attorney if it was legal for the woman to link to the city's police department website from her web design company's website (totally separate from the website about the mayor's recall). The city attorney told the mayor that a link is perfectly legal -- but offered to send a cease-and-desist anyway, which the mayor approved. The woman says she felt threatened in getting a cease-and-desist from the mayor's office and took the link down.

From the facts presented in the article, this certainly sounds like an abuse of power. There's nothing inherently illegal in just linking to someone else's website, and it appears the city attorney even knew this. So it looks like the mayor and the city attorney decided to send the cease-and-desist anyway to intimidate the woman -- which worked (at least temporarily). While it's not clear if this woman will be able to win any damages, it's good to see her fighting back against what appears to be an abuse of power.

Filed Under: lawsuits, links, sheboygan

Bus Company Tries To Shut Down Online Carpooling Service

from the why,-that's-illegal! dept

Carpooling is exactly the sort of thing that is perfect for a web app -- to match up potential drivers and riders -- but apparently it makes bus companies upset. A Canadian bus company has actually gone so far to try to shut down an online carpool matching service, claiming that it's illegal. The bus company actually had someone go and test out the carpool service, and has now asked the local transportation board in Ottawa to shut down the service. Their argument is that these carpools are unregulated, and the drivers are not licensed and don't have to follow the same regulations that bus and taxi services do. Perhaps that's a reason to re-examine the regulations rather than shutting down the carpooling service, though.

Filed Under: carpools, lawsuits, protectionism, regulations

Universities Realize That The RIAA Is Taking Advantage Of Them In Lawsuits On Students

from the pushback-time dept

We never quite understood why various universities were cooperating with RIAA demands that they send "pre-litigation" letters to students accused of file sharing. These non-binding letters are often used to pressure students into paying fines, even if they're based on weak (at best) evidence of file sharing. It certainly wasn't in any university's best interests to basically help out a private organization in a business model dispute with its students. Yet, some university officials, falsely convinced by the RIAA that this was more than a business model dispute, decided to help out. And the response? The RIAA has increased the flood of notices, and then convinced Congress to move forward on legislation that would legally obligate universities to act as the RIAA's copyright cops.

It appears that more and more universities are realizing that they got shafted. The EFF points out that there's widespread anger among university officials who felt they were trying to find a middle ground by cooperating, but instead find themselves swamped with more and more notifications and this new legislation that increases their legal liability over a business model dispute. And, the worst part? Now that they're pushing back in court, the RIAA points out that dealing with these notices before wasn't a burden, so universities aren't being truthful that they're now a burden. How's that for a thank you for helping out originally?

If it hasn't become clear by now, the RIAA doesn't view universities as partners in all of this -- and any university that thinks of the RIAA as a partner is about to get steamrolled by the RIAA legal machine. It's time that more universities stood up not just for their own rights, but the rights of their students as well not to be targeted by questionable "pre-litigation" threat letters without more significant evidence. And, it wouldn't help for the RIAA to finally recognize that this entire battle has done nothing to deal with the real issue: its own inability to recognize that its business model needs to change.

Filed Under: copyright, lawsuits, music, riaa, universities

Who Can You Sue When It's Your Own Copy Protection That Hurt Your Reputation?

from the sue-everyone! dept

Video game maker Ubisoft has a rather long history of employing crappy DRM (and then even using someone else's code to crack their DRM when it caused problems for legitimate customers). However, this latest story involving a Ubisoft copy protection scheme may be the most bizarre. Chris Gruel writes in to let us know that Ubisoft is suing the CD duplicator firm it used to produce the video game Assassin's Creed, claiming that employees from that firm were responsible for the game leaking to the internet. It appears they have pretty good evidence that this did, in fact, happen (the leak was traced to an IP address controlled by an employee of the firm, and a copy of the game was found at that employee's home). So you can understand why they'd be upset about that (though, they had to realize that it would be pirated eventually).

However, here's where the story gets bizarre. Because Ubisoft was afraid that this might happen, the pre-release copy it sent to the CD duplicator included (on purpose!) a bug that would crash the game partway through. That was the copy that the employee leaked, so Ubisoft is complaining that this leak harmed their reputation, because people claimed the game was really buggy and crashed. Try to keep this straight in your mind here. Ubisoft put their own (crude, yes) DRM on the game because they were afraid it would leak. The game was leaked, and the DRM acted exactly as intended, and thus Ubisoft's reputation was harmed.

It makes you shake your head in wonder.

If Ubisoft had not included this DRM, then it would apparently have less to complain about. Thus, I think the only logical conclusion is that Ubisoft should be suing itself for including such damaging DRM on its own pre-release copies of Assassin's Creed.

Filed Under: copy protection, drm, lawsuits, leaks, reputation, video games
Companies: ubisoft

When Laws Can't Keep Up With Technology: Future Lawsuits To Worry About

from the well,-it'll-keep-the-lawyers-busy dept

We were just talking about how copyright law has been unable to keep up with technology changes, but that's not the only law that rapidly changing technology is already impacting. As the pace of technology innovation continues to increase, things are only going to get even more troublesome -- leading to all sorts of legal conundrums to deal with. Parker Mason alerts us to a post at Science Fiction blog io9, which tries to predict five future lawsuits that are likely to come about as a result of certain technology advances. These involve questions about things from the liability of artificial intelligence to the privacy of your thoughts due to brain scanning. If you want one sure thing, it's that there will be no shortage of work for lawyers.

Filed Under: lawsuits, regulations, technology

Admitted Patent Troll Finds The Phrase 'Shell Entity' Offensive

from the oh-really? dept

You may recall last year that we wrote about a patent lawsuit where the judge banned the use of the word "patent troll." That seemed reasonable enough, since it's clearly a negatively loaded phrase. However, it looks like some patent attorneys are trying to go even further with that concept. Ray Niro, in defending Scott Harris (who, you may recall, licensed his own patents to be used in lawsuits against his own firms' clients), is demanding that the phrase "shell entities" not be used either, claiming that they, too, are used negatively. That's because, like so many patent holders these days, Harris used shell companies to hold the patents and to sue companies. Of course, "shell entities" is a descriptive term, not one that is clearly designed as an insult like "patent troll."

Besides, this seems quite rich, coming in defense of Harris, who used to own the website ImAPatentTroll.com. And, indeed, the lawyers on the other side of the case wasted no time in pointing this out:

Additionally, the Motion to Strike asserts that the term 'shell entity' is synonymous, in this context, with the term "patent troll." Significantly, Mr. Harris, even while at Fish & Richardson, sponsored a website, imapatenttroll.com, in which he proudly and openly referred to himself as a "patent troll." Truth is an absolute defense.

Separately, it is also rather amusing to see patent system defenders get upset about the phrase "patent trolls" when they're so quick to refer to any sort of patent reform as "patent deform", companies in favor of patent reform "The Piracy Coalition," while, of course, insisting that any individual in favor of patent reform a "shill."

Filed Under: lawsuits, offensive words, patent trolls, patents, ray niro, scott harris, shell entity

Ray Beckerman Picks Apart RIAA Lawsuits For Judges' Benefit

from the nice-work dept

Ray Beckerman, as you may already know, is a lawyer in New York who not only has defended numerous people against RIAA lawsuits, but also runs the Recording Industry vs. The People blog, where he chronicles what's going on in these cases. While I believe he sometimes pushes the envelope too far in his claims about what the RIAA is doing, there's no denying that he's been a tremendous force in shining some much needed light on some of the RIAA's more questionable activities, while also helping those who are severely outgunned in various lawsuits.

As numerous folks have sent in, Beckerman has now also written up something of a primer for judges in The Judge's Journal, a publication of the American Bar Association targeted at judges. It basically explains the many problems with the way the RIAA conducts its lawsuits, noting how it often uses questionable means, weak evidence and general bullying tactics in filing its cases. It also relies on the fact that it comes off as more credible than an individual (often defending themselves -- sometimes in jurisdictions far from home). Beckerman highlights all of the problems with the way the RIAA runs its cases, and makes a series of quite reasonable suggestions for judges in how to handle such cases should they show up in court. It's a good guide, that also highlights many of the underhanded tactics that the RIAA uses in filing its cases. It's well worth a read if you haven't seen it elsewhere.

If I have one complaint, it's the same one I leveled against John Duffy recently. While the article does mention Beckerman's website, it does not mention that he represents many clients against the RIAA (including in ongoing trials). That would appear to be something of a conflict of interest, in that he's making a bunch of suggestions for how judges should basically side with his arguments in those cases. I guess I'm learning that such "disclosures" are generally not considered necessary in the legal community.

Filed Under: judges, lawsuits, ray beckerman, riaa

Scrabulous Shuts Itself Down On Facebook

from the too-bad dept

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Following Hasbro's decision to finally actually sue over Scrabulous (though, of course, it waited until it had its own competing game first), the guys behind Scrabulous have shut off access to the game on Facebook for users in the US and Canada. Outside of those countries you can still play it -- or you can go directly to the Scrabulous website itself. Or, of course, you can go use Hasbro's version of Scrabble, though, as the report notes, it doesn't seem to be working very well. And, without any competition, Hasbro doesn't have that much incentive to make sure it gets much better.

Filed Under: intellectual property, lawsuits, promotions, scrabble, scrabulous

Italy Wants To Put Google Execs In Jail Over Uploaded Video

from the punish-whoever dept

Sometimes you hear about lawsuits that are so bizarre and so wrongheaded, you just have to shake your head and wonder what people are thinking. For example, take this news that Italian prosecutors are preparing to file criminal charges against four Google execs. Why? Not for anything Google, as a company, did. Or anything those executives actually did. But, because four kids filmed themselves taunting a disabled boy in a classroom and that film was uploaded to Google. The four kids in question are also facing criminal charges -- which is perfectly reasonable.

But under what distorted sense of justice does one somehow have to have to think that Google executives also deserve criminal charges over this event?

The fact that the video was uploaded to Google gave the prosecutors the evidence necessary to go after the kids in question. Google, itself, had no proactive role in uploading the video. Neither Google, nor the executives in question, had anything to do with the video whatsoever. In fact, Google took the video down within hours of being alerted to it. It serves no viable purpose under any justice system whatsoever to charge Google executives for the content in the video. The report notes that the kids in the video hit the disabled boy with a pack of tissues as well. I would think that the tissue company has just as much, if not more, responsibility for the video than Google. Will we soon see charges against its execs as well?

Filed Under: italy, lawsuits, liability, online video
Companies: google

Hasbro Sues Scrabulous For Making Scrabble Popular Again

from the don't-you-ever-do-that-again dept

For months, Hasbro and Mattel had been threatening the makers of Scrabulous with a lawsuit for daring to do what the gaming companies had been unwilling to do: make a fun version of Scrabble available on Facebook in a way that got many people playing the game on a regular basis. It took nearly 9 months, but Hasbro finally put a version of Scrabble on Facebook itself, and now that it's up has finally officially filed the lawsuit.

It's rather telling that Hasbro waited until its own version was online to file the lawsuit. What the company is basically admitting is that Scrabulous was a great promotional vehicle for Scrabble (otherwise why leave it up?), but now that Hasbro is competing with Scrabulous online, it wants to cut out that competition. Hasbro's General Counsel is being quite misleading in saying: "Hasbro has an obligation to act appropriately against infringement of our intellectual properties." That's not quite true. There is no "obligation" to sue someone who made your game popular again just because you were late to the game.

Scrabulous showed Hasbro that there was a huge market for their game. There was no indication that Hasbro had any interest in Scrabble for Facebook prior to Scrabulous' success.

Then there's this bizarre quote from Hasbro's GM of digital initiatives: "Hasbro has always had the same two priorities. One is to offer a great playing authentic game for fans and the second is to protect our intellectual property. This was theft of I.P., plain and simple." Really? Your second biggest priority is to protect your IP? Then why did you wait all this time to sue? Clearly there was a benefit in leaving Scrabulous up while your own version was being developed. Clearly the comparison to "theft" is incorrect. No one would let "theft" go on for months on end before suing, just so they could create their own competitive offering.

The Scrabulous/Hasbro situation is a perfect example of Matt Mason's thesis that "piracy" is almost never about "theft." It's almost always a market indicator that the market is unhappy with what's being offered. It's the market showing companies what they want.

Filed Under: intellectual property, lawsuits, promotions, scrabble, scrabulous
Companies: facebook, hasbro