BitTorrent administrator convicted by DOJ

USDOJ: The Department of Justice announced its first peer-to-peer conviction on Friday. Daniel Dove, 26, got the first criminal conviction after jury trial for P2P copyright infringement. He was an administrator of EliteTorrents.org, which had a staff of elite “Uploaders” with fast connections who provided material for download. His is the eighth plea or conviction under DOJ’s Operation D-Elite, a federal crackdown against the illegal distribution of copyrighted movies, software, games and music over P2P networks using BitTorrent.

Voluntary code for European bloggers?

New Europe: A report from the European Parliament’s Culture Committee calls for a voluntary code for bloggers to identify the authors’ interests, clarify their legal status and provide an ombudsman, to allay fears of bloggers’ potential malice or misinformation. The author of the report, an Estonian Socialist, said, “We do not see the bloggers as a threat. They are in position, however, to considerably pollute cyberspace. We already have too much spam, misinformation and malicious intent in cyberspace.” Get the draft of the report here.

Editorial: The report is not long (8 pages, 6 if you take off the title page and table of contents), and it doesn’t contain much to get too hyped up about, with one exception. In among all the “whereases” is a small section: “It [European Parliament] recommends clarification of the legal status of different categories of weblog authors and publishers as well as disclosure of interests and voluntary labelling of weblogs.” It’s one thing if it’s voluntary — another if mandated. And what kinds of categories did the Parliament or the author have in mind? Cooking vs. sewing, or more like liberal vs. conservative?

Would a non-voluntary categorizing scheme for bloggers fly in the U.S.? I doubt it.

Using Google to determine community standards for obscenity

NYT: A Florida defense attorney plans to use Google to demonstrate that “community standards”  include what the neighbors are surfing — orgies as well as recipes, dildoes as well as car prices. The attorney plans to suggest that what his client is providing is no worse than what his community is searching for.

Editorial: This approach is not that much different from a law review article from some years back that suggested that the best way to determine the community standard of the Internet for purposes of obscenity prosecutions was to, well, survey it. Focus the survey on a particular area rather than the Internet as a whole, and there’s the Florida attorney’s approach. The law review author wrote, “Survey data may well be the best way to assess community standards, since a jury, absent such data, will likely apply a standard based on the particular beliefs of those twelve individuals.” See Rebecca Dawn Kaplan, “Cybersmut: Regulating Obscenity on the Internet,” 9 Stan. L. & Pol’y Rev. 189 (1998).

SCOTUS takes ISPs’ antitrust case against AT&T

Slashdot: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case by small ISPs against AT&T alleging that AT&T charged too much for its service and squeezed them out of the market. The case is at the Supreme Court rather than the 9CA to resolve prior conflicting appeals court decisions.

2,676 plaintiffs — out of millions who bought Grand Theft Auto

NYT: Rockstar Games has reached a settlement in a class-action suit against their 2004 game “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.” A class-action suit could entice only 2,676 plaintiffs from the millions who bought the game. Lawyers’ fees will dwarf the settlement reached with Rockstar Games and its parent company, Take-Two Interactive.

The “Hot Coffee” minigame lets the main character improve a relationship with any of his girlfriends through their offers for him to come to their places for “coffee.” The Entertainment Software Rating Board, in charge of assigning ratings to video games, reclassified GTA: SA in 2005 with an “adults only” rating.

Editorial: Shouldn’t parents who buy their kids games rated “adults only” expect more than mere stomping of pedestrians and fragging of prostitutes and cops?

“Naked Cowboy” can sue Mars for TM infringement

CNN: Robert John Burck, the Naked Cowboy, is free to sue Mars, maker of M&Ms, for trademark infringement for ads that featured M&Ms dressed as he is — white cowboy boots, hat, and tightie-whities.

 

Burck has trademarked his look. Read comments at Law Blog, read the PDF of Judge Denny Chin’s decision at NYT City Room. 

Keeping me accountable

This is, I figure, a good a way as any other way to keep things organized and timely. Wish me luck.