Laws of .com

Volume VII, Issue 8: April 23, 2009

Pirate Bay Verdict A Win For Copyright Owners

Apple Sued for Patent Infringement in U.S.

Europe Orders ISPs to Record Emails and Telephone Calls

The U.S. Declines to Classify the Use of Proxy Servers as “Sophisticated”

Microsoft Ordered to Pay US$388 Million in Patent Dispute

AOL Seeks Court Decision on Yahoo Patents

Pirate Bay Verdict A Win For Copyright Owners

In what could be the most important peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing decision since the Grokster case, a Swedish court has found the four co-founders of the website, “The Pirate Bay”, guilty of assisting the distribution of copyrighted content. The co-founders were sentenced to a year in jail and fined 30 million kronor (US$3.5 million).

The Pirate Bay, a popular website attracting more than 22 million users on an average day, allows users to search for and download so-called “.torrent” files, which do not contain any media themselves but instead contain instructions for downloading particular media from other peers on the Internet using a file sharing technology known as BitTorrent. The vast majority of the .torrent files indexed by The Pirate Bay were for pirated material.

The case against the website owners was brought by a consortium of multinational media, film and music companies led by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. During the trial, the defendants unsuccessfully mounted the now familiar and often discredited defence that that they could not be found guilty of copyright infringement, as they did not host any media files themselves, but instead merely provided links to .torrent files located elsewhere on the Internet. Media industry representatives applaud the judgment and believe that it will reverberate internationally, as The Pirate Bay was the largest site of its kind worldwide. Others point out that these cases do little to stifle piracy, as there are always more file sharing services springing up to take the place of those that are shut down, and argue that a long term solution to the problem of infringement on the Internet requires a paradigm shift in the way copyright is understood by the media industry and the public alike. The Pirate Bay is appealing the verdict. No injunction has been issued against The Pirate Bay, and the site remains active as of this writing.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/apr/17/the-pirate-bay-trial-guilty-verdict
http://tinyurl.com/PirateBay0
http://tinyurl.com/PirateBay1

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Apple Sued for Patent Infringement in U.S.

Elan Microelectronics Corporation has filed an action in the United States District Court for Northern California, seeking damages for patent infringement and an injunction prohibiting Apple’s use of Elan’s patents in various Apple products. Elan’s patents cover the touch sensitive human interface components for which the iPhone is widely known, and which appears in other Apple products. The first patent at issue relates to the detection of multiple fingers on the screen, and the other deals with touchpads that switch input modes.

The parties had been in discussions over licensing these technologies, but when negotiations broke down, Elan started its lawsuit. In 2008 Elan settled a lawsuit with Synaptics Inc. over the use of its touchpads, which are also enabled for multiple finger input. Prior to the settlement, a court had found that Elan’s multiple finger input patent was valid.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.ag-ip-news.com/GetArticle.asp?Art_ID=6984&lang=en

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Europe Orders ISPs to Record Emails and Telephone Calls

Beginning in early April, 2009, European Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) are required to keep records of emails and online phone calls under controversial new government regulations. The initiative, which is seen to be a potential tool to aid criminal investigations, will require that ISPs store details of emails and Internet telephone calls for a minimum of twelve months. While the content of emails and calls will not be held, ISPs will be asked to record the date, time, duration and recipients of online communications.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/apr/06/internet-data-storage

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The U.S. Declines to Classify the Use of Proxy Servers as “Sophisticated”

The United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) recently considered a series of amendments to the federal sentencing guidelines for judges that were proposed by the United States Justice Department. Where there is evidence of “sophistication” in planning certain types of crimes, such as embezzlement and forgery, the sentencing guidelines instruct judges to increase sentences by about twenty-five percent. The proposed amendments would have deemed the use of proxy servers as evidence of sophistication where used to mask a criminal’s identity. Internet users can hide behind proxy servers to mask their identity, which is otherwise generally known according to unique Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.

The USSC decided that the use of proxy servers when committing a crime is not necessarily evidence of sophistication that should attract increased sentences.

Although the USSC declined to comment on its reasons, it may have considered the fact that many people do not realize that proxy servers are facilitating their Internet communication, while people who do choose to use proxy servers, whether for personal safety reasons or otherwise, can do so relatively easily, without requiring any sort of “sophistication”.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.ussc.gov/
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090415/ap_on_hi_te/tec_punishing_proxies

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Microsoft Ordered to Pay US$388 Million in Patent Dispute

The U.S. Federal Court recently reached a verdict in the case of Uniloc USA, Inc., et al v. Microsoft Corp., et al, deciding in favour of Uniloc and ordering Microsoft to pay damages of US$388 million. The jury found that Microsoft infringed Uniloc’s patent, which covers certain security software that Microsoft has been using to prevent unlicensed use of its Windows XP operating system and various Office applications. Microsoft intends to appeal the ruling, which was finally rendered six years after the claim was initially filed. The damages award is one of the largest on record for patent law disputes.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25341170-5013040,00.html

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AOL Seeks Court Decision on Yahoo Patents

AOL LLC, a New York-based global Internet services and media company operated by Time Warner, has recently asked a U.S. federal court to rule that it is not infringing certain patents held by Yahoo Inc., a California-based Internet services company. In the last several years, Yahoo has alleged that Quigo Technologies, Inc., an online advertising company owned by AOL, has infringed up to seven of Yahoo’s patents. Up until March 26, 2009, AOL and Yahoo had sought to settle such claims but had been unsuccessful. The dispute over patents had continued through AOL’s discussions with Yahoo on a potential combination, following Microsoft Corporation’s attempted $47.5 billion acquisition of Yahoo. Recent reports indicate that Yahoo and Microsoft are now in partnership discussions in connection with their search advertising businesses.

For additional information, visit:
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE53D76R20090414?sp=true

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