A group of songwriters and music publishers filed a lawsuit in Tennessee against the digital-music service, claiming Grooveshark enables users to obtain music illegally and therefore is liable for copyright infringement, contributory infringement, and vicarious infringement. Grooveshark, based in Gainesville, Fla., is a service that offers free music by enabling users to post their own tracks to the site and then share them with other users.
A Bay Village, Ohio, company has sued Microsoft for allegedly infringing on its patents with the rapidly selling Kinect motion-sensing video game controller. Impulse Technology filed the suit in federal court in Delaware, accusing Microsoft and several game makers -- including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and THQ -- of violating patents related to, among other things, tracking and assessing movement skills in multidimensional space.
Google Inc. has made changes to the way its search engine displays information about local businesses, a move that follows the disclosure of a U.S. antitrust investigation of its business practices. The company said it removed snippets of customer reviews that were taken from other Web firms for its Google "Places" service, which has millions of pages for local businesses.
Rovio, the maker of the iconic mobile game Angry Birds, has been swept up in an ongoing patent war that has hit many app developers and embroiled Apple in a bitter legal exchange. Lodsys, a Texas-based patent licensing company, filed an amended complaint with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, which names a number of other big games makers including Atari, EA, and Take-Two Interactive.
A federal judge has lowered a file sharing verdict to $54,000 from $1.5 million, ruling Friday that the jury’s award “for stealing 24 songs for personal use is appalling.” The decision by U.S. District Judge Michael Davis follows the third trial in the Recording Industry Association of America’s lawsuit against Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the first file sharer to take an RIAA lawsuit to a jury trial.
A federal judge in Boston has handed Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss a setback in their legal claims to a larger portion of social network Web site Facebook. The Winklevoss twins won a $65 million cash and stock settlement with Facebook in 2008, based on their claims that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had stolen their idea for the Web site.
One of Sony Corp's insurers has asked a court to declare that it does not have to pay to defend the media and electronics conglomerate from mounting legal claims related to a massive data breach earlier this year. The dispute comes as demand soars for "cyberinsurance," with companies seeking to protect themselves against customer claims and associated costs for data and identity theft.
Google Inc. rejected an offer by Sun Microsystems Inc to pay $100 million in royalties to use Java in its development of the Android operating system before Sun was acquired by Oracle Corp., a Google lawyer said. Robert Van Nest, Google’s attorney, said at a hearing in federal court in San Francisco that the proposed $100 million three-year “all-in” deal in 2006 was for a technology partnership to jointly build Android, rather than for just a patent license.
Google is rolling out warnings to search users who might have been infected with malware. The move comes after Google noticed some unusual activity on its network while conducting routine data center maintenance.
After the arrests of at least 21 alleged hackers this week, members of the Anonymous hacker group said they stole a gigabyte of information belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In tweets, the Anonymous members said they had "breached" NATO and that they have "lots of restricted material."
Hackers are expanding their sights beyond multinationals to include any business that stores data in electronic form. Small companies, which are making the leap to computerized systems and digital records, have now become hackers' main target.
A trade group for major phone companies including Verizon and AT&T wants Congress to slap new regulations on Facebook. Walter McCormick, the president of U.S. Telecom, called on lawmakers to subject online companies that provide communications services to the same regulatory burdens as the phone industry.
Dozens of police departments nationwide are gearing up to use a tech company's already controversial iris- and facial-scanning device that slides over an iPhone and helps identify a person or track criminal suspects. The so-called "biometric" technology, which seems to take a page from TV shows like "MI-5" or "CSI," could improve speed and accuracy in some routine police work in the field.
Rates for cybersecurity insurance edged lower in the last few months despite surging demand, as heavy competition brewed among insurers rushing into the market in search of the next profitable product, insurance brokers Marsh said. A series of high-profile data breaches at companies including Sony Corp and Citigroup have drawn sudden attention to "cyberinsurance," which covers everything from the cost of notifying customers their data has been breached to the cost of defending against those customers' lawsuits.
Japan, Taiwan and the United States accused the European Union of failing to abolish taxes on some electronic hardware imports, despite being told to do so by the World Trade Organization, sources said. The three countries launched a complaint against the EU three years ago, saying the bloc had broken the global Information Technology Agreement by putting import duties on flat-panel displays, television set-top boxes and multifunction printer-copiers.
Eastman Kodak is shopping around its patents for digital imaging, responding to investor complaints that the photography company has failed to capitalize on red-hot demand for tech patents. Kodak said it has hired Lazard to advise on strategic options for its patents related to capturing and editing images, which represent about 10 percent of its U.S. patent portfolio.
National prosecutors released some details about four Dutch citizens arrested on suspicion of involvement in cyberattacks as part of an international sweep targeting hackers. U.S. authorities announced 14 arrests late Tuesday in connection with the loosely organized hacking group Anonymous’s December attacks on Internet payment service PayPal.
Fake Apple stores are on the rise, says BirdAbroad blogger, a 27-year-old American woman currently living in Kunming, China. She writes about a recent "Apple" discovery: "When we strolled down a street a few blocks from our house a couple weeks ago, I was only sort of surprised to see this new place, one that any American of my generation can probably recognize instantaneously: It's an Apple store! Or is it?"
Adobe Systems and EchoSign, the electronic signatures company it acquired, were sued by RPost, another electronic signature services company, for alleged infringement of five of its patents relating to electronic signature services. RPost, which said it was in discussions with Adobe before its acquisition of EchoSign, for "a collaborative product alliance," has asked the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division to issue an injunction against Adobe to prevent further damages.
Aaron Swartz, a 24-year-old programmer and online political activist, has been indicted in Boston on charges that he stole more than four million documents from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and JSTOR, an archive of scientific journals and academic papers. Mr. Swartz, a well-known figure in Internet academic circles, created a site called Infogami that later merged with the social news site Reddit.
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The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.