LEGAL INSIGHTS AND NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN INTERNET LAW & ONLINE BUSINESS

In certain circles, Tesla Motors is the new darling of the automotive industry – and those circles don’t take kindly when detractors trash their “Great Battery Hope.” So when New York Times reporter, John Broder, penned and published a less than flattering column about a Tesla Model S test drive, the blogosphere perked up and chimed in. Who was right? Would Tesla sue the NTY for defamation even though a UK court recently ruled against them? Below is the whole story.
Elon Musk is part Steve Jobs, part Sir Richard Branson and part Henry Ford. Evidence: back in the day, the [...]

Sadly, Aaron Swartz recently took his own life. An oppressive federal lawsuit, over a victim-less crime, is thought to be the true impetus for his death. If Swartz had lost the suit, it would’ve meant a multi-decade prison sentence for the computer genius.
To ensure nobody else in Aaron’s position feels forced to make the same ultimate sacrifice, Rep. Zoe Lofgren wants to change the law. The congresswoman from California introduced Aaron’s Law, an amendment to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Aaron’s Story: Genius with a Yen for Information
Ever used an RSS feed? You can thank Aaron Swartz for that. As [...]

Will 2013 be the year that the Supreme Court of the United States accepts an illegal music downloading case? If K.A.D. Camara has anything to say about it, then “yes,” it will be. For about five years, K.A.D. Camara has represented Jammie Thomas-Rasset, a music “pirate” sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for illegally obtaining – via the Internet – 24 songs. After years of litigation, Camara filed a writ of certiorari, with hopes that the highest court in the land will debate and decide on whether or not the financial awards handed down in illegal downloading lawsuits are [...]

On June 9th, 2010, Gawker.com ran a story about Andrew Auernheimer (a.k.a., weev) and Daniel Spitler (a.k.a., JacksonBrown), two hackers from the Goatse Security team (GoatSec). Five weeks after Apple’s 3G-enabled iPad was released, Auernheimer and Spitler uncovered a gaping security hole, singular to the 3-G hardware, which exposed personally identifiable information of AT&T customers.
Last week, one of the bug hunters was convicted on one count of conspiring to access a computer without authorization – a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) — and one count of fraud. To add insult to injury, his former hacking partner [...]

Do you think IBM’s WATSON, the super-genius computer who kicked Ken Jennings’ butt on Jeopardy, should be allowed to sue if someone tries to copy the code that informs its artificial intelligence? What about your family roomba, should it be illegal to kick it around? How about DATA from Star Trek TNG, do you think that he, though technically an android, should have the right to file legal claims?
MIT researcher, Kate Darling, recently presented a study on this very subject. She explored whether or social robots should be granted the same legal protections as humans. Now, you may be thinking, [...]