LEGAL INSIGHTS AND NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN INTERNET LAW & ONLINE BUSINESS

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 [...]

“Tokyo Cougar Creampies” is the adult film that Doe 2,057 was allegedly accused of downloading illegally; the rub is that Doe 2,057 is blind and doesn’t make a point of downloading pornos. “To be honest, it’s a little ridiculous. My movie-watching ability is nonexistent. My kids watch movies, but they are 4 and 6, so they don’t watch porn either. Well, hopefully they don’t,” he explained.
Sigh. Yet another example of why the on-going witch-hunt for online copyright infringers is ill-conceived.
On The War Path For BitTorrent Abusers
In March 2010, the lawfirm of Dunlop, Grubb and Weaver unleashed their [...]

Head’s up, movie downloaders! Authorities are on another copyright infringement war path, and they’re in search of bittorrent abusers. According to a report by TorrentFreak.com, so far in 2011, over 200,000 people in the United States have been sued for sharing protected materials online.
ED2 network users were hit particularly hard — over 1,200 of them got caught downloading The Hurt Locker. Violators received a letter in the mail; the violation notification presented two options: 1) pay a $2,500 dollar fine now and all is forgiven, or 2) go to court and prove you did not violate copyright laws. The letter [...]