21 posts tagged with legal and lawsuits (View popular tags)
Tube Wars: A new front opens as the IFPI [think global RIAA] threatens imminent legal war with ISP's.
posted on Jan 17, 2007 - View this thread
Doctors suing patients Are you angry and upset because of what a doctor did or did not do during a medical procedure? Did you express your anger online? Now doctors are suing patients for expressing their anger online.
posted on Sep 17, 2005 - View this thread
10 most bizarre employment cases of 2004 - At least two of these cases were previously discussed on Mefi. (1), (2)
posted on Apr 30, 2005 - View this thread
U.S.Businesses File Four Times More Lawsuits Than Private Citizens [...]The report also found that businesses and their attorneys were 69 percent more likely than individual tort plaintiffs and their attorneys to be sanctioned by federal judges for filing frivolous claims or defenses. The report, Frequent Filers: Corporate Hypocrisy in Accessing the Courts, is available by clicking here.
“Corporations think America is too litigious only when they are on the receiving end of a lawsuit,” said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen. “But when they feel aggrieved, businesses are far more likely to take their beef to court than are consumers.”[...] more
posted on Oct 10, 2004 - View this thread
California bill to ease "move aways" by custodial parents pulled. Until a recent CA Supreme Court decision, it was easy for custodial parents to move themselves and their children far from their ex-spouse. The Court reversed the old rule and held that the move could be blocked if the non-custodial parent could show that it would interfere with his/her relationship with the kids. Legislation to reimpose the old permissive standard passed through the State Senate, but has now been pulled off the legislative calendar after an outcry by father's rights groups.
posted on Aug 18, 2004 - View this thread
Don't kill p2p because of a few bad eggs Peer-to-peer networks can be used for legal or illegal purposes. So can the telephone, a newspaper or a church's bulletin board. People are responsible for their own actions and there are laws designed to prosecute people for illegal actions.
The legal uses of P2P are rarely heard, because they are not 'sexy' or political. P2P allows artists and listeners to connect directly. The proliferation of unique works created and distributed on the Internet is staggering.(not the best letter to the editor, but the best I could find)
Lessig and the RIAA's Matt Oppenheim This great Q&A between two very well spoken opponents in the copyright wars answers (very clearly) many of the questions that have stemmed from the ongoing erosion of the public domain by copyright law and the degradation of the music industry by file swappers. I was struck by how straight many of the answers were... a fascinating read
posted on Jun 12, 2003 - View this thread
Consumer Power! Not only can you register to join dozens of pending or proposed class action lawsuits, but you can try to convince an attorney to start a new one just for you. A welcome alternative to the Better Business Bureau or a sign of the approaching demise of Western civilization?
posted on Feb 4, 2003 - View this thread
Justice for Consumers "The owners of the KaZaA file-sharing network are suing the movie and recording industries, claiming that they don't understand the digital age and are monopolizing entertainment." Quote from article by Associated Press. I don't about you but I'm sick and tired of big businesses writing all the new laws in this country. Now maybe the people can get some justice for a change.
posted on Jan 28, 2003 - View this thread
Evil SBC acts like bully going after small sites with an absurd patent. If you've ever designed a web site with "selectors or tabs that... seem to reside in their own frame or part of the user interface" such as Metafilter's header or Amazon's tabs or c|net's yellow side bar, then your design is in violation of SBC Communication's patent number 5,933,841. Here's the abstract:
A structured document browser includes a constant user interface for displaying and viewing sections of a document that is organized according to a pre-defined structure. The structured document browser displays documents that have been marked with embedded codes that specify the structure of the document. The tags are mapped to correspond to a set of icons. When the icon is selected while browsing a document, the browser will display the section of the structure corresponding to the icon selected, while preserving the constant user interface.Armed with this patent SBC is going after web sites with a licensing fee of $100,000 to $16,000,000. Will this insanity ever stop?
Silence is Golden: A bizarre legal battle over a minute's silence in a recorded song has ended with a six-figure out-of-court settlement.
posted on Sep 23, 2002 - View this thread
Overture sues Google over ad "technology," saying Overture invented and has patented pay-for-placement on search engines, and Google's AdWords infringes on that. That strikes me as totally nuts -- how are Google ads paid search engine placement in anything but the very broadest terms? Are MeFi's TextAds next? PyRads?
posted on Apr 6, 2002 - View this thread
More from the "Watch What You Say Online" Department This Wired story mentions a fellow who badmouthed a thin-skinned company on an online forum and found himself hit with a $450,000 default judgment against him because he didn't show up in court to defend himself (he claims he had no idea he had been sued). Even those among us who might not be guilty of stealing have probably said something bad about various companies here and elsewhere. Should we all go hire a lawyer RIGHT NOW?
posted on Mar 1, 2002 - View this thread
Smoker awarded $3 billion in lawsuit. Call me crazy, but, even from an anti-tobacco standpoint, doesn't this strike anyone as a bit excessive?
posted on Jun 6, 2001 - View this thread
Network Solutions faces 'hoarding' allegations. "Networks Solutions Inc. has illegally restrained trade and willfully maintained monopoly power over expired domain names, according to a class-action lawsuit recently filed by an Alabama businessman."
posted on Oct 22, 2000 - View this thread
mp3.com ordered to pay Universal $118 million for copying CDs to the Mymp3 service, a service designed for owners of those CDs (mp3.com made distribution agreements with the other record labels trying to sue). On the flip side, Yahoo scored a deal with the RIAA to let them webcast music. It's a wacky week in online music [via davenetics].
posted on Sep 6, 2000 - View this thread
Disney found guilty of theft? The house that Walt built loses in court to a complaint that they stole an idea. Here's the backstory to the $1.5 billion dollar lawsuit.
posted on Aug 11, 2000 - View this thread
DaimlerChrysler is taking the Webmaster of DodgeViper.Com to court after he tried selling it on eBay. What gets me is that the owner of the site claims he had to defend himself, because he couldn't afford an attorney, yet he says he owns a Dodge Viper? Just another dispute on who can own what domains, and what they can do with them.
posted on Aug 3, 2000 - View this thread
Another victim falls to the tyranny of Mattel. What's really strange about this is that, to my knowledge, Barbie is a name. If someone names their kid Barbie, will they too receive a C&D from Mattel? Hmm...
Well, if you want to read the C&D its here.
posted on May 26, 2000 - View this thread
Napster throws Metallica a curveball. Napster has been pointing out to its kicked-off users a certain provision of the DMCA: If an ISP kicks a user off a service for violating copyright, that user may file a counternotification if they believe they were wrongly accused. The plaintiff (Metallica) then has 10 days to respond with a lawsuit directly against that user. If they choose not to respond, the ISP must restore the account. If enough users (among the 300,000 blocked) file counternotifications, Metallica may wish it had never begun this process.
posted on May 11, 2000 - View this thread
The Supreme Court ruled today that university student fees may go to controversial groups in order to create a "marketplace of ideas". As a member of a university student funding board (and as a member of "controversial" student groups, i.e. GLBT groups), I've been eagerly awaiting this ruling all semester. The case began in 1996 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where three students challenged the use of mandatory student fees to fund campus organizations that they had politically and idealogically objections to. For the full text of the Supremem Court decision, visit campusspeech.org.
posted on Mar 22, 2000 - View this thread
