Breaking Digital Media Law News

Warner’s $33M Bid for Midway Games Close To Being Approved

Authored by Jay Baage on July 2, 2009 - 7:41am.
Chicago – Warner Bros. (NYSE: TWX) $33 million bid to buy "substantially all" the assets of Midway Games (NYSE: MWY) looks like its close to being approved. A Delaware bankruptcy judge said Wednesday that the objections to the Warner Bros. deal were resolved, clearing the way for the company to change owners, according to Chicago Tribune.

MCS Music Files Copyright Suit Against Yahoo, Microsoft, Real

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 1, 2009 - 7:24am.
Nashville, Tenn. - MCS Music America, a company that provides administration and manages copyrights for some 45,000 music tracks, has filed copyright infringement claims against Yahoo (NASD: YHOO), Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) and RealNetworks (NASD: RNWK), alleging the companies did not obtain all the proper permissions for using its tracks on their service, Techdirt reported. On its website, MCS Music America says it administers copyrights for artists including Elvis Presley, Tina Turner, Mariah Carey, Metallica and Moby, among others.

RIAA Wins Copyright Judgment Against Usenet.com

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 1, 2009 - 6:00am.
Los Angeles - The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced on Wednesday that a federal court has ruled in its favor in a copyright infringement lawsuit it filed against Usenet.com. According to CNET's coverage, U.S. District Judge Harold Baer of the Southern District of New York found Usenet.com -- which offers access to the twenty-year-old Usenet network -- guilty of direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement.

Insider Trading Probe Launched on Pirate Bay Buyer

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 1, 2009 - 8:24am.
Stockholm, Sweden - An investigation has been launched into suspected insider trading of shares in Sweden-based Global Gaming Factory, following irregular volume was seen a week before the company acquired file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay for $7.8 million, TorrentFreak reported.

Former NCAA Players Sue EA Over Likenesses in Football Games

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on July 1, 2009 - 8:01am.
Los Angeles - A number of former college football players have filed suit against Electronic Arts (NASD: ERTS), alleging the company included their likenesses in its "NCAA Football" video games without permission, GamePolitics reported.

White House Launches New Site to Track Federal IT Spending

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 30, 2009 - 8:32am.
Washington - The White House on Tuesday launched USASpending.gov, a new web site designed to inform visitors about how the federal government is spending money on information technology projects. Speaking at a forum in New York Tuesday morning, Vivek Kundra, the federal chief information officer, said that although information on the site already was publicly available, the site's new "dashboard" format is designed to make it much easier to understand. The site, available at the link below, features information on nearly 7,000 federal IT investments.

Will Pirate Bay Be Successful As A Legit Music Downloading Service?

Authored by Jay Baage on June 30, 2009 - 6:59am.

China Bans Trading in Virtual Currency, 'Gold Farming'

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 30, 2009 - 6:47am.
Shanghai, China - The Chinese government has announced new limits on the use of virtual currency, in a move intended in part to curtail the practice of "gold farming," where people in poorer countries play online games and collect virtual gold which is then sold to rich players in other countries.

Report: Jammie Thomas-Rasset Rejects RIAA Settlement Offer

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 30, 2009 - 6:10am.
Los Angeles - Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the woman recently found guilty of copyright infringement on a file-sharing network and ordered to pay $1.9 million in damages, has rejected a settlement offer from the record labels, CNET News.com reported.

RIAA P2P Case Tally in Court Brief Differs With Estimates

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 29, 2009 - 10:49am.
Boston - The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) said in court documents filed this month that it had settled with 4,000 of the 18,000 people it contacted about their alleged infringements on file-sharing networks, although other estimates peg the total number of proceedings at nearly double that figure, Digital Music News reported.
tags: Law | Lawsuits | P2P | Music | RIAA | Copyright |

Supreme Court Declines Case; Cablevision DVR Remains Legal

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 29, 2009 - 6:37am.
Washington - The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal challenging the legality of Cablevision's (NYSE: CVC) network-based digital video recorder service, which the television networks and movie studios had charged amounted to copyright infringement. Unlike a TiVo, which stores recorded programs locally on a hard drive in the consumer's home, Cablevision's "remote storage" digital video recorder stores recorded programs on the company's own servers, and streams them on demand to customers.

Sirius XM Passing Music Royalty Rate Hike on to Subscribers

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 26, 2009 - 10:32am.
New York - Sirius XM (NASD: SIRI) plans to pass on higher royalty rates it has to pay to broadcast music to its subscribers in the U.S., in the form of a $1.98 per month fee increase for primary subscriptions and $0.97 per month fee for multi-receiver subscriptions, SiriusXMNews reported.
tags: Law | Policy | Music | Copyright | CRB | Sirius XM |

Apple Sued Over iTunes Gift Cards, Price Hike to $1.29 Songs

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 26, 2009 - 8:39am.
San Francisco - Apple (NASD: AAPL) has been sued for breach of contract and consumer fraud by two Illinois residents, who claim the company misled them by marketing its gift cards for the iTunes Store as redeemable for 99-cent songs, when in fact some songs now cost $1.29 each, CNET News.com reported.

Senate Confirms Julius Genachowski as New FCC Chairman

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 26, 2009 - 8:05am.
Washington - Julius Genachowski late Thursday was unanimously confirmed by the Senate as the new chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), three months after his nomination by President Obama. Genachowski, a former classmate of Obama's at Harvard Law School, served as a top technology advisor during the campaign.

Swedish Court Rejects Bias Charges Against Pirate Bay Judge

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 25, 2009 - 7:57am.
Stockholm, Sweden - A Swedish appellate court has rejected charges from the administrators of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay that the judge who found them guilty of copyright infringement was biased because of his ties to several pro-copyright groups, Ars Technica reported. Judge Tomas Norström is a member of the Swedish Copyright Association, and sits on the board of the Swedish Association for the Protection of Industrial Property, which the Pirate Bay administrators charged would bias him in the case against them.

Former Discovery Holdings Head to Pay $1.4M in FTC Settlement

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 24, 2009 - 7:59am.
Silver Spring, Md. - John Malone, the former chairman and CEO of Discovery Communications parent Discovery Holding, will pay $1.4 million as part of a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over allegations that he purchased company shares last year before the expiration of a waiting period required by law.

France's Sarkozy Reaffirms Commitment to 'Three-Strikes' Policy

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 23, 2009 - 10:51am.
Paris - During the first presidential address to France's Parliament in 150 years, Nicolas Sarkozy expressed frustration at the country's highest court's decision to disallow the disconnection of repeat file-swappers' accounts, and said he intends to "go all the way" in regard to a "three-strikes" policy, TorrentFreak reported.

"Mafia Wars" Game Maker Zynga Sues "Mobsters" Maker Playdom

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 23, 2009 - 8:08am.
San Francisco - Zynga, a developer of online games for social media, has filed suit against rival Playdom over ads the company placed for its "Mobsters" game on Facebook, arguing that they are misleading consumers interested in its own "Mafia Wars" title, PaidContent reported.

German Court Orders RapidShare to Proactively Filter Songs

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 23, 2009 - 6:52am.
Berlin - A German court has sided with copyright society GEMA against free file-hosting service Rapidshare, which must now monitor its site to ensure that some 5,000 songs are not posted for distribution on its servers, Billboard reported.

Pirate Party Gets Seat in Germany's Parliament

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on June 22, 2009 - 12:30pm.
Los Angeles - Following the election of a member of Sweden's Pirate Party to the European Parliament, Germany's PiratenPartei has gained its own seat in the German Federal Parliament, TorrentFreak reported. Citing "concerns about Internet censorship," Jorg Tauss -- who has been a member of Germany's parliament since 1994 -- left the Social Democrats Party to join the German Pirate Party.