The second of two GPS trackers found recently on the vehicle of a young man in California. All nine justices of the Supreme Court ruled on Monday that police officers violated the Fourth Amendment rule against unreasonable search and seizure when they attached a GPS device to a suspect's car and tracked it for 28 days without a warrant[......]
Archive for the ‘Policy & Law’ Category
For more than a year, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America have argued that existing laws were insufficient to deal with the problem of "rogue sites" hosted overseas. They've been pushing bills like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act as essential weapons in the fight[......]
Some filesharing sites are reining in their services in the aftermath of the recent high-profile shutdown of Megaupload. FileSonic has disabled all file sharing functionality on its website, restricting access so that users may only download their own files. Megaupload was a popular file locker service that allowed users to upload files and share them with other users[......]
Sen. Al Franken (D-Hollywood) A striking trend in Congress's reaction to Wednesday's protests against the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act was the partisan divide in the Senate. At least 16 Republican Senators—more than a third of all GOP members in the body— declared their opposition to PIPA for the first time on Wednesday. [......]
It was big week on the Internet. Many popular sites spent an entire day protesting SOPA, which resulted in both it and PIPA being put on life support. Good job, Internet! Megaupload was also taken down by the feds, leaving us wondering why we really need a law like SOPA[......]
The Megaupload takedown , and the arrest of its key employees, might seem to vindicate late 1990s worries about the Internet and jurisdiction. Does putting a site on the 'Net, though it might be hosted anywhere in the world, subject you simultaneously to the laws of every country on earth? Why would Megaupload, based in Hong Kong, be subject to US copyright laws and to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act[......]
The Rapidshare booth at the Leipzig Games Convention While customers of Megaupload, both legitimate and otherwise, try to figure out where to turn next, other file sharing companies are ready to step up to fill in the gaps—at least for legal uses. And RapidShare , the next largest "digital locker" service, claims to be unconcerned about the MegaUpload case's precedent. [......]
By taking Megaupload offline and charging its leaders with criminal activity , the feds are hoping to drive purveyors of illegally distributed copyrighted content out of business. But in doing so, they've also eliminated a service that was used by many to share files acquired and distributed in a perfectly legal manner. [......]
The federal government's 72-page indictment of file hosting site Megaupload is stuffed with odd bits of information. Take page 34, for instance, which features a single paragraph about Google's AdSense program. [......]
Another NinjaVideo admin, 24-year old Matthew David Howard Smith, was just sentenced to 14 months in prison and must pay $172,387. Read More: The first NinjaVideo sentence Read the comments on this post [......]
Just hours after Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) announced he was delaying a vote on the PROTECT IP Act , Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), the sponsor of the Stop Online Piracy Act, followed suit and announced he would be delaying consideration of the companion legislation . [......]
Former speaker Newt Gingrich The swelling coalition against the Stop Online Piracy Act gained three new members on Thursday night: Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum. The fourth debate participant, Rep[......]
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) is putting the PROTECT IP Act on hold. [......]
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) The PROTECT IP Act continued to suffer serious blows on Thursday as both the Senate Majority Leader and the Senate Minority Leader made moves that further damaged the anti-piracy bill's chances of passage. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will not seek to use his leverage over other Democrats to ensure the Protect IP Act gets enough votes to overcome a filibuster. [......]
