• Cyberlocker Loses Fight With Studios
    The Motion Picture Association of America reportedly said this week that it defeated the cyberlocker Hotfile, which it accused of infringing copyright in a lawsuit filed in Florida.
  • Authors Guild Asks Judge To Reject Google's Fair-Use Claim For Books Project
    It's been eight years since The Authors Guild sued Google for digitizing books and making them searchable. Since then, the ebook world has been revolutionized by devices like the Kindle and iPad. But one thing hasn't changed: The Authors Guild still doesn't think much of Google's project. The authors' organization is now asking a judge to reject Google's argument that its books project is protected by fair-use principles.
  • Do-Not-Track Group Loses Co-Chair
    As expected, law school professor Peter Swire says he will no longer serve as co-chair of a group that's trying to develop standards to implement do-not-track requests. Swire, who was tapped by the Obama administration to examine issues surrounding surveillance by the National Security Agency, has served as co-chair of the World Wide Web Consortium's tracking protection group since last November. When he took over as co-chair, observers praised his ability to forge consensus.
  • FilmOn X Asks Appeals Court To Lift Ban On Service
    Online video service FilmOn X asked an appellate panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals today to lift an order prohibiting the company from operating on the West Coast.
  • California Could Require Some Sites To Reveal If They Comply With Do-Not-Track
    California lawmakers appear to be moving forward with a new online privacy bill that would require some Web site operators to state in their privacy policies how the site responds to do-not-track requests. State senators approved the measure (AB 370) late last week.
  • Law Professor Sues For Right To Use Clips
    A spat between Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig and Liberation Music landed in court this week, with Lessig arguing that the music company wrongly accused him of copyright infringement.
  • Privacy Groups Seek To Scuttle Google's $8.5 Million Data-Leakage Settlement
    Google's attempt to settle a privacy lawsuit by donating $8.5 million to nonprofit groups and schools should be rejected, advocacy groups argue in a letter to U.S. District Court Judge Edward Davila. The groups argue that the proposed settlement should be nixed for several reasons, but the most significant is that the deal allows Google to continue engaging in the same activity that led to the lawsuit -- leaking the names of people who use its search engine.
  • Former FCC Commissioner Bashes CBS For Web Blackout
    Time Warner Cable customers in New York, Los Angeles and Dallas haven't been able to watch CBS on television for the last three weeks -- since Aug. 2, when talks about retransmission fees broke down. That's not the only impact of the fee dispute. Time Warner broadband subscribers throughout the country can't access CBS.com, thanks to CBS's decision to pull its Web content from Time Warner's Internet service.
  • FTC Chair Says Consumers Should Be Able To Control Data Collection
    Federal Trade Commission Chair Edith Ramirez is repeating the agency's call for a universal do-not-track mechanism that would allow people to control whether data about their Web activity can be collected by marketers. "Consumers must be told who is collecting their data and what the data will be used for. And choice mechanisms must be simple and easy-to-use," Ramirez said this week in a speech given at the Tech Policy Institute Aspen Forum.
  • Will NSA Relevations Lead To A Crackdown On Data Brokers?
    Revelations about extensive surveillance by the National Security Agency should serve as a wake-up call about other types of data collection, Federal Trade Commission member Julie Brill argues in a recent op-ed.
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