The real criminals revealed?
Posted by: Jez Quigley on 28 January 2004
Following an LA court ruling Sharman Networks can now pursue its claims that the (Record) industry plaintiffs breached the End User License Agreement (EULA) for the Kazaa software by:
Using the Kazaa software to transmit and download spoofed or corrupted files.
Violating state and federal personal privacy laws and the rights of individual computer users by hacking and exploring files located on their computers.
Using the Kazaa Software's instant messenger functionality to send threatening messages to other users of Kazaa software.
ps. I don't use Kazaa, or indeed download music from the internet (except 'try before you buy' sample clips), but the arrogance and shoot themselves in the foot utter stupidity of the RIAA and BPI beggers belief.
Posted on: 28 January 2004 by Jez Quigley
And more...(from BBC news)
A Norwegian who cracked the security codes of DVDs is seeking compensation from police after twice being acquitted of computer piracy.
Jon Lech Johansen, 20, distributed a program on the internet that could break the security codes used on DVDs.
Norwegian courts ruled twice he could not be charged for "breaking" into DVDs he had legally bought, nor for creating a program others might use illegally.
Johansen's lawyer said he was seeking around 150,000 kroner (£11,970).
Johansen's first acquittal was a year ago. Police appealed to another court in the capital Oslo, but a judge ruled again in his favour last month.
Johansen had created the program, called DeCSS when he was only 15. This month prosecutor Inge Marie Sunde decided not to take an appeal to the Norwegian Supreme Court.
It was expected the case would go further because it was the first of its kind in Norway.
"What we will demand be covered is Johansen's economic losses, and court costs and what could be called compensation," lawyer Halvor Manshaus said. Johansen said he had created the program to watch movies on a Linux-based computer without DVD-viewing software. He had then posted his codes on the internet in 1999.
Johansen was charged by Norwegian police after a complaint by the Motion Picture Association of America and the DVD Copy Control Association.
Posted on: 28 January 2004 by Jez Quigley
No sooner had I posted the last one than I saw this...
Italian court delivered the first major legal defeat to Sony by ruling that PS2 (Playstation 2) modchips are legal in Italy. Modchips are hardware modifications made to the original console that allow it to play games from other regions (Sony's games are region coded, a bit like DVD movies, meaning that normally you cannot play Japanese import games on a European console, etc), allow it to play game backups, self-made programs -- and also pirated copies of PS2 games.
The court went further than just declaring modchips legal, it also said that Sony's restrictions are "absurd" and said "It's a little like Fiat marketing its cars while banning them from being driven by non-European citizens or outside towns".
The court also stated that as the product, Playstation game console, has been purchased by a consumer, Sony doesn't have any legal ways to state what consumers can or can not do with the device as the consumer owns the device, not Sony.
Posted on: 28 January 2004 by Jez Quigley
But they are not giving up...
The Recording Industry Association of America continues its aggressive legal campaign against online file swappers. Today they have filed lawsuits against yet another 532, so far unnamed individuals. The new lawsuits bring the total number of sued people up to 914.
The Recording Industry Association of America launched its largest wave of file-swapping lawsuits Wednesday, filing new copyright infringement suits against 532 currently unnamed individuals.
The suits are the industry group's first since an appeals court in December blocked its original strategy of identifying alleged file swappers before filing lawsuits by sending subpoenas to their Internet service providers. As a result, Wednesday's legal actions target hundreds of unnamed or "John Doe" computer users, whose identities will be added to the suits only after a court process likely to take several weeks.
