Author Archives: Elliot Zimmerman

In Barrett v. Rosenthal, California Supreme Court [No. S122953], the Supreme Court of California is presently reviewing a decision by the California Court of Appeal, First District, Div. Two [No. A096451], which held Illena Rosenthal, a woman’s health advocate, liable for posting a controversial opinion piece on a Usenet news group. The piece was written not by Rosenthal, but by Tim Bolen, a critic of plaintiff Terry Polevoy. Federal law provides that no provider or Continue reading Liability for CyberLibel?→

Judge William Alsup, in Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation et al. v. Does 1-12, Case No. C 04-04862 WHA in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, ruled on November 16, 2004 that plaintiffs, several movie studios, couldn’t sue several alleged “John Doe” defendant file sharers collectively in one suit. Instead, they must sue each defendant individually. Joinder of unrelated defendants violated FRCP 20 since, although the basic claim was similar, the Continue reading Movie Studios Can’t Sue File Sharers Collectively→

The U.S. has been a party to the Madrid System, which allows international registration of marks with a single application in the U.S. PTO, since November 2, 2003. The Madrid System is governed by the Madrid Protocol (1891) and WIPO. As a prerequisite to obtaining an international registration in the U.S. PTO under the Madrid System, the mark must be pending or registered in the U.S. PTO. Subsequently, international registration can be made, prosecuted and Continue reading International Trademark Protection→

Streamcast and Grokster filed a joint brief urging the Supreme Court to let the 9th Circuit’s decision stand. Read the story here.

Jeremy Jaynes, 30, and his sister Jessica DeGroot, 28, both of the Raleigh, North Carolina, area were both found guilty of three felony charges each for using phony Internet addresses to send large volumes of e-mail ads through an AOL server in Loudoun, Virginia. The jury recommended 9 years in prison for Jaynes, and $7500 in fines for DeGroot for violating Virginia’s anti-spam laws. Read the article at The Washington Post (registration required).

The Motion Picture Industry of America is getting to ready to launch a series of copyright infringement suits against illegal P2P movie file sharers. Videotaped copies of films in theaters often are digitized or burned off DVDs and then distributed on file-sharing networks accessed with software programs like eDonkey, Kazaa and Grokster. Read the article at U.S.A. Today.

Article discussing alternative paradigms for future P2P file sharing. Read the article here.

A district court in eastern Pennsylvania has issued an order forcing ISPs to first send their customers detailed notices about the subpoenas, including information about how the accused suspects can contest the subpoenas. Read the article here.

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers announced on October 18, 2004. that it has reached a 1.7 billion dollar deal with the Radio Music License Committee to let stations simulcast their on-air content over the Internet. Read the article at CNet News.

In December, 2003, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned an earlier lower-court ruling allowing the RIAA et al. to use a provision in the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 to subpoena the names of suspected P2P file sharers from Verizon, an ISP. Read that decision here. On Tuesday, October 12, 2004, the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal, letting the appellate decsision stand.