[legal] Forum Topics

Sexting is one of those words you might not have heard of if you are over a certain age. That age being 18 I would imagine. Sexting can best be defined as sending naked photos of yourself using your mobile phone to another phone or a social networking site. As …

Botnets are, without any doubt, a huge and growing problem. The technology news feeds are bursting to the seams with stories about them: how [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2838.html"]botnets boost click-fraud rates[/URL], how [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2838.html"]botnets control sex spam zombies[/URL], how the cyber-criminals are [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/23383/1231/"]building the first mobile botnet[/URL] and even how some botnet builders are …

That's what Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart is claiming as part of a federal lawsuit by the Illinois lawman. The lawsuit is seeking a ban on one part of Craigslist, namely the Erotic Services section, which is accused of acting as a clearing house for prostitution. According to [URL="http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article5856408.ece"]The Times[/URL] …

Unless you were unplugged and on living on a Himalayan mountaintop last week, you no doubt heard about the Great Facebook Flap of 2009. If not, then be sure to read [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry4008.html"]Ron Miller's excellent recap[/URL] at TechTreasures. ComputerWorld's Frank Hayes posted a great article this morning that takes a look …

I've never made it a secret that I'm a big fan of Apple products. I love my Mac Book Pro and my iPhone, but I have to say that Apple has been pissing me off lately. The company has decided to throw its legal weight around to protect its market …

The Pirate Bay is, without doubt, a huge thorn in the side of the music and movies business. As the [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3479.html"]worlds largest bittorrent tracker[/URL] with more than 3 million users and well over 20 million peers it constantly flips the bird at The Powers That Be. Even the threat of …

Yesterday I blogged about a blogger who didn't seem to realise he'd become a de facto publisher by putting his stuff on the Internet. He'd taken someone to court over a comment they'd made on his blog and - understandably - the judge considered that if he hadn't felt strongly …

I've been watching the blogosphere or whatever we're calling it with interest for a fair while now. Not because I think it's going to take over from 'proper' journalists like me; I have 20 years' experience and although this can of course be duplicated, it kind of takes 20 years. …

Under new a new law adopted in the UK, the British police are now permitted to access data stored on home computers without benefit of a search warrant. Worse yet, officers are allowed to hack into computers remotely without notifying its owner. Even though officials say these methods would only …

The time has come to drag the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) kicking and screaming into the 21st century because it clearly has a lot to learn about marketing on the internet. The RIAA had a [URL="http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/music/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212501507&subSection=Management"]good news/bad news announcement[/URL] on Friday. The good news was that it would …

Facebook can claim many things, from [URL="http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3523.html"]defeating the Nazis[/URL] to [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20914/53/"]recruiting spies[/URL] and even helping to [URL="http://www.itwire.com/content/view/20618/53/"]elect Barack Obama[/URL]. Now it can add serving legal papers to the list. These days, it would appear, the legal process is catching up with the technological reality of the world we live in. …

Generally speaking, it takes quite a few years of studying and hard graft before someone gets to wear the wig and robes of a barrister in the British legal system. Unless, that is, you buy them on eBay. Surprisingly, that's precisely what one man did and ended up defending a …

Is the time that it takes to boot up and power down a computer at the beginning and the end of the day work? [URL="http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202426038668"]A number of lawyers[/URL] are trying to settle that question. On the one hand, users start rebooting the computer and then spend up to 15-20 minutes …

New laws have just come into force in the UK which apply to motorists who cause death as a result of careless driving. The Road Safety Act 2006 has been changed to incorporate distractions such as changing the radio station, applying make-up or eating a sandwich while behind the wheel. …

It’s a new day for open source developers. A U.S. Federal appeals court yesterday ruled that someone releasing code under an open source license can control future use of that code using copyright law. That’s important because copyright laws carry stronger remedies—including court injunction—along with the monetary remedies available for …

According to ChannelWeb a federal judge sitting in the US Court of Appeals has ruled that open source software licenses are [URL="http://www.crn.com/software/210004167"]legal under copyright law[/URL]. This is a complete u-turn on a previous ruling which had thrown the not so small matter of open source licensing into something of a …

Erik Anderson and Rob Landley are at it again. The guys who brought us the [URL=http://busybox.net/]BusyBox[/URL] toolset for resource-constrained Linux and Unix systems, together with the Software Freedom Law Center, have filed yet another GPL enforcement lawsuit for copyright infringement. This time it’s against [URL=http://www.extremenetworks.com/index.aspx]Extreme Networks Inc.[/URL], a maker of …

One of my very first blog entries here at DaniWeb was titled “[URL=http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry2341.html]Mac-Cloner Psystar: Hero or Hoax?[/URL]” Well it was either no hoax at all or Apple was the latest to get sucked in. It was revealed today that Apple on July 3 filed a [URL=http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/images/apple.pdf]law suit[/URL] in San Jose, …

According to [URL="http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/06/26/apple_makes_example_of_ipod_repairman_in_lawsuit.html"]AppleInsider[/URL] Nicholas Woodhams, an Apple iPod repair shop owner from Michigan, has found himself at the wrong end of the Apple legal machine. Apple has apparently filed a lawsuit which claims misuse of the iPod trademark. Actually, that is not all Apple claims. The iPod owning giant also …

Amazingly, according to [URL="http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/06/20/teen-faces-years-hacking"]The Inquirer[/URL], an Orange County hacker is facing an incredible 38 years in prison if found guilty of several counts relating to hacking into his school computer. It seems that Omar Khan, 18, of Coto de Caza, California hacked into computer in order to change his grades. …

File under the strange things that social networking sites think will stop sex offenders, or maybe that should be really stupid things because Faceparty has [URL="http://www.out-law.com/page-9136"]reportedly[/URL] deleted the accounts of most of its users who are over the age of 36 for just that reasoning. Yep, although it beggars belief, …

[URL="http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/05/21/vole-loses-alcatel-lucent"]According to The Inquirer[/URL] Microsoft has lost the long running Alcatel-Lucent patent case. The US International Trade Commission has ruled against Microsoft in the case which accused Alcatel-Lucent of violating four Microsoft patents concerning IP-based phone software. The ITC concluded that "there is no violation of section 337" which refers …

[URL="http://www.dailytech.com/Apple+Sued+Over+Deceptive+Millions+of+Colors+Advertising/article11348.htm"]The word online[/URL] is that Apple is facing legal action over its claims the MacBook range supports millions of colours. This might actually be true were it not, say the reports, for the small matter of Apple ditching the old 16,777,216 colour supporting 8-bit displays used in MacBooks and replacing …

[URL="http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/facebook-friends-not-real-judge/2008/03/27/1206207279597.html"]According to a report by the Sydney Morning Herald[/URL] a UK judge has ruled, as part of a harassment case, that being a Facebook friend is not the same as being a real friend. The case revolved around a woman claiming that the act of sending a Facebook friend request …

According to [URL="http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9899151-38.html"]recent reports[/URL] the FBI has been using honey-trap hyperlinks which claim to lead to child pornography in order to entice offenders into clicking them. Last year, it seems, armed raids were carried out on homes in Nevada, New York and Pennsylvania as a direct result of such link …

Legendary guitar manufacturer Gibson [URL="http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080312/tc_nm/activision_gibson_dc"]has warned[/URL] Guitar Hero developer Activision over an alleged patent infringement. It would seem that the crux of the matter is a 1999 patent by Gibson which deals with the technology used to simulate a musical performance. Gibson claims the Guitar Hero software and the Guitar …

A proposal from the [URL="http://www.premier-ministre.gouv.fr/en/"]French Ministry of Culture[/URL] could hit online music and movie piracy very hard with a very big stick if it goes ahead. In addition to the existing law, introduced only last year, which made unauthorised file-sharing a criminal offence carrying a 30,000 Euro fine and up …

Remember when SCO used to be known as a big fish in the Unix OS pond, well respected and pretty much a pillar in this particular vendor community? No, neither do I. The image of a company that sought to claim IBM had somehow inappropriately contributed to Linux development, a …

Controversial media company and alleged spreader of adware Zango, formerly 180solutions, has been forced to back down from its legal attempts to get both Kaspersky Lab and PC Tools to reclassify its applications as non-threatening and prevent security software from blocking them. Kaspersky Lab [URL="http://www.kaspersky.com/news?id=207575556"]reports[/URL] that the US District Court …

[URL="http://www.legality.biz"]Legality[/URL] prides itself as being the first virtual law firm in the UK, having set up in business some five years ago now. So it seems fitting that it should be providing advice to those businesses looking to set up shop in the daddy of virtual worlds, Second Life. Now …