Posted by on under pamela colburn, legal circles, statutory damages, niklas zennstrom, litigiousness, ebay, reas, fri, investment banker, legal liability, skype, founders, milli, janus, lawsuits, two men, source code, netherlands, united states | 
Saif writes to let us know that Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, the founders of Skype, have filed a copyright suit against eBay for altering and sharing the peer-to-peer source code behind the calling service. The founders managed to maintain ownership of the source and licensed it to eBay in their 2005 deal and are now seeking an injunction and statutory damages which could total more than $75 million per day. "Mr. Zennstrom and Mr. Friis have developed a reputation for litigiousness in some legal circles. They filed three separate lawsuits against Pamela Colburn, an investment banker who represented them in the original sale of Skype, in the United States, the Netherlands and Britain. In May, a British judge dismissed the case and said the two men's reason for pursuing the matter in his country 'remains inexplicable.' The buyers of Skype have not publicly addressed the founders' lawsuit against eBay in Britain or their potential legal liability."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: pamela colburn, legal circles, statutory damages, niklas zennstrom, litigiousness, ebay, reas, fri, investment banker, legal liability, skype, founders, milli, janus, lawsuits, two men, source code, netherlands, united states
Posted by on under hugh pickens, statutory damages, google, russian roulette, policy counsel, cnet reports, counterfeit goods, search engines, border security, legal framework, legal liability, intermediaries, daphne, internet providers, lawsuits, white house, proposal, bus |
Hugh Pickens writes "CNET reports that Daphne Keller, a senior policy counsel at Google, says ACTA has 'metastasized' from a proposal to address border security and counterfeit goods to an sweeping international legal framework for copyright and the Internet that could increase the liability for Internet intermediaries such as, perhaps, search engines. 'You don't want to play Russian roulette with very high statutory damages.' One section of ACTA says that Internet providers 'disabling access' to pirated material and adopting a policy dealing with unauthorized 'transmission of materials protected by copyright' would be immune from lawsuits but if they choose not to do so, they could face legal liability. Both the Obama administration and the Bush administration had rejected requests for the text of ACTA, with the White House last year even indicating that disclosure would do 'damage to the national security.'"
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: hugh pickens, statutory damages, google, russian roulette, policy counsel, cnet reports, counterfeit goods, search engines, border security, legal framework, legal liability, intermediaries, daphne, internet providers, lawsuits, white house, proposal, bus
Posted by on under social security numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, note th, campus computers, ssns, slashdot, license numbers, legal liability, commercial software, virginia tech, personal data, source software, cornell, social security, universities, he |
and so forth writes "Cornell lost a laptop last year with SSNs. Now, they've mandated scanning every computer at the University for the following items: social security numbers; credit card numbers; driver's license numbers; bank account numbers; and protected health information, as defined by HIPAA. The main tools are Identityfinder (commercial software for Windows and Mac), spider (Cornell software for Windows from 2008) and Find_SSN (python script from Virginia Tech). The effort raises both technical questions (false positives, anyone?) and practical issues (should I trust closed source software to do this?). Have other Universities succeeded at removing confidential data? Success, here, should probably be gauged in terms of diminished legal liability after the attempted clean up has been completed." Note: this program affects the computers of university employees and offices, rather than students' personal machines.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Tagi: social security numbers, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, note th, campus computers, ssns, slashdot, license numbers, legal liability, commercial software, virginia tech, personal data, source software, cornell, social security, universities, he
