Two California ISPs, Akanoc and Managed Solutions Group, have lost a suit brought against them by Louis Vuitton. Both ISPs were accused of being primarily set up to aid in the distribution of counterfeit merchandise, including Louis Vuitton knockoffs. The intriguing aspect to the case is that the ISPs were not protected under the Digital Mellenium Copyright Act’s safe harbor provision, which states that service providers cannot be held liable for what users do on their networks. Louis Vuitton had notified both service providers that they were harboring sites that included counterfeit materials, since neither ISP took action on these notification, the DMCA did not apply.
Source: Ars Technica
5 Things RIM Needs to Fix in its BlackBerries
~ Wired
Emails spark woman’s sacking
~ New Zealand Herald
Watching TV while surfing the Internet? You’re not alone
~ Ars Technica
Android starts to make inroads into mobile web demand, overtaking Windows Mobile
~ www.guardian.co.uk
Rosemary Port is suing Google for identifying her as the anonymous blogger who had nasty things to say about Liskula Cohen. Google identified Port under a court order. Now, Port and her lawyer, Salvatore Strazzullo, are threatening to sue Google in federal court for $15 million dollars.
Port’s argument is that Google has a fiduciary duty to protect her expectation of anonymity. Port also argues that, under the First Amendment, she has the right to speak anonymously and that this right should extend to the internet.
Privacy groups are worried about the effect this case could have on internet speech going forward. The court may need to address questions like:
Does the First Amendment protect the right to remain anonymous while using the Internet while speaking about others?
Is Internet speech meaningless chatter or can be proven to be accusations that are false and defamatory?
Source: TechnologyLive and ABA Journal
Google Earth Adds Traffic Conditions to Major Roads
-Lifehacker
Very Old and Very Young Are Quicker Than Many Assume
-Scientific American
Apple Tablet is Jobs’ Number One Priority
-AppleInsider
Ed Felten, of the Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy (CITP), has created a novel way to set documents free from PACER’s paywall. A Firefox extension, dubbed RECAP, has been created and distributed by the group. Anyone who uses PACER with RECAP will have all the documents purchased, mirrored and uploaded to the Internet Archive. This is allowed due to the fact that copyright is not applied to court documents. If enough users download RECAP and contribute to this process, another barrier to access court information will fall. For access to free caselaw on the web, check out our sister site, The Public Library of Law (www.plol.org).
Let us know your thoughts on this extension and process in the comments!
Source: Ars Technica,; RECAP