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Limewire ordered to disable 'all functionality,' company pledges to keep operating... somehow (video)
Today marks another sad day for the three people out there using P2P sites to share open source software and copyright-free materials -- plus all the other millions of people downloading illegal stuff. The RIAA has been involved in a legal battle against popular P2P client Limewire for years now and back in June it finally got the verdict it was looking for. A federal court found that the Lime Group, which maintains and distributes the software, did not take "meaningful efforts to mitigate infringement." Now, that same court has issued an injunction ordering that Lime Group disable "the searching, downloading, uploading, file trading and/or file distribution functionality, and/or all functionality." So, you know, pretty much turn the thing off. We're not sure when that'll happen, but we're guessing soon, and while a Lime Group representative indicated a desire to move forward and work with the record labels that seems awfully optimistic. You see, the court still hasn't decided how much the Group owes in damages, and we think that rather than working with them going forward the RIAA would prefer to put this lime in a coconut and, well... [Thanks to everyone who sent this in, image courtesy Rookie Cookie]
Paradox Interactive files injunction against SouthPeak
Publisher SouthPeak's legal troubles continue, with developer Paradox Interactive filing an injunction against the company for disagreements that start with a familiar issue: lack of payment. Gamasutra reports that Paradox, developer of Europa Universalis 3 and the recently unveiled Lead & Gold, claims SouthPeak owes it $585,382, revenue from distribution of its games that the publisher has not passed along. "SouthPeak has failed to comply with its payment obligations even for game units which it previously reported to Paradox, and SouthPeak's executives have informed Paradox's executives that SouthPeak is currently financially unable to satisfy its payment obligations to Paradox under the Agreement," the legal filing reads. After Paradox terminated its distribution agreement with SouthPeak last month, according to Gamasutra's summary, SouthPeak "threatened" to request that unsold inventory be returned by retailers -- and it's this action that Paradox is trying to prevent with its injunction. In addition, it is seeking a receiver to collect the money it claims SouthPeak owes.
Psystar files one more appeal in court
They're like cockroaches! Psystar is back yet again, this time filing yet another appeal against yet another injunction by Apple telling them that they can no longer sell their unauthorized OS X PCs. As previously reported, they've been on Apple's bad legal side for a long time, and the last injunction had them down to selling t-shirts. Now, they've got only one copy left of their Rebel EFI product, and it's in the hands of the lawyers trying to keep the case open. Just as they promised, they're filing one more appeal against the far-reaching injunction to try and keep the case open... I'm as big a fan of Psystar as the next guy, and despite their complete and total losses in court, I almost want to see them keep going in a car-crash sort of way. But at this point, it's pointless -- Apple has won in every conceivable way, and Psystar is just wasting their own money and the courts' time by carrying on. It's their right to do so, of course, but this likely means that the next judge to look at the case will just lay the smack down that much harder. [via Macworld]
Chicago Transit Authority can't ban game ads, judge rules
The Entertainment Software Association today announced an early victory in its ongoing lawsuit with the Chicago Transit Authority over the banning of game-related ads in April 2008. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois has sided with the ESA, granting a preliminary injunction, in turn, allowing video game advertisements to once again be displayed in Chicago's transit system. A "preliminary injunction" in this case means that, for the time being, the CTA can't ban gaming ads. Pending further litigation, the injunction could still be repealed or further solidified. ESA head Michael Gallagher said in the release that he still hopes the CTA wil "see the futility in pursuing this case further," adding that to continue further will only "waste taxpayer money and government resources."
Microsoft loses patent appeal; Word and Office to be barred from sale starting January 11
It's getting closer and closer to check-writing time for Steve Ballmer, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has just upheld a decision that would see Microsoft Word and Office banned from sale starting January 11. If you'll recall, Microsoft lost a patent infringement suit against XML specialists i4i back in May when it was found that Word's handling of .xml, .docx, and .docm files infringed upon i4i's patented XML handling algorithms, but the injunction against further Word sales was put on hold pending the results of this appeal. Now that Microsoft has lost once again, we'd expect either another appeal and request for the injunction to be stayed, this time to the Supreme Court, or for a settlement between these two that would end this whole mess right now. We'll see what happens -- stay tuned. P.S.- Just to be clear on this, i4i isn't a patent troll -- it's a 30 person database design company that shipped one of the first XML plugins for Office and was actually responsible for revamping the entire USPTO database around XML to make it compatible with Word back in 2000. What's more, the patents involved here don't cover XML itself, but rather the specific algorithms used to read and write custom XML -- so OpenOffice users can breathe easy, as i4i has said the suite doesn't infringe. Existing Office users should also be fine, as only future sales of Word are affected by the ruling, not any already-sold products. Engadget: Helping you flame with accuracy. Update: Microsoft says it's moving quickly to prepare versions of Office 2007 and Word 2007 that don't have the "little-used" XML features for sale by January 11, and that the Office 2010 beta "does not contain the technology covered by the injunction," which can be read in a number of ways. It's also considering an appeal, so we'll see what happens next.
So long, Psystar - permanent injunction halts Mac clone biz
What ride, eh? In what may have provided more blog fodder than a golfer hitting a tree, the end may have finally come for the storied life of Pystar's Mac clone business. AppleInsider, Gizmodo and The Loop are reporting U.S. District Judge William Alsup just put the smackdown on Psystar's selling of derivative works of OS X, doing anything to circumvent several things -- all of which wind up putting OS X on your non-Apple hardware. Still no ruling on the Rebel EFI software. Bottom line: Psystar has until December 31, 2009 to stop selling Mac clones forever. Word is they have already started to comply.
Interplay not satisfied with defeated Fallout injunction
Last week, a US District Court judge denied Bethesda's request for an injunction against Interplay, which would have prevented Interplay from selling its Fallout games -- and stopped it from developing Project V13, the Fallout MMO. The company released a short statement about the court case in the form of SEC Form 8-K, which is intended to provide information about major events to shareholders. Interplay is not happy to merely defend its rights to make and sell Fallout games: the statement reads that Interplay is going to continue pursuing "its Counter-Claims against Bethesda, including its claims for Breach of Contract, Tortious Interference with Prospective Economic Advantage, Rescission, Accounting and Declaratory Relief seeking an award of damages and other relief." Interplay reportedly claims that Bethesda shopped the Fallout legacy games around to other publishers, telling them that Interplay no longer had the license, which constitutes "unreasonable interference" with Interplay's property. [Via Duck and Cover]
Current Fallout tally board: Interplay 1, Bethesda 0
Whether it counts as one for the good guys or the bad guys depends on your personal tastes, but the ongoing saga of the Fallout MMO continues its relentless back-and-forth process. There was a rumor, back at the end of October, that Interplay had successfully denied Bethesda's preliminary injunction against their work on the franchise. According to Gamasutra, that rumor has finally proven to be true: a US District Court Judge has blocked the injunction, letting Interplay continue their work on the much-anticipated Fallout MMO, most commonly known as Project V13. For those of you coming late to this ongoing legal battle, a quick recap. Interplay, in desperate need of money to develop the MMO, sold the rights to the propery to Bethesda, who went on to make Fallout 3 and in turn licensed the rights to the MMO back to Interplay. They are claiming that Interplay did not fulfill the terms of their contract for creating the game, which included clauses regarding timely development, and are trying to win back the rights. For now, however, their attempt at blocking further development has failed, and Interplay will continue their work on the game... although the future for this game seems to be fraught with a great deal of conflict. Ending the world is, apparently, very serious business.
Spring Design denied injunction on sales of Barnes & Noble Nook
This shouldn't be seen as an indicator of future rulings, but Spring Design has been denied its injunction to halt Barnes & Noble from selling the Nook. According to court documents, there is "genuine dispute" over whether the Nook was derived by Spring Design's contributions or was independently developed prior -- in a nutshell, there's no way for the court, or anyone at this point, to know what's really going on here. The creator of Alex, who as we've previously chronicled had many behind-the-scenes meetings on developing the Android-assisted e-book reader before BN pulled out of the deal, can take solace in an expedited pre-trial process to accommodate for an earlier hearing date. So now the only thing stopping Barnes and Noble from selling Nook is... Barnes and Noble itself. Turns out that's a pretty formidable foe. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Judge sides with Telus, says Rogers' 'most reliable' claim reeks of half-truths
Wireless networks in the States have a storied history of throwing fits over each others' "most" and "best" claims -- and now they're really getting into it up north, too, seeing how Telus just lit up a shiny new 21Mbps HSPA network that seems to be matching or besting Rogers' existing infrastructure in many ways. As is all too often the case, the spat has ended up down in the court system where Telus is bellyaching that Rogers' claims of running "Canada's most reliable" and "fastest" airwaves have been invalid as of November 5, when its competing hardware went live (funny -- and telling -- that it didn't bother levying any complaints back in the CDMA days). Anyhow, a judge has just ruled -- apparently after analyzing paperwork filed by both sides -- that "the present network technology is at least equivalent between Rogers and Telus," invalidating Rogers' reliability claim. Rogers isn't too happy about this (though they've tiptoed away from speed claims in their latest advertising, smartly) and intends to appeal with new courtroom drama getting ready to roll on Friday. So, we turn it over to our Canadian readers: who's really offering the best service right now in the trenches?
AT&T sues Verizon over 'there's a map for that' ads
digg_url ='http://digg.com/tech_news/AT_T_sues_Verizon_over_There_s_a_map_for_that_ads'; Whoa -- we just got word that AT&T is suing Verizon for false advertising over Big Red's "There's a map for that" ads. We're reading the complaint and motion to stop the ads right now, but here's what AT&T says is the big problem: In essence, we believe the ads mislead consumers into believing that AT&T doesn't offer ANY wireless service in the vast majority of the country. In fact, AT&T's wireless network blankets the US, reaching approximately 296M people. Additionally, our 3G service is available in over 9,600 cities and towns. Verizon's misleading advertising tactics appear to be a response to AT&T's strong leadership in smartphones. We have twice the number of smartphone customers... and we've beaten them two quarters in a row on net post-paid subscribers. We also had lower churn -- a sign that customers are quite happy with the service they receive. AT&T also says its network reaches about the same number of people as Verizon's, so we're thinking it's a little miffed that it's being portrayed as an also-ran here. We'll update as we learn more, keep it locked! Update: So this seems like a very narrow lawsuit, actually. As we've been told, AT&T thinks Verizon is trying to fool viewers into thinking that they can't use any AT&T phone services outside of 3G coverage areas by showing two essentially different maps. Since Verizon's entire network is 3G, the gaps in the red map are actual service gaps -- but Verizon doesn't show that the gaps on the AT&T map might be covered by AT&T's huge 2G network. We can see how that could be misleading, but at some point you've got to compare apples to apples, and AT&T even says it has "no quarrel with Verizon advertising its larger 3G network" in its complaint, so we'll see how the court reacts. Update 2: Interestingly, Verizon's already changed the ads once at AT&T's behest, editing them to remove the phrase "out of touch" and adding a "Voice and data services available outside of 3G areas" small print disclaimer at the end. Apparently that wasn't enough for AT&T, which says the ads still confuse non-technical viewers into thinking AT&T provides no service at all outside of its 3G coverage. Update 3: Okay, we've read everything -- there's really not much more to this suit than the arguments over the maps. We're thinking Verizon could have easily dealt with this by just using dark blue and light blue on the AT&T map to differentiate between 3G and 2G coverage, but at this point we don't think Ma Bell is all that interested in anything except getting these ads off the air. All that said, it's hard to deny that Verizon's ads made a perfectly valid point: using an iPhone on AT&T's network in New York or San Francisco is an exercise in frustration, regardless of whether you have 2G or 3G, and we've had zero problems on Verizon. Let's just hope AT&T is working as hard to fight these ads with its actual service as it is with its lawyers. %Gallery-77177% %Gallery-77176% %Gallery-77178%
RealNetworks not giving up on RealDVD, plans to appeal court injunction
RealNetworks found itself on the wrong end of a gavel back in August, receiving a court injunction to stop selling its RealDVD software -- curiously flying in the face of an earlier ruling in the favor of Kaleidescape. Perhaps that's why Real isn't done fighting yet. Or, perhaps it's just because it doesn't want to be put out of business. Either way, the company is set to file an appeal and take the show back to court again. Exactly what the basis of their appeal will be remains to be seen -- assuming there is one -- but here's to hoping it's a little more legally sound than their last defense. We're not quite ready to give up on Fair Use just yet ourselves.
Microsoft forbidden from selling Word, will probably keep selling Word
Hey, remember that seemingly random patent case from May in which a federal jury awarded a company called i4i Ltd $200 million in patent damages against Microsoft? Things just got worse for Redmond: the judge in the case today issued a permanent injunction against sales of Word 2003, Word 2007, and any future versions of Word that can open .xml, .docx, or .docm files containing "custom XML." Yeah, no kidding -- that's pretty much all of 'em. At issue is i4i's patent on a method for reading XML, and obviously Microsoft's vowed to appeal, so expect this injunction to be stayed pending that appeal in short order -- and also expect Microsoft to eventually either find a way to win or simply pay up, since there's no way it'll let anyone kill Word. We'll see what happens. Word. Update: CNET has a quick interview with i4i Chairman Loudon Owen, who says that he himself uses Word and that i4i isn't trying to "stop Microsoft's business" or "interfere with all the users of Word out there." It's an interesting read, go check it out. Update: Not that it should come as a surprise to anyone at all, but Microsoft has confirmed that it'll be appealing the decision.
Court injunction puts sales of RealDVD on ice, hopes and dreams in purgatory
Something tells us Kaleidescape has a man (or woman, to be fair) on the inside, else United States District Court Judge Marilyn Patel is just downright trifilin'. In every visible way, RealNetworks' proposed RealDVD player was exactly what Kaleidescape was, but for people with annual salaries far less than $9,854,392,220. Regardless of our opinion, a preliminary injunction has just been passed down from The Almighty in the robe, which blocks the sale of the RealDVD software here in the US. The six major movie studies filed the suit last September, alleging that it "illegally violated their right to restrict the use of their movies in digital form." Evidently those that matter agree. A RealNetworks spokesperson took the time to vent their feelings on the whole ordeal, and since we know you're curious, we've pasted it below for your convenience.We are disappointed that a preliminary injunction has been placed on the sale of RealDVD. We have just received the Judge's detailed ruling and are reviewing it. After we have done so fully, we'll determine our course of action and will have more to say at that time.[Via Electronista]
TiVo asks court for a billion dollars in EchoStar case
Remember when we thought that those $90 million and $190 million judgments in the endless TiVo / EchoStar case were big noise? Yeah, they were apparently pocket change: according to documents recently filed with the court, TiVo's asking for nearly a billion dollars in contempt sanctions against EchoStar. Unfortunately, the original document in which TiVo made the request was filed under seal because it contains confidential information, but it appears that TiVo's none too pleased that EchoStar violated the permanent injunction that ordered it to disable some 193,000 DVRs in the wild, and it's looking for some payback. For its part, EchoStar says that it doesn't have to comply with the court's order because the injunction was put on hold pending appeal -- an argument that appears on the surface to make perfect sense, but since we can't read TiVo's motion we can't say for sure what's going on, and there's always a chance the company's just playing hardball in order to force a late settlement. Given the rocky history of this endless case, we doubt that's likely, but one thing's for certain: all these lawyers are eating well tonight.
Ruling lets DISH customers keep their DVRs for now, TiVo says it's just a matter of time
News of another delay should be absolutely no surprise to anyone that's followed the details of this case, as DISH was granted a stay by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit pending its appeal of a $190 million ruling in favor of TiVo which will allow its customers to continue using their DVRs, at least for now. For its part, TiVo repeated its praise of the "thorough and well-reasoned decision finding EchoStar in contempt of court for violating the injunction and awarding further damages" and is confident the ruling will be upheld, again. Did anyone really think this one would just end so easily?Read - DISH Network and EchoStar Statement Regarding TivoRead - TiVo Statement on Decision by U.S. Court of Appeals to Stay Permanent Injunction Issued by District Court in Lawsuit Against EchoStar
Buffalo's wireless injunction stayed, now free to sell WiFi products in US
Man, we can bet there's some serious celebrating going on at the Buffalo offices today. After being barred from selling its networking gear here in America last June, Buffalo has finally been freed from its CSIRO-given chains. Who's to thank? A federal judge who has stayed the permanent injunction in the ongoing US patent litigation, which opens the doors for the company to sell "IEEE 802.11a, 802.11g and 802.11n compliant products in the United States." Finally, we USers can look forward to buying helicopter inspired routers on our home turf.[Thanks, Mark]
Blizzard against open-sourcing Glider code
It ain't over yet. Blizzard Entertainment, who won a lawsuit against MDY, the makers of the infamous Glider bot program, has asked the ruling court for a permanent injunction that would functionally eliminate the program from WoW. Blizzard has also issued an unconventional request preventing the open-sourcing of the MMO Glider (formerly known as WoW Glider) code and prohibiting MDY from helping other people develop World of Warcraft automation software.Blizzard's case against MDY has already sparked some debate, and this latest request may catch the attention of open source and digital rights advocates. Blizzard has always taken a hardline stance against users of the program, even banning countless users back in May. Automation is clearly against the EULA, so players who flirt with bot programs such as MMO Glider should proceed at their own risk. A complete coverage of the case between Blizzard and MDY can be found over at Virtually Blind.
Blizzard defeats Peons4Hire gold farmers in court
In news likely to have repercussions for similar cases, Blizzard has handily won their lawsuit against the gold farming outfit Peons4Hire (aka Game Dollar). The permanent injunction [pdf] they were awarded in the suit's settlement effectively means you'll never see a Peon spam message in your mailbox or chat window ever again. The original suit was filed because of Blizzard's belief [pdf] that this gold spam 'diminished players' game experience and cost Blizzard subscribers, bandwidth, employee time, and ultimately, revenue.'The injunction deals with that by prohibiting Game Dollar/Peons from selling virtual assets from World of Warcraft, or powerleveling characters in the game. They're also legally enjoined from using the chat or in-game mail system to advertise their service ... possibly the first time I've seen a court case refer to a virtual world's specific forms of communication. Beyond all that, Game Dollar is further prohibited from investing in a new company that engages in these activities. Read on for ... the catch. (There always is one.)
Blizzard puts Peons4Hire out of work
This is probably the best news I've heard so far all year: Blizzard has won an injunction against Peons4Hire (we'll say their name now), which means that the one-time constant chat spammer is now legally banned from interfering with the game. It sounds like Blizzard sued on nearly all the causes that were speculated on a while ago, and as a result, have outright won their case: according to the injunction, In Game Dollar (the company that advertised Peons4Hire) is "permanently enjoined" from "making any use of the World of Warcraft in-game communication or chat system to advertise any website, business, or commercial endeavor." var digg_url = 'http://wow.joystiq.com/2008/02/01/blizzard-puts-peons4hire-out-of-work/'; Which means, in no uncertain terms, that we'll never see those ingame tells again. The only drawback is that, as Virtually Blind says, this is an injunction, not a decision, and so it doesn't have the "precedential weight" that a decision might-- Blizzard can't really legally use this to walk away with an easy win in the next case that comes along. But over the course of a few different settlements, including stuff happening in other virtual worlds, there is a legal precedent being established against using one company's service without permission to advertise another.I'm just happy that, after being driven nuts by all that chat spam for so long, Blizzard was able to walk away with a solid victory.
