supremecourt
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Supreme Court: online threats must be intentional to be illegal
You can't be sent to prison for kinda sorta threats in the real world, and that now applies to the internet as well. The US Supreme Court has overturned the conviction in Anthony Elonis v. United States on the grounds that online threats aren't illegal unless they're clearly intentional -- not just that a "reasonable person" would see them as hostile. When Elonis raged against his ex-wife and the government through allegedly "therapeutic" rap lyrics on Facebook, the court says, it wasn't absolutely certain that he actually wished harm. The man isn't out of the woods yet (a lower court has to look at the case once again), but there's now a higher standard for putting him behind bars.
What you need to know about Google's battle with Oracle over Android
Two of the world's most powerful companies are engaged in a legal battle that has its roots in the world's most popular mobile operating system: Android. Google is playing defendant, while Oracle is laying claim to a crucial set of code in the foundation of Android. Doesn't ring any bells? That's likely due to the fact that this dispute goes back four years. Just this week, Google filed a petition with the United States Supreme Court to decide once and for all which company is in the right. So, what are these two internet giants fighting about? The short answer is Java, which Oracle owns. The real answer, of course, is far more complex
Google wants to bring its Android copyright battle to the US Supreme Court
Google and Oracle are still arguing over code at the foundation of Google's mobile operating system, Android. Google this week filed a petition with the United States Supreme Court, which appealed a lower court's ruling that Oracle can legally copyright foundational code. The decisions have gone back and forth over the course of the last four years: First a judge in California ruled in favor of Google; then an appeals court ruled in favor of Oracle; and now Google's pushing for the Supreme Court to get involved. But what are the two internet giants even arguing about? At the heart of Android are a set of Java APIs that Oracle is claiming aren't available for commercial use without a licensing fee (approximately $1 billion). Google argues that the API code is functional -- not a "creative work" -- and therefore isn't copyrightable. The case is, of course, far more complex than our explanation, but that's the big picture (our own Chris Velazco goes into far more background detail right here).
Supreme Court said Aereo is a cable company, so now it wants to be treated like one
Despite Aereo's best efforts, the Supreme Court decided that its service was too much like cable TV and therefore its unlicensed streaming of TV broadcasts were illegal. Now, after putting its service on pause, Aereo has filed a letter with the US District Court saying that since the Court said it's like a cable system, it is entitled to the same statutory license that cable companies pay broadcasters. CEO Chet Kanojia sent a message to users and supporters explaining "The Path Forward" with a link to the letter, but hasn't laid out a timeline for the service's return. That's one of the reason's broadcasters are still fighting the new move, saying (in the same letter) that it's "astonishing for Aereo to contend the Supreme Court's decision automatically transformed Aereo into a 'cable system' under Section 111 given its prior statements to this Court and the Supreme Court." [Image credit: AP]
Aereo asks users to fight back against Supreme Court ruling
With a new Supreme Court ruling on the books, things are looking awfully grim for Aereo and all those tiny, cloud-friendly antennas it controls. That's why CEO Chet Kanojia has temporarily turned off the television streaming service, and that's why he's asking for help. The beleaguered startup sent out an open letter encouraging all of us to email, tweet, and otherwise petition our land's leaders to defend the right to use a "modern antenna located in the cloud" to watch all that free over-the-air content. "Today, I'm asking you to raise your hands and make your voices heard," Kanojia wrote. "Tell your lawmakers how disappointed you are that the nation's highest court issued a decision that could deny you the right to use the antenna of your choice to access live over-the-air broadcast television."
Aereo 'pauses' streaming TV service in wake of Supreme Court loss
That didn't take long. Now that the US Supreme Court has ruled that Aereo's antenna-to-cloud TV service is violating copyright, the company is telling customers that it will "pause" service as of 11:30AM Eastern; after that, it's lights-out for both live and recorded streaming. As compensation, Aereo is refunding subscribers' last paid month of service. The startup is adamant that the shutdown is temporary, and is talking to the lower court that previously ruled in its favor (and which has to deal with Aereo's case again) about the "next steps."
Judges have more discretion to punish patent trolls, but they probably won't
The US Supreme Court just gave judges a little more leverage to punish patent trolls: it defined the word "exceptional." A provision of federal patent law hinged on the definition of the word, stating that the court could charge a lawsuit's losing party with the winner's attorney fees in "exceptional cases." It sounds straightforward: if a lawsuit is obviously frivolous, the patent troll pays its victim's costs. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court said, precedent from a previous case left the rule with "an inflexible framework onto statutory text that is inherently flexible." In other words, it was too difficult to define exactly how exceptional a case was, making it nearly impossible to implement punitive fee-shifting.
The Supreme Court heard Aereo's case, whether they understood it could mean everything
We have no doubt the justices of the Supreme Court are well versed and prepared for any copyright law, but do they understand TV or the hows and whys it can be so frustrating sometimes? Like many of us, possibly not that well -- like why HBO can't keep its streaming service up during Game of Thrones? -- which could make reaching a decision in the case between Aereo and the broadcasters seeking to put it out of business especially difficult. During today's oral arguments Justice Antonin Scalia wondered whether the cable- and satellite-only network HBO might be picked up by Aereo's antenna-to-internet setup. The justices were mostly on point, however, needling lawyers for the networks about a previous case for Cablevision's cloud DVR, and how a ruling in their favor could affect cloud internet services.
What you need to know about Aereo's battle with broadcast television
Today, the United States Supreme Court will spend one hour hearing the latest arguments in an old, important debate that affects everyone watching television in the US: Who owns the airwaves? ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and others use the broadcast frequencies our TV antennas pick up; the government regulates those frequencies; and cable companies pay broadcasters to re-broadcast those frequencies. But the answer to who owns them remains nebulous. That is at the heart of today's case -- "American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., et al. v. Aereo, Inc." -- being decided by the highest court in the United States. And the decision stands to leave a massive impact on how Americans consume television, regardless of which side wins.
Ahead of Supreme Court trial, Aereo opens lobbying and advocacy site
The United States Department of Justice says that streaming TV service Aereo is violating copyright law. Aereo, unsurprisingly, disagrees. In five days, the US Supreme Court will hear arguments from both sides. The former has already made its case to the Supreme Court in a filing; today, Aereo fights back with its own lobbying effort: a website named "Protect My Antenna" that both makes arguments for Aereo's position and compiles various legal documents for the public to read. "We remain steadfast in our conviction that Aereo's cloud-based antenna and DVR technology falls squarely within the law," Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia said in an email to users announcing the site.
Supreme Court to determine if police need warrants to search cellphones
It's now clear that police don't need a warrant to track your cellphone, but searching that phone is another matter; there's no obvious guiding policy. Any murkiness may be settled soon, as the Supreme Court has agreed to rule on two cases where the accused have objected to cops obtaining evidence from their phones without warrants. Decisions in either case could set precedents for searches across the US; if judges determine that warrants are necessary, they could challenge guidelines in California and other places that allow warrantless searches after arrests. The court hasn't scheduled the relevant hearings, though, so it may be a while before there are any definitive answers. [Image credit: Erin Nekervis, Flickr]
Aereo chief: We're fighting for consumers' rights to watch TV with an antenna and DVR
Big media may have thought its deep pockets and love of ceaseless litigation would break Aereo's bank and spirit, but the cloud-based DVR company is sticking to its guns. In a statement released just today, Aereo head Chet Kanojia said that his company wouldn't oppose a petition brought against the company by ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, setting the table for a case in the Supreme Court. Kanojia echoed much of what Cablevision itself expressed in a white paper earlier today, saying that he believes the end goal of this court battle could ultimately strike down a 2008 ruling in favor of Cablevision's cloud DVR tech, which laid the groundwork for many of the cloud-based services we enjoy today. Though Aereo and Cablevision are in different positions when it comes to retransmission fees, both parties argue that the broadcasters' suit, if successful, could slow or even reverse the trend of technological progress, innovation and consumer choice. For Aereo's part, a potential Supreme Court case could also provide a much-needed light at the end of the tunnel -- a final ruling in a recent string of lower court victories that would free up its resources and allow the company to pursue nationwide expansion unburdened. That's if the Supreme Court even decides to hear the case -- it declined to hear an appeal on Cablevision's remote storage DVR in 2009 -- as that decision won't come until sometime in 2014.
Supreme Court could produce meaningful patent reform in abstract software case
The US Supreme Court is wading into the battle over software patents by agreeing to hear a case between two financial firms you've likely never heard of. This comes just as the legislative arm of the government is getting ready to address the problem of patent trolls. (There's not much Republicans and Democrats can agree on, but a hatred of trolls is apparently one of them.) The hope is that both the Supreme Court and Congress will address what many see as the largest problem with the American patent system: low quality patents and frivolous law suits. Alice Corporation, which runs a derivatives market, charges that foreign currency exchange firm CLS Bank Internation violated a number of its patents relating to computer-based trading systems invented in the 1990s. The defense has argued that four of the patents in the question are invalid, and twice lower courts have agreed with them, both in March of 2011 and in May of this year. The most recent ruling, handed down by a divided appeals court, found that Alice's claims were too vague to be protected under patent law.
Broadcasters take their case against Aereo to the Supreme Court
Fox may have been making an empty threat when it said it would go the paid TV route, if Aereo continued to stream its content online. But, that doesn't mean the broadcasters were just going to stomp their feet and let the start up carry on with it's plans to expand its streaming and cloud DVR offerings. Today, a group that includes not only Fox, but ABC, NBC, Telemundo, Univision, PBS and CBS petitioned the Supreme Court to hear their case. Lower courts have refused to grant an injunction against Aereo, completely tossing out claims of unfair competition en route to the steps of the Supreme Court. The broadcasters' case relies on convincing judges that streaming terrestrial television signals qualifies as a "public performance," and as such is a violation of the Copyright Act. Aereo counters that its thousands of antennas that are assigned to each subscriber are no different than a consumer going out and purchasing an antenna themselves. Essentially, they're claiming that customers aren't paying so much for the stream itself, as the antenna and the location where it's mounted. Much of Aereo's case is built upon a precedent set in 2008, when Cablevision won a case regarding its remote DVR service. Of course, the companies will have to convince the Supreme Court to hear its case in the first place. The 209 page petition (which you can read here) lays out its case and asks the highest court in our nation to make a decision whether or not the rebroadcast is, in fact, a public performance. It might be sometime before we know whether or not Chief Justice Roberts and crew will listen to arguments from the parties concerned, but rest assured we'll be watching this story closely.
New Jersey now requires search warrants for cellphone location data
For all the worries about sweeping US surveillance programs, Americans are claiming at least a few victories in the fight for privacy. Just look to New Jersey's Supreme Court for an example -- it has ruled that police need search warrants to obtain tracking information from cellular carriers. Citing a ruling that requires warrants for GPS tracking devices, the court has decided that attempts to obtain cellphone location data represent searches and fall under constitutional oversight. Cellphone users can expect a reasonable level of privacy when they sign up for service, according to the Supreme Court. While there's no law on the books to restrict tracking, like there is in Montana, the ruling sets a precedent for police monitoring that could extend beyond New Jersey's borders. [Image credit: Jeff Schuler, Flickr]
Supreme Court rules that naturally occurring DNA cannot be patented
In a plot twist straight out of Orphan Black, the Supreme Court has ruled that naturally occurring DNA cannot be patented, but synthetic biological material is fair game. The case involved Myriad Genetics, a company specializing in molecular testing, after it tried to patent two genes -- BRCA1 and BRCA2 -- that are often linked to breast and ovarian cancer. The Association for Molecular Pathology filed the suit, arguing that the patent would place undue restrictions on research since only Myriad would be allowed to tinker with those genes. The ruling established that isolating naturally occurring genetic material -- as Myriad did -- wasn't enough to justify legal ownership, but so-called complementary DNA (meaning it's man-made) would be eligible for patenting. Myriad had no comment at the time of this writing, but Sandra Park, an attorney with the ACLU Women's Rights Project said, "Myriad did not invent the BRCA genes and should not control them. Because of this ruling, patients will have greater access to genetic testing and scientists can engage in research on these genes without fear of being sued."
French Supreme Court orders Google to censor piracy related terms in Instant search and Autocomplete
The French Supreme Court has handed down a ruling that Google must censor terms such as "torrent," "RapidShare," and other phrases that could be related to illegal file sharing. The decision was in response to a case brought by SNEP, a French music industry group, requesting that Google be forced to censor its results and be held accountable for facilitating piracy. The court ruled that the Mountain View company couldn't be held responsible for people's decision to click through to sites containing illegal material. But it reversed a lower court decision, demanding that related terms be removed from its autocomplete database to making finding such content more difficult. Google was understandably disappointed by the ruling, especially since the company already actively blocks some piracy related search terms. But, that apparently wasn't enough for the SNEP. Check out the ruling itself at the more coverage link.
Canadian Supreme Court rules no separate copyright fee for iTunes previews, game downloads
The Canadian Supreme court ruled on two copyright cases that affect music previews in iTunes and video game downloads. According to a report in Paid Content, the Court upheld the Copyright Board's decision that the 30- to 90-second audio previews in iTunes do not constitute a public performance and do not require a copyright payment to the music industry. The Court also reversed a Copyright Board decision that a game download was a public performance of the music in the game and required a separate copyright payment. The Court chastised the music industry for trying to double-dip as game makers already pay fees to include the music in the game. You can read both the iTunes and the video game download descisions on the Supreme Court of Canada's website.
Court refuses request to review Psystar case
You have to give Psystar credit for being tenacious. The Mac clone company spent four years fighting Apple and took its legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court. According to a CNET report, the Supreme Court on Monday refused Psystar's request to review a lower court decision that prevents the company from selling non-Apple hardware with OS X. The decision upholds the original ruling in 2009 which said Psystar "violated Apple's exclusive reproduction right, distribution right, and right to create derivative works." Apple was awarded a permanent injunction against Psystar and the company was forced to stop selling its Mac clones. This Supreme Court rejection should put an end to litigation between the two companies.
FBI deactivates about 3,000 GPS tracking devices, loses sight of your car
Following a January ruling by the US Supreme Court, the FBI has deactivated some 3,000 GPS units that were potentially infringing on the Fourth Amendment. The decision seems to be making waves in the U.S. Justice Department. Andrew Weissmann, FBI General Counsel, says some of the devices have been difficult to retrieve, as the vehicles they were once tracking now move undetected. The FBI has sought temporary permission to reactivate some of the devices to locate and retrieve the hardware. Weissmann says the FBI is also developing new guidelines regarding the legality of its agent's actions -- from the application and use of tracking devices, to the extent a suspect's garbage can be searched before the agent is committing trespass. In short, the FBI is working really hard not to violate your legal right to privacy. If you happen to find something weird under you car, give 'em a call. They'd probably like it back.
