judge

Last summer unlucky defendant Joel Tenenbaum was just the second individual defendant sued by the RIAA, or Record Industry Association of America, for illegal file sharing practices. His case led to an astounding $675,000 verdict in favor of the ... RIAA, and now a U.S. District judge has affirmed the original result. Tenenbaum, a 25-year-old Boston University student, was in July 2009 found guilty of illegally sharing just 30 files. The result marked only the second time an individual had been sued by the RIAA, who in an equally unpopular earlier legal crusade went after single mother Jammie ... (view more)

Just a few months after being slammed by a Texas federal judge for infringing on the patent of a Canadian company, a similarly critical lawsuit has, in this instance, gone Microsoft's way. Earlier this week a Rhode Island judge overturned a ... Singapore company's $388 million victory against the Redmond-based software giant. MS Accused of Piracy, using Antipiracy Software First filed in a Rhode Island federal court in 2003, the case involved Singapore-based Uniloc, which accused Microsoft of illegally incorporating its antipiracy technology with Windows operating system (OS) and Microsoft's ... (view more)

Late last week, a federal judge reportedly granted class-action status to a lawsuit alleging that Microsoft unjustly enriched itself by promoting PCs as "Windows Vista Capable", even when they could only run the "Vista Home Basic" version of the ... operating system. As an attempt by Microsoft to maintain sales of Windows XP computers during the 2006 holiday shopping season, the "Windows Vista Capable" slogan was emblazoned on PCs after the release of Windows Vista was delayed. At a hearing held two weeks ago, Microsoft lawyers argued that because each consumer who bought a computer labeled as " ... (view more)

From what I've learned about the legal profession -- as it has been derived from Law and Order repeats and My Cousin Vinny -- being held in contempt of court is not a good thing. It generally means you've done something particularly heinous to upset ... a judge, like having your cell phone go off during proceedings. That sure would irk a judge -- especially if it was his own phone. British judge Charles Byers was in mid-session this past week when -- to his chagrin -- a cell phone blurted its cacophony of rings and twings mid-session. As mentioned, in many cases this can completely bring a court ... (view more)

A lawsuit filed in April alleging that Microsoft misled consumers with labels on Windows XP machines touted as "Windows Vista Capable" will be allowed by a federal judge to proceed. The suit alleges many of the computers labelled by the ... Redmond-based company as "Windows Vista Capable" couldn't run some of the highly touted features of Vista. After listening to oral arguments in Seattle, U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman denied Microsoft's motion to dismiss two of the law suits claims: allegations that Microsoft's marketing violated Washington state's Consumer Protection ... (view more)

If you illegally download music via a file-sharing program, you better watch out -- music companies may file a lawsuit against you. Or at least that's what they want you to think. Earlier this week, the case on Patti Santangelo was dropped and ... refiled, this time implicating Santangelo's two children. Santangelo was sued -- along with many others -- as part of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)'s campaign to stop the illegal pirating of online music. Unlike the others, however, Santangelo refused to settle, instead choosing to go through costly litigation. (Source: slyck.com ... (view more)