Aerosoft GMBH, the German software company that makes the ‘Airbus X’ game, add-on program to Microsoft’s Flight Simulator, sued a host of unknown ‘Does’ in federal court, claiming the defendants engaged in copyright infringement via peer-to-peer (‘P2P’) file-sharing of plaintiff’s game.
The Airbus X might have been a game that convicted al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui would have liked to play, given his self-avowed goal of piloting Boeing or Airbus ‘Big Birds.’
Here are some of the more interesting opinions issued this week, collected by our Daily Summary writers.
In State v. Eli, the Hawaii Supreme Court found that a police practice of asking an arrestee to tell his or her “side of the story” prior to offering Miranda warnings violates the defendant’s constitutional right against self-incrimination and right to due process. In this case, the “pre-interview” statements were thrown out, and the case remanded for a new trial.
The 9th Circuit issued an opinion on intellectual property and the Superman comic. In Pacific Pictures Corp. et al v. USCD-CALA, the Court refused to protect documents included in a subpoena under attorney client privilege. In this case, an attorney absconded with his client’s intellectual property, and the US Attorney was called to investigate. The US Attorney’s office issued a subpoena for copies of the stolen property, and promised that if the complainant complied with the request, they would not provide the documents to non-governmental third parties. The Court found that since Congress has declined to extend attorney client privilege to such materials, the Court was not in the position to do it here.
Lunch at Justia is a time reserved for scholarly legal debate. Our focus recently turned to the legality of parking a vehicle along an unmarked curb outside a local Chipotle. On a day when we thought the God of Parking was gracing us with his magnificence, any semblance of karma was purely illusory.
First, we pulled adjacent to the curb. From California Vehicle Code § 21458, we know the meaning of the following curb colors:
(1) Red indicates no stopping, standing, or parking, whether the vehicle is attended or unattended, except that a bus may stop in a red zone marked or signposted as a bus loading zone.
(2) Yellow indicates stopping only for the purpose of loading or unloading passengers or freight for the time as may be specified by local ordinance.
(3) White indicates stopping for either of the following purposes:
(A) Loading or unloading of passengers for the time as may be specified by local ordinance.
(B) Depositing mail in an adjacent mailbox.
(4) Green indicates time limit parking specified by local ordinance.
(5) Blue indicates parking limited exclusively to the vehicles of disabled persons and disabled veterans.
So, since the curb was not red, we were in the clear, right?
The Second Circuit overturned the conviction of programmer Sergey Aleynikov, who was found guilty of violating the National Stolen Property Act (19 USC 2314) and the Economic Espionage Act (18 USC 1832). US. v. Aleynikov (Apr 11, 2012, 2nd Cir.)
The defendant was a software programmer at Goldman Sachs who worked on their High Frequency Trading (HFT) system. This proprietary internal software system ran algorithms to determine when to make trades based on rapidly changing market conditions. Aleynikov left Goldman to take a job offer at a small Chicago software company, which wanted to develop HFT software. However, before leaving Goldman, Aleynikov uploaded significant portions of the HFT code from Goldman servers to a server in Germany. Then, he downloaded that code at home, put it on a flash drive, and took it to Chicago to give to his new employer. He was arrested by the FBI upon his return to New Jersey.
Our daily summary writers chose some interesting cases to share this week.
The 4th Circuit issued an opinion remanding the Rosetta Stone v. Google trademark case back to the district court for further proceedings. Rosetta Stone complained that Google AdWords infringed on their trademarks and caused likely and actual confusion for consumers. As Eric Goldman notes — “how 2005.” Professor Goldman has an excellent and detailed post on this case and its ramifications for trademark actions against Google. Go there for details.
Our summary writers have highlighted some interesting cases this week — all from state supreme courts.
The Illinois Supreme Court ruled on an assault weapons ban, remanding it back to the trial court to determine whether the law comports with the Second Amendment. In Wilson v. Cook County, the court found that given the early stage of the litigation, it cannot be said conclusively whether “assault weapons” as defined by the ordinance fall within the scope of rights protected by the Second Amendment. The question requires an empirical inquiry, beyond the scope of both the record and judicial notice. The county has not had an opportunity to establish a nexus between the ordinance and the protected governmental interest.
A federal appeals court in New York reversed a lower court ruling in Viacom’s copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube and Google over user uploads of thousands of popular TV shows like South Park and ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
“A reasonable jury could find that YouTube had actual knowledge or awareness of specific infringing activity on its website.”
The new decision (read it below) reverses the June 23, 2010 ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granting summary judgment to YouTube and Google.
Facebook’s and Mark Zuckerberg’s lawyers told a federal court yesterday that convicted felon Paul Ceglia’s latest discovery requests should be put on hold, and that Ceglia’s lawsuit claiming a fifty-percent (50%) ownership stake in Facebook should be dismissed.
Lawyers at Gibson Dunn were emphatic that the court should not “perversely reward [Ceglia] for his ongoing efforts to derail the discovery process” by keeping his lawsuit alive.
Perhaps more importantly, they argue, Ceglia’s failure to dispute that emails he sent in 2004 to a then assistant attorney general at the Illinois Attorney General’s office “conclusively proves that the [disputed] Work for Hire Document is a fake.”
Facebook filed its answer and counterclaims against Yahoo! today in the Silicon Valley patent battle between the social networking giant and the fading portal.
Yahoo filed its patent lawsuit three weeks ago, and Facebook fired back a salvo of patent infringement counterclaims right back at the portal.
Facebook claims that Yahoo is violating the following patents:
Here is a rundown of March’s highest scoring lawyers on Justia Legal Answers, along with a look at which Justia Dockets legal filings, Tech Law blog posts, and Facebook posts readers viewed the most.
Justia Legal Answers’ Top 10 Legal Answerers for March 2012
© 2024 Justia
