Archive for: lawsuit
The long-running battle between once popular P2P file sharing service Limewire and various music labels is finally over. Just one short week after the end of the official trial, the second trial to determine damages has ended with a settlement of $105 million USD reached. While said amount may sound like a lot of money (because it is), it pales in comparison to the $150,000/song major music labels had voiced before, totaling trillions in damages. Thankfully common sense came out on top.
Limewire itself has been dead since last October after a failed attempt at launching a legitimate online music store. With the end of the trial, we could be looking at the last mentions of the once infamous file sharing service. As for file sharing as a whole, the story has just begun.
In an unsurprising move, Samsung has publicly come forward regarding Apple’s allegations of blatant IP infringement and copying of iOS and the iPhone design, and stating that they would pursue all legal options in protecting their own intelectual property. In short: Samsung is going to counter-sue Apple for copying them.
Seeing as how Samsung is spread through many different layers of hardware and software manufacturing/development, they certainly have a good supply of ammunition with which to fire at Apple. One thing is for certain, however. This battle will be messy. The bigger question is how will it affect future Apple products seeing as how Apple is a very large customer of Samsung technologies.
By now you’ve likely seen at least seventy dozen different articles about Apple suing Samsung because of the apparent similarities between Apple’s iDevices and Samsung’s latest round of smartphones and tablets. While lawsuits in the tech world are many times warranted for blatant infringement, this one seems rather (pardon our pun) fruitless.
Smartphones over the last couple of years (and foreseeable future) all look the same. They’re a smooth, thin slab of plastic with one side containing mostly glass. There’s only so many ways you can design said device in a way that is truly “unique”.
As far as Apple’s lawsuit against Samsung regarding hardware — it’s stupid. Software on the other hand is an entirely different thing. We’ve long said that Samsung’s Touch Whiz is (1) god awful atrocious and (2) a blatant rip off (a poor one at that) of Apple’s iOS UI. In that regard, we wonder what took Apple so long.
Regardless, both sides will likely come to some sort of secretive agreement behind closed doors after some money exchanges hands. Because in the end, Apple and Samsung both make large sums of money off of each other.
The ongoing dispute between famed Playstation/iOS hacker, George Hotz (Geohot) and Sony has come to an end. Both sides were able to reach some sort of agreement, with Hotz agreeing to an injunction.
Sony Computer Entertainment America (“SCEA”) and George Hotz (“Hotz”) today announced the settlement of the lawsuit filed by SCEA against Hotz in federal court in San Francisco, California. The parties reached an agreement in principle on March 31, 2011. As part of the settlement, Hotz consented to a permanent injunction.
Both parties expressed satisfaction that litigation had been quickly resolved. “Sony is glad to put this litigation behind us,” said Riley Russell, General Counsel for SCEA. “Our motivation for bringing this litigation was to protect our intellectual property and our consumers. We believe this settlement and the permanent injunction achieve this goal.”
“It was never my intention to cause any users trouble or to make piracy easier,” said Hotz, “I’m happy to have the litigation behind me.” Hotz was not involved in the recent attacks on Sony’s internet services and websites.
In the action, SCEA accused Hotz of violating federal law by posting online information about the security system in the PlayStation 3 videogame console and software that SCEA claimed could be used to circumvent the security system in the console and allow the playing of pirated videogames. Hotz denies any wrongdoing on his part. Hotz’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction was still pending before the federal court in San Francisco but a preliminary injunction was issued requiring Hotz to take down the postings challenged by SCEA.
“We want our consumers to be able to enjoy our devices and products in a safe and fun environment and we want to protect the hard work of the talented engineers, artists, musicians and game designers who make PlayStation games and support the PlayStation Network,” added Russell. “We appreciate Mr. Hotz’s willingness to address the legal issues involved in this case and work with us to quickly bring this matter to an early resolution.”
Is Geohot done hacking the PS3 for good? Stay tuned…
The ongoing Geohot vs. Sony lawsuit gets more interesting with each passing day. Yesterday, we were talking about Geohot’s apparent fleeing to South America. Today, Geohot himself has both confirmed and denied the rumor he fled the country saying:
Factually, it’s true I’m in South America, on a vacation I’ve had planned and paid for since November. I mean, it is Spring break; hacking isn’t my life. Rest assured that not a dime of legal defense money would ever go toward something like this. And of course Townsend loves the idea of painting me as an international fugitive. I have been in contact with my lawyers almost every day; I would not let the case suffer. That said, I also won’t let this ridiculous lawsuit run my life either. Then the fearmongerers win.
Fair enough. He does have a point — through all the drama that’s been going on, he probably does have a life outside his hacking hobbies. As for the claim that Geohot tampered with his hard drives, we’ll have to wait and see…
Update
About those “tampered” hard drives — Geohot simply removed the controller cards. You stay classy, Sony.
Today we’ve received word that common sense and practicality do not flow through the minds of California’s legal system — PS3 hacker Geohot had his temporary restraining order upheld. During this the next few weeks, Geohot is supposed to turn over any and all computer/electronic equipment used to hack the PS3 and release the tools in question, help other hackers continue his work, link or speak of the very act of PS3 jailbreaking, and pretty much anything else that is remotely tied to gadgets. Stupid? Yes. But that’s our legal system for ya.
As of now, Sony has but one tiny pat on the back with this restraining order as the real meat and potatoes of the lawsuit is still in the early stages, with each side building their case. From where we stand, Geohot has leg up thanks to the whole DMCA/iPhone jailbreaking saga that went down last year. But we will see, however, how the new DMCA exemptions apply to other similar areas in society.
In other news: Sony once again has shown how incompetent and ignorant they are when it comes to consumers’ rights with their property. The effect from people hacking their PS3′s solely for illegal purposes is small all things considered and not nearly the end of the world scenario they would lead you to believe. With that said, they have managed to drum up a lot more hype about this particular lawsuit and made themselves look like even bigger idiots. Classy.
The we had earlier concerning some pretty embarrassing examples of proprietary Oracle source code residing within Android source files may not be as serious or damaging as once thought. But Ars Technica’s Ryan Paul highlights that (1) the source code brought up by open source enthusiast and tech patent lawyer, Florian Mueller, is from a third party entity that included in Android’s Open Source Project repository. Second, much of the code in question is available from Sun’s website free of charge. With both of those points highlighted, the previous “wow factor” is quite as astonishing. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how it affects the current, ongoing lawsuit between Google and Oracle.
Be sure to check out Ars Technica’s full, detailed explanation on the matter.
- January 21, 2011 11:34 am
It’s a bad day to be a Google and avid Android distributor (such as your typical cellular carrier), as tech patent aficionado Florian Mueller, has found some rather startling finds whilst trudging through mountains of Android source code. In relation to the ongoing Oracle/Google lawsuit involving Android and it’s apparent patent infringement of Java, Mueller has found 37 Android source files contain blatantly stolen code from Oracle as they are labeled with:
PROPRIETARY / CONFIDENTIAL” and “DO NOT DISTRIBUTE” by Oracle / Sun
Google obviously already knows the code is there. The carriers and other distributors of Android devices, however, aren’t likely to be all that thrilled. Let us not forget that Motorola and HTC have already been hit with patent infringement lawsuits for some of Android’s (and Google’s) little Java-copying issue. Looks like Google’s defense just got a much heavier load to pull…
A couple of weeks ago, former iOS jailbreaker and current PS3 hacker, George Hotz aka “Geohot”, released (in coordination with the fail0ver team) code to crack the PS3′s hardware and software encryption thus allowing home brew software to be installed and run. Sony naturally wasn’t all to happy, and just recently responded with a lawsuit asking for unspecified monetary damages as well as the complete removal of any and all traces of Geohot’s crack from the internet (good luck with that Sony).
With that said, today began the first in a series of court appearances for Geohot and Sony in a California court, with the focus of this morning’s early meeting being to determine whether or not Geohot had to surrender all of his electronic gear as the case moves forward. Thankfully, common sense did play a small role in the court room today, with the presiding Judge Susan Illston questioning Sony’s argument that the case should be tried in California because Geohot (from New Jersey) received funds from PayPal (located in California) and posted the hack and code on Twitter and YouTube (also from California). Illston said that if Sony’s argument were taken seriously, the entire world’s problems and legal battles would be under her jurisdiction. As such, she put off any pending decision on Geohot’s electronic devices and further trials in California on hold until a later, unconfirmed date.
Score 1 for common sense. 0 for Sony.
