lawsuits

Worst lawsuit ever

You'd think that lawyers would be trained in the art of correctly interpreting the fine print.

Larry Drury, an Illinois lawyer, has filed a lawsuit on behalf of iPhone owner Jose Trujillo that claims Apple defrauded his client by failing to reveal that the iPhone battery was not user-replaceable, and that it would die after 300 charges. (Thanks, Gizmodo.)

"This case arises out of Defendants' purposeful and fraudulent concealment to purchasers of its iPhone cellular telephone that they will be required to incur an annual fee of $85.95 as part of Defendants' battery replacement program," Drury … Read more

CNET News.com feature: Judge unimpressed by case against Facebook

BOSTON--The judge's message Wednesday to ConnectU over its intellectual property lawsuit against fellow social-networking site Facebook was clear: show us the evidence.

ConnectU, which accuses Facebook of stealing its ideas, has been in legal pursuit of its rival, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and early employees Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum and Christopher Hughes for nearly three years, and there still isn't an end in sight.

Massachusetts Federal Judge Douglas P. Woodlock repeatedly stressed that there was simply not enough evidence to back up allegations that Zuckerberg, who had performed programming work for ConnectU while it … Read more

Google sued over North Carolina tax exemptions

It's pretty common for large companies to get tax breaks and other incentives to expand their operations in U.S. cities and states. Apparently, things aren't going so well for Google in North Carolina though.

First, there was the charge that the search giant tried to silence North Carolina politicians as the parties negotiated the deal. Under the agreement, Google will invest around $600 million and employ more than 200 people in a data center in Lenoir in exchange for tax breaks worth at least $89 million over 30 years.

Now, a libertarian advocacy group is challenging those … Read more

Judge gives ConnectU founders two weeks to revise Facebook complaint

BOSTON--A federal judge in a Massachusetts district court gave the founders of college-based social networking site ConnectU two weeks to revise the complaint that they have filed against Facebook, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and four other early employees of the fast-growing social network. The ConnectU founders, twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and their fellow 2004 Harvard graduating classmate Divya Narendra, have accused Zuckerberg and his company of stealing their code and business plan when Zuckerberg was casually employed as a programmer for ConnectU in the 2003-2004 academic year.

Judge Douglas P. Woodlock, during the case's dismissal hearing on Wednesday … Read more

EFF sues Universal over 'fair use' of song in YouTube video

We all heard the stories about the Recording Industry Association of America lawsuits and the mostly college students who found themselves in the crosshairs several years ago.

Many people are opposed to music piracy, but far fewer actually agreed with the RIAA's heavy-handed legal approach.

Among dissenters is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against RIAA member Universal Music Publishing Group after the company asked that a home video be removed from YouTube due to copyright infringement. The video features 18-month-old Holden Lenz dancing to Prince's "Let's Get Crazy" and runs for a total of 29 seconds. Following Universal's complaint, the video was removed by YouTube and remained offline until recently.

The EFF points out that, "Under federal copyright law, a mere allegation of copyright infringement can result in the removal of content from the Internet." This legal framework mandates that services take down material that may actually be completely lawful or protected under fair use, and this situation is the impetus for the suit.

… Read more

CNET News.com feature: Opening credits roll for Facebook's colorful court hearing

If indie cinema hero Wes Anderson--of Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums fame--directed a quirky courtroom drama, there's a chance that it might bear some resemblance to what could unfold at Wednesday's impending showdown between social-networking sites Facebook and ConnectU.

The backstory of the legal squabble, after all, in which the three founders of college-centric start-up ConnectU have accused Facebook czar Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their business plan and code, reads like classic Anderson.

It's a melange of gossip about upper-crust Silicon Valley, allegations of old-school Ivy League skulduggery and an oddball cast of characters that ranges from … Read more

I love that dirty water--and that Facebook lawsuit

Tomorrow morning, I'll be heading from New York to Boston to sit in on the dismissal hearing for the lawsuit that social networking site ConnectU has filed against current Silicon Valley darling Facebook. It's a long-running drama that goes back to when the founders of both sites were students at Harvard, and no one's entirely sure how it's going to turn out.

I'll have a story on the subject on News.com very soon. In the meantime, here's what some other news outlets have been saying in the weeks leading up to the case: … Read more

RIAA ordered to pay nearly $70K in attorneys' fees

In 2004, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed suit against Deborah Foster, an Oklahoma resident, alleging that her computer and her ISP account had been used to download and trade copyrighted recordings illegally. As usual in these suits, the RIAA offered to settle the case for a few thousand dollars.

Except that Deborah Foster knew she hadn't done anything wrong, and refused to pay up. After some initial discovery, the RIAA began to suspect that Deborah's adult daughter, Amanda, was responsible for the alleged downloads, and it added Amanda's name to the suit. But Deborah … Read more

RIAA ordered to cover suit target's legal fees

In what appears to be the first such occurrence, the recording industry must foot nearly $70,000 in legal bills incurred by an Oklahoma woman whom it unsuccessfully accused of "vicariously" aiding copyright infringement.

Until Monday's ruling in this case, called Capitol v. Foster, the Recording Industry Association of America had never been ordered to pay attorneys' fees as part of its ongoing battle against allegedly illicit file swapping, according to attorney Ray Beckerman, who has been tracking such suits at the blog Recording Industry vs The People.

The RIAA, for its part, said in a statement … Read more