Third-party companies that stored Megaupload’s data may delete all user files on Thursday. Megaupload customers, even those not guilty of piracy or using the service illegally, have been unable to access their files since the website was shut down on January 19th. So far, seven men have been charged for illegally allowing Megaupload users to store and share music, movies and other copyrighted content, among other things. The issue, however, is that millions of Megaupload users used the service legally t...

Oracle recently asked a court to stay or dismiss a Java-related patent infringement case against Google for up to 9 months. In a letter to the court, however, Oracle also revealed how much it believes Google makes per day from Android activations alone. “Each day’s worth of activations likely generates approximately $10 million in annual mobile advertising revenue for Google,” Oracle said. Patent expert Florian Muller of FOSS Patents explained that while Oracle doesn’t state how it ca...

A company called Cellrderm has taken Microsoft to court over its Windows Phone “Really” advertisements, according to Adweek. Cellrderm, a gag company that creates commercials for a fake Cellrderm “cell abuse aid” product, argues that it owns the copyrights to the creative content used in Microsoft’s ads and that Microsoft copied its work in its “Bedroom” and “Bathroom” commercials. You’ve probably seen the ads on TV: in one, a man is too busy on his ...

AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon have reached an agreement with music and movie publishers that will help enforce copyright infringement while giving the ISPs a chance to level with their customers. According to Ars Technica, copyright owners will continue to scour the dark corners of the net looking for anyone downloading and illegally sharing their content. If an IP is found to be downloading or sharing illegal content — likely via P2P networks — the music and movie compani...

According to a report filed by The Wall Street Journal, peer-to-peer networking site LimeWire and several major record labels may be working on an out-of-court settlement in a copyright infringement case from 2006. “Lawyers for several major record labels have held at least three settlement conferences with representatives of a file-sharing service that they sued for copyright infringement, according to a federal court docket entry, indicating that the two sides may reach an agreement on a financial p...

If you thought the lawsuits between OEMs were over, you’d be mistaken. Huawei Technologoies has just filed a lawsuit against Motorola claiming that the company illegally transferred Huawei’s intellectual property to another company, Nokia Siemens Networks, in the acquisition of Motorola’s wireless network business. Huawei is claiming irreperable commercial damage as Motorola has not assured Huawei that proprietary confidential information won’t be transfered or disclosed. ”...

It’s starting to look like VLC’s days in the iOS app store are numbered. Videolan developer, Rémi Denis-Courmont, has confirmed that the company has sent Apple papers citing copyright infringement. The VLC media player is currently distributed under a General Public License (GPL), and this has come into direct conflict with Apple’s DRM-based app store distribution model. The conflict of licenses were known to both parties prior to the app’s publication, and Videolan is stressing they ...

Back on the 13th of September, a mysterious post appeared on site pastebin.com; a post that contained number matrices reported to be the HDCP master keys. HDCP (High Definition Content Protection) is the encryption schema used by hardware manufacturers to encrypt data as it moves through an HDMI or DVI cable to your viewing medium. The encryption is meant to prevent signal eavesdropping by third-party devices that could be placed between, for example, your Blu-ray player and your HDTV, capturing the content...

After weeks of leaks and speculation, Canada’s reigning Conservative government outlined its plans to amend the ageing Copyright Act. According to the outline, anyone convicted of bypassing the DRM of a given media format — even if legally purchased — will be subject to a fine of up to $5,000. But if the circumvention of DRM is done for profit, then the fine is raised to $1 million. Convicted downloaders of copyrighted materials will face significantly weaker penalties with a fine of $5,000,...

If you didn’t already think the people behind the RIAA and MPAA were insane, we’re positive that your opinion on them will change as soon as your read what the two associations have proposed in a recent letter to the Office of Intellectual Property Enforcement. Here are but some of the changes the two have asked for:The installation of spyware on computers which would seek out and automatically delete illegally obtained mediaCensorship of the internet which would block the transfer of illegal file...

All you HTC Raphael fans out there who have been enjoying a pre-release version of Windows Mobile 6.5, it looks like the party may be over. Microsoft has put the pressure on XDA developers and they have withdrawn the links to the popular Windows 6.5 ROM crafted by Da_G. All download links, both in the original post and subsequent posts, have been removed. Thankfully, the forum has not been locked or shut down. These takedown notices however, may not be confined to just this single ROM as others who are mirror...

When Kevin Bermeister of Kazaa fame and Michael Speck, former head of Music Industry’s anti-piracy arm join together to form a new company called Brilliant Digital Entertainment, you know the outcome will not be good. The brainchild of this duo is an application called Copyrouter that will use deep packet inspection to detect illicit files shared on the Internet.The application has been promoted as “the tool” that will eradicate child pornography but its true intent is much more nefarious. I...

Of course it was only a matter of time before Jobs sicked the hounds on the small and storied Florida company Psystar. Sure, you’ve read plenty about them and a select few of you may have even worked up the, err, moxie to order up one of their “Open Computers”. The idea behind the company is relatively simple: Sell cheap computers. What set Psystar apart, aside form the initial sketchiness, is the fact that they brazenly advertise the fact that they will ship your Open Computer complete with...