California Appeals Overturned Video-Game Ban To The Supreme Court

from the if-at-first-you-don't-succeed dept

Politicians in California keep trying to push through a ban on the sale of violent video games to minors -- despite the fact that every state that's passed a ban has seen it get tossed out by the courts. The latest setback for California came in February, when an appeals court upheld a lower court's ruling that the ban was unconstitutional, but the state's not finished. Its attorney general, Jerry Brown, now says he's asked the Supreme Court to hear another appeal of the original ruling. It's fairly annoying that Brown sees fit to waste even more taxpayer money (especially given the state's budget woes), but perhaps the only saving grace is that the Supreme Court might take the case and reaffirm what other courts have said all along, and finally put a stop to some of this political grandstanding.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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TorrentSpy, Though Out Of Business, To Appeal Massive Fine

from the might-as-well-fight dept

Following yesterday's $110 million fine against TorrentSpy, ostensibly for copyright infringement, but really for destruction of evidence, we figured that the whole thing would drop, as the company has already shut down. But... not so fast. The company has decided to appeal, claiming that the result was a Hollywood PR stunt. Given the way the MPAA tried to claim that this ruling acted as a warning to other torrent trackers, he has a point. Still, given the destruction of evidence in this case, it may not be the model case on these issues. There are plenty of other cases, such as those against The Pirate Bay (in Sweden) and isoHunt that will be more important long term.

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Jury Has No Problem With Rambus Patent Tricks; But Let's Wait For The Appeal

from the ain't-over-yet dept

Rambus really is a fascinating company. Almost no one denies that it pulled some sneaky tricks in making sure that they had patents that covered a DRAM standard -- but the question was whether or not those tricks were actually illegal. The EU and the FTC both decided that Rambus' actions were illegal, but the company just kept hiring lawyers and has now convinced a jury it did nothing wrong. This isn't a surprise as juries almost always side with patent holders, in part due to the great American myth that a patent is a wonderful thing not to be questioned. But, Rambus is extremely premature in announcing: "This ruling should put to rest a series of ongoing allegations Rambus has endured for many years." Hardly. There will be appeals that are going to drag this out even longer. In the meantime, we fully expect angry Rambus investors to complain about this post again as they've done in the past. After that post, someone sent me an angry email saying that I had been reported to both Rambus and the feds for slander. I'm still waiting for the lawsuit.

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