by Timothy Lee
Mon, Dec 10th 2007 4:16pm
Filed Under:
advertising, file sharing, p2p, record labels, riaa
Companies:
imeem, napster, riaa, universal
by Mike Masnick
Tue, Nov 20th 2007 9:11am
Filed Under:
congress, copyright, fritz attaway, mpaa, music, subscriptions, universities
Companies:
congress, mpaa, napster, ruckus
MPAA Explains Why It's Okay To Tie Federal Funds To Blocking File Sharing
from the because-we-say-so,-dammit dept
by Timothy Lee
Wed, Oct 17th 2007 4:27pm
Filed Under:
innovation, recording industry
Companies:
apple, napster, riaa
Recording Industry Innovating Like It's 1999
from the deja-vu dept
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Sep 17th 2007 1:32pm
Filed Under:
patent trolls, patents, playlists
Companies:
apple, at&t, dell, lenovo, microsoft, napster, real, sprint, toshiba, verizon, viacom
Playlist Patented... Everyone Sued... But Did Apple Pay Up?
from the sounds-like-it dept
However, there is one very interesting point here. Apple is missing from the list. As the folks over at Ars Technica figured out, Premier actually had sued Apple about this same patent back in 2005, but at the same time it was filing all these new patent lawsuits it filed to dismiss the Apple suit, suggesting that Apple most likely paid off the company (perhaps giving it the money needed to suddenly sue every other company in the universe. Apple certainly has a history of doing this. When the company was sued on a rather similar obvious patent on a hierarchical menu-based user interfaces held by Creative, it eventually (after spending some time fighting it) decided to simply pay $100 million to be left alone. Of course, all that did was allow Creative to head out and sue plenty of others. Sound familiar? By settling on these questionable patent claims, all Apple is doing is encouraging more lawsuits of this nature for itself, as well as others.
by Mike Masnick
Tue, Sep 4th 2007 12:43pm
Filed Under:
copyright, investors, liability
Companies:
bertelsmann, napster, universal
Bertelsmann Agrees To Pay One More Time To Finally Settle All Of Napster's Mistargeted Lawsuits
from the bad-precedents dept
Unfortunately, before the case had a chance to get anywhere, Universal Music (who was the first to sue Bertelsmann) bought Bertelsmann. Then, rather than sue itself, the company quickly settled that portion of the lawsuit and proceeded to settle the other portions as well, with the final part of the case finally settling late last week. Bertelsmann eventually had to pay out approximately $300 million in all of these "settlements," which is a real shame since all the company did was invest in a service that its executives (who were soon fired) realized could have revolutionized the music business. While these are all settlements, meaning that there's no court precedent, this could still encourage companies to sue investors in companies rather than the companies themselves. Venture capitalists and private equity firms might want to take note.