Balough
December 13, 2013
It is not a fair use under the Copyright Act to “sample” entire songs by downloading them from the Internet before deciding whether to buy an album, the Seventh Circuit has found. Cecilia Gonzalez argued that her downloading over 1,370 copyrighted songs was fair use since she was just sampling music to determine what she […]
Balough
December 12, 2013
DIRECTV and its telemarketers were a little too direct-calling persons who had registered for the federal Do Not Call list. As a result, the satellite television provider will pay a record fine of $5.3 million to the Federal Trade Commission. The company agreed to stop using telemarketers who violate the FTC’s rules regarding the Do […]
Balough
December 12, 2013
Lawyers are not financial institutions and therefore are not required to send privacy disclosure notices to clients under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, the D.C. Circuit affirmed. The question of whether lawyers fall under the Act was raised by two bar associations after the Federal Trade Commission indicated that lawyers were not entitled to an exception under […]
Balough
December 12, 2013
A student who is openly gay at her high school has a right to privacy to keep that information from being given to her parents by the school’s principal, a federal court has found. The U.S. District Court in California rejected a motion to dismiss the privacy complaint brought by the student and her mother […]
Balough
December 12, 2013
The Indiana House of Representatives has been barred from following its long tradition of opening with a prayer until those giving the invocation stop referring to Jesus Christ, the Savior and the Son of God. An Indianapolis federal judge found that the Indiana House’s practice violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. The clause […]
Balough
December 12, 2013
If the young lovers talked during sex and the video recorder captured the sound, then the recording violates the federal wiretapping statute, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled. When she was 16, the plaintiff had consensual sex with a 17-year-old. He videotaped the act. After they stopped dating, he circulated the tape at their […]
Balough
December 12, 2013
Not surprisingly, spammers continue to harvest email addresses, a new study by the Federal Trade Commission found. However, the good news from the study is that internet service providers’ anti-spam technologies are capable of blocking spam, the report said. The report found that where consumers take a pro-active approach by “masking” their email addresses, the […]
Balough
December 12, 2013
A statute that criminalized making false bad statements about a police officer but did not punish those who made false good statements violates the First Amendment, the Ninth Circuit found. The court overturned the conviction of Darren Chaker who was sentenced to two days in jail and three years probation after he filed a report […]
Balough
December 12, 2013
Contrary to its claims, using software purchased for $24.95 won’t give you free, legal access to music, movies and games. Instead using the file-sharing programs to download copyrighted materials is illegal, the Federal Trade Commission alleged in a complaint against MP3DownloadCity.com. Based on the FTC complaint, a U.S. District Court judge in California has issued […]
Balough
December 12, 2013
An anonymous file sharing software may come with an unwanted guest-spyware that slows down your computer and that cannot be easily uninstalled. The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit to stop Odysseus Marketing and its principal, Walter Rines, from advertising a software program that Odysseus claims allows customers to engage in peer-to-peer file sharing […]
