Accessing PsyStar's website has become problematic, though it's not clear if it's due to court inunction or just the amount of public interest the company has generated. You have to give PsyStar credit for their moxie, though — running Windows, Linux or OS X on the same, relatively inexpensive and modifiable box as demonstrated in a promotional clip from PsyStar is the stuff übergeek dreams are made of.
Tesla Motors can't seem to manufacture cars reliably, but the company has become something of an assembly line for lawsuits. It's being sued by a vendor for breach of contract, suing a competitor for breach of contract and theft of trade secrets, and is now being sued by a former employee who alleges the company violated California labor laws and hopes to turn the case into a class action suit. Screw ambulance chasing, Roadster chasing may be the hot new thing among local lawyers. (Photo by Tinou Bao)
Worried that your obsessive kitten-video viewing records on YouTube would be exposed in Viacom's copyright lawsuit against YouTube? You can relax. Google and Viacom lawyers have reached an agreement to anonymize records of usernames and IP addresses in YouTube's video-viewing logs, which Viacom wants to examine to show patterns of willful copyright infringement on the site. The accounts of employees of both companies, however, aren't included in the deal. And that suggests a negotiating tactic for Google.
So this is fun. Back in January, Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson sent a subpoena to Room Eight, a local politics blog. The subpoena demanded "identifying details of a Room Eight blogger who wrote under the name 'Republican Dissident,' as well as the authors of a dozen comments on his posts." Are you alarmed yet? Here's the kicker: the subpoena was sealed, with an all-caps warning threatening prosecution if the contents of it were revealed. Now, six months later, the DA's finally given up. And we can all read about how a random functionary on the Bronx Board of Elections got the DA's office—without the DA's knowledge, according to Johnson!—to threaten to expose and prosecute an anonymous blogger and a dozen anonymous commenters, just for criticizing her. So yes the forces of good and anonymous online criticism won out this time. But here's why it's still scary:
"In a long-awaited decision in a four-year-old trademark lawsuit against eBay brought by the jeweler Tiffany and Company, Judge Richard Sullivan of the Federal District Court in Manhattan ruled Monday that the online retailer does not bear a legal responsibility to prevent its users from selling counterfeit items on its marketplace." [New York Times]
If you were a totally unknown rapper who suddenly appeared in a documentary rhyming alongside the late Biggie Smalls, one of the greatest and fattest men to ever pick up a microphone, wouldn't you be happy for the publicity? (Yes, if you were smart). Not if your name was Supreme, a Brooklyn rapper who is suing some documentary makers for $20 million (good luck) for using footage of the Notorious B.I.G. battling Supreme in 1994. It caused him "mental distress," the poor lil guy! The Post says the suit "neglects to say who won the war of words between Supreme and Biggie," but we're gonna go with "Biggie by a mile," based on classic clips like this one:
Amanda Hudson allowed teenage daughter Jodie Hudson to throw a birthday bash at the British family's £4.4 million ($8.7 million) villa in Spain, but when pictures like this of underage drinkers passed out on the floor and accounts of stolen jewelry appeared in Blighty tabloids, the elder Hudson brought suit, alleging defamation under the U.K.'s strict libel laws. The fishwraps will hide behind local "fair comment" provisions, which indemnifies the retellers of factual accounts — the problem is, the accounts posted by daughter Jodie and friends to social networks like Bebo and Facebook may have been less than strictly factual. And, of course, the photos are protected under copyright provisions. Which may mean that British hacks might have to factcheck anything gleaned from websites. I can only hope this is one legal precedent that they don't export to the colonies.
Despite reports to the contrary, Viacom did not, as a part of its copyright suit against Google and YouTube, ask for "any personally identifiable information of any YouTube user" the company now wants us all to believe. It will get data from YouTube, but anything personally identifiying will be "stripped from the data." It's nice bit of PR revisionism. According to court documents, Viacom did "seek all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed." Only after the court sided with Viacom, but public opinion did not, did Viacom agree to accept scrubbed data. (Photo by AP)
UK privacy laws continue to get stricter and stricter, and it's all thanks to Nazis. Or in this case, high-profile sons of prominent Nazi-sympathizers who may or may not get some sort of sexual satisfaction out of Nazi roleplay. Max Mosley is in charge of Formula One racing and some other gay European motorsports. He is the son of Oswald Mosley, the "Mr. Oswald with the Swastika tattoo" from that one Elvis Costello song. Oswald was a famous British fascist who hung out with Hitler all the time. Max claims he isn't a Nazi though he's now forced to admit in court that he loves sado-masochism. He's forced to admit this because of a lawsuit he brought which threatens the very industry of celebrity gossip in the UK.
Fantastic news, America-our constitutional right to repeatedly call a man a murderer has been upheld! Former congressmen Gary Condit, who allegedly caused 9/11 (j/k Gary!) sued Vanity Fair scribe Dominick Dunne for defamation, because Dunne kept claiming he knew that Condit knew stuff he wasn't telling about the murder of former Condit intern/paramour Chandra Levy (which Condit is totally responsible for, allegedly). Dunne went on the tee-vee and said "I think he knows more about what did happen than he has ever said," so the judge dismissed the suit becuz "I think" means it was a constitutionally protected statement of opinion, not assertion of fact. Or, as the judge put it, "Dunne does not suggest that his opinion statements are based on any additional facts not known to the public." This is terrible news for everyone, as now we all actually do have to be careful to use those stupid weasel words. Like "allegedly"!
Do Floridians search more passionately for "bukkake" than "ethanol"?. Nobody thought to enter that data into the public record until Clinton McCowen, the proprietor of CumOnHerFace.com, was slapped with obscenity charges by the State of Florida, and his defense attorney turned to Google for aid. Last week, when the defendant settled out of court and accepted a three-to-five-year prison sentence, it seemed like the Google Trends defense was dead in the water. But McCowen's lawyer, Lawrence Walters, still believes Google's positive response to his subpoena — soliciting the frequency of sex-related search terms by community — bodes a shift in American morality. Simply put: Google has forced us all to confront just how kinky we are.
Former Page Sixer Jared Paul Stern's defamation suit against billionaire creep Ron Burkle was recently tossed out, as we all know. But his nutty lawyer Larry Klayman promised an appeal! Unfortunately, that appeal can't go forward in New York just now. Klayman, who is insane, is not allowed to practice law in New York, and Stern's New York attorney just quit, saying his "military service is complete." Yeesh. Still, they'll hire a new guy and fight on. Why? Why continue embarrassing himself further? Stern explained why in a terse statement: "I've got nothing better to do than bury the fucker if it takes 20 years." Enjoy your gadfly, Ron!
Court documents in the ConnectU case reveal that when it comes to the price of Facebook common shares, Facebook's board values the company at $3.75 billion — far lower than the $15 billion valuation set by Microsoft's $240 million purchase of 1.6 percent of the company. As an investor, Microsoft owns preferred stock — worth more in part because, in case of an acquisition or an IPO, it's the stuff that gets sold first. That means Facebook board really thinks the company isn't worth $3.75 billion or $15 billion, but somewhere in between. Actual shareholders — including Facebook employees, we've heard — are more than willing to move their shares at a $4 billion valuation. The revealing court documents, in which ConnectU lawyers complain about Facebook's valuation, are embedded below. Before you feel too sympathetic, ask yourself: Isn't this the kind of thing lawyers are paid to know?
Record label EMI may have tired of suing individual file sharers for copyright infringement. But a number of music-industry plaintiffs, all partners and subsidiaries of EMI, are suing social network Hi5 and advertising startup VideoEgg in New York Southern District Court for copyright infringement. According to the complaint [PDF]:
Last Friday, shareholder plaintiffs filed suit against San Jose District Court against Apple CEO Steve Jobs, former CFO Fred Anderson, ex-general counsel Nancy Heinen, and members of the company's board of directors looking to reclaim the $7 billion in lost stock value when the company restated its financials in the wake of a — let's say it — hopelessly boring stock-option scandal that takedown-hungry journalists cared about far more than their readers. Let's be real: If anyone really cared about Jobs's fudging of stock-options grant dates, would it have taken so long to drum up some outraged shareholders? This smells of bored lawyers. The old-news complaint:
The legal case opened by ConnectU founders Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is closed, but the courtroom drama continues. CNET has filed an objection to San Jose District Court Judge James Ware's decision to close the courtroom and put all the evidence under seal. What's in those documents that might be so interesting? Facebook's internal valuations, for starters. But most intriguing are the purported instant message conversations that the plaintiffs were led to believe provided proof that Zuckerberg is a little thief. (Photo by AP)
Okay, it wasn't a case actually involving Valleywag, but ConsumerAffairs.com. Virgina judge Gerald Bruce Lee cited the Communications Decency Act in absolving the Web site and company of any liability for user complaints about car dealerships in Fairfax, Virginia. The commenters themselves, however, are still liable for defamation and libel lawsuits, so be nice! Or at least take steps to preserve your anonymity. Not a commenter on Valleywag, but would like to become one? Read our FAQ. We especially love folks who send us tips, preferrably from inside the belly of some Valley tech beast.
Chaunce Hayden (pictured: his back tat), the editor of marginal gossip rag Steppin' Out, was named in a $10 million lawsuit yesterday for being the source who provided Page Six with a false item about a sex tape featuring Bam Margera and the fiancee of radio shock jock Opie. The Post already tried to pin all the blame for the mistake on Hayden (which is rather ungallant, whether accurate or not). And Page Six editor Richard Johnson even told Hayden he would never use another item from him again. But Chaunce has his own story, which can be summed up as: I just said this was a rumored sex tape, jerks. And I didn't start the rumor. It was some dude named, uh... Ben!:
The Post is embroiled in another legal spat. Lynsi Smigo, the fiancée of radio host Opie of the "Opie & Anthony" show, has filed a $10 million libel suit against the Post, Page Six editor Richard Johnson, and gossip lowlife Chaunce Hayden for reporting that she'd appeared in a sex tape with MTV's Bam Margera. As the story goes, Hayden—who, in case you're not familiar with his work, is the editor of Steppin' Out, the sort of rag handed out for free to Ashley Dupre types outside of clubs in Sayreville, NJ—provided the tip to Page Six in April. The Post ran the story, but there was no sex tape, which the paper acknowledged when it issued an apology in May. Now the Smigo has filed a lawsuit for $10 million claiming the story left her feeling "humiliated" and "ashamed." (Funny, those are the same emotions that come to mind when we think of dating Opie.) Smigo will be lucky if she walks away with enough cash to cover the limo ride to her wedding, much less the eight-figure sum she's seeking. But we're guessing Opie isn't all that worried. This is, after all, the same radio personality who once encouraged a couple to have sex inside St. Patrick's (a stunt that lost him his job on WNEW). We figure the publicity value of the lawsuit should more than make up for his legal bills.
Remember when Page Six published a story in April about a purported sex tape featuring Bam Margera and the fiancee of radio shock jock Opie? And Opie immediately denied it, and then the Post admitted it probably wasn't true, and blamed it on a bad source? Well Opie is not the type to let them off that easy—his fiancee has filed a $10 million lawsuit against the Post, Page Six editor Richard Johnson, and the source, Steppin' Out editor Chaunce Hayden. It's a bottom-of-the-barrel multimillion-dollar legal slapfight! Highlights of the lawsuit:
