Politics and Law

It only took a few days after politicians returned from their summer holidays for Hollywood and the major record labels to resume their legislative push to rewrite and expand digital copyright law.

The Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America are lobbying for a pair of bills that enjoy bipartisan support. Both are designed to give the federal government more power to police copyright violations, and both are likely to run into opposition from political foes of the RIAA and MPAA.

On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on the so-called Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act, … Read more

About this time a decade ago, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was praying that the U.S. Justice Department would file an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.

"I've competed against Microsoft for years, but I never quite appreciated how big Microsoft has become, not just as a company, but as a brand and as part of the national consciousness," Schmidt said in 1998, four months before the suit was filed. "It's the products, the Microsoft marketing juggernaut, Bill Gates's wealth, all those magazine cover stories. It's everything."

That was when Schmidt was the chief … Read more

The U.S. Department of Justice has reportedly hired a well-known antitrust litigator for a possible court challenge to a planned advertising deal between Google and Yahoo.

Former Walt Disney Co. Vice Chairman Sandy Litvack has been hired to head any legal challenge to the ad deal, according to an article published Monday by Dow Jones News Service.

It was not clear, the article said, whether any eventual lawsuit would target only the Google-Yahoo deal--or represent a broader assault on the Mountain View, Calif.-based company's business practices. Lawyers have been reportedly deposing witnesses and subpoenaing documents to support … Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn.--John McCain formally accepted the Republican Party's presidential nomination here on Thursday in a speech extolling the virtues of both oil drilling and green energy.

The Arizona senator received one of his loudest rounds of applause when he lashed out at his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, and characterized the dispute over oil drilling as a matter of international relations and security as well as economics.

"We are going to stop sending $700 billion a year to countries that don't like us very much," McCain said. "We will attack the problem on every … Read more

ST. PAUL, Minn.--Two of Silicon Valley's best-known female executives on Wednesday enthusiastically endorsed Sen. John McCain's presidential bid, saying he was a far more attractive candidate than his Democratic rival on economic and tax grounds.

The pro-McCain pair were Meg Whitman, who stepped down as eBay's chief executive officer in March, and Carly Fiorina, the chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard from 1999 to 2005. Both are active in the McCain campaign; both have been talked about as receiving high-level appointments if McCain is elected.

"I know John McCain," Fiorina said. "He will demand … Read more

MINNEAPOLIS--Ron Paul is no longer a candidate this year to be president of the United States.

But on Tuesday, the Republican congressman from Texas nevertheless attracted up to 10,000 supporters here for a 10-hour event called Rally for the Republic, held at the sports center home of the Minnesota Timberwolves basketball team.

It was only about 10 miles from the official Republican convention that's taking place in St. Paul, but a galaxy away in message and spirit. Instead of access being carefully limited to delegates, insiders, and well-heeled party donors, this rally was open to the general public. … Read more

DENVER--Delegates squeezing into the stadium hosting the Democratic convention on Thursday are being asked to do what must be a political party first: show their support for their party's nominee through text messages.

During a lull in the convention program before singer (and political activist) Sheryl Crow appeared onstage with a guitar, organizers asked delegates to show their support for Barack Obama by sending the text message "DNC" to 62262. Those digits, of course, happen to spell "Obama."

The more text messages originating from each state--presumably based on the sender's area code--the larger a … Read more

DENVER--If you're a candidate for president during the 2012 primaries, you may want to watch how sharply you criticize your rivals. Your critiques may come back to haunt you on the Web.

That's what the Republicans, at least, are hoping to demonstrate with their notready08.com site, which features clips of Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, and John Edwards slamming Barack Obama last year and earlier this year for being inexperienced or over his voting record in Illinois.

Other sections include a YouTube video listed as the "Temple of Obama" that shows the makings of Obama's … Read more