Digital Media

Twittering from court is prohibited, according to a federal judge in Georgia who banned spectators from sending live updates from a criminal trial.

U.S. District Judge Clay Land in Georgia wrote that Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure should be interpreted to ban Twitter.

Rule 53 says: "Except as otherwise provided by a statute or these rules, the court must not permit the taking of photographs in the courtroom during judicial proceedings or the broadcasting of judicial proceedings from the courtroom."

A reporter for the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer had asked permission to Twitter updates from the corruption trial of local attorney Mark Shelnutt, which was scheduled to start on Monday.

Read more of "Judge Bans Twitter From Court" at CBSNews.com.

8-25-09, 8:07 a.m. To include that The Pirate Bay is back online. To see a detail story on the site go here.

A Swedish district court has ordered an Internet service provider there to stop servicing The Pirate Bay.

The most popular BitTorrent tracker in the world appeared to be inaccessible to many in the U.S. on Monday morning but the blog TorrentFreak reported that the site had found a new connection to the Web and there were reports from readers that they were able to log on to the site. Citing a source close to The Pirate Bay, TorrentFreak said that the tracker was still down but would be back up on Tuesday.

An executive with Black Internet told Swedish newspaper SvD that the court informed the company that it would either shut off The Pirate Bay or face penalties. The founders of The Pirate Bay were found guilty of copyright violations last April.

The executive told the newspaper that Black Internet is not the only ISP servicing The Pirate Bay but is probably the largest. He said none of the other ISPs were affected by the decision. He added that the company is considering options.

It's unclear how long Black Internet will be forced to stop service for The Pirate Bay. The company may not be able to resume service until the appeal filed by The Pirate Bay founders is settled, SvD reported.

The news comes on the heels of a victory for the founders of The Pirate Bay.

Sweden's government run debt-collection agency, commonly referred to as the bailiff, said it could find no attachable assets belonging to three of the four founders of the site. A group of media companies had asked the bailiff to collect the $4 million a court had awarded them after finding the four Pirate Bay founders guilty of copyright violations.

At this point, the future of the site, at least in name, appears to rest with the software maker Global Gaming Factory X, the software maker and operator of Internet cafes. The company said in June it would pay $8 million to acquire The Pirate Bay and the deal is supposed to close on Thursday. But Swedish regulators halted trading in Global Gaming on Friday over questions about the company's financial readiness to complete the transaction.

At the very least, the launch of a new Pirate Bay, one with authorized film and music copies, is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry issued a statement applauding the decision by the court and Black Internet.

"The Court's ruling yet again confirms the illegality of The Pirate Bay's operation and demonstrates the liability of ISPs that provide internet services to The Pirate Bay," the IFPI wrote. "The Pirate Bay seeks to continue to infringe our members' rights on a commercial scale and further actions against ISPs who enable access to The Pirate Bay are planned."

A federal judge ruled late Thursday that Joel Tenenbaum, a 25-year-old Boston University graduate student, has violated copyright infringement laws by illegally downloading and sharing music on the Internet.

Tenenbaum could end up owing the recording industry millions of dollars in damages for swapping music online. The jury is considering monetary damages on Friday. The question the jury must consider in assessing the damages is whether his infringement was willful. This will help determine how much in damages should be awarded to the four recording labels that sued him over the illegal file sharing.

The music studios are entitled to $750 to $30,000 per infringement according to federal law. But the law also gives the jury discretion to raise that to as much as $150,000 per track if it finds the infringements were willful. This means that if the jury gives him the maximum punishment, Tenenbaum could owe as much as $4.5 million.

Tenenbaum admitted on the witness stand Thursday that he downloaded and shared hundreds of songs. The studios suing Tenenbaum have only focused their case on 30 songs. Tenenbaum's lawyers said after he testified that he did not understand the implications of his admission, according to a story on the Boston Globe's Web site.

But the judge didn't buy it. U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Gertner said in her ruling that "Tenenbaum's statement plainly admits liability on both downloading and distributing, does so in the very language of the statute...and does so with respect to each and every sound recording at issue here."

While the music industry has taken legal action against file-sharing Web sites and other file sharers, only two cases involving individual file-sharers have gone to trial.

Jammie Thomas-Rasset from Minnesota also fought her case in court. Last month, a federal jury in Minneapolis ruled she must pay nearly $2 million for copyright infringement.

Most complaints against people sharing music illegally have been settled out of court, with defendants paying a total of about $3,000 to $5,000.

Updated at 4:10 p.m. PDT: The Boston Globe later updated its story to say the jury ordered Tenenbaum to pay the RIAA $675,000, or $22,500 for each song.

Cutwail's spam activities on Thursday as Pricewert got shut down.

(Credit: MessageLabs)

It's been almost a week since the Federal Trade Commission had the allegedly rogue Pricewert ISP shut down, and it seems like the Internet has indeed been a safer, or I should say slightly less dangerous, place.

The FTC charged that Pricewert's distribution of illegal, malicious, and harmful content and deployment of botnets that compromised thousands of computers caused substantial consumer injury and was an unfair practice, in violation of federal law.

According to Symantec, the Cutwail botnet--one of the most notorious botnets, accounting for up to 35 percent of all spam in May across the globe--experienced a major blow to its track record after the shutdown late Thursday of Internet service provider Pricewert.

Another botnet Pricewert is allegedly involved with is the Pushdo, which was also reportedly affected. Both Pushdo and Cutwail reportedly used 3FN, one of the names Pricewert did business under, as botnet control servers.

According to the data released Monday by TRACElabs, the overall spam volume index has been reduced by 15 percent since Thursday. However the day-by-day number has gradually increased.

This means a couple of things.

First, either the timing of these changes was a coincidence or Pricewert was indeed involved in this nasty business. It's important to note that the company has not yet been convicted of any wrongdoings. The first court hearing is scheduled for June 15.

Second, it's likely that the spammers will soon recover from this heavy blow as many similar companies are based outside of the U.S., where the anti-spam laws are not strictly enforced.

Nonetheless this for now looks like an apparent victory for the authorities and for all the Internet users. In terms of its long-term impact on spam, Symantec's MessageLabs Senior Anti-Spam Technologist Matt Sergeant told CNET News: "For now, we will see spam levels lower than usual, but we expected the swift comeback of Cutwail. The spammers learned that they can't put all their eggs in one basket and need to have backup command and control."

It's indeed wait and see, but so far I personally have received less spam in the last few days. How about you? Share your thoughts about this case and your recent spam experience, in the comment area below.

You know a Web app has come into its own when it gets banned in courtrooms and locker rooms.

Twitter, which went from being just another Web geek service to an Internet phenomenon lampooned on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart," is now becoming a nuisance for at least two American institutions--the judicial system and the NBA.

Some judges and lawyers believe the integrity of trials is being threatened by jurors posting comments about cases on the popular microblogging service.

Lawyers for a building products company are asking an Arkansas court to overturn a $12.6 million judgment against the firm after a juror tweeted during the trial, violating court rules, The New York Times reports.

And in Pennsylvania, defense lawyers for a former state senator found guilty of corruption failed to persuade a judge to declare a mistrial after a juror posted updates on the case on Twitter and Facebook. The lawyers plan to use that for grounds for appeal, the newspaper reported.

For some jurors, the 140-limit of Twitter may be too limiting. A juror blogged about a drunk-driving case before and after a guilty verdict was rendered, in 2007. Regardless, the verdict was upheld and a request for a new trial was denied.

The report also found that jurors are using their iPhones and BlackBerrys to do research in cases, which also is forbidden.

The use of the Internet for research isn't new. In 2007, the conviction of a man accused of sexually abusing minors was reversed and a new trial was granted after two jurors searched for the alleged victims on MySpace.

Sports players are also communicating with their fans on Twitter. Although that is not likely to interfere with game scores, it is still worrisome, at least to Milwaukee Bucks coach Scott Skiles. He has asked his players not to use Twitter from the locker room after learning that Bucks forward Charlie Villanueva tweeted from his mobile phone during halftime on Sunday.

"In da locker room, snuck to post my twit. We're playing the Celtics, tie ball game at da half. Coach wants more toughness. I gotta step up," Villanueva tweeted using the screen name CV31, his initials and jersey number, according to the Associated Press.

The fact that the Bucks beat the Celtics 86-77 didn't really appease the coach.

"You know, (we) don't want to blow it out of proportion," Skiles said. "But anything that gives the impression that we're not serious and focused at all times is not the correct way we want to go about our business."

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified a service called Mystro TV. That service was tested by Time Warner Cable.

The Supreme Court has declined to hear what could be a watershed copyright case that has the potential to make it easier for people to record and watch their favorite movies and TV shows at home.

On Monday, the Supreme Court asked the U.S. Department of Justice to look at a case involving a new service proposed by Cablevision that allows people to record broadcast TV shows and movies on a digital video recorder that sits in Cablevision's network instead of in their living rooms.

The TV networks and Hollywood film studios sued the cable operator in New York, seeking to block the service. The networks and studios have argued that recording programming in this way violates copyrights. (Disclosure: The film studios and television networks that brought the suit against Cablevision include Time Warner, News Corp., Walt Disney, and CBS, which owns CBS Interactive, publisher of CNET News.)

The case has been winding its way through the court system for three years. In 2007, a U.S. District Court in New York barred Cablevision from launching the service after the cable operator lost its initial suit. Cablevision appealed the decision. And in August 2008, a U.S. appeals court overturned the lower court's ruling, siding with Cablevision.

The TV networks and movie studios appealed to the Supreme Court in October, arguing that Cablevision was violating the law because it did not plan to pay a licensing fee to make copies of their TV shows.

But Cablevision has argued that it is the cable subscriber who is determining what is copied. The networked DVR only sits in the Cablevision network where the content is stored and accessed. The company wants to keep this technology in its network because it is more efficient and cost effective to deliver the service than providing every home with multiple DVR set-top boxes.

Cablevision, which services over 3 million customers in the New York metropolitan area, claims each set-top box costs about $100. This cost is passed on to consumers who must pay a rental fee for their DVR set-top-boxes. The cable operator also incurs costs for installing and maintaining this equipment. Eliminating the need for one of these boxes in the home could reduce Cablevision's capital costs, and it could also help reduce the cost of the service for consumers.

It could also allow consumers to get rid of their set-top boxes altogether or at least get smaller devices that don't take up as much room as the bulky DVR boxes of today. And because the DVR function is housed in Cablevision's network instead of at home, consumers also won't have to deal with the hassle that often comes along with housing a relatively complex piece of networking equipment in their homes.

Experts agree that how the legal questions surrounding the case are ultimately decided will likely have a huge effect on the TV industry. Some believe it could even be as important a decision as the 1984 Supreme Court decision to allow consumers to record TV shows and movies on home videocassette recorders. That decision paved the way for the VCR, and it also cleared the way for DVR services that were first offered by Tivo and are now a mainstay of every cable, satellite, and phone company offering paid TV services.

It's been reported that Comcast and Time Warner Cable are also planning to introduce a networked DVR service if Cablevision wins its legal battles. And Verizon, which offers TV service through its Fios service, has also said it would consider offering a similar service.

For now the Supreme Court has sent the case to the Justice Department to consider. But the solicitor general at the Justice Department still has the option to toss the case back to the Supreme Court. If that happens, it wouldn't be heard until fall.

A federal court in Northern California has awarded $33.15 million to Verizon Communications in what the company is calling the largest cybersquatting judgment ever.

Verizon, which announced the judgment Wednesday, had filed the case against OnlineNIC, a San Francisco-based Internet domain registration company. Verizon had claimed that OnlineNIC used Internet names--663 to be exact--that were chosen to be easily confused with legitimate Verizon names, according to Verizon.

It might be hard, however, for Verizon to actually collect on the judgment, which was a default ruling, or one entered against a defendant who fails to answer a summons. No one appeared in court on OnlineNIC's behalf or in its defense, Verizon said.

We weren't able to get through to OnlineNIC by phone (the line just rang and rang), and an e-mail request was not immediately answered. The company claims on its Web site that it's an ICANN-accredited registrar--but only through 2006. And the site offers a mailing address in Oakland, Calif., not San Francisco.

The award amount was calculated based on $50,000 per domain name, Verizon said.

"This case should send a clear message and serve to deter cybersquatters who continue to run businesses for the primary purpose of misleading consumers," Sarah Deutsch, Verizon vice president and associate general counsel said in a statement. "Verizon intends to continue to take all steps necessary to protect our brand and consumers from Internet frauds and abuses."

Verizon, which says it has won a string of similar cases, is part of a not-for-profit coalition founded last year that fights cybersquatting.