Carreon's suit names Matthew Inman (aka "The Oatmeal"), the Indiegogo website Inman used to raise the money, and Inman's two charities of choice, the National Wildlife Federation and the American Cancer Society. Did we mention that Carreon sued 100 anonymous "Does" in the same suit, too?

For Carreon's part, his spirit has certainly not been broken by the force of the Internet, as evidenced by the lawsuit's page 11 description of Inman's infamous mom/bear cartoon that accompanied the Bear Love campaign.

“It’s really quite outrageous, frankly,” the 74-year-old President Jimmy Carter appointee said in a recent telephone interview. “I was thinking the government hadn’t learned to be discreet in its conduct in the digital world. This is a perfect example on how they are failing to apply traditional standards in the new context.”

Julie Samuels is the Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney working with Sofaer, and said litigating with him “has been an absolute pleasure.”

“It’s clear that he really gets why this case matters and has the experience and perspective necessary to take the long view: If the court allows the government’s actions to go unchecked here,” she said, “we’ll be facing a world with inhibited property rights that is less friendly for innovation.”

Comcast has run out of patience with the avalanche of BitTorrent lawsuits in the United States. The ISP is now refusing to comply with court-ordered subpoenas, arguing that they are intended to “shake down” subscribers by coercing them to pay settlements.

“It is evident in these cases – and the multitude of cases filed by plaintiffs and other pornographers represented by their counsel – that plaintiffs have no interest in actually litigating their claims against the Doe defendants, but simply seek to use the Court and its subpoena powers to obtain sufficient information to shake down the Doe defendants.”

The police chief Monday ordered an internal investigation opened into a sergeant who allegedly had a woman arrested and a cell phone camera snatched from her bra after she recorded him beating a handcuffed suspect.

“They were roughhousing him. Stepping on his face. Kneeing in his back,” said Gondola’s friend, Tamara Harris, who was alongside her and taking still photos. Sgt. Rubino was doing the bulk of the beating, Harris said, “stepping on the guy’s head, doing all this extra stuff when he was already handcuffed.”

Rubino next ordered a female officer to pat her down and commanded, “I want that phone out of her bra.” The woman removed the phone. Rubino “put it in his pocket,” Gondola said.

FBI agents who copied data from Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom's computers and took it overseas were not acting illegally because information isn't "physical material", the Crown says.

"If [they] went offshore without the consent of the attorney-general, it was an illegal act."Mr Akel said that there had been an agreement that none of the evidence against Dotcom, seized after his arrest, would be provided to the FBI without prior agreement.

However, Crown lawyer John Pike, for the attorney-general, said the material stored on the hard drives could be shipped overseas for the FBI to examine because it did not constitute "physical" material.

Fresh off its failed attempt to prove that Google’s Android operating system infringed on its Java patents, Oracle has sued a small company called Lodsys, complaining that the Texas-based outfit has been harassing its customers with questionable claims of patent infringement.

The database giant says that its suit is an attempt to disarm Lodsys so that it will stop harassing Oracle’s customers with letters, phone calls and emails about obtaining a license to its four patents.

Over the past few years, as competition in the DVR market has become tougher, TiVo has become more and more reliant on using its patents to stop competition and innovation, rather than focusing on competing in the marketplace.

TiVo found the process so enjoyable that it apparently started thinking about a second career as a patent troll -- and has already sued Verizon and Motorola.

Cisco, owners of Scientific Atlanta, a maker of settop boxes and DVRs, has filed a lawsuit seeking to invalidate four TiVo patents.

A New Zealand court has ruled that the U.S. Government must hand over the evidence they have against Megaupload so Kim Dotcom and other employees can properly defend themselves against the pending extradition request.

The U.S. Government objected to the request arguing that Megaupload doesn’t have the right to disclosure in the extradition process, but Judge Harvey disagreed.

The comments made by Judge Harvey also suggest that without proper evidence of criminal copyright infringements against the accused, there’s not much left of the case.

A British couple are facing imprisonment after an MPAA sting operation revealed they were the owners of streaming links site SurfTheChannel. Aside from the use of an undercover agent who gained access to the defendants’ house under false pretenses, the case also involves an unprecedented involvement of the US authorities with a UK court case, in which a defendant in the US was offered a deal after agreeing to cooperate and testify in a trial overseas.

During the raid it became apparent how closely the Hollywood group had been working together with the authorities. Not only were Hollywood representatives taking part in the questioning, they also brought along investigators who were allowed to examine the equipment.

Federal regulators considered testimony Wednesday here at UCLA Law School on whether to allow citizens and filmmakers to legally crack DVD encryption meant to protect the discs from being copied.

Clarissa Weirick, the general counsel of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment, testified against all the decryption measures.

"If we didn't have access controls, there might be the same kind of mass piracy we've seen with unprotected music," Weirick said about the copying of DVDs.

They said that there is no need to grant the public the right to make copies of their DVDs because the studios are streaming and selling movies online now, and that the public does not own the movies they buy on DVDs. They own the license to play it on a DVD, they argued.