It's no secret that Nicolas Sarkozy is a strong supporter of more draconian copyright laws, and has also been talking about the need to clamp down on free expression online. Even so, it's still a bit shocking to see him outright declare that copyright is more important than human rights online.

It appears the French government is saying that it refuses to sign a declaration concerning human rights online unless those who sign on agree to admit that freedom of expression and communication is less important than copyright.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) have confirmed their agents arrested a New York man this week on suspicion of illegally streaming copyrighted sports events over the Internet.

"Today's arrest sends a clear message to website operators who mistakenly believe it's worth the risk to take copyrighted programming and portray it as their own," said ICE Director John Morton.

While ICE claim that Ali charged a fee to view streams, they say that in approximately a year he made just $6,000. A tap of the calculator reveals that at the $6 'cheap rate' just 1,000 'tickets' were sold, at $12 just 500 and at the top rate, around 240. If this is what constitutes one of the "most popular" sites, piracy is truly under control.

Last week, the German court ordered a preliminary injunction against the distribution of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in all of Europe, except the Netherlands, where a separate and broader case is under way.

But it appears that Apple has failed to provide the German judge with accurate evidence. At least one of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 pictures that Apple provided as evidence in the German case is either wrong or manipulated.

Groen explains that litigating parties are required by law to provide "complete and truthful" evidence to the judge. This applies regardless of whether flawed evidence is provided intentionally or mistakenly, says Groen, adding that this obligation is even more crucial in an ex parte decision, as the evidence presented to the judge is one-sided.

The "South-Park"-style animations parody everything from officers having sex on duty to certain personnel getting promoted without necessary qualifications. While the city wants to criminalize the cartoons, First Amendment rights advocates say the move is an "extreme abuse of power."

The search warrant says one cartoon statement "discussed a past incident that has already been investigated... regarding a dating relationship (a female detective) had with a suspect." An embarrassing revelation; yes, but criminal?

photographer Janine Gordon sued photographer Ryan McGinley claiming that 150 of McGinley's images were "substantially based" on her own photos.

Ssome of them cover similar subject matter, but is Gordon seriously claiming that only she has the right to show "a couple kissing passionately" if the "girl on the right has long silky straight brown hair and her eyes are closed"?

She's really claiming a copyright on the fact that arms are curving, and the legs are in a v shape?

Gordon is apparently seeking $30,000 per infringement, which is the maximum statutory rate...

As major American copyright holders continue their long war on file-sharing, the focus of the debate has increasingly shifted overseas.

In May, American law enforcement officials opened up yet another front in this war by seeking the extradition of Richard O'Dwyer.

Until last year, he ran a "link site" that helped users find free movies and TV shows, many of them infringing. American officials want to try him on charges of criminal copyright infringement and conspiracy.

The extradition request is remarkable; O'Dwyer has no obvious connection to the United States. He hasn't set foot there since he was a small child, his servers were not located there, and it's not clear he has broken UK law.

App developers are withdrawing their products for sale from the US versions of Apple's App Store and Google's Android Market for fear of being sued by companies which own software patents.

The growth of patent lawsuits over apps raises serious issues for all the emerging smartphone platforms, because none of the principal companies involved - Apple, Google or Microsoft - can guarantee to protect developers from them.

Bernice Keebler had a simple complaint: Verizon billed her $4.19 for six "local calls" but wouldn't tell her where she'd called - not unless she got a lawyer and a subpoena.

In a decision released today by the PUC's communications office, Administrative Law Judge Mary D. Long proposed fining Verizon Pennsylvania $1,000 for failing in its duty to provide "adequate customer service".

What is it with recording industry folks getting charged with actual theft these days? First we had folks from the Spanish music collection society SGAE charged with a complicated scheme to divert money from artists to themselves. Then we had the story of IFPI execs doing something similar. Now comes the news that a single employee at Warner Music, Andrew Robertson, whose job was "equipment buyer," may have stolen somewhere around $700,000 over a four year period.

The whistleblowing site and Datacell, a service provider assisting WikiLeaks, are jointly suing the credit card giants over allegedly running an "unlawful, US influenced financial blockade".

Lawyers for WikiLeaks argue that Mastercard Europe and Visa Europe are each in serious breach of EU Competition Rules in blocking all credit card transactions to WikiLeaks and DataCell since last December.

Visa and Mastercard have not shown any willingness to negotiate a settlement, according to WikiLeaks, hence the decision to place the matter into the hands of its Scandinavian lawyers.