The RIAA claims that the re-runs "will be readily subject to editing and manipulation by any reasonably tech-savvy individual."

"Petitioners are concerned that, unlike a trial transcript, the broadcast of a court proceeding through the internet will take on a life of its own in that forum," the RIAA wrote (.pdf) the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals. "The broadcast will be readily subject to editing and manipulation by any reasonably tech-savvy individual. Even without improper modification, statements may be taken out of context, spliced together with other statements and broadcast (sic) rebroadcast as if it were an accurate transcript. Such an outcome can only do damage to Petitioner's case."

It seems the RIAA is, once again, showing its true colors. When Charlie Nesson asked the court in the Tenebaum case to allow a live internet broadcast of a hearing to dismiss the case, the RIAA protested.

It turns out that the RIAA is so against the idea that it's gone and asked an appeals court to overturn the ruling, which even has entertainment industry lawyers who support the lawsuit strategy questioning the RIAA's move here.

One commentator labels it 'another fly in the RIAA's ointment.' In SONY BMG Music v. Tenenbaum, the Boston, Massachusetts, RIAA case in which the defendant is represented by Harvard law professor Charles Nesson and a group of his students, the Judge has ruled that the hearing scheduled for January 22nd will be televised over the Internet.

On December 19th, it was announced that the RIAA was giving up on its legal strategy of suing individual file sharers, and instead was going to go with some mysterious agreements with ISPs.

Of course, now it's looking even worse, as on December 26th, well after it announced an end to the lawsuits, and insisted no more were going to be filed, a new lawsuit was served on an individual for file sharing.

The Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people's personal computers without a warrant.

The strategy will allow French, German and other EU forces to ask British officers to hack into someone's UK computer and pass over any material gleaned.

Police might also send an e-mail to a suspect's computer. The message would include an attachment that contained a virus or "malware". If the attachment was opened, the remote search facility would be covertly activated. Alternatively, police could park outside a suspect's home and hack into his or her hard drive using the wireless network.

In SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Tenenbaum, the Boston case in which the defendant is represented by Prof. Charles Nesson and his CyberLaw class at Harvard Law School, the defendant has requested that audio-visual coverage of the court proceedings be made available to the public via the internet.

Surely education is the purpose of the Digital Deterrence Act of 1999, the constitutionality of which we are challenging. How can RIAA object? Yet they do, fear of sunlight shone upon them.

The Recording Industry Association of America's new enforcement strategy is based on a questionable interpretation of what constitutes copyright infringement.

The RIAA uncovers what it claims is unlawful infringement by employing unlicensed private investigators, the subject of a federal lawsuit in Oregon seeking class action status.

Michigan and Massachusetts (.pdf) have recently ordered MediaSentry, the RIAA's investigative wing, to stop performing unlicensed investigations. South Carolina, Texas, Florida and New York were mulling similar action.

According to a report on Wired.com, the RIAA spokesman claimed that the RIAA has not filed any new lawsuits 'for months,'.

Knowing that the RIAA has a problem with telling the truth, I did a little investigating, and found out that the RIAA had, in fact, commenced a wave of lawsuits just last week.

This is an organization that has a tendency to misspeak a lot, if you know what I mean, even when under oath.

Publishers don't tend to like secondary markets, as they usually get no cut of the revenues.

But the first sale doctrine, (relatively) straightforward in the physical world, has been complicated by the easy copyability of digital works, the rise of EULAs, and the use of DRM and activation systems.

It may seem axiomatic to consumers that a business or artisan makes its money only on the initial sale. The carpenter who built your dining table doesn't get a cut when you eventually hawk it on Craiglist, and Best Buy makes no money when you resell one of its computers to a friend.

A BBC investigation has unearthed a plan hatching online to loot US bank accounts via the checkout systems.

The gang plans to copy card details onto the magnetic stripes of fake cards and then use them in UK stores.

"The internet is the global marketplace," he said. "It's not difficult to take compromised cards from one country and exploit them in another. It's a simple and routine procedure for these guys these days."

"We would hope this will bring further pressure on the States to introduce chip-and-pin," said Jemma Smith of the UK payments organisation Apacs.