Forever on the prowl for the next big thing in movie piracy, the motion picture industry is zeroing in on small and increasingly-powerful mobile-phone cameras that might be trained on theater screens. Picture and sound quality lag behind their camcorder big brothers, but the devices offer something a camcorder cannot: stealth.

The Warner Bros. Pictures invitation to screen the latest Harry Potter flick for reviewers underscored the motion picture industry's concern that the cell phone is the latest bootlegging tool.

Despite the industry's growing alarm, the poor quality of cell phone recordings make them unpopular among downloaders -- rating a distant fourth behind ripped DVDs, films recorded with professional-grade video cameras and movies pirated with handheld camcorders.

"That was the worst copy I have ever seen," one pirate wrote. "I hate you and wish death on you. Why not take a long walk off a short pier you complete smack tard? You are a pathetic excuse for a human being. I hope you suffer when it comes your time you vile piece of scum. Have a nice day."

A court has ordered a pirate, and Linux user, to dump his favourite open sauce software and install Microsoft Windows instead.

Scott McCausland, ex-administrator of the Elite Torrents Bit Torrent tracker, pleaded guilty to two charges - 'conspiracy to commit copyright infringement' and 'criminal copyright infringement'. He was sentenced to five months in jail and five months home confinement.

The probation service have ordered that his Internet connection is monitored by the US Government to make sure he doesn't do any more pirating.

Unfortunately the Government does not have any monitoring software which is not Windows based. So, McCausland is forced to lose all his Linux street cred and become an enthusiastic Vole supporter.

The teen arrested last month for filming 20 seconds of Transformers in a Virginia theater has pleaded guilty to one count of unlawfully recording a motion picture in violation of state law.

The case is believed to be the first in which somebody was arrested and convicted for filming part of a movie for personal, noncommercial use in the United States.

Under last week's deal in Arlington County General District Court, Sejas was fined $71 in court costs and could have been on the hook for a maximum $2,500 fine, according to court records.

When arrested on her birthday last month, the Annandale, Virginia, resident said she was taking the short clip with a Canon PowerShot to show her 13-year-old brother.

"We hope that this case reinforces our efforts to educate the public that unauthorized recording, whether a clip or the whole film, in movie theaters is against the law."

The California man is on the working end of a federal copyright lawsuit after posting code and instructions that allow shoppers to circumvent copy protection on downloadable, printable coupons -- the type used by General Foods, Colgate, Disney and others to sell everything from soap to breakfast cereal.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, last month, Coupons Inc. accuses Stottlemire of creating and giving away a program that erases the unique identifier, allowing consumers to repeatedly download and print as many copies of a particular coupon as they want.

Stottlemire, 42, of Fremont, California, insists there was no encryption or hacking involved, and therefore he did not violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. "I honestly think there are big problems when you are not allowed to delete files off of your computer," says Stottlemire.

"All I did was erase files or registry keys," he says. "Nothing was hacked. Nothing was decoded that was any way, shape or form in the way the DMCA was written."

Stottlemire says he's being sued because Coupons Inc. "does not have the technology in place that would limit the number of times that a person could print a coupon."

The company wants Stottlemire to turn over the names of people he knows downloaded his software, and is seeking damages from the coder that could amount to hundreds of thousands -- or even millions -- of dollars.

The scene at RIAA headquarters this week must have been fascinating. The group yesterday announced that it has finished sending out a new batch of 503 "pre-litigation letters" to 58 different universities around the US, generously offering to let students settle copyright infringement claims "at a discounted rate" before those claims go to trial.

And then the RIAA learned that its aggressive litigation tactics have placed it on the receiving end of a class action lawsuit.

The development, first reported by p2pnet, hopes to make a class out of those "who were sued or were threatened with sued by Defendants for file-sharing, downloading or other similar activities, who have not actually engaged in actual copyright infringement." In other words, a class of the innocent.

Whether deserved or not, these sort of cases are giving the RIAA a reputation for suing innocent people, a perception that a class action suit would only heighten. Expect a vigorous defense from the association.

In Capitol v. Foster, one of the many RIAA lawsuits where it was later determined that the record labels sued the wrong individual, the judge decided (reasonably) that the RIAA should be responsible for the defendant Debbie Foster's legal bills.

Of course, as it always does, the RIAA asked the judge to reconsider, and the judge smacked the RIAA down with some pretty harsh words, chastising a number of RIAA practices. Apparently, this ruling stung so much that the RIAA simply decided to ignore it and not pay up Foster's legal bills.

Remember the MIT student who was told by the RIAA she should drop out of school and work in order to pay an RIAA fine? Perhaps it's time for the RIAA to get a real job as well, so it can afford to pay its fines.

It's been astutely observed that the RIAA's "ex parte" campaign against "John Doe" college students seems to have run into much stormier waters than its campaign against regular folks. Discovery motions were thrown out by the judges in cases involving the University of New Mexico and the College of William and Mary, and motions to quash have been made by students at Boston University, Oklahoma State University, and the University of South Florida.

SoundExchange, which is a "non-profit" spinoff of the RIAA is supposed to be a neutral party, simply in charge of collecting certain royalties and distributing it to the artists. Of course, things aren't always the way they're supposed to be. After all, SoundExchange is famous for having trouble finding many of the musicians it's supposed to pay -- which isn't all that surprising since it gets to keep the money that goes unclaimed.

One thing clearly not on that list is building a PR campaign and lobbying Congress to expand its ability to collect royalties from other sources. However, Eliot Van Buskirk over at Wired has discovered that's exactly what SoundExchange is doing, and it appears to be breaking the law.

A lawyer for SoundExchange then tries to explain the situation away by saying that the royalty money being used for lobbying was authorized to be used this way by SoundExchange members. That's like saying it's okay that they broke the law, because they gave themselves permission to break the law. Very convincing.

Rap singer Eminem has accused Apple of copyright infringement in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit, according to a story in The Detroit News.

Apple pays a portion of the revenue it collects from Eminem downloads to Universal Music Group, which distributes the music, but not to Eminem's publishers, the News reported. Eight Mile Style and Martin Affiliated, the companies representing Eminem, demand that Apple stop offering downloads.

"All the publishers are rankled that they have to go after the record labels to collect their fees," Sloan said. "Sometimes these fees may not be accounted for properly. The publishers would prefer to collect directly from the source instead of the labels."

Customers who do not opt out within 30 days of receiving the Comcast Arbitration Notice will relinquish their right to pursue any legal remedies against Comcast in court, including claims for negligence, fraud or intentional wrongdoing. This means you lose the right to sue Comcast, while Comcast retains the right to sue you.

"On the surface, arbitration sounds like a good thing, but Comcast's proposed change is one-sided," Lawton says. "We are concerned that subscribers will unknowingly give up some of their consumer rights by failing to opt out in time."