In the latest entry in the battle over Digital Rights Management, a fellow has blatantly ripped off a "tune" from the iTunes Store. "Tune" is 1 minute 3 seconds of silence. To compound his crime, he has posted the tune on his web site for anyone to download. I downloaded it to iTunes, and it played just fine (but now I suppose I'm a criminal, too). I wonder what John Cage and Mike Batt would have to say about this? Will lawyers for Apple or Ciccone Youth send a C&D letter? If I were to make my own MP3 silent tune of exactly the same length and put it online, would I be infringing their copyright?

Apparently Lexmark didn't get the message the first time the Sixth Circuit Court explained to Lexmark that they were abusing the DMCA for anti-competitive purposes in trying to stop Static Controls from making ink jet cartridges that work in Lexmark printers. The Court has now told Lexmark that they won't rehear the case and to go away and stop bothering them. There's still some remaining parts of the case to be heard, but this is definitely good news for those who believe the DMCA is regularly being abused for anti-competitive purposes, rather than to protect intellectual property, as it was intended.

A schoolteacher in France has been fined 10,200 euros (£7,033) for illegally swapping hundreds of music albums on the internet.

Officials said he was one of the worst offenders for sharing music online, making available up to 10,000 songs.

He also had his computer confiscated and was ordered to take out newspaper advertisements announcing the verdict and punishment.

The court case came as 70 musicians, academics and politicians signed a petition calling for a halt to legal action against people who download music for their own use.

"Like at least eight million other French people, we have also downloaded music online and are thus part of a growing number of 'criminals'. We ask that these absurd lawsuits stop," the petition published in the Nouvel Observateur states.

On behalf of several major firms in the music industry (BMG, edel, EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music), the Waldorf law firm of Munich sent Heise Zeitschriften Verlag a dissuasion this Friday.

According to the music industry, simply providing a link to the start page of the web site of a copying software manufacturer constitutes a violation of this law. Furthermore, Heise Verlag is accused of having provided "instructions on how to get around anti-piracy measures" in the above news item.

As Dr. Thorsten Braun, legal adviser at the German Association of the Phonographic Industry, put it, "Freedom of the press is not a carte blanche: instructions and tips on how to perform illegal acts are inadmissible and have nothing to do with serious reporting."

"The article contains neither instructions, nor advertising. On the contrary, it is expressly stated that the use of this software is illegal in Germany. Providing a link to a manufacturer's web site goes without saying in online reporting and is completely irrelevant anyway in light of the fact that our readers are familiar with and know-how to use Internet search engines," explains Christian Persson, editor-in-chief at heise online.

Norwegian student Frank Allan Bruvik has been fined $15,900 for providing links from his website, Napster.no, to MP3 files hosted elsewhere, the Associated Press reports.

The Court found that he had violated copyright law by helping netizens to locate forbidden files. In other words, by linking, Bruvik was assisting in an illegal act.

An appeals court earlier had found that he did not violate copyrights because he did not host, or "publish", the files, but merely made reference to sites where the files were already accessible. Those who had actually published the files are the ones liable:

"The Court of Appeals finds that copyright infringement violating the rights of the copyright holders were committed when the works were made accessible for the public by those who uploaded the files to an open network of computers."

The High Court reversed the appellate decision, and left the case as it was decided by the original district court.

A teenage boy described as "an angel" by his grandmother has been arrested and bailed amid allegations that he netted £20,000 flogging non-existent gear from his website.

The l4 year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, allegedly ran an ecommerce operation from his bedroom at his gran's house. He offered cheap plasma TVs for sale but never sent any out, according to the Mirror.

By the time the police had tracked down the boy his operation was so successful that he had rented an office and even hired staff.

The teenage boy, from Chiswick, London, was arrested on fraud and deception charges and bailed until April.

His gran told the newspaper: "He is an angel and never been in trouble. I'm going to kill him when I get hold of him."

Looks like Nick dePlume and ThinkSecret have gotten some much needed help for their upcoming lawsuit battle with Apple. "Terry Gross of Gross & Belsky LLP, a lawyer at the forefront of Internet law since the net's early days, will defend Mac news Web site Think Secret from a lawsuit brought by Apple Computer Inc. 'Apple's attempt to silence a small publication's news reporting presents a troubling affront to the protections of the First Amendment,' said Nick dePlume, the site's publisher and editor in chief. 'I'm grateful that Mr. Gross has stepped forward to help defend these crucial freedoms.'"

A sophisticated computer hacker had access to servers at wireless giant T-Mobile for at least a year, which he used to monitor U.S. Secret Service e-mail, obtain customers' passwords and Social Security numbers, and download candid photos taken by Sidekick users, including Hollywood celebrities, SecurityFocus has learned.

Unnamed in court documents, the informant was an administrator and moderator on the Shadowcrew site who'd been secretly cooperating with the government since August 2003 in exchange for leniency. By all accounts he was a key government asset in Operation Firewall.

On July 28th the informant gave his handlers proof that their own sensitive documents were circulating in the underground marketplace they'd been striving to destroy. He'd obtained a log of an IRC chat session in which a hacker named "Myth" copy-and-pasted excerpts of an internal Secret Service memorandum report, and a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty from the Russian Federation.

The hacker asked the Secret Service informant for a proxy server -- a host that would pass through Web connections, making them harder to trace. The informant was happy to oblige.

While the BSA has mostly sat back and let the RIAA and MPAA take the brunt of the bad publicity for suing customers, you can be pretty sure that they're also freaking out over file sharing and avoiding any and all evidence about how it could help their member companies. Just as the RIAA lost yet another case saying they have to actually file lawsuits before sending subpoenas to ISPs for user info, the BSA is asking Congress to modify the DMCA to force ISPs to cooperate and give up user info without a lawsuit being filed. This is very problematic for plenty of reasons -- not the least of which is that it would turn ISPs into an enforcement arm that will be forced to monitor how people use their network. ISPs just provide the service. If companies have a problem with what an individual is doing, they should file a lawsuit and then request the info from the ISP. Without a lawsuit, it's all just a fishing expedition.

The recording industry is asking the Red Cross to voluntarily freeze the cash pending the outcome of an Australian court case brought against Sharman by several record companies. The suit alleges that Sharman "has directly and indirectly infringed on the recording companies' copyrights, violated Australian fair trade laws and conspired to harm the music industry", according to a Wired report.

Michael Speck of Australia's Music Industry Piracy Investigations said: "We're preparing our approach to the International Red Cross. I believe this whole thing will come as a complete surprise to them, and we're only approaching them to stop them disposing of any funds."

Speck expressed his hope that the Red Cross would co-operate, adding: "It would be incredibly disappointing if we had to sue them."

Sharman has responded by declaring that the music biz's approach is "quite simply staggering", as the company's lawyer Mary Still put it.