The Stargate SG-1 Information Archive is reporting that the Feds filed charges against Adam McGaughey, creator of SG1Archive.com. The website is a fan site for the television show Stargate SG-1. The charges allege that Adam used the website to engage in Criminal Copyright Infringement and Trafficking in Counterfeit Services. Two interesting things about the charges are that they were apparently set in motion by a complaint by our friends at the MPAA and the FBI invoked a provision of the USA Patriot Act to obtain financial records from his ISP. Is copyright infringment now a terrorist act?

Critics say the bill would effectively outlaw peer-to-peer networks and prohibit the development of new technologies, including devices like the iPod. The Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act was introduced last month by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), head of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The legislation would hold a company liable that "intentionally induces" a person to infringe copyright.

It's the biggest threat to technology in 20 years, said Jeff Joseph, a spokesman for the Consumer Electronics Association. The organization's president will testify before the committee.

The judiciary committee will also hear testimony from Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters and the heads of the Business Software Alliance and the Recording Industry Association of America. A representative from the IEEE-USA's intellectual-property committee and the director of NetCoalition will also testify.

"This bill really creates a huge risk that people won't bring new products to market because they will be afraid to be sued out of existence," said Mike Godwin, legal director of Public Knowledge, which is opposed to the bill and is submitting written testimony to the committee.

Zhu Zhiqiang has filed a lawsuit asking for 2 million yuan ($240,000) in compensation from Nike as well as a public apology for allegedly copying his "Little Match Man" illustration in one of its worldwide ad campaigns, the China Daily said.

"The small man figure created by the plaintiff and his gestures are absolutely different from Nike's Stickman," the China Daily quoted Nike's lawyer in China, Zhang Zaiping, as saying. He added that the U.S. company was "devoted" to the protection of intellectual property rights.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Nike argued that the image is a common symbol not entitled to protection under copyright law.

Patrick Foster, from Ilkley, and Roger Waite, wrote an article for The Oxford Student newspaper about how easy it was to gain electronic access to personal details of staff and students.

The pair, both first-year students aged 20, claim they were carrying out an investigation and told the university about their findings.

They were immediately referred to the university's internal "police" – the proctors – last month, and Thames Valley Police were called in under the Computer Misuse Act. The pair are now facing suspension and a hefty fine.

Mr Foster, who is reading Politics, Philosophy and Economics said: "It's a sorry state of affairs when they fail to recognise we were doing them a favour, and instead try to kick us out. So much for a free Press and academic freedom. I am very disappointed in how the university has handled the situation."

Myron Tereshchuk, 42, pleaded guilty this month to a single charge of "attempted extortion affecting commerce" for demanding a $17m ransom in exchange for not broadcasting proprietary information he obtained from MicroPatent, LLC, an intellectual property firm that packages patent and trademark information for law firms.

Tereshchuk ran a small, competing patent document service that ran into trouble when he was allegedly caught removing files from U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and was temporarily banned from the facility. Tereshchuk believed he was the victim of corruption at the patent office, and blamed MicroPatent, according to court records. He began penetrating the company's computers, going through its trash, and pseudonymously sending harassing e-mails to its customers and president.

Though he went to some lengths to make himself untraceable technically, past altercations between Tereshchuk and the company made him the prime suspect from the start, according to court records. The clearest sign came when he issued the $17m extortion demand, and instructed the company to "make the check payable to Myron Tereshchuk."

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday lashed out at Internet telephony, saying the fast-growing technology could foster "drug trafficking, organized crime and terrorism."

Laura Parsky, a deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department, told a Senate panel that law enforcement bodies are deeply worried about their ability to wiretap conversations that use voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services.

Police been able to conduct Internet wiretaps for at least a decade, and the FBI's controversial Carnivore (also called DCS1000) system was designed to facilitate online surveillance. But Parsky said that discerning "what the specific (VoIP) protocols are and how law enforcement can extract just the specific information" are difficult problems that could be solved by Congress requiring all VoIP providers to build in backdoors for police surveillance.

An Amsterdam court has ruled against Microsoft in its attempt to obtain an injunction against Lindows, a maker of Linux software, as the two companies' trademark dispute continues.

The software giant had objected to the appearance of the word "Lindows" on the company's Web site, technical manuals and other places. Microsoft had also asked the court to levy fines of more than $100,000 per day against Lindows.

But Thursday, a judge in the Amsterdam District Court denied Microsoft's request for an injunction and ordered the software giant to pay roughly $1,160 in legal fees related to the litigation.

According to the ruling, Lindows has complied with the terms of the original decision and can continue to use the name on a limited basis, as long as it clearly denotes that it is not affiliated with Microsoft's Windows. The judge said that since the name Lindows is still being used legally outside the Benelux countries, and the use of the name does not provide Lindows with a competitive advantage, there is no infringement.

In February, singer Eminem announced that he was suing Apple for having a commercial that showed a kid singing one of his songs. At the time, I wondered if compulsory licensing laws that handle the ability of a musician to "cover" a song would apply - but some claim that it doesn't apply to commercial offerings. Now, a judge has ruled that the case can proceed, and it could bring up some interesting legal arguments about fair use. Note that Apple didn't actually use Eminem's version of the song - just some kid singing it. That seems like a very fine line. Of course, what may complicate this story is the fact that Apple tried to buy the rights from Eminem, and still went ahead when he refused. It almost makes you wonder if the whole thing (including the lawsuit) is part of a publicity stunt.

German police have arrested an 18-year-old man suspected of creating the Sasser computer worm, believed to be one of the Internet's costliest outbreaks of sabotage.

Since appearing a week ago, Sasser has wreaked havoc on personal computers running on the ubiquitous Microsoft Windows 2000, NT and XP operating systems, but is expected to slow down as computer users download antivirus patches.

Separately, police in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg said they had arrested a 21-year-old man who confessed to programing the Internet worm Agobot, which was later renamed as Phatbot.

From the outset, Sasser baffled security experts. Unlike the most recent digital outbreaks, Sasser was programed simply to spread and knock out computer networks, not take over machines and possibly steal information stored on them.

If the Sasser author is part of the Netsky group, which calls itself the "Skynet antivirus group," this could be the most important arrest yet in cracking virus-writing crime.

President George W Bush has denounced the mistreatment of Iraqi inmates by US soldiers as "abhorrent".

He rejected comparisons of the US treatment of detainees in Abu Ghraib prison to the practices under the Saddam Hussein regime, when the jail became notorious for the torture carried out there.

President Bush was not asked to apologise, nor did he offer an apology during either 10-minute interview.

US military officials say there have been 25 deaths of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan since December 2002, two of which have been classified as murder.

Major General Geoffrey Miller, the new US military chief of prisons in Iraq, said some interrogation techniques used on Iraqi inmates would be halted and others toned down as a result of the scandal.