Law and Innovation

Fresh and interesting article posted on TorrentFreak about a recent court decision making copyright trolling less easier and less lucrative than it is today.  Happy reading! "Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Time Warner and Cox have successfully appealed a district court decision ordering them to reveal the identities of 1,058 subscribers accused of pirating movies via BitTorrent. The verdict is a significant blow for the extortion-like mass-lawsuits many copyright trolls have filed in recent years. Two years ago district court Judge Beryl Howell, a former RIAA lobbyist, granted adult movie company AF Holdings the right to obtain the personal details of more than 1,000 Internet users suspected of downloading their works using BitTorrent. The verdict was a big win for the porn studio and its controversial law firm Prenda, since many other judges had previously rejected joining so many defendants in one lawsuit. The ruling would allow copyright holders to s...

Fresh and interesting article posted on Mashable concerning the big news that Apple is close to buying Beats Electronics for $3.2 billion and the real reason behind it. "(....) If Apple does buy Beats for roughly $3 billion, a deal that is widely reported to be in its closing stages, it won't be because of the headphones. (Though given the fact that Apple sells Beats cans in every Apple store in the world, and has exact sales figures for each model, keeping all that profit to itself would be a nice boost for the bottom line.) No, this is more about Beats' streaming music service, Apple's tenacious grip on music distribution, and the fact that with a deal like this, Apple could easily become a recording industry giant that cuts out the middleman entirely — a notion that keeps executives at Sony, Universal, EMI and the rest of the major labels up at night. When Apple CEO Tim Cook had a high-level summit with Beats CEO Jimmy Iovine during a visit to LA...