Copyright Royalty Board rejects call to hike download royalties

A panel of US federal judges has rejected calls by music publishers to raise the royalty rates on music downloads. Digital music sellers like Apple and Amazon.com will continue to pay publishers nine cents per song downloaded

TUE 07 OCT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

Average privacy policy takes 10 minutes to read, research finds

Website privacy policies take on average 10 minutes to read and sometimes run into thousands of words, researchers have found. While some are short, others would take over half an hour to read, researchers said

MON 06 OCT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

US and Europe agree mutual fast-track patent system

The patent offices of Europe and the US have begun an experiment designed to increase the speed at which patent applications from one area are processed in the other

WED 01 OCT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

Ofcom will deny premium-rate numbers to past phone offenders

Anyone who has abused premium-rate telephone numbers in the past will be barred from using the numbers again, telecoms regulator Ofcom has said

TUE 30 SEPT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

View web pirates as competitors, not just enemies

TV companies, film studios and record labels should spend less time fighting those engaged in piracy and more time competing with them, a leading anti-piracy expert has said

FRI 26 SEPT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

AdSense ads must be vetted by publishers, says ad regulator

Publishers must take responsibility for the suitability of published adverts, even if the ads are chosen by an automated system like Google's AdSense, the advertising regulator has said

WED 24 SEPT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

Site glitches blamed for abandoned shopping carts on the web

Almost nine out of ten people who try to buy online run into problems, an annual customer survey has found. The research found that those problems can seriously affect businesses, as 41% of customers would abandon transactions if they came across a problem

TUE 23 SEPT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

Privacy chief approves of sharing criminal records if privacy beefed-up

Europe's privacy regulator has said that he will back a pan-European criminal records system only if specific data protection measures are put in place. Because the system deals with crime and security, EU data protection law does not currently apply to it

MON 22 SEPT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

Europe demands IT import duty rethink

The European Commission wants the number of IT-related goods that are exempt from import duties around the world to be increased

WED 17 SEPT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

Mayor's opponent sues city over order to remove web link

An American woman who was ordered by her city's mayor to remove a link to that city's police department from her website has sued the mayor and the city for violation of her rights to free speech

WED 17 SEPT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

Please unfasten your seatbelts and start surfing the Net...

Really interesting to see a report on Reuters over the weekend noting that the world's airlines (at least, the ones still flying, that is) are happy with punters to surf the Net and use email on their laptops whilst in the air, but are planning to block Internet telephony.

MON 15 SEPT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

British police bring fraud and copyright charges over file-sharing service

The man police believe was behind the OiNK music file-sharing service has been charged with conspiracy to defraud

FRI 12 SEPT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

Advertisers try to block Google-Yahoo! ad deal

A major advertisers' group has told US antitrust authorities that Yahoo!'s use of Google to supply some advertising will harm the advertising market

MON 08 SEPT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

Employee has no privacy on company computers, US court rules

Employees do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy for material stored on computers owned by their employers, a US court has ruled

THU 04 SEPT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

EU Parliament debates telco reform ahead of vote

The European Parliament has debated a series of sweeping telecoms reforms proposed by the European Commission

THU 04 SEPT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

US presidential campaigns clash on patent law

Intellectual property advisors to both US presidential candidates have said that the US patent system is in need of reform

THU 04 SEPT. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

Security industry's biggest worry is data leakage, says survey

The problem information security professionals are most worried about is preventing data loss by their organisations, a survey has found

THU 28 AUG. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

Apple cloner bites back with threat of antitrust suit

Apple will face legal action over its insistence that its software only run on its own hardware

WED 27 AUG. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

Microsoft touts privacy features of IE8

Microsoft will strengthen privacy protections in the upcoming new version of its dominant web browser, Internet Explorer

WED 27 AUG. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT

Excessive IP protection causes economic gridlock, says expert

Intellectual property laws which were designed to protect inventors are actually stifling innovation, according to a leading US law academic

WED 27 AUG. 2008 |Featured in: Legal IT