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Mega was founded by Kim Dotcom but the site bears little resemblance to his now defunct Megaupload. Perhaps most importantly, Mega was the most-scrutinized file-hosting startup ever, so every single detail simply had to be squeaky clean. As a result the site took extensive legal advice to ensure that it complies with every single facet of the law. Nevertheless, NetNames took the decision to put Mega in its report anyway, bundling the site in with what are described as some of the market’s most dubious players. This was not received well by Mega CEO Graham Gaylard. In a TorrentFreak article he demanded a full apology from NetNames and Digital Citizens Alliance and for his company to be withdrawn from the report. Failure to do so would result in “further action”, he said.

Because of section 1201 of the DMCA, the "anti-circumvention" provision, companies have been abusing copyright law to block all sorts of actions that are totally unrelated to copyright. That's because 1201 makes it illegal to circumvent basically any "technological protection measures." The intent of the copyright maximalists was to use this section to stop people from breaking DRM. However, other companies soon distorted the language to argue that it could be used to block certain actions totally unrelated to copyright law -- such as unlocking garage doors, ink jet cartridges, gaming accessories... and phones

Documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden show that the government worked in secret to exploit a new internet surveillance law enacted in the wake of revelations of illegal domestic spying to initiate a new metadata collection program that appeared designed to collect information about the communications of New Zealanders.

Snowden explained that “at the NSA, I routinely came across the communications of New Zealanders in my work with a mass surveillance tool we share with GCSB, called ‘X KEYSCORE.”" He further detailed that “the GCSB provides mass surveillance data into XKEYSCORE. They also provide access to the communications of millions of New Zealanders to the NSA at facilities such as the GCSB facility in Waihopai, and the Prime Minister is personally aware of this fact.”

Portugese prosecutors have declined to press charges against individuals accused of file sharing

It had already been suggested by other researchers that the gastrointestinal contents of maggots could be used to identify the subjects they feed on. However, never before has the theory been trialed in a legal, criminal case. Pathologists at Autonomous University of Nuevo León in San Nicolás, Mexico, led by María de Lourdes Chávez-Briones and Marta Ortega-Martínez, carried out short tandem repeat typing tests (a common method of DNA profiling) on the matter extracted from three dissected maggots found on the victim's face and neck, and separately on the alleged father of the missing woman. Preliminary results showed that the body was female, and the final outcome was a 99.685 percent probability of positive paternity—the victim had been identified.

In order to prevent copyright monopoly violations from happening in such channels, the only means possible is to wiretap all private digital communications to discover when copyrighted works are being communicated. As a side effect, you would eliminate private communications as a concept. There is no way to sort communications into legal and illegal without breaching the postal secret – the activity of sorting requires observation.

Any digital, private communications channel can be used for private protected correspondence, or to transfer works that are under copyright monopoly. In order to prevent copyright monopoly violations from happening in such channels, the only means possible is to wiretap all private digital communications to discover when copyrighted works are being communicated. As a side effect, you would eliminate private communications as a concept. There is no way to sort communications into legal and illegal without breaching the postal secret – the activity of sorting requires observation.

Comcast agents have contacted customers using Tor and instructed them to stop using the browser or risk termination of service. A Comcast agent named Jeremy allegedly called Tor an “illegal service.” The Comcast agent told its customer that such activity is against usage policies.

Users who try to use anonymity, or cover themselves up on the internet, are usually doing things that aren’t so-to-speak legal. We have the right to terminate,   fine, or suspend your account at anytime due to you violating the rules. Do you have any other questions? Thank you for contacting Comcast, have a great day.

Comcast previously corroborated with the FBI by providing information on alleged Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht’s internet usage. Ulbricht’s legal defense without a warrant. Ulbricht was most certainly never given a warning by Comcast or given time to contact a lawyer before he was arrested in a San Francisco library last October. Comcast already monitors its customers internet usage to prevent them from downloading pirated media in violation of copyright laws. Under the “Six Strikes” plan, Comcast customers who are caught by Comcast pirating copy-written material are emailed by Comcast and told to cease the activity. Comcast will continue monitoring them, and if they violate the “Six Strikes” plan five more times, their internet service will be terminated.

The practice contradicted what Mr. Verrilli had told the Supreme Court last year in a case challenging the law, the FISA Amendments Act of 2008. Legalizing a form of the Bush administration’s program of warrantless surveillance, the law authorized the government to wiretap Americans’ e-mails and phone calls without an individual court order and on domestic soil so long as the surveillance is “targeted” at a foreigner abroad. A group of plaintiffs led by Amnesty International had challenged the law as unconstitutional. But Mr. Verrilli last year urged the Supreme Court to dismiss the case because those plaintiffs could not prove that they had been wiretapped. In making that argument, he said a defendant who faced evidence derived from the law would have proper legal standing and would be notified, so dismissing the lawsuit by Amnesty International would not close the door to judicial review of the 2008 law. The court accepted that logic, voting 5-to-4 to dismiss the case. In a statement, Patrick Toomey, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, which had represented Amnesty International and the other plaintiffs, hailed the move but criticized the Justice Department’s prior practice.

Still, it remains unclear how many other cases — including closed matters in which convicts are already service prison sentences — involved evidence derived from warrantless wiretapping in which the National Security Division did not provide full notice to defendants, nor whether the department will belatedly notify them. Such a notice could lead to efforts to reopen those cases.

Under state law a person can be presumed dead after five years. Miller had been gone for eight, and efforts to find him (for child-support purposes) had been unsuccessful.

So "I don't know where that leaves you," Judge Davis told Miller, "but you're still deceased as far as the law is concerned." And he still is, because he did not appeal that ruling

in April the Social Security Administration sent letters to Miller's two daughters, demanding that they pay back the federal death benefits they got while Miller was legally dead. They got about $100 a week until they were 18, and the payments totaled less than $30,000. Including fees and interest, the SSA sought $47,256 from the daughters. It reportedly said that if it couldn't get the money from them, it would then seek it from the ex-wife, and only if she also couldn't pay would it go after the guy who abandoned them in the first place.

A guitar design firm called Born to Rock has won an initial victory over the user-generated T-shirt-printing website CafePress in a legal battle over whether CafePress users will be allowed to use the company's name as part of their T-shirt designs. While the guitar firm initially registered the phrase only for use selling guitars, it has taken the position that any use of the phrase "born to rock" by a CafePress user infringes its trademarks.

Byrne and Doctorow were there to talk about how the internet has affected the music business. While that was certainly a large part of the discussion, the conversation also touched on all the ways technology and music interact, from file sharing to sampling.

Doctorow pointed out that two of the best-selling and most critically acclaimed hip-hop records of the 1980s—Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, and the Beastie Boys Paul’s Boutique—would have each cost roughly $12 million to make given today’s rules surrounding sample clearance.

If there’s one thing that needs constant reminding, it’s the explicit purpose of the copyright monopoly. Its purpose is to promote the progress of human knowledge. Nothing less. Nothing more.

[Congress has the power] to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

has the power, and not the obligation

"It's pretty clearly unconstitutional," said Gregg Leslie, legal defense director at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Alexandria, Va. "They would have to show an important need to justify these limits, and they just can't."

Close didn't cite any real-life examples of why the policy is needed or what problems it's addressing. She didn't know whether any media outlets had applied for permits in the last four years.

"The Forest Service needs to rethink any policy that subjects noncommercial photographs and recordings to a burdensome permitting process for something as simple as taking a picture with a cell phone," Wyden said. "Especially where reporters and bloggers are concerned, this policy raises troubling questions about inappropriate government limits on activity clearly protected by the First Amendment."

a bail revocation application is underway which could put back behind bars as early as next week.

Last week it was revealed that his New Zealand legal team had backed out of their arrangement to defend the Megaupload founder.

A full report on developments isn’t possible due to a news blackout, but Crown Prosecutor Christine Gordon told the Court that an application had been made to have Dotcom’s bail revoked after an apparent breach of conditions.

California Governor Jerry Brown announced today that he has signed into law the Spaceflight Liability and Immunity Act, AB 2243.  This law provides the necessary liability protections for compliant companies in the state, should any spaceflight participant who has acknowledged the risks sustain any bodily injury during spaceflight activities. Currently, Florida, Virginia, and Texas also provide spaceflight companies liability protection.