The Democratic Party has appointed a committee tasked with drafting the party’s platform. The 15-member panel includes MPAA lobbyist Howard L Berman, an attorney and former U.S. Representative who not only co-sponsored SOPA and tried to enshrine P2P network sabotage in law, but has also been funded by Hollywood throughout his career.
Source: MPAA Lobbyist / SOPA Sponsor to Draft Democratic Party Platform – TorrentFreak
Marisol Malibu: an illegal porn production capital of Ventura County 11802 Ellice Street, Malibu, CA 90265. The showcase property of the posh Marisol Malibu community, located in unincorporated Ven…
Source: Malibu Media trolling put on life support while X-Art owners are selling their house
Tenants are disliking the “Facebook addendum” posted on their doors last week.
Source: Apartment complex demands tenants give Facebook “like” within 5 days | Ars Technica
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Minneapolis office is conducting an active investigation of the principals of Prenda Law, the notorious team of crooked copyright trolls that I’ve …
Source: FBI Actively Investigating Prenda Law Team For Fraud | Popehat
FCC would block mergers between cable companies that compete, Charter CEO says.
Source: Charter explains why it doesn’t compete against other cable companies | Ars Technica
When HVBA’s webmaster emailed Sony Music to explain that the use of music clips in the lecture videos was fair use, Sony’s representative responded that the label had “a new company policy that uses such as yours be subject to a minimum $500 license fee,” and that “if you are going to upload more videos we are going to have to follow our protocol.” Sony’s representative didn’t say that she believed the video was not a fair use. Instead, she implied that even a fair use would require payment, and that Sony would keep using YouTube’s Content ID system against HVBA until they paid up.
Source: Sony Thinks It Can Charge An ‘Administrative Fee’ For Fair Use | Techdirt
The UK’s Federation Against Copyright Theft has received a major blow after the Motion Picture Association advised the anti-piracy group it will not renew its membership. The termination of the 30-year long relationship means that FACT will lose 50% of its budget and the backing of the six major Hollywood movie studios.
Source: Hollywood Withdraws Funding for UK Anti-Piracy Group FACT – TorrentFreak
Another defamation lawsuit against a parody account has failed, brought on by a lawyer who should have known better but didn’t. Todd Levitt — self-proclaimed “Badass Lawyer” — has a verifiable history of bad decisions that perhaps made this sort of bogus litigation a foregone conclusion, however.Levitt tried to fire up his own reality show, which would have presumably covered such lawyeriffic behavior as singing karaoke with college students, inviting comparisons to TV’s sleaziest lawyer (Saul Goodman of Breaking Bad), creating a Top College Lawyers website solely for the purpose of awarding himself the title of “Top College Lawyer,” and somehow mistaking alleged defamation for a criminal offense.
Source: Self-Proclaimed ‘Badass Lawyer’ Loses Defamation Suit Against Parody Twitter Account | Techdirt
Newly disclosed emails show Clinton State Department officials working alongside fossil fuel companies aggressively pushing for fracking even in countries where local objections were growing.
Source: Hillary Clinton’s Energy Initiative Pressed Countries to Embrace Fracking, New Emails Reveal
A former assistant inspector general at the Pentagon who was responsible for protecting whistleblowers became one himself when the process failed.
Source: Vindication for Edward Snowden From a New Player in NSA Whistleblowing Saga
