Three years ago now, EFF’s client Kyle Goodwin, a sports videographer, asked the court to allow him to retrieve the files he stored in an account on the cloud storage site Megaupload. When the government seized Megaupload’s assets and servers in January 2012, Mr. Goodwin lost access to video files containing months of his professional work.
Source: Once Again, Megaupload User Asks Court for His Files Back | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Last week, the Ninth Circuit followed up with an order to show cause — an order telling the government to explain why the court should not issue sanctions based on the oral argument. The order does not openly accuse the government of leaking information to influence the court, but notes that “federal authorities” provided information and that the Department of Justice then cited the information a few days later. The court also demanded copies of transcripts and documents about Dean’s bond hearings. The court wants to know why the government cited an article not in the record sourced to an anonymous federal employee, and wants to know why the government’s own employee made the terrible bail decision that the government is now trying to blame on the court. This does not bode well for the government.
The U.S. Government has informed the Court of Appeals that the civil forfeiture case against Megaupload and Kim Dotcom was launched as a last resort. The authorities feared that Dotcom and his colleagues would regain possession of the millions in seized assets and argue that they are properly labeled as “fugitives.”
Source: U.S. Government Grabbed Dotcom’s Millions “As a Last Resort” – TorrentFreak
Today Jerome Larkin, Administrator of the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission of the Supreme Court of Illinois, via Counsel Wendy J. Muchman and Marita C. Sullivan, filed a seven-count, 14,000-word complaint against Prenda’s John Steele alleging massive professional misconduct and fraud on the Court (the word “fraud” is used 17 times throughout the document).
“Piercing the corporate veil” of Paul Hansmeier’s law firm was justified.
Source: Appeals court: Prenda lawyer who drained cash from his law firm must pay up | Ars Technica
A recording of Kim Dotcom and several Universal Music executives captured two days before the Megaupload raids has revealed the label planning to do a deal with the entrepreneur. Amid discussion of ‘taxing’ Google by diverting its ad revenue to the label, the execs offered to downgrade Dotcom from “evil” to “neutral” in return for dropping legal action over the “Mega Song”.
Source: Universal Music and Kim Dotcom Prepared a Deal to Tax Google – TorrentFreak
Back in 2011, This American Life toured an office building in Marshall, Texas, and found eerie hallways of empty offices that serve as the ‘headquarters’ of patent trolls. For many, that was the first introduction to the strange world of the Eastern District of Texas, its outsized role in patent litigation and especially its effective support of the patent troll business model.
Piracy monetization company Rightscorp has published its results for Q2 2015 and it’s yet another three months of misery for the company. At the same time as paying out just $117K to its copyright holder clients, Rightscorp managed to run up $1.95m in expenses, leaving the company with operating losses in excess of $1.72m.
Source: Desperate Rightscorp Burns Through More Piracy Millions – TorrentFreak
Hollywood is still 100% focused on trying to blame the internet for any of its woes, mostly with bogus attacks on internet companies it doesn’t like. And yet… it seems to keep on setting box office records. The latest is that Universal Pictures has broken a new record in bringing in $2 billion in box office revenue faster than any other studio in history, pushed over the top by the successful opening weekend of “Straight Outta Compton” (a movie that seems to have some big fans in Silicon Valley).
It was a pretty good deal for defense contractors.
Source: Jeb Bush, Hosted By Defense Contractor-Backed Group, Calls Iraq War “A Pretty Good Deal”
