federal jury

SCO: We’ll Live to Sue Another Day

John Paczkowski in News on March 30, 2010 at 3:04 pm PT

SCO’s seemingly endless legal campaign over the copyrights to Unix may finally, thankfully, be over. On Tuesday afternoon, a federal jury found that Novell owns the rights to the operating system, foiling SCO’s plans to seek millions of dollars in licensing fees from companies it accused of illegally distributing its proprietary Unix code with the Linux OS.

What Was That You Said, Greg? It’s Not Illegal if You Don’t Get Caught?

John Paczkowski in News on March 29, 2010 at 10:18 am PT

Former Brocade Communications Systems CEO Greg Reyes’s luck took a turn for the worse last week when he was once again found guilty of securities fraud. Though it acquitted him on one count of conspiracy, a federal jury on Friday found Reyes guilty on nine counts of securities fraud and making false statements–the same ones overturned last August because of prosecutorial misconduct.

The Pirate Bay Still Hasn’t Gone Legit, Still Enjoys Poking Big Media in the Eye: The “$675,000 Mixtape”

Peter Kafka in Media on August 14, 2009 at 6:00 am PT

Remember how the rascals at file-sharing site The Pirate Bay, chastened by the Swedish courts, were going to straighten up and go legit? Going to have to keep waiting on that one. Here’s the latest reminder: Yet another thumb in the eye to the big music labels.

Here’s One Way to Get People to Pay for Music: Labels Win $2 Million Verdict in Downloading Trial

Peter Kafka in Media on June 19, 2009 at 3:00 am PT

Don’t want to pay $1 for a song on iTunes? Try $80,000 a pop. That’s what a federal jury in Minneapolis has told a woman to pay the music industry for illegally downloading 24 songs, bringing her total bill to $1.92 million. Her response: “Good luck trying to get it, because you can’t get blood out of a turnip.”