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Are YouTube Users at Risk in Viacom Suit?
Intellectual Property |
2007/03/19 09:26
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It's the headline that many saw coming before the dust even settled on Google's $1.65 billion acquisition of YouTube last year. Legal experts might not have predicted the name of the behemoth that would file a formal complaint against the viral-video site, but a massive copyright infringement suit seemed inevitable to many. That behemoth, of course, is Viacom. Viacom took its gloves off in a digital-age boxing match that could go many more than 12 rounds as two technology champions duke it out on principle. In a statement it released in conjunction with filing its $1 billion federal copyright lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Viacom called YouTube a "significant, for-profit organization that has built a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works in order to enrich itself and its corporate parent Google." Whether those "fans" to which Viacom referred mind Google making money from the traffic they drive to the video-sharing site is not the issue. Whether the fans are liable in future copyright suits is. According to some legal experts, YouTube's uploading community could find itself in the line of fire. |
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Lawyer to Appeal Pearl Case Conviction
International |
2007/03/19 09:15
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The lawyer for a man convicted of killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl said Sunday he will file an appeal using an al-Qaida lieutenant's recent confession that he beheaded the reporter. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has claimed that he planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, claimed at a U.S. military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that he personally beheaded Pearl for being an Israeli intelligence agent. "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," Mohammed told a military panel, according to a Pentagon transcript released Thursday. "For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head." In 2002, an anti-terrorism court in Karachi sentenced Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born militant, to death and gave three other men life in prison for involvement in Pearl's killing. Rai Bashir a lawyer for Sheikh and the other three men said on Sunday that he will study the Pentagon documents on Mohammed's claim and file his confession as evidence to prove Sheikh's innocence. |
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Former Sen. Santorum to join law firm
Legal Business |
2007/03/19 07:19
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Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum is joining law firm Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott LLC and is expected to provide "strategic counseling" to clients, the firm said Monday.
Santorum, a three-term Republican senator from Penn Hills, was defeated in his bid for re-election by Bob Casey in November.
Santorum will work out of Eckert Seamans' Washington, D.C., office, the law firm said. "We are extremely pleased that Rick is joining our firm and that our clients will have the benefit of his understanding of what it takes for businesses to succeed in today's global economy," Eckert Seamans CEO Tim Ryan said in a statement. http://www.eckertseamans.com |
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Bush administration reinterprets species law
Breaking Legal News |
2007/03/19 02:27
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Tired of losing lawsuits brought by conservation groups, the Bush administration issued a new interpretation of the Endangered Species Act that would allow it to protect plants and animals only in areas where they are struggling to survive, while ignoring places they are healthy or have already died out. The opinion by U.S. Department of Interior Solicitor David Bernhardt was posted with no formal announcement on the department's Web site on Friday. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dale Hall, contacted in Washington, D.C., said the new policy would allow them to focus on protecting species in areas where they are in trouble, rather than having to list a species over its entire range. |
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Giuliani defends his law firm's Citgo ties
Attorneys in the News |
2007/03/19 02:15
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Rudy Giuliani is defending his law firm's role in representing an oil company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. The former New York City Mayor says his law firm's relationship with Citgo Petroleum helps protect American jobs. But he acknowledges his political opponents will try to exploit recent news that a lawyer with his Houston law firm has been representing Citgo before the Texas legislature. Citgo Petroleum is a U-S-based company bought in 1990 by Venezuela's national oil company. It employs thousands of people in the U-S. Chavez has criticized President Bush and is close to Fidel Castro. So Citgo has become unpopular with some Americans. Giuliani is seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2008. |
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GOP Wants Answers on Prosecutor Firings
Politics |
2007/03/19 02:12
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Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee say the Bush administration needs to be more straightforward about the White House's role in the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors. "I've told the attorney general that I think this has been mishandled, that by giving inaccurate information ... at the outset, it's caused a real firestorm, and he better get the facts out fast," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman of the committee, pledged to get the public testimony of White House officials involved in the case whether they want to testify or not. On Monday, the Justice Department planned to turn over to Congress documents that could provide more details of the role agency officials _ including Attorney General Alberto Gonzales _ and top White House officials played in planning the prosecutors' dismissals. The White House was also expected to announce this week whether it will let political strategist Karl Rove, former White House counsel Harriet Miers and other officials testify or will seek to assert executive privilege in preventing their appearance. Leahy delayed a vote on issuing subpoenas until Thursday as the president's counsel, Fred Fielding, sought to negotiate terms. But on Sunday, Leahy said he had not met Fielding nor was he particularly open to any compromises, such as a private briefing by the administration officials. |
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Recall of pet food hits close to home
Business |
2007/03/19 02:10
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More than 60 million cans of dog and cat food sold under dozens of brand names were recalled on Saturday after being linked to the deaths of 10 animals. The food was manufactured by Menu Foods, of Streetsville, Ontario, which makes wet food sold as store brands for companies like Wal-Mart, Kroger and Safeway. The company also makes food on behalf of many brand-name pet food makers. Menu Foods said it had recalled some food made for the Iams unit of Procter & Gamble. Two other pet food companies — Nestle Purina PetCare and Hills Pet Nutrition, the unit of Colgate-Palmolive that makes the Science Diet brand — recalled some of their products that were made by Menu Foods. Menu Foods is recalling only certain gravy-style pet food in cans and pouches it made from Dec. 3 to March 6. The company said in a statement that tests of its food had “failed to identify any issues with the products in question.” But it did associate the timing of the reported deaths with its use of a new supplier for wheat gluten, a source of protein. Sarah Tuite, a spokeswoman for Menu Foods, declined to name the supplier. |
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