LG Electronics has filed suit against Taiwanese manufacturer Quanta Computers alleging infringement of its DVD patents.

LG is seeking an injunction to prohibit Quanta's use of this technology as well as monetary compensation. The suit was filed in the US District Court in the Western District of Wisconsin on 3 July.

The claims include infringement of four DVD patents which LG says Quanta has been using without permission to produce notebook computers supplied to US computer companies.

"LG's proprietorship of DVD technologies is widely recognised throughout the industry, and the unlicensed use of our intellectual property is not acceptable under any circumstances," said Jeong Hwan Lee, executive vice president and head of LG Electronics' Intellectual Property Centre.

Quanta said in an official statement: "The company has assigned its legal representatives to work on this matter. R&D is crucial to Quanta's success, and the company values and respects intellectual property rights.

"Quanta is committed to defending its reputation and acting in the best interest of its shareholders."

LG filed a lawsuit against Quanta for alleged patent infringement of its personal computer technology in a Californian District Court in 2000.

In July 2006, the US Court of Appeals overturned and handed back the decision of the trial court, which had originally decided that the Taiwanese company did not infringe on LG's patents.

The companies are currently awaiting the court's final decision, which is expected to be handed down during the first half of 2008. LG said that it expects the final ruling to be in its favour.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and law enforcement from 10 other countries conducted over 90 searches worldwide as part of "Operation Site Down," designed to disrupt and dismantle many of the leading criminal organizations that illegally distribute and trade in copyrighted software, movies, music, and games on the Internet.

Operation Site Down is the culmination of three separate undercover investigations conducted by the FBI. In the past 24 hours, more than 70 searches were executed in the United States, and more than 20 overseas. Four individuals were arrested in the United States, and searches and/or arrests occurred in the following 10 countries: Canada, Israel, France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Portugal and Australia. At least eight major online distribution sites were dismantled, preventing tens of millions of further losses to the content industry. More than 120 leading members of the organized online piracy underground were identified by the investigation to date, and as the investigations continue, additional targets will be identified and pursued.

"The theft of this property strikes at the heart of America's economy," said FBI Assistant Director Louis M. Reigel. "It deprives many Americans and others around the globe of their right to be paid for their labor and enjoy the value of their hard work."

In addition to attacking piracy globally, Operation Site Down struck at all facets of the illegal software, game, movie, and music trade online, which is commonly referred to as the "warez scene."

The investigations focused on individuals and organizations that were the "first-providers" of copyrighted works to the warez underground - the so-called "release" groups that operated as the original sources for a majority of the pirated works distributed and downloaded via the Internet. Once a warez release group prepares a stolen work for distribution, the material is distributed in minutes to secure, top-level warez servers throughout the world. From there, within a matter of hours, the pirated works are distributed globally, filtering down to peer-to-peer and other public file sharing networks accessible to anyone with Internet access.

The release groups targeted by Site Down specialize in the distribution of all types of pirated works including utility and application software, movies, music, and games. Among the warez groups hit yesterday are: RiSCISO, Myth, TDA, LND, Goodfellaz, Hoodlum, Vengeance, Centropy, Wasted Time, Paranoid, Corrupt, Gamerz, AdmitONE, Hellbound, KGS, BBX, KHG, NOX, NFR, CDZ, TUN, and BHP. These groups alone are allegedly responsible for stealing, cracking and distributing hundreds of well-known titles, such as Autodesk's Autocad 2006, Adobe's Photoshop, and the movies "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith" and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Operation Site Down is expected to dismantle many of these international warez syndicates and significantly disrupt the illicit operations of others.

Conservative estimates of the value of pirated works seized in yesterday's action exceed $50 million, which is only a fraction of the losses attributable to the online distribution hubs also seized in this operation. Top-level release groups like those targeted in the operation are primary suppliers to the for-profit criminal distribution networks that cost the copyright industry billions of dollars each year. Illegal warez copies of titles such as Autocad 2006 and "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" are easily and cheaply converted to optical discs and distributed throughout the world from factories in Asia and elsewhere. Spammers regularly advertise cheap software that can be downloaded from websites or shipped from overseas, usually bearing the signature mark of the warez group that released it.

Operation Site Down comprises three separate FBI undercover investigations run by the FBI field divisions in Charlotte, North Carolina; Chicago, Illinois; and San Francisco, California. The U.S. Attorney's Offices in San Francisco, Charlotte and Chicago assisted in the investigations and a majority of the domestic targets will be prosecuted in those districts. The Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section also assisted in the investigations and led the coordination of foreign enforcement actions in 10 countries.

Operation Site Down is the latest in a series of actions taken by the Department of Justice to crackdown on illegal online piracy. In the past four years, beginning with Operation Buccaneer in 2001 through Operation Fastlink in 2004, the Department has prosecuted a number of international investigations into these top piracy organizations.

In March 2004, as part of the Administration's Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP!) Initiative, the Department established the Task Force on Intellectual Property to address the increasing problem of intellectual property theft.

The Task Force examined how the Department protects intellectual property through criminal, civil and antitrust enforcement, legislative proposals, international coordination, and prevention. A report issued by the Task Force in October 2004 recommended comprehensive improvements in the Department's overall efforts, many of which have already been implemented. One of those recommendations was to continue the Department's strategy of dismantling and prosecuting multi-district and international criminal organizations that commit intellectual property crimes. Operation Site Down represents the Department's continued effort to pursue this strategy.

In a conference call concerning the new legislation on Monday, senior DOJ officials also said that obtaining international cooperation on the area of copyright law is of great importance to the department. The US has listed 12 countries as failing to provide adequate protection, including Russia, China, and Israel.

Scott D. Harvanek, 22, of Tucson, Ariz., pleaded guilty to a two-count felony information charging him with conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and criminal copyright infringement of a pre-commercial release work in violation of the Family Entertainment Copyright Act. The plea was entered before U.S. District Judge Christopher A. Boyko for the Northern District of Ohio who set a sentencing date for July 23, 2007, at 11 a.m. Mr. Harvanek faces up to five years in prison, a fine of $250,000, and three years of supervised release.

Mr. Harvanek's conviction is the sixth in a series of convictions arising from Operation D-Elite, an ongoing federal crackdown against the illegal distribution of copyrighted movies, software, games and music over P2P networks employing the BitTorrent file sharing technology. Operation D-Elite targeted leading members of a technologically sophisticated P2P network known as Elite Torrents. At its height, the Elite Torrents network attracted more than 133,000 members and facilitated the illegal distribution of more than 17,800 titles—including movies, software, music and games—which were downloaded over 2 million times. The virtually unlimited content selection available on the Elite Torrents network often included illegal copies of copyrighted works before they were available in retail stores or movie theatres. Mr. Harvanek was an "uploader" to the Elite Torrents network, responsible for supplying the network with the first copy of a particular movie or other content that was then made available to the entire network for downloading.

On May 25, 2005, federal agents shut down the Elite Torrents network by taking control of its main server. After seizing the server, authorities replaced the existing Web page with a law enforcement message announcing that "This Site Has Been Permanently Shut Down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)." Within only one week, the law enforcement message was viewed over half a million times. Operation D-Elite is a joint investigation by ICE and the FBI as part of the Computer and Technology Crime High Tech Response Team (CATCH), a San Diego task force of specially trained prosecutors and law enforcement officers who focus on high-tech crime. Federal and state member agencies of CATCH include ICE, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the San Diego District Attorney's Office, San Diego Police Department, the San Diego Sheriff's Department, and San Diego County Probation.

This case was prosecuted by Andrea Sharrin and Tyler Newby, trial attorneys for the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the Criminal Division, and Robert W. Kern, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio.

Beatles recordings may soon be legally available online after Apple Corps Ltd. settled a royalties dispute with EMI record label, the two companies said Thursday.

"It was settled on mutually acceptable terms last month," Apple Corps and EMI said in a joint statement. They refused to provide details of the settlement.

Apple Corps Ltd. is owned by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison. The company sued EMI Group PLC in 2005 to recover what the band said was more than 30 million pounds (60 million U.S. dollars) in unpaid royalties. EMI releases Beatles recordings under the Apple label.

Apple Corps is a zealous guardian of The Beatles¡¯interests. In February it settled a long-running trademark dispute with computer company Apple Inc. over the distinctive apple logo and name.

The Beatles have consistently refused to license their songs for music download sites, despite the desire of EMI to do so.

The legal settlement leaves EMI and Apple Corps free to negotiate a new royalties agreement that would include Internet sales.

Neither company would comment Thursday on whether such an agreement was imminent. At a news conference last week, however, EMI Chief Executive Eric Nicoli said the company was seeking to make the Fab Four catalog available online

The overseer of the Internet's addressing system rejected for the second time the creation of a ".xxx" top-level domain, supported by some as a way to isolate adult content on the Internet.

Nine board members for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) voted against the proposal on Friday at ICANN's 28th International Public Meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. Five voted in favor, while one member abstained from voting, said Andrew Robertson, an ICANN spokesman. ICANN will hold a news conference on Friday afternoon to discuss the meeting's decisions.

Those rejecting a ".xxx" top-level domain said its creation could set ICANN up as a potential regulator of content on the Internet, which is not in its mandate. ICANN is responsible for the administration of the domain name system (DNS), the index that enables the translation of Web site URLS (uniform resource locators) into numerical IP addresses that can be called up into a browser.

In May 2006, ICANN also rejected creating the domain. Critics of the new domain said it could make adult content easier to find, but others argued that would also make it easier to filter out with software. The domain also raised concerned over free speech and how content on a Web site may be classified.

The criminal penalties instituted by the legislation are made possible by a landmark European Court of Justice ruling which established that the EU has the right to lay down criminal penalties in the individual member states. The legislation has sparked an outcry in the IT industry, because the draft includes an "aiding and abetting" clause that imposes harsh penalties if infringed material is found anywhere on an IT network. Simultaneously, music industry insiders are concerned that the law might not go far enough in punishing personal infringement and basically legalizes file sharing.