[Law/Legal]

You're probably well aware about the case of Roman Polanski. The visionary filmmaker is currently under fire for his 1977 conviction of unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old. That was 32 years ago, shortly before he fled to Europe to avoid jail time. Now, under arrest in Switzerland, everyone has their own opinion on whether Polanski should go free or do the time.

Polanski was born in 1933 as a Polish Jew. As a young boy he escaped and hid from the Nazis, even as his own mother died in a concentration camp. But after the war, Polanski went into filmmaking, and eventually struck gold with his 1968 masterpiece "Rosemary's Baby." He went on to create great films such as "Chinatown" (1973), "The Pianist" (2002), and "Oliver Twist" (2005).

Except for those in and around the filmmaking business, those achievements seem to pale for that one mistake he made over three decades ago. Since he fled to France in 1977, there's been a pending US arrest warrant for him (and an international one since 2005). He was only arrested in Switzerland, at the request of US authorities, when he stepped onto Zurich to pick up the Zurich Film Festival's "Golden Icon Award," a lifetime achievement award.

I think child molestation is wrong however way you look at it, and sexual predators do belong to some of the lowest tiers of humanity. To some people, this one mistake is enough to negate all his achievements and contributions to world culture and send him to the pits of Hades. It seems these people believe that if you make one slip, you're through.

Naturally, Hollywood is much more forgiving (which I think is one of its very agreeable cultures). Michael Vick got into trouble by being involved in a dog fighting gambling ring, but he's back in the NFL playing football. Mel Gibson has had more than a few scandals in his time, but he's still out there making great films. Mike Tyson. Robert Downey, Jr. Kanye West. Should Polanski's case be any different?

Besides, I believe that ultimately, if you want justice, you deal with the victim. The 13-year-old girl, now 45-year old Samantha Geimer, had already forgiven him six years ago. On no less than CNN's Larry King Live, she wished that the whole thing would be buried, and that she never wanted Polanski to go to jail.

I think it's time to bury the hatchet and send the man back home to his family.

A few weeks ago I wrote about an injunction case filed against Microsoft, where Canadian firm i4i sued against Microsoft Word's use of XML technology it says was covered by its patents. Incredibly, an East Texas court gave the case to i4i and ordered Microsoft to hold sales of Microsoft Word (versions 2003 and 2007) until the software was tweaked, plus pay i4i almost $300 million in damages.

Microsoft had 60 days to appeal the injunction, but it obviously didn't want to wait that long -- three weeks later they filed for and won a stay from the injunction. (The US Court of Appeals for the Federal District awarded the stay -- it wasn't a local court in East Texas.)

So for now, the lawyers of i4i will have to go back to the drawing board. The Canadian company raised eyebrows over the digital computing world when it chose to file their injunction case against Microsoft in East Texas, when Microsoft itself was based in Washington.

East Texas is a haven for patent law cases, and is notoriously litigation-friendly. This was why the injunction case last month was at the same time surprising -- and one second later made people think, "East Texas? Why am I NOT surprised?"

i4i lawyers insist that they didn't choose Texas because it increased their chances of success, but because the state was a "rocket docket," where cases were heard quickly (they claim they had a short time frame to file the case). They also insist that Judge Davis, who awarded the injunction case to i4i, was a programmer and systems analyst in his student days, and knew what he was doing.

Seriously, who the heck are they trying to fool? :)

In any case, Microsoft is expected to fully win the case in the long run, although it'll definitely take quite a bit of time and paperwork. Where does that leave i4i?

On the upside for the 'nadian firm, they're the poster boys for small companies who go against the Goliaths in the industry. Let's just hope similar cases in the future don't get filed under boneheaded circumstances like in this one.

In the latest bit of news about patent trolling, Microsoft has been ordered yesterday by a Texas federal court to stop selling Word 2003, 2007, and any other subsequent Word incarnations that can open files containing custom XML. The plaintiff was a small Canadian firm called i4i who claims they patented the technology.

Wow.

I know patent laws can be pretty crazy in the United States, and some American patent lawyers are woefully clueless when it comes to emerging technologies. This development, however, takes the cake.

Microsoft is now set to pay up to $240 million ($200 million supposedly for the amount a similar product would fetch in today's market, $40 million for "willful infringement") for infinging on the patent, as well as nullify the technology in future software updates. But knowing Microsoft, which has done pretty well on legal cases like this one, they'll probably appeal the decision and win.

Now a lot of people are saying the judge was an idiot for ruling this way, but on the other hand, other people are saying this development was actually a good thing. It proved that even small businesses can successfully fight for their property rights, even if they stood up against giants like Microsoft.

(And then there are other people who say that the name "i4i" should raise eyebrows, and others who say that Microsoft should afterwards rename itself to "2th42th.")

I also laughed when I actually saw some bloggers call for Texas to leave the United States and make Puerto Rico the new 50th state. Texas is known to be a haven for patent law cases like this one, which gives it a fair share of infamy.

The permanent injunction will take effect in 60 days -- more than enough time, I think, for Microsoft to sort out this mess. Let's just hope they use Word 2000 to be on the safe side on this case.

After a recent study that showed drivers are 23 times more likely to figure in a car crash when texting, US lawmakers are scrambling to ban the activity altogether. But will legislation really solve the problem? As early as now, there are already several questions about the move:

#1 - Just how easily can law enforcers catch drivers in the act?

It's fairly easy for motorists to hide the fact that they're texting, and law enforcers might not spot violators at a glance. They'll probably need more sophisticated technology to enforce the law, such as high-speed cameras -- or simply hope the driver is dumb enough to do the act in an untinted car, or with the windows down.

#2 - Will legislation really kill the habit in the long run?

While reading up about the recent study, I've come across several blogger comments that went this way:

"Really? They spent millions of dollars to prove the obvious?"

"I can't believe they spent all that money to prove what everybody has known for several years."

"Where do I sign up to get money to conduct studies? A few million will do just fine."

It's easy to think that anyone with enough common sense will know that texting while behind the wheel can put themselves in danger, but obviously this isn't the case. Banning the act may discourage some errant drivers, but will it discourage enough?

#3 - Will driver education be a more cost-effective solution?

There are other ways to make people kick the habit, such as through better driver education. Insurance companies can give bonuses to drivers who take special "don't-text-while-driving" courses, and gear such benefits towards teenagers, who don't get many breaks with insurance companies to begin with.


Seriously, I love texting technology -- while we're waiting for some real city-wide Wi-Fi technology to roll around, it'll have to serve our needs to stay in touch. But at some point, we'll have to realize that the most important thing to do is to keep our eyes on the road.

The Palm Pre had the unusual advantage over its competitors when it first came out, when users found that the new smartphone could actually sync itself using Apple's popular iTunes software. Naturally, it didn't evade Apple's radar for long, and the next iTunes update stamped out the possibility of syncing with the Pre.

Palm's next move was enough to make me raise an eyebrow. The latest software update to the Pre once again lets users sync their media with Apple's iTunes platform. When pressed for comment, the guys at Palm said what they did was completely legal -- when the Pre connects to a PC, it sends out a USB signature that's similar to the one assigned by the USB Implementers Forum to Apple devices.

What's more, they claimed that Apple was misusing the iTunes USB foundation by making it respond only to devices with Apple's assigned USB codes.

Hmm, okay. I think that's called "the way we do things around here."

Seriously, Palm may need to up their legal position a bit -- the USB Implementers Forum states that a device's USB code must match the USB ID given to its manufacturing company. Palm has already approached the USB industry standards group with their plans to make the Pre work with iTunes. So far, the group hasn't commented on the matter.

As usual, the blogosphere is divided on the issue. There are some who say Palm is doing the smart thing, since it's working around legal loopholes to its advantage, the same way Apple has done in the past. On the other hand, there are some who say that what Palm is doing is very unprofessional, and that they seriously should reconsider their position if they want to stay in the competition.

There's no doubt that the Pre has won some loyal followers, and Palm is hanging in there for a while yet. But this latest move seems to me like Palm's in a worse position than many think, and the company is resorting to even the dirtier tricks to get a leg up on the industry.

I doubt this move will make a dent in Apple's user base, which is why I'm confident that it'll get stamped out by Apple yet again, very soon. If you ask me where I stand, I'm naturally with Apple on this one. I don't intend to come across as a "hard-a**" for intellectual property rights, but that's the way it should be.

If you haven't heard of Jammie Thomas-Rasset, she's the defendant in the very first music piracy legal case against an individual. The Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) won the second of two trials against Thomas-Rasset, who was found guilty of willfully infringing copyright on 24 songs.

The minimum penalty per track according to the law is $750, and if found guilty, Thomas-Rasset would have had to pay a minimum total of $18,000. The first trial saw the jury find Thomas-Rasset guilty, making her obligated to pay $9,250 per track (a total penalty of $222,000). But the judge declared it a mistrial because he had given the jury incorrect instructions.

Back then, the jury found Thomas-Rasset guilty because of her inconsistent defenses. She had claimed that a file-sharing hack had hijacked her Wi-Fi connection, causing her to end up with the 24 tracks through the file-sharing medium Kazaa. This could have been a valid defense, but there was one problem with it -- she didn't have a Wi-Fi router.

The second trial had a different jury, but her defense was equally suspicious -- this time, Thomas-Rasset claimed that her children may have used her computer to file-share through Kazaa.

Rrriiight.

The prosecution later on presented the paper trail of evidence that led to her computer -- the MAC address of her cable modem and PC's Ethernet port were correctly identified. Her Kazaa username also gave her away. The deathblow probably came with the fact that she replaced her computer's hard drive -- and didn't tell this to the investigators.

The jury apparently realized she was lying, and were "angry about it." They went on to find her guilty and slap her a whopping $80,000 penalty per track, bringing the total fine to $1.92 million.

The story has touched off a nerve in the blogosphere. Mixed opinions, some venting anger at the jury while others claiming the fine sounded fair, are flying everywhere. But no matter what anyone says, it would seem that the RIAA is winning the war on music piracy.

Or is it?

Personally, I think the RIAA won't push to collect $1.92 from Thomas-Rasset -- it's more likely they'll offer to settle the case out of court. With the grassroots anger it'll stoke if it tried to collect, it might shoot itself in the foot and hamper their future campaigns against piracy. Let's wait and see.

An unexpected perk that Palm Pre buyers found out over the past week was that Apple's iTunes recognized their new devices as iPods or iPhones, which meant they could sync their iTunes content with the Pre. I wrote about this a few days ago, mentioning that in the unlikely event that this loophole evades Apple's radar, Pre might be a buy worth considering.

Unfortunately, nothing escapes Apple's radar.

Apple basically issued an "enjoy it while you can" statement yesterday, reminding everyone that the company doesn't (and won't) support any non-Apple devices, and that the next update to iTunes may no longer recognize the Palm Pre or any other device as Apple products.

This naturally touched off a nerve among some Palm Pre users, who claimed that they have every right in the world to access their music -- and Apple would be in the wrong to deny them this access.

On the other hand, a majority sees the sense in Apple's move -- after all, it's their software, their devices, their ecosystem. Apple has every right in the world to tweak their creations in any way they see fit. Apparently two out of every three people in the tech world think this way, according to this CrunchGear poll.

At this point, you can pretty much bet that Apple is going to hold true to its word -- after all, it's done it before. Remember when Apple warned its users against using third-party hacks to jailbreak/unlock the iPhone? Sure enough, Apple came out with an iPhone update within a week, leaving owners of jailbroken/unlocked iPhones with $199 iBricks.

I doubt Apple will come out with an update that will leave Palm Pre users with Palm Bricks, but I'm just saying -- let's stay on the safe side of things.

Last week's guilty verdict on the proprietors of The Pirate Bay touched off a bundle of nerves all over the worldwide tech/media industry. On one side, content owners and creators cheered the decision, claiming that it's another victory against piracy and content theft. On the other side, advocates of civil liberties have amassed in protest against the decision, claiming that it's just another political move to protect the profits of the big industry names.

I'm not really surprised at the verdict – after all, most of the world's legal systems still live in the 90's, where the “best way to get your news” was still by trooping to the nearest newsstand and buying the day's broadsheet. Looking back, we see similar verdicts meted out against Napster, Grokster, and many other peer-to-peer sharing platforms in the past. A good number of lawsuits are being slapped on to other P2P platforms around the world today, as well.

The proprietors of TPB are expected to appeal the decision (one year in prison and paying over $30 million in damages), which can only mean one thing – we'll be hearing about TPB for years to come.

Here's the thing – it's mostly the content owners (not necessarily the content creators, as most could pretty much care less) who want the 20th-century business model to remain in place in the 21st. The idea of getting indirect revenue – through traffic, ads, and other ways of making money over the Internet – seems too foreign (or at least too unattractive) than through direct sales.

It's “the law,” they say. But I can pretty much draw a parallel between this situation and a piece of interesting American history.

Several decades ago, it was “unlawful” for an African American man to sit in the front of a bus. In today's standards, such beliefs of racism is barbaric and shameful, but back then it was pretty much covered by America's legal system. It took several years of civil liberty activism before the law formally changed and represented the people again, and now all races look to America as the land of the free – not just "whites".

In other words, I think when the law stops representing the people, then it's obviously not the people who need to be changed. The TPB verdict will sting for several more years, but it's going to be interesting to see which facet of society it'll change in the end.

Just found out a few hours ago Ramalinga Raju, Chairman of Satyam Computer Services Ltd, just resigned. Apparently after admitting that the corporation's accounts had exaggerated its cash reserves to be some US$1 billion.

Hmmm... I wonder what Ernst & Young and their entrepreneur award arm have to say about this :)

You can get more information on this if you click on this link: Satyam India CEO Resigns 2009

I googled "Satyam CEO Resigns 2009" to get the link above.

Other alternatives I'd suggest:

"Layoffs! Layoffs! Layoffs!"
"Not Another Accounting Scandal?!?"
"Entrepreneur Schmentrepreneur"
"OK. So, Where Am I Gonna' Go Get Work Now?"          <-- Riiiiiiiight.
"The Idiot Who Lost All My Money"
"Ponzi, Madoff, Raju, Laurel, Hardy"

Hey, the sky's the limit. Be creative.

And while you're at it, go cook your books with the help of your CFO and a reputable (or not!) accounting/audit firm.

Apple's iPhone 3G has been receiving its share of raves and rants over the past several months, and the company has been the target of quite a few lawsuits over false advertising. So far, Apple has moved to dismiss such lawsuits and the courts have seemed to agree. But this latest suit is different – almost as though Apple had shot itself in the foot with a particular statement in their defense.