DigitMemo.com

Tiffany, the world’s second-biggest luxury jeweler, said eBay is a “rat’s nest” for counterfeiting and urged a judge to rule that the biggest online auctioneer was liable for infringement.

Tiffany assailed eBay in a legal brief submitted Dec. 7 to U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan in Manhattan, as the companies await his ruling in a trademark infringement trial. EBay said in its brief that it’s a “model citizen” in the fight against counterfeiting.

At issue is whether eBay must pay damages for failing to make adequate efforts to block sales of counterfeit silver jewelry. New York-based Tiffany and other retailers claim online sales of counterfeit clothes, bags and jewelry cost them about $30 billion a year.

Click for more on Tiffany: eBay is Rat’s Nest for Counterfeiting »

Piracy rates are lower because it’s harder

Microsoft said Monday that it’s seeing piracy rates for Windows Vista that are half those of Windows XP.

Now cynical me wanted to write this up as “even pirates prefer XP two to one over Vista,” but that wouldn’t be fair. In reality, the decline in piracy rates is largely due to the fact that Vista is much tougher to fake than XP.

“Piracy rates are lower because it’s harder,” Microsoft Vice President Mike Sievert said in an interview Monday.

Click for more on Microsoft: Vista piracy rate is half that of XP »

IBM is suing a company for selling fake IBM batteries that catch fire, asking $1M for each fake battery.

IBM is suing Shentech for selling laptop batteries that catch fire and sport allegedly fake IBM logos.

The suit, filed Nov. 20 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, accuses Shentech of trademark infringement, false advertising, unfair competition and deceptive trade practices.

IBM says that a consumer in Ohio bought a battery from Shentech for a ThinkPad laptop. The battery overheated and caught fire, causing damage to the laptop, IBM said. The user reported the problem to Lenovo, which licenses the IBM trademark. After examining the faulty battery, IBM discovered that it was not a genuine IBM battery, the company said in the suit.

Click for more on IBM sues company for selling fake, flammable batteries »

Pirate Bay officials think it is the overzealous Swedish government officials that will be walking the legal plank

The Pirate Bay’s enemies are circling it like a pack of hungry sharks, waiting for it to slip. First there is the Swedish government assault, led by prosecutor Håkan Roswall, who seeks to press charges against The Pirate Bay before January 31, 2008.  The planned charges will be against multiple pirate bay admins for allegedly supporting copyright infringement on a massive scale.

Click for more on Pirate Bay Officials Respond, Laugh Off Lawsuits, Prince »

Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.

It’s no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it’s OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.

This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of Usenet, is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and two years in prison.

Click for more on Create an e-annoyance, go to jail »

Canadian-hosted torrent site is the next to fall in a series of takedowns

The world-wide crackdown on torrent sites has brought down another major torrent hub. After being forced to close its doors to Canadian users in September due to pressure from the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), Demonoid.com survived for only slightly more than a month before being having forced offline entirely today.

The previously bustling homepage has been replaced by a single line of text; bereft of much in the way of details, but leaving little doubt as to the fate of the website:

The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding.

Click for more on Demonoid.com Shut Down Again »

If you ever have the opportunity to illegally change your grades, think of these two California students - they’re facing up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for exactly that crime.

29-year-old John Escalera and 28-year-old Gustavo Razo were indicted on October 25 for hacking their way into the California State University, Fresno computer system and changing their grades.

According to the charges, Escalara worked in CSUF’s information technology department and was able to slip into the grading database fairly easily.  He allegedly used the password of his supervisor to gain access to some of the university’s most sensitive data banks.

Click for more on Two students charged with hacking into system, changing grades »

Wired has up an article with a man named Robert Anderson, who was recruited by the MPAA in 2005 to inform on people in the BitTorrent community.

In a tell-all interview with the site, Anderson explains how the powerful media organization encouraged him to obtain the information they were looking for:

According to Anderson, the MPAA told him: ‘We would need somebody like you. We would give you a nice paying job, a house, a car, anything you needed…. if you save Hollywood for us you can become rich and powerful.’ In 2005, the MPAA paid Anderson $15,000 for inside information about TorrentSpy — information at the heart of a copyright-infringement lawsuit brought by the MPAA against TorrentSpy of Los Angeles. The material is also the subject of a wiretapping countersuit against the MPAA brought by TorrentSpy’s founder, Justin Bunnell, who alleges the information was obtained illegally.

Click for more on Hacker for the MPAA Interviewed »

TV-Links.co.uk rankled the media industry for long enough according to British authorities

Marking the first closure of its kind against a UK-based piracy site, TV-Links.co.uk was raided and shut down by British authorities late last week. According to the United Kingdom (FACT), the raid also culminated with the arrests of the site’s 26-year-old webmaster and part of the site’s moderation staff. The raid was carried out through a coordinated effort involving investigators from FACT and the local police.

Click for more on Largest TV Piracy Site Shut Down, Staff Arrested »

AbsolutePoker.com says ‘geek’ hacked system to prove it could be done.

In a case that illustrates the perils of online betting, a leading Internet poker site said Friday that a hacker exploited a security flaw to gain an insurmountable edge in high-stakes, no-limit Texas holdem tournaments — the ability to see his opponents’ hole cards.

The cheater, whose illegitimate winnings were estimated at between $400,000 and $700,000 by one victim, was an employee of AbsolutePoker.com who hacked the system to show that it could be done, said a spokesman for the company, who spoke with msnbc.com on condition of anonymity.

Click for more on Online poker cheating blamed on employee »