Appeals court skeptical over Oracle’s copyright infringement win over SAP

The FTC is mailing refunds to MyEx.com victims that filed complaints with law enforcement through the Consumer Sentinel Network. The FTC and the state of Nevada charged that the website, MyEx.com, was dedicated solely to revenge porn and solicited intimate pictures and videos of victims, together with their personal information such as their name, address, employer, and social media account information. The site urged visitors to “Add Your Ex,” and to “Submit Pics and Stories of Your Ex.” According to the complaint, the defendants charged victims fees from $499 to $2,800 to remove their images and information from the site. CONSUMER INFORMATION What to do if you’re the target of revenge porn RELATED NEWS FTC, Nevada Obtain Order Permanently Shutting down Revenge Porn Site MyEx FTC and Nevada Seek to Halt Revenge Porn Site

SALT LAKE CITY — The U.S. Justice Department has called it “by far the most significantly growing threat to children.” And based on recent investigations, the issue of “sextortion” isn’t slowing down, including in Utah. Sextortion is a form of online blackmail, typically targeting teenagers or preteens. The average sextortion case starts with children who are 12 to 14 years old who are using social media and other apps to message others who they assume are also juveniles, said Steve Cagen, head of U.S. Homeland Security Investigations in Utah and three other states. Eventually, the other “juvenile” will gain the teen’s trust and request a nude photo. “But they’re talking to a 40-year-old or 50-year-old man, who once they have one photo will then extort them for more. It’s called sextortion. It’s happening a lot. And we are asking parents to talk to your kids, because it can happen in…

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Aereo, backed by Barry Diller’s IAC/InterActiveCorp charges users a low monthly fee to watch live or recorded broadcast TV channels on computers or mobile devices - and does not pay any of the broadcasters.Aereo has urged the high court to hear the case even though it won in the lower court, as it would like a definitive and final answer in regards to the issue.Help end world hunger by going here. Justice Samuel Alito will not participate in it, according to The Supreme Court, which generally does not disclose why justices are excused. A ruling is expected by the end of this June. Aereo subscribers can stream live broadcasts of TV channels on mobile devices using miniature antennas. Launched in March 2012 in the New York area, Aereo has since expanded to about 10 cities and plans to enter several more. The four broadcasters…

People who download pirated media content such as TV shows and movies may soon get a warning in real time, if a US cable company’s efforts become reality.A report on Variety.com said Comcast Corp. is developing the mechanism and is urging major studios, content companies, and distributors to join it.”As sources described the new system, a consumer illegally downloading a film or movie from a peer-to-peer system would be quickly pushed a pop-up message with links to purchase or rent the same content, whether the title in question exists on the VOD library of a participating distributor’s own broadband network or on a third-party seller like Amazon,” Variety editor-in-chief for digital Andrew Wallenstein said. He said this may be an alternative to the Copyright Alert System (CAS), which is a voluntary initiative being used since February.CAS warns subscribers engaging in copyright infringement up to six times before the Internet service provider…

A 31-year-old Seattle man was sentenced to one year in jail on Friday for posting nude photos of women on two different websites in a bizarre case of “revenge porn.” Jeremy “Silo” Walters, a photographer and computer technician, pleaded guilty to first-degree computer trespass and four counts of cyberstalking, a gross misdemeanor charge. He faced a standard sentence of up to 90 days behind bars, but agreed to an exceptional sentence for abusing the trust of one victim and to avoid prosecution for a domestic-violence charge involving a woman he apparently dated for a time. According to charging documents, Walters was hired by a woman in June 2011 through an ad posted on Craigslist to transfer data from an old computer to a new one. Included on her hard drive were several hundred explicit photos a friend had taken of the woman, along with nude “selfies” she had stored for her personal…

INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) — 13 Investigates a gap in Indiana law that could allow someone to post sexually explicit images of you or older teens without consent, and worse yet without prosecution. One 18-year old is speaking out in hopes of empowering more revenge porn victims and advocating for a change in state law. It was a provocative photo similar to infamous cover shots of popular Hollywood stars on magazines: Topless women with strategically placed arms. But 18-year-old Colene Speckman never meant for her image to land on a porn site. “You feel violated. You feel dirty,” she told 13 Investigates. Colene’s photo was supposed to post to Snapchat and then quickly disappear. “You don’t really think that anything is going to happen,” she said. Nonconsensual disclosure of explicit photos But in seconds, Colene says a rejected classmate snagged a screen shot that threatened to ruin her life. Since freshman year,…

fighting back What is revenge porn? It’s “non-consensual pornography that is distributed online to shame, exploit or extort its victims.” Basically, it’s sharing other’s nude photos online for your own selfish reasons. It’s an epidemic that ruins lives; however, it is often overlooked by the general populous as well as the government. But that’s all about to change. Leah Juliett, A student, is campaigning to end revenge porn after she fell victim to the cruel practice - which is illegal in some states - when she was just 14 years old. Leah Juliett, now 20, was devastated when a boy she was communicating with shared naked pictures of her with their entire school and online. The traumatic experience left the New York-based poet, actor and activist feeling alone, vulnerable and too scared to report it. She sent 4 revealing photos to a male classmate who was unsatisfied with the photos…

SAN DIEGO - A woman testified Tuesday that she was scared and afraid after sexual photos of her taken by her ex-boyfriend ended up on a website owned by a San Diego man. The woman testified during a preliminary hearing for Kevin Bollaert, who’s accused of posting thousands of explicit photos of women on a so-called “revenge porn” website without their consent, then extorting money from some victims who wanted the images removed. Jane Doe 5 testified that she began getting nasty and racial comments after sexual photos of her were posted on Bollaert’s website, “ugotposted.com.” The woman said she had no idea that her ex-boyfriend had taken the photos when they went on a trip. She said she e-mailed “ugotposted.com” to take the photos down, but got no response. The pictures eventually were removed from the website a week later. In addition to the photos, the woman’s name, location…

A U.S. federal court has found file-hosting website Hotfile liable for copyright infringement, according to movie industry body Motion Picture Association of America.The US District Court for the Southern District of Florida also held that Hotfile’s principal, Anton Titov, was personally liable for Hotfile’s infringement, MPAA said in an emailed statement Wednesday. “This case marked the first time that a US court has ruled on whether so-called cyberlockers like Hotfile can be held liable for their infringing business practices,” it added. The order was marked on online court records as “restricted/sealed until further notice.” The opinion will be made public by the court in about two weeks, after confidential and proprietary information has been redacted, MPAA said. The court agreed with the movie studios’ complaint that Hotfile gave incentives to post copyrighted content. Five U.S. movie studios filed a copyright infringement suit against Hotfile in 2011, alleging that the company…

Michael Weigel’s former partner woke up last December to a stunning email from her ex. “You will never live in peace. You will live in shame and embarrassment for the rest of your life,” the email said, according to the excerpt the woman read in Ramsey County District Court on Tuesday. Ramsey County sheriff’s office Michael Weigel, 39 It went on to detail how Weigel had plastered naked pictures of her that the two took while they were still a couple on her new boyfriend’s Facebook page. The photos were attached in the email. “I wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear,” the woman recounted for the court. She spent weeks crying and panicking as she tried to navigate Facebook’s process for getting the photos removed. She had to show the images to police officers so that criminal charges could be pursued. She worried the public exposure might cost…

by: Alex Thomas, Rare.us Updated: Sep 30, 2021 - 10:29 AM SAN ANTONIO - A San Antonio woman is in trouble after police say she broke into her ex’s phone and posted nude photos of his former lover online. In August, a woman reported the photos to police, claiming that 26-year-old Adriana Luna posted the images on the man’s Instagram account. Authorities said the man dated another woman before getting into a relationship with Luna. The woman before had, sent him the nude photos. According to an affidavit, Luna and the man had what a “bad breakup.” TRENDING NOW: The San Antonio Express-News reported Luna kept her ex’s phone and broke into it, then posted the images. When Luna’s ex-boyfriend confronted her about it, she allegedly admitted to the crime. KABB reported that, according to an interview with the ex-boyfriend, Luna posted the photos with her mother’s help. The ex-boyfriend said…

Zynga claim that the app’s name abuses the ‘With Friends’ moniker they use for their family-friendly games. Bloomberg reports that Zynga are accusing the app’s developers of selecting “the name Bang With Friends for its casual sex matchmaking app with Zynga’s game trademarks fully in mind.” Launched in January, Bang With Friends works by signing into Facebook. Users select the friends they’re “interested” in and if those lucky individuals have also installed the app and already selected them, then both parties are sent an email. Forbes writer Kashmir Hill has already pointed out that the app doesn’t live up to its own promises of anonymity, as users who go to add the app on Facebook will be told if any friends of theirs have. Until recently the founders of the app had chosen to be anonymous, though in June this year, CEO Colin Hodge was interviewed by Business Insider. Hodge…

Chalk this up in the “funny, but not really” category: Last week, a company working with Microsoft to combat copyright pirates asked Google to remove multiple Microsoft web pages from Google searches—for infringing Microsoft copyrights.Yep, Microsoft filed a Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown request against itself, as Torrentfreak first spotted.This wasn’t a case of internal idiocy or revenge, and it’s also not quite as amusing as it may appear at first glance. Instead, it highlights the harmful way copyright holders use automatically generated DMCA takedown requests to try to scrub the net of pirated content, casting a wide net that often ensnares innocent webmasters with false infringement claims. Google’s record of LeakID’s DMCA takedown request against Microsoft.com.(Click to enlarge.) If a copyright holder feels that a particular website is ripping off its work, it can send Google a DMCA takedown request and ask for the infringing site to be removed…

  Georgios Kollidas - Fotolia.com What is the Copyright Infringement Finder and is it worth it? Photographer Jason Wilder had a problem common to nearly everyone who creates intellectual property: His work was routinely being used online without his permission— and without payment. So Wilder did something about it, creating the Copyright Infringement Finder (CIF) add-on for the Firefox browser. “I have been a professional concert photographer for about 10 years now, and no one ever really wants to pay for concert photos,” Wilder told CorpCounsel.com. “They’d rather take them without licensing them and hope no one finds out, instead of paying a small licensing fee.” The CIF add-on uses Google’s image-searching technology and allows owners of images to right-click on an image in the Firefox browser window to find other sites that are using that same image. “All my images are copyrighted,” Wilder notes, and because “I know which…

Photographers based in the UK now have an easier and cheaper legal path to take if they discover someone infringing upon their copyrights. Chris Cheesman of Amateur Photographer writes that photographers can now receive do-it-yourself justice without having to hire a lawyer: Intellectual property disputes can now be resolved using the ‘small claims track’ in the Patents County Court (PCC), following a Government announcement of a ‘simpler and easier’ system last month. Photographers can pursue damages for breach of copyright, for up to £5,000, without even appointing a solicitor, unlike before where they may have been put off by a potentially long, and expensive, legal fight. Furthermore, the damages limit may rise to £10,000 under Ministry of Justice proposals, possibly as early as next year. Crucially, under the new system, photographers can avoid the prospect of a lengthy court battle and the fear of having to pay the legal fees…