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edadams sends in a story about the legal questions that are starting to crop up over property disputes in virtual worlds. A lawsuit in March 2008 that stopped one Second Life user from selling a virtual product created by another user marked the beginning of a significant amount of casework for several law firms, in large part due to the way Second Life's currency interacts closely with real money. (And yes, apparently the product in that particular case was for cybersex — did you have to ask?) "As transactions grow in volume, it's inevitable that disagreements will crop up. Linden says that although it will enforce its terms of service, including its ban on violating other users' intellectual property, it can't settle most disputes for users." A lawyer for one intellectual property firm handled a case in which the co-ownership of virtual real estate had to be determined, ending with a financial settlement given to two users who helped a virtual land developer run a group of Second Life islands. As virtual worlds get more popular and their business models more directly affect real-life finances, we can expect these legal issues to become more common as well.

Wired is running a story about a case the Supreme Court will be hearing on Tuesday that relates to searches based on erroneous information in government databases. In the case of Herring vs. US 07-513, the defendant was followed and pulled over based on a records indicating he had a warrant out for his arrest. Upon further review, the local county clerk found the records were in error, and the warrant notification should have been removed months prior. Unfortunately for Herring, he had already been arrested and his car searched. Police found a small amount of drugs and a firearm, for which Herring was subsequently prosecuted. Several friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed to argue this case, some calling for "an accuracy obligation on law enforcement agents [PDF] who rely on criminal justice information systems," and others defending such searches as good-faith exceptions [PDF].

Wired is running a story about a case the Supreme Court will be hearing on Tuesday that relates to searches based on erroneous information in government databases. In the case of Herring vs. US 07-513, the defendant was followed and pulled over based on a records indicating he had a warrant out for his arrest. Upon further review, the local county clerk found the records were in error, and the warrant notification should have been removed months prior. Unfortunately for Herring, he had already been arrested and his car searched. Police found a small amount of drugs and a firearm, for which Herring was subsequently prosecuted. Several friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed to argue this case, some calling for "an accuracy obligation on law enforcement agents [PDF] who rely on criminal justice information systems," and others defending such searches as good-faith exceptions [PDF].

Wired is running a story about a case the Supreme Court will be hearing on Tuesday that relates to searches based on erroneous information in government databases. In the case of Herring vs. US 07-513, the defendant was followed and pulled over based on a records indicating he had a warrant out for his arrest. Upon further review, the local county clerk found the records were in error, and the warrant notification should have been removed months prior. Unfortunately for Herring, he had already been arrested and his car searched. Police found a small amount of drugs and a firearm, for which Herring was subsequently prosecuted. Several friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed to argue this case, some calling for "an accuracy obligation on law enforcement agents [PDF] who rely on criminal justice information systems," and others defending such searches as good-faith exceptions [PDF].

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "I was afforded the opportunity to write for a slightly different audience — the judges who belong to the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association. I was invited by the The Judges Journal, their quarterly publication, to do a piece on the RIAA litigations for the ABA's Summer 2008 'Equal Access to Justice' issue. What I came up with was 'Large Recording Companies vs. The Defenseless: Some Common Sense Solutions to the Challenges of the RIAA Litigations,' in which I describe the unfairness of these cases and make 15 suggestions as to how the courts could level the playing field. I'm hoping the judges mod my article '+5 Insightful,' but I'd settle for '+3 Informative.' Here is the actual article (PDF). (If anyone out there can send me a decent HTML version of it, I'll run that one up the flagpole as well.)" Wired is helping to spread the word on Ray's article.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "I was afforded the opportunity to write for a slightly different audience — the judges who belong to the Judicial Division of the American Bar Association. I was invited by the The Judges Journal, their quarterly publication, to do a piece on the RIAA litigations for the ABA's Summer 2008 'Equal Access to Justice' issue. What I came up with was 'Large Recording Companies vs. The Defenseless: Some Common Sense Solutions to the Challenges of the RIAA Litigations,' in which I describe the unfairness of these cases and make 15 suggestions as to how the courts could level the playing field. I'm hoping the judges mod my article '+5 Insightful,' but I'd settle for '+3 Informative.' Here is the actual article (PDF). (If anyone out there can send me a decent HTML version of it, I'll run that one up the flagpole as well.)" Wired is helping to spread the word on Ray's article.

Katharine writes "Jason Krause, a legal affairs writer for the American Bar Association's 'ABA Journal' reports in the July issue that Windows Vista will be a boon for those looking for forensic evidence of wrongdoing on defendants' PC's and a nightmare for defendants who hoped their past computer activities would not be revealed. Krause quotes attorney R. Lee Barrett, 'From a [legal] defense perspective, [Vista] scares me to death. One of the things I have a hard time educating my clients on is the volume of data that's now discoverable.' This is primarily attributable to Shadow Copy, TxF and Instant Search."

shystershep writes "Various sources are reporting that Microsoft's appeal in the Lindows trademark infringement suit was rejected by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. At issue was the trial judge's decision [PDF link] to 'instruct a jury to consider only whether 'windows' was a generic term before November 1985, when the first version of Microsoft's Windows was released.' This is significant because a generic mark receives no trademark protection, and the ruling that the jury must make that determination based only on the use of the term before 1985 is a major blow to Microsoft."

shystershep writes "Apparently attacking one Unix-like OS isn't enough. According to Darl McBride, SCO has plans to target BSD. "The more yarn you pull out the more you see," according to McBride. They're a little preoccupied with the IBM litigation right now, though, so "we probably won't file any suits against BSD until sometime in the first half of next year." Hmmm. I can't imagine why SCO executives feel that they need to hire bodyguards." How to get at the *BSDs? vireo writes "In this Newsforge story, we learn that Boies, Schiller & Flexner will directly attack the 1994 AT&T/BSD settlement." Read on below for another handful of updates on the giant SCO lawsuit frenzy.

osullish writes "The Financial Times reports that SCO is indicating it will sue an as-yet un-named Linux-using corporation within the next 90 days. Also mentioned in the article is possible action against Novell, which recently purchased Ximian and SUSE Linux."

Iaitos points to this rather stiffly-worded notice from Novell (on their site) regarding the non-compete agreement SCO claims would taint Novell's acquisition of SUSE:

PROVO, Utah Nov. 18, 2003: Novell has seen the November 18 InfoWorld article in which SCO CEO Darl McBride refers to a supposed non-compete agreement between Novell and SCO. Mr. McBride's characterization of the agreements between Novell and SCO is inaccurate. There is no non-compete provision in those contracts, and the pending acquisition of SUSE LINUX does not violate any agreement between Novell and SCO.

Novell has received no formal communication from SCO on this particular issue. Novell understands its rights under the contracts very well, and will respond in due course should SCO choose to formally pursue this issue."

slavitos points to a ZDNet article covering the same ground, writing: "A characteristic SCO twist in the story: "McBride added that lawsuits likely will be preceded and possibly prevented by communications offering businesses an opportunity to get right with SCO. "We'll be communicating with users what our expectations are," he said.". Oh, that's helpful, Darl - and no, we didn't really expect you to be any more specific."

If your lips aren't yet too tired, ansak writes "PJ has done it again -- okay, "co-ordinated it" would be the better phrase. The transcript of SCOG's conference call is now available (and in danger of being slashdotted without slashdot's help, even!).
#include <std.thanks.to.volunteers.h>"

Another legal theory being thrown about is that SCO's lawsuit (the one against IBM, that is) all leads back to Sequent. Petrol writes "The Inquirer has a story about SCO's action against IBM. 'Sources close to the action describe a trail of code that might well be the target of SCO's ire against IBM and the Linux community.'"

Cognito writes "AFFECT, Americans for Fair Electronic Commerce Transactions, is reporting that the American Bar Association has withdrawn its consideration for endorsing a resolution to approve UCITA, the Uniform Computer Information Transaction Act. This is a good thing. It's interesting to note that a recently filed law suit would have been prohibited if UCITA were endorsed and adopted as a common law."

smarner writes: "The American Bar Association's Journal (ABA Journal) just came out today, and there's a thorough and interesting article called 'Patent This' regarding the one-click and other business method patents that have been drawing the ire of many lately (including /.ers). The article is on-line here."

It's been a busy week inside the 40-story glass monolith that is Slashdot, as our cleverly disguised agents manipulate reality to conform with their own twisted idea of how things should be. Just the same, in an effort to defuse suspicion by appearing fallible, here is another thimbleful of spin in the form of Slashback: Episode IV.

Leveling mountains back to molehills ... Mitch writes "I have read further in the Borland license agreement. People need to be more careful before posting news. Twisting words or only giving half the facts can cause problems and does most of time. This, in my opinion, was an unfair thing to do to Borland. If anyone looked at the rest of the agreement, it says:

'Nothing in this license statement permits you to derive the source code of files that Borland has provided to you in executable form only, or to reproduce, modify, use, or distribute the source code of such files. You are not, of course, restricted from distributing source code that is entirely your own. Code which you generate with a Borland code generator, such as AppExpert, is considered by Borland to be your code.'" Michael Swindell from Borland wrote with much the same information. Thanks to both for the level-headed clarification.

deet-de-deet-deet deet HAVANA: Steve Arner writes "On May 18, 2000, the Associated Press ('The AP') declared that it would not pursue legal action against the creators of a widely-viewed parody combining images of the goverment?s recent seizure of Elián Gonzalez at gunpoint with sounds from Budweisers popular 'Whazzup?' advertising campaign."

Sneaky little devil. Nik would like you to read this Salon article about BSD. Trust him -- it's an interesting overview. It will make you want to spend more time poring through the BSD Section of Slashdot.

No towel-throwing just yet bork bork bork. Audent writes "There's a nice thank you note on the Dialectizer site saying he's still reviewing his options and to check back regularly". You can read his notice here, and since it's on the rinkworks site, you can even read it in psuedo-Swedish or redneck.

Don't line up for tickets yet ... they're still fixing the odds. emmons writes "Judge Kaplan has ordered that the trial concerning DeCSS' legality under the DMCA be moved from December 5th to July 17th. The order is posted on cryptome.org's website." By that time, the law could say that the moon in made of green cheese until proven otherwise, while forbidding lunar analysis.

Aren't you glad you use ... pine? pq writes "John Markoff at the NYT followed up on the Love bug with this story (no login needed). Apparently it simply faxed itself as text to fax numbers in your Outlook addressbook - an interesting article for the Neal Stephenson 'Life imitates Art' angle." Also nice to know that the NY Times writers are reading Neal Stephenson.