The leaks suggest that countries who sign up to the US-promoted plan would have to force ISPs to proactively police copyright on user-generated content, cut off those accused (or face liability), and put “graduated response” clauses in customer contracts. An example of graduated response is France’s “three strikes and your out” law. There, you get two warnings if caught sharing music or movies, then you’re banned for up to two years.

This provision would mean that every country that signs up to ACTA must allow content owners such as record companies and Hollywood studios to sue ISPs for failing to stop their subscribers from illegally sharing copyright-protected material such as music and movies.

By the way, two major sources of counterfeiting — Russia and China — aren’t in the talks. If you want to get your head further around the issue, these sites do a great job of breaking it all down: [Electronic Frontier Foundation and PC World via BoingBoing]

As a safeguard, the FCC would also be required to protect legitimate communications by conducting tests, approving equipment and laying out specific rules about when and where signals could be blocked. As you might expect, the issue of inmates using mobile phones to conduct nefarious business has become a problem over the last few years. The House still needs to approve the bill — but it seems like a no-brainer to me. I mean, think about all the time officers would save when they don’t have to hunt for mobile phones being smuggled in by carrier pigeons, R/C helicopters and buttholes. [WSJ via Phone Scoop via CrunchGear]

The issue Google took with CyanogenMod wasn’t that it fundamentally changes Android—they’re generally open to that, seeing as it’s an open source project and all—but that the custom ROMs contain binaries of Google proprietary applications, like Maps, Talk and Gmail. Of course, this was a technicality, because the devices Cyanogen wrote his customs ROMs for all shipped with these apps in the first place. That’s why Google’s cease and desist spree seemed so silly, but also why it’ll be so easy to legally circumvent:

Since I don’t work with any of these closed source applications directly, what I intend to do is simply ship the next version of CyanogenMod as a “bare bones” ROM. You’ll be able to make calls, MMS, take photos, etc. In order to get our beloved Google sync and applications back, you’ll need to make a backup first. I’m working on an application that will do this for you.

I mean, I’m glad this won’t amount to more than a small bump in the road for Cyanogen, but what exactly did Google accomplish here, aside from some bad PR? [Cyanogen via Lifehacker]

The device is intended for roadside use by law enforcement agencies and includes a disposable plastic cartridge and a handheld analyzer. The cartridge has two components: a sample collector for gathering saliva and a measurement chamber containing magnetic nanoparticles. The particles are coated with ligands that bind to one of five different drug groups.

After 90 seconds, the device delivers its verdict on a colour-coded readout. That’s a lot of fancy technology to tell you that the naked, toothless guy trying to escape from the ghosts chasing him is probably high as a kite, but Philips, the company behind the tester, hopes to have the device in Europe by the end of the year. If it is successful, I would imagine that a US launch would not be far behind. [Technology Review via DVICE]

Now a class action lawsuit has been filed that seeks punitive damages for those affected by the deletion as well as an injunction that forbids Amazon from improperly accessing Kindles in the future. Granted, after the fallout and subsequent Bezos apology, there probably wasn’t much risk of Amazon crossing the line again. Still, I agree that Amazon had this coming.

Again, the fact that Orwell’s 1984 is at the centre of all of this controversy is one of those delicious coincidences that is impossible to ignore. [Trading Markets]

You’d be forgiven for thinking Psystar had fallen off some kind of wagon a few weeks ago, when they somehow emerged from (possibly strategic) bankruptcy only to immediately release another hackintosh product, just like the ones that landed them in their predicament in the first place. Their move was bold; their post-bankruptcy statements, hilariously brash.

Now the Psystar PR team, such as they are, is back at it, and they’re rallying the troops—this time, with a software, more nuanced message:

Apple’s copyright on OS X doesn’t give Apple the right to tell people what they can do with it after they buy a copy. Apple can’t tell an applications developer that it can’t make a piece of Mac-compatible software. They can’t forbid Mac users from writing blogs critical of Apple. And they can’t tell us not to write kernel extensions that turn the computers we buy into Mac-compatible hardware.

A new trial date has been set for January 11, 2010, in federal court in San Francisco. As we move toward trial, we’ll be keeping you informed about the arguments, the evidence, and what’s going on in the case. And, come January, Camara & Sibley will be ready to fight for Psystar, guns blazin’. We hope to see you there!

Camara & Sibley? That sounds suspiciously legitimate! And what happened to David and Goliath, and applesauce? It seems they’re moving away from the silly rhetoric and returning to an older, more sympathetic refrain:

Everyone here values openness. And that’s how we’re going to fight Apple: in public. We have nothing to hide. We buy hundreds of copies of OS X legally, from retailers like Amazon and Apple itself. We’re probably one of Apple’s biggest customers. Then we install these copies of OS X, along with kernel extensions that we wrote in-house, on computers that we buy and build. Then we resell the package to people like you. That’s it.

The court date is set for January 11 in San Francisco, where, assuming Psystar stays serious about this, we might actually get a decent show. [Psystar via OS News—Thanks, Rob!]

While the judge overseeing the retrial case did make it clear that these affiliations should have been disclosed, he noted that Sweden has copyright laws and simply agreeing with them is not justification for a mistrial. Naturally, this verdict will result in more desperate legal posturing that will eventually border on the absurd. Speaking of that, defendant Peter Kolmisoppi Sunde responded to the decision by tweeting the following:

The Pirate Bay will now file charges against Sweden for violation for Human Rights. More info later. (The bias-judge is himself biased…)

Oh boy. [Ars Technica]

She’s handed down quite a number of cyberlaw decisions during her career, some of which show the kind of technological awareness that’s utterly foreign to our current geriatric court. According to Wired’s Threat Level, she’s ruled against companies with deliberately hidden or misleading EULAs, limited the powers of the executive to acquire user information and records from ISPs with National Security letters, and widened online publications’ rights to resell freelancers’ content without additional payment.

There’s a catch: her penchant for tech comes from her experience as an intellectual property lawyer, meaning that—though this isn’t conclusive—she could tend to side with organisations like the RIAA and MPAA should the court hear any filesharing-related cases during her tenure, which they almost certainly will.

Say what you want about her rulings, but there’s something to be said for her being the first nominee to the court with any record in cyberlaw. That “internet” thing is getting to be a pretty big deal, I hear. [Wired]

Barnes broke up with her boyfriend in 2004, and in a fit of total jackassery, he not only created fake profiles of her but used them in chat rooms to tell creepy dudes to check them out. These profiles contained “some kind of open sexual solicitation,” and said creepy dudes soon started “peppering [Barnes'] office with e-mails, phone calls, and personal visits, all in the expectation of sex.” As Ars notes, it’s basically the modern equivalent of scrawling a phone number on a bathroom wall, only with a lot more initiative.

Because the profiles were fake, Barnes took the appropriate measures to have them officially removed from Yahoo!, by sending in her proper ID and explaining the situation. Yahoo! agreed, and promised to take the profiles down, and then…didn’t. Even after a Yahoo! rep personally assured her the profiles would be removed, no action was taken. So Barnes sued Yahoo!.

Publishers like Yahoo! (and Craigslist, and Facebook) have immunity from being prosecuted for the actions of its users, so they were ruled not guilty. But due to the media attention brought by the lawsuit, Yahoo! finally got off their arse and remedied the situation like they should have months earlier. The judge was particularly sympathetic to Barnes, advising her that she could refile the suit as a sort of “breach of contract” suit, alleging that when Yahoo! agreed to remove the offending material, they became contractually obligated to do so.

We personally agree with the judge’s decision; had he held Yahoo! responsible, it’s an awfully slippery slope. But sites like Yahoo! do have an obligation to their customers to take complaints like these more seriously. [Ars Technica, Court Decision (PDF)]

What happens when you are caught making sweet love to a car wash vacuum in Michigan? Apparently, it gets you 90 days in jail for indecent exposure and mandatory drug testing.

Seriously though, that sentence must pale in comparison to the shame that a 29-year old man must feel when he becomes notorious for publicly screwing a vacuum. And what about the fear his community must feel? No vacuum or pool filter for 50 miles is safe. [SFGate]