Rothken Law Firm

Torrentspy has appealed the federal "wiretap" case against the Motion Picture Association of America to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals involving allegations that the MPAA paid a hacker $15,000 dollars in return for use of emails obtained by unauthorized computer access and automated interception. The case is Bunnell v. Motion Picture Association of America. The redacted brief can be found here. Here is a story from CNET News and the Washington Post on the appeal.

Palm entered into a nationwide class action settlement subject to the final approval of the Federal Court involving the Treo 600 and 650 smartphones. The settlement provides for certain cash rebates and rights of repair the details of which can be found on the settlement notice web site. Ira P. Rothken served as co-lead class action counsel in this nationwide case.

From a CNET News.com article published today "Ira Rothken is technology's answer to the radical lawyer, Silicon Valley's version of Johnnie Cochran or William Kunstler.Tech start-ups sued by media conglomerates for copyright infringement typically call on Rothken, a medical researcher turned lawyer. He's made a name for himself by bucking entertainment empires and by backing long-shot copyright cases, such as those involving RecordTV, ReplayTV and MP3Board.com. His efforts have won him praise from...

Click to read more ...

The newly approved Safe Accountability for Every Port Act of 2006, which President Bush signed Friday, included a provision aimed at deterring many of the over 2,500 online gambling casino web sites from taking wagers in the United States. The measure, attached to the "SAFE Port Act", seeks to prohibit Internet gambling by outlawing financial transfers, credit card transactions, and hyperlinks to unlawful Internet casinos. Ira P. Rothken was interviewed by Online NewsHour with Jim Lehrer regarding the new law.

In a case in which we participated on behalf of Amicus Curiae the California Supreme Court in Branick v. Downey Savings & Loan Association embraced our client's view and allowed consumers who may have lost the right to participate in litigation due to the passage of California's Proposition 64 the ability to amend their complaint to add additional plaintiffs who meet the new requirements. The Supreme Court ruling assists consumers and plaintiffs suing on behalf of the general public under California's Unfair Business Practices Act.

The isoHunt.com search engine defends itself against allegations from the MPAA and major motion picture studios regarding the issue of whether or not mere passive hyperlinking to "dot torrent" text like files arising out of internet search engine results can constitute secondary copyright infringement. On May 30th, 2006, Gary Fung, who was named as the defendant in the isoHunt.com lawsuit, filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and in the alternative to have the case transferred to Federal Court in California closer to his residence in Vancouver, Canada.

The Palm Treo Smartphones were recently investigated by CBS News reporter Bennett Cunningham as being defective. Click here to view the video of the CBS news report which includes a discussion of our pending federal class action case against Palm. We represent owners of Palm Treo 600 and 650 Smartphones in a nationwide federal court class action lawsuit claiming the devices are inherently defective. Click here to get involved in the case, to get e-mail updates, and to tell us about your Treo issues.

Three owners of Palm's Treo 600 and 650 hybrid phone/personal digital assistants (PDAs) have filed a class action lawsuit claiming the devices are inherently defective and are seeking an injunction barring the sale of the popular devices and money damages.

The two patents in the lawsuits filed in Federal Court in Texas, referred to as the 554 and 335 patents, were awarded in 1999 and 2002. They describe a method for "creating and managing custom Web sites" as well as "managing dynamic Web site generation requests," according to documents filed with the U.S. patent and trademark office.

A class action lawsuit was filed today by California credit card holders and merchants against Cardsystems Solutions, Inc. and others for allegedly failing to maintain adequate data security which led to a security breach exposing over 40 million credit card holders to potential fraud.

Consumers filed suit after they bought software products from retailers and read the license agreements for the first time on installation of the software, found the terms not to their liking, did not click " I agree" to the terms, and were thus unable to install the software or to return it to get all their money back (since the software shrinkwrap was opened and defendants allegedly had a policy of not providing full refunds for "opened" software).

The Settlement Agreement provides to the General Public of California, amongst other things, the right of consumers to return applicable Symantec, Adobe and Microsoft software for full monetary refunds even if the shrink-wrap has been opened. In addition, Symantec, Adobe, and Microsoft agreed to provide End User License Agreements ("EULAs") for the applicable software products on their web site and notices on their respective software packaging of the web addresses to such EULAs so consumers can review such EULAs prior to purchase of the software. CompUSA, Best Buy and Staples agreed to provide such EULAs to consumers upon request prior to sale of the above software at their retail stores in California and to provide notices to consumers in such stores to effectuate the above.

According to a lawsuit filed in Superior Court in California. The lawsuit seeks to enjoin the RIAA's Clean Slate "Amnesty" program as it does not provide a a full release of copyright claims against consumers who are required, as a condition of entering the program, to make admissions of copyright infringment.

A California woman is suing Microsoft, Symantec and some software retailers, claiming the companies "concocted a scheme" to mislead consumers by requiring them to consent to software licensing agreements they haven't read. The suit, filed Friday in Marin County Superior Court in San Rafael, Calif., was filed on behalf of all Californians who've bought software including Norton Antivirus 2002, Norton Systemworks and Windows XP Upgrade.

The consumer lawsuit claims that people who didn't accept the terms of the "EULA" (End User License Agreement) cannot return the "opened" software to the stores. According to the suit, the plaintiff tried to return the Microsoft and Symantec software to CompUSA after refusing to consent to the licensing terms. However, CompUSA refused to take the software back, saying the packages had been opened, according to the complaint.

Consumers, including Craig Newmark (founder of Craigs List), file suit in Federal Court against the Major Movie Studios and ask the Court to declare that they are not infringing on Copyrights by skipping commercials with their Digital Video Recorders in Newmark v. Turner et al (ReplayTV case). The Rothken Law Firm and EFF are serving as co-counsel for the consumer plantiffs in the case.

Over a dozen separate federal and state suits had been filed against the New York-based Internet advertising company charging that it invaded users' privacy, the first such lawsuit was filed in California by the Rothken Law Firm. The suits were later consolidated into a single federal suit, which was settled in March. A final settlement was approved Tuesday by Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Federal District Court in Manhattan. Among the terms of the deal, DoubleClick is required to create an easy-to-read privacy policy the better protects user privacy rights.

Included in the terms of the settlement are rules that require DoubleClick to do the following:

• Create a privacy policy that is easy to read, outlines the company's use of cookies and pixel tags, and explains its online ad servicing service.

• Launch 300 million banner ads on sites across the Internet that explain how consumers can protect their privacy, opt out of having a DoubleClick ad server cookie placed on their computers and how cookies are used and data is collected.

• Purge various user information that the company has collected on consumers on a regular basis, and

• Hire an accounting firm to audit its compliance with the terms.

Sunncomm and Music City records are sued in California for allegedly using cloquing 'DRM" technology on Music CDs, without proper notice, to impair functionality and prevent consumers from copying songs to their MP3 players.

MP3Board search engine defends itself against allegations from the RIAA and Major Recording Studios regarding the issue of whether or not mere passive hyperlinking arising out of Internet search engine results can constitute secondary copyright infringement in Arista Records et al. v. MP3Board, Inc./ MP3Board, Inc. v. RIAA.

Argues that its Internet centric VCR, created out of software code, is just as lawful as a physical VCR and they should not have to pay any Copyright damages in MGM et al v. RecordTV.com, Inc.

A California state law aimed at reining in unsolicited bulk email is unconstitutional, a judge ruled this week.

Click to read more ...

For allegedly using invisible web bugs to track what Internet users read and click on in Judnick v. DoubleClick (Co-lead class action counsel).

Click to read more ...