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When Hulu was first launched in 2007, many of us wondered aloud, “Where the heck did they think up the name ‘Hulu’?” The answer may be hidden in a new lawsuit brought by Canadian media company Hulavision, which alleges that Hulu and parent company NBC Universal not only stole its trade secrets before launching Hulu, but stole its trademark as well.

Hulavision, created by Errol Hula, allegedly developed technology that is strikingly similar to that used by Hulu as a way to bring TV shows to Internet surfers, according to the complaint seen by the Hollywood Reporter. Hula says he met with NBC Universal’s Raymond Vergel de Dios in Las Vegas—years before Hulu was developed. NBC must have been interested, because Vergel de Dios signed a nondisclosure agreement with Hula in 2006, at which time Hula revealed the company’s business model and other trade secrets.

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The content in this post was found at http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/03/did-hulu-steal-from-hula-suit-aims-to-find-out.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

The debate over the applicability of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in cases of alleged employee disloyalty has yielded quite a few rulings over the last several years, and generated a circuit split last September with the Ninth Circuit decision in LVRC Holdings LLC v. Brekka, 581 F.3d 1127 (9th Cir. 2009). In that civil action alleging employee theft and misappropriation of trade secrets, the appeals court rejected an expansive interpretation of the CFAA, concluding that an employee’s authorization to access an employer’s computer network is not automatically revoked when the employee is acting in a manner that is disloyal to the employer’s interest. The Ninth Circuit explicitly rejected the contrary reasoning of the Seventh Circuit in International Airport Centers, LLC v. Citrin, 440 F.3d 418 (7th Cir. 2006). In the Citrin case, Judge Posner authored a panel ruling that under common law agency principles, an employee who breaches the duty of loyalty to an employer thereby lacks authorization within the meaning of the CFAA.

The battleground in those two cases was whether a former employer could bring a civil action under the CFAA against former employees who accessed the employer’s computer network, while still employed, for disloyal purposes.
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The content in this post was found at http://newmedialaw.proskauer.com/2010/01/articles/computer-fraud-and-abuse-act/applying-9th-circuit-lvrc-v-brekka-ruling-district-court-dismisses-most-cfaa-criminal-charges-in-united-states-v-nosal/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NewMediaAndTechnologyLaw+%28New+Media+and+Technology+Law%29 and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

Oh how we love the Starwood-Hilton smackdown. Accusations of corporate espionage! Allegations of theft! Awful ideas for hotel-chain names! We wish there were a new filing in the case every day to write about.

The content in this post was found at http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/01/15/starwood-lodges-new-corporate-espionage-allegations-against-hilton/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+wsj%2Flaw%2Ffeed+%28WSJ.com%3A+Law+Blog%29 and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

Apple has officially backed off from legal threats made against OdioWorks, the operator of a wiki that hosted pages discussing how users might use an iPod with non-Apple media software. The company sent a letter to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (which was representing OdioWorks in its legal case against Apple) earlier this month stating that the company had chosen to withdraw its takedown notifications. As a result, OdioWorks is also dropping its lawsuit against Apple, though this issue may not lay dormant for long.

BluWiki, like most wiki platforms, is open to the public for the purpose of sharing information. The site is noncommercial and doesn’t run ads, and depends on its users to edit and publish articles on a wide variety of topics. Some of those topics cover how to use an iPod or iPhone with third-party software—something not possible under Apple’s normal product restrictions.

The content in this post was found at http://feeds.arstechnica.com/arstechnica/BAaf and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.

What’s the secret behind Goldman Sachs’s legendary success? We have little idea, but judging from recent news reports, you’d might be led to believe that part of it is wrapped up in computer codes related to a high-speed trading program.

Click here for the WSJ story; here for the NYT story.

The content in this post was found at http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2009/07/07/trade-not-so-secrets-alleged-corporate-espionage-hits-goldman/ and was not authored by the moderators of freeforafee.com. Clicking the title link will take you to the source of the post.