Jeffrey H. Birnbaum at the Washington Post begins, "Trial lawyers sue each other all the time. Now they are suing each other over what to call themselves." The story goes on link here; the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) decided that it was poor PR to keep the distrusted term, trial lawyer, in the title and rechristened themselves as the American Association for Justice (AAJ). Another group of lawyers formed a competing group, the American Trial Lawyers Association (ATLA). AAJ then went to court, arguing the new group's name confused people and violated its trademark on the ATLA acronym. How can you trademark an acronym?

Then a third group, the American College of Trial Lawyers, sued, arguing that the name would confuse people with it. If you are confused as to who has the best case, hire a trial lawyer. It is nice to see them taking each other's money. And making current IP law look ridiculous.

NYTimes writer ERIC PFANNER reviews the growth of restrictions to protect copyrighted material in several European countries link here. He starts with the involvement of French President Sarkozy.

"Last month Mr. Sarkozy outlined an aggressive proposal to crack down on Internet piracy of music and movies. Under the plan drawn up by a government-commissioned panel, Internet service providers have put aside their objections to cooperating with copyright owners in the fight against illegal file sharing."

"If legislation to enact the plan is approved, the service providers will work with a new, independent authority to identify pirates and warn them to stop. People who ignore the warnings can face suspension, and eventually termination, of their Internet accounts."

"In return for persuading the service providers to crack down, French media owners agreed to remove some of the digital strings they have typically attached to their works. That could allow service providers to enhance their digital music stores and other online content offerings, generating more revenue from them."

Pretty clearly, the ISP's are going to be under growing pressure to fight piracy, including perhaps the use of filters and the monitoring of heavy traffic. France is not alone, as similar pressure has been growing in Britain, Sweden, and Belgium, according the Pfanner.

As far as I can see, there seems to be no disposition to question the whole basis of copyright as inhibiting innovation rather than promoting it. Or to realize that performers and companies can change their business model to prosper without depending on copyright.

While this story is by no means over, it seems to suggest a bit of blue sky is about to open for those opposing the RIAA demands for rich compensation from those convicted of music piracy. In the case of UMG v. Lindor, the defendant argues that the penalty allowed under the law is excessive, $750 a song, unconstitutionally far exceeds the actual value of what was stolen which she argues is about 70 cents a song. The judge has ordered the plaintiffs to report their actual expenses incurred and they have responded that they can't except at great expense. Eric Bangeman offers a good discussion of the legal issues involved link here.

I suppose that if the per-song penalty is set low enough, the RIAA and its members will not have much of an incentive to sue it would cost too much. But that is probably why the final outcome will depend on the result of appeals.

Two small stories in the NYTimes report on more silliness in the IP field link here. In one, "Louis Vuitton, the luxury goods maker, has won a French lawsuit that contended that a music video by Britney Spears violated counterfeiting laws." What did Spears do? In a video "Ms. Spears appears in a pink Hummer; one shot shows fingers drumming on a dashboard upholstered with what looks like a Vuitton design, embossed with the LV logo." She should have used a Renault.

In the other, "the Red Hot Chili Peppers are suing Showtime Networks over the new television series "Californication," which is also the name of the band's 1999 album and one of its songs." What next?

These make me think these suits are mainly brought for the publicity they get.

Mike Masnick picks up on what is wrong with copyright law we are all constantly infringing link here. The story is so well told, I won't try to repeat it but it makes clear what a travesty that law and its interpretation and enforcement have become a total embarassment. Read it.

Iain Thomson at IENews tells us that Canadian ISP Hushmail has been giving the private keys to the DEA when their clients think they are sending PGP encrypted messages link here (hat tip to Zonk at Slashdot). The revelation occurred in a court case involving drug smuggling.

One must assume that other ISP's are doing the same thing and the idea that BitTorrent messages, often used in the exchange of copyrighted videos and music can be made secure is simply wrong. I had suggested otherwise link here. Mea culpa.

RANDALL STROSS at the NYTimes reports big retailers like Wal-Mart are claiming that their pricing is trade marked, although the courts have already ruled that it is not link here. Still Wal-Mart has threatened to sue a small blogger who posts Black Friday prices to help consumers make rational choices ahead of the big pre-Christmas sale-day. He has removed the store's data from his site as he doesn't have the money to fight in court. But there are plenty of other sites that will post them. And some retailers like Best Buy apparently think the site is valuable free advertising.

Can we find a way to stop the use of illegal charges to start suits designed only to intimidate?

Starbucks is suing Conga Coffee and Tea, a tiny two-store operation in Michigan, for trademark infringement link here. Both use green circles around a small center picture, so there is a vague resemblance. But this is a case of an elephant trying to stamp on a mouse. Incidentally, Conga has been in business with the same trademark since 1996, and went unnoticed until now.

Tim Lee at Techdirt raises a question about the purpose of increased encryption of BitTorrent traffic link here, teeing off from a Brit story in the Register link here. He suggests that it is not designed to make it difficult to determine who is using BitTorrent that can't be done. But it would make it impossible to determine whether the material transferred is copyrighted. Given the prospect of filters being used to screen web traffic, it seems to me that encryption does exactly what a lot of users would want- make it impossible for the proposed filters to identify BitTorrents of copyrighted material because the filter won't work if it can't "read" the material. That in turn may increase the pressure to ban BitTorrents completely (already tried a bit by Comcast), but that will be much harder to pull off. An alternative already in use at some colleges and universities, pushed by the industry, would be to charge students higher web access fees and pay the proceeds to the music and video industry.

kdawson link here sends you to Declan McCullagh for the details of a draft law that would take federal financial aid away from universities if they fail to adopt a "technological solution to stop illegal file sharing." Behind the law is the Motion Picture Association of America which is mainly concerned with the loss of revenue from copies of motion pictures link here.

This is the second case in which offended industries have sought to make the government responsible for enforcing their intellectual property rights. We reported only yesterday that the RIAA was promoting to make the Justice Department responsible for finding and punishing internet violators of copyright.

This measure is buried in a 747-page spending and financial aid bill which you can peruse on line link here.