Recently in Law

Douglas Heaven, reporter

(Image: Richard Cummins/Corbis)

So much for the second-hand digital economy. A US court ruling in a copyright infringement dispute between Vivendi's Capitol Records and ReDigi - a pioneering website that lets people trade in "used" digital music files - has effectively shut down the nascent market for second-hand digital goods, in which Amazon and Apple also both have a patent interest.

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent

Narcosubs seized on land by Colombian authorities in 2009 (Image: Christian Escobar Mora/AP/Press Association Images)

Drug runners often ferry their illicit cargo to the US mainland using semi-submersible vessels that travel just below wave height. Law enforcement officials need to practise detecting them using radar but, although some of these vessels - known as "narcosubs" - have been captured, they are far too dangerous for staff to use in radar sensor trials. So engineers working for the US Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate have developed Pluto - a version of a narcosub that's safe to sail in.

Jacob Aron, technology reporter

(Image: Adrianna Williams/The Image Bank/Getty)

New analysis of the anonymous online marketplace Silk Road suggests that purveyors of illegal drugs and other black-market goods are raking in the equivalent of nearly $2 million of Bitcoins per month, which is roughly 20 per cent of exchanges from Bitcoins to US dollars that take place on the online currency's main exchange, Mt. Gox.

Try flogging narcotics on eBay and you will quickly be shut down, banned and possibly visited by your local law enforcement agencies. Silk Road gets away with its illicit trade because buyers and sellers can connect to the site only through the anonymising Tor network, also used by the likes of Wikileaks and political dissidents, and can make purchases using only Bitcoin.

Security researcher Nicolas Christin at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, analysed the site every day from February to July this year, gathering data on its operations. He discovered that a few hundred sellers offering a range of drugs including cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy are earning an average total of 11,650 Bitcoins per day. In comparison, Mt. Gox swaps an average 59,980 Bitcoins into dollars each day.

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent

(Image: Jamie Grill/Getty)

The dangers of high-speed, computerised stock trading - which have in the past caused inexplicable "flash crashes" in the markets - have now been visited big-time upon one of the companies in the vanguard of wielding the technology.

Trading software at Knight Capital Group of New Jersey this week began automatically buying shares in a vast array of companies - like RadioShack, Ford Motor Company and American Airlines - in a 45-minute foray of unauthorised trading. When the company then quickly resold its newly acquired, unwanted stock (its massive stock buys had moved the markets) it found it had lost $440 million - four times the profit it made in 2011.

Jacob Aron, technology reporter

The real thing (Image: Andy Lauwers/Rex Features)

3D printers offer the promise of a world in which anyone can manufacture anything but, as with all technology, there are upsides and downsides. Last week we learned that handcuffs could be unlocked with a 3D printed key; now "HaveBlue", a member of the AR15.com gun enthusiast forum, which is named after a common semi-automatic rifle, claims to have carried out the first successful test-firing of a 3D-printed gun.

HaveBlue did not print an entire gun but only a part called the lower receiver, which serves as a frame for the other components of the gun. This component is the only gun part regulated for sale under US law and as such must carry a serial number - unless it's made by a private individual for their personal use, so HaveBlue is not breaking any laws.

Making gun parts used to be impossible for most people, of course, but computer files for AR-15 components have been available online for some time. HaveBlue claims to have combined a 3D-printed receiver made from hard plastic with parts from an ordinary pistol and successfully fired more than 200 rounds. "To the best of my knowledge, this is the world's first 3D printed firearm to actually be tested, but I have a hard time believing that it really is the first," HaveBlue said.

HaveBlue also attempted to build a working rifle using the printed receiver, but encountered difficulties when passing ammunition through it. These issues remained after swapping out the printed receiver for an aluminium version, though, suggesting the problem lies with a non-3D printed part of the gun.

Jacob Aron, technology reporter

The European Parliament has rejected a controversial proposal that would have forced internet service providers to monitor and report customers suspected of copyright infringement. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), first proposed by the US in 2007, was shot down with 478 votes against the measure and only 39 in favour.

It marks the first time the parliament has voted against an international trade agreement: G8 nations, the European Union, South Korea and Australia had agreed in principle to enact new laws based on ACTA. Now neither the EU nor its member states can join the agreement, but it can still go ahead in other countries such as the US.

Proponents of the agreement had been criticised for conducting negotiations in private, with news of the treaty first coming to light when a discussion paper was uploaded to WikiLeaks. Since then campaigners have fought to prevent ACTA-based laws, with the European Parliament receiving a petition signed by 2.8 million people worldwide.

Had ACTA gone ahead, European ISPs would have had to scan their customers' communications using "deep packet inspection" technology, which is used by the likes of China and Iran to monitor and censor their citizens online. But speaking before the vote, EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht sought to dispel such concerns. "ACTA is not an attack on our liberties, it is a defence of our livelihoods," he said. "A vote against ACTA will be a setback for the protection of our intellectual property rights around the world."

Jacob Aron, technology reporter

(Image: Quirky China News/Rex Features)

Fancy a second-hand copy of Angry Birds? You could be in luck, as the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that software authors cannot prevent customers from reselling their products.

Software companies have long insisted that unlike books, DVDs or cars, computer programs cannot be resold because customers do no actually own them. Instead, you merely own a licence to use the software as governed by the End User License Agreement (EULA) - that big wall of text you normally click past without reading during the install process.

Most EULA's forbid resale of the licence, but the court's ruling, made in a case against software company Oracle, now says otherwise - "even if the licence agreement prohibits a further transfer, the rightholder can no longer oppose the resale of that copy."

Jim Giles, consultant

Last week, as I was putting together a story about US government plans to monitor social networks, I came across some strange language in a proposal by the Department of State.

The department had asked software developers earlier this month to bid on a contract to build a system for collecting and analysing social media conversations - think Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs - of interest to the government. The plan was to use the information to better understand what people are saying about the US, and perhaps to head off groups who might pose a threat.

The part that jumped out at me was a clause buried in the supporting information. It stated that developers should make "a reasonable effort to exclude Americans from any and all analyses". It would probably be impossible to avoid collecting information on US citizens, since it is not exactly common practice to attach citizenship information to a tweet or forum comment. So why would the Department of State include such an onerous restriction in the solicitation?

Jacob Aron, technology reporter

(Image: Alex Segre/Rex Features)

Internet service providers (ISPs) in the UK will soon have to block online access to the file-sharing site The Pirate Bay following a ruling by the High Court. However, trivial technical workarounds could limit the usefulness of the measure.

Jacob Aron, technology reporter

The US Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, Virginia (Image: AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

It seems big tech companies are constantly embroiled in patent wars these days. If they're not fighting among themselves, such as Yahoo and Facebook's spat over ads and social networking or Apple and Samsung suing and counter-suing over smartphone designs, they are defending against patent trolls who buy up unused patents in the hope of making a quick buck in court. Now, Twitter has declared its intention to become the tech world's Switzerland, with a new promise to only use patents for defensive purposes.

The company says it will hand control of its patents, past and present, to the employees who's invention led to the patent under a new document it calls the Innovator's Patent Agreement (IPA). "It is a commitment from Twitter to our employees that patents can only be used for defensive purposes. We will not use the patents from employees' inventions in offensive litigation without their permission," says Twitter's Adam Messinger.

"What's more, this control flows with the patents, so if we sold them to others, they could only use them as the inventor intended," preventing patent trolls from building up arsenals.