Author: Joe Mullin

In late 2015, a Georgia dentist who had lost his license sued an anonymous YouTube user for defamation. After an intervention by Public Citizen, the user will remain anonymous, while the dentist will pay $12,000 in attorneys' fees.

The Georgia State Board of Dentistry revoked the license of Gordon Trent Austin after he pled guilty to six counts of Medicare fraud pursuant to a 2009 indictment. The indictment also said that Austin beat several patients, including children. The assault charges were dropped as part of the plea deal. "When patients moaned, or even cried out, during the procedures, loudly enough to be heard by other patients in the waiting room, Austin would tell the patient to stop making noise and, if the patient failed to obey his command, the claim was that Austin would then strike them with a dental instrument to reinforce the command," Public Citizen attorney Paul Levy said in court papers.

An Atlanta-area television station broadcast a two-part investigation about Austin that same year. The TV investigation was uploaded to YouTube by an anonymous user called "gordonaustinsacoward."

When Jordan Gwyther started Larping.org, a website that promotes his favorite hobby, he didn't expect it would lead to him being sued for patent infringement over foam arrows. And when he spoke out about the lawsuit, neither he nor his attorney saw what was coming next: the patent-owner filed papers in court last week asking for a temporary restraining order (TRO) that would keep Gwyther quiet.

Live-action role-playing (aka LARPing) is an increasingly popular pastime in which ordinary folks transform into medieval weekend warriors, donning armor and using foam weapons to duke it out in local fields and parks.

Gwyther founded Larping.org five years ago as a community hub where LARPers could talk to each other and find local events. Over time, he also started selling certain items useful to LARPers, like leather and metal armor, latex weapons, and foam arrows. "It's a hobby that grew into a side business," Gwyther told Ars in a phone interview this morning.

In what appears to be the second-largest payment ever over technology patents, Marvell Technology has agreed to pay Carnegie Mellon University $750 million to end a patent infringement case.

After a massive win at the district court level, CMU was on track to collect as much as $1.54 billion. The university won a $1.17 billion jury verdict in 2012, to which a judge added penalties and interest. But an appeals court cut the win significantly, approving $278 million in damages and ordering other damages issues to be re-tried at the district court level.

Rather than further litigate the case, the two sides reached the deal for the $750 million payment, which was announced late yesterday.

During this year's CES conference in Las Vegas, some members of the press witnessed a surprising scene. US Marshals raided the booth of a Chinese company selling one-wheeled "hoverboards," packing up their merchandise and forcing them to close up shop.

The raid was prompted by legal action from Future Motion, a California startup that sells a similar looking one-wheeled "hoverboard" called the Onewheel. Future Motion says that the Chinese competitor, Changzhou First International Trade Co., was violating two of its patents. The company went to federal court and in an "ex parte" proceeding, with no opposition, asked the judge to issue a temporary restraining order. After a seven-minute hearing, the TRO was issued.

The raid produced unexpected blowback. Changzhou First didn't give in—the company lawyered up, hiring major law firm Merchant & Gould to argue its case. A hearing was set for February 19, but it won't take place. Future Motion dropped its case two weeks before the hearing.

Well-known copyright lawyer Marc Randazza used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to delete an online article about a dispute between his former employer and himself.

Randazza says he sent the notice on behalf of Xbiz.com, a porn-industry news site that he represents. Last July, Xbiz (NSFW) published an article about Randazza's legal dispute with a former employer, gay porn publisher Liberty Media. The brouhaha with Liberty Media was also featured here at Ars in a story titled "Bribery, gay porn, and copyright trolls: the rise and fall of lawyer Marc Randazza." It describes how an arbitrator found that Randazza—the Nevada lawyer once championed for helping bring down copyright troll Righthaven—solicited a bribe in a bid to settle a copyright case for Liberty. Randazza soon found himself under investigation by the State Bar of Nevada.

A blog called Fight Copyright Trolls (FCT) mentioned the arbitration award as well. The blog's owner, who goes by "SJD," also noticed that the Xbiz article had been changed—but he had kept an original copy, saved and published as a PDF file on his site. On Feb. 1 nearly seven months after the FCT blog published the Xbiz article and related commentary, SJD was on the receiving end of Randazza's copyright takedown request. The FCT blog had re-published the entire Xbiz story, and Randazza claimed that made it a piratical, infringing copy.

Congress has voted to make permanent a federal law that prevents states or localities from taxing Internet access.

The US Senate accepted the measure as part of a larger trade bill, which passed today on a 75-20 vote. Since the House has already passed a similar measure, the bill now heads to President Barack Obama for his signature.

There's long been general agreement in Congress that taxing access to the Internet is a bad idea and shouldn't be allowed. But permanent consideration of the tax ban was held up by some lawmakers, including Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who wanted it to be passed together with the Marketplace Fairness Act, or MFA.

Fox and Dish have settled a years-long copyright dispute over several Dish viewing features, including the Hopper ad-skipping DVR, Slingbox, and PrimeTime Anywhere streaming technology.

Not much detail is available at this point, but Dish has said it will disable ad-skipping powers on all Fox programming until seven days after a program airs. The companies released a joint statement today, which reads:

Fox Networks Group and DISH Network L.L.C. have reached an agreement resulting in the dismissal of all pending litigation between the two companies, including disputes over Slingbox technology and the AutoHop, PrimeTime Anytime and Transfers features. As part of the settlement, DISH’s AutoHop commercial-skipping functionality will not be available for owned and affiliated FOX stations until seven days after a program first airs.

Fox and NBCUniversal both sued Dish in 2012, saying that the ad-skipping could destroy "the fundamental underpinnings of the broadcast television ecosystem." In the lawsuit, they said because the ad-skipping tech involves the creation of an unauthorized copy, it violates copyright law.

The public will soon be free to sing the world's most famous song.

Music publisher Warner/Chappell will no longer be allowed to collect licensing royalties on those who sing "Happy Birthday" in public and will pay back $14 million to those who have paid for licensing in the past, according to court settlement papers filed late Monday night.

The settlement is a result of a lawsuit originally filed in 2013 by filmmaker Jennifer Nelson, who challenged the "Happy Birthday" copyright. "Happy Birthday" has the same melody as "Good Morning to You," a children's song dating to the 19th Century. But despite the song's murky early history, music publisher Warner/Chappell has stuck to its story that the song was copyrighted in 1935, and a royalty had to be paid for any public use of it—until now.

In 2014, Nvidia filed its first-ever patent lawsuit. The target was Korean smartphone giant Samsung. Predictably, Samsung struck back—but a jury's verdict that came out on Friday shows neither side is getting traction.

Nvidia claimed that Samsung Galaxy phones and tablets containing Qualcomm’s Adreno, ARM’s Mali, or Imagination’s PowerVR graphics architectures all infringed its patents on core GPU technologies.

Almost a year and a half later, the litigation hasn't produced great results for either side. In October, an International Trade Commission judge rejected Nvidia's complaint, finding its three asserted patents were all infringed or invalid. The decision must be approved by the full commission to take effect.

A man using a drone to take pictures of the Manhattan skyline accidentally crashed the device into the Empire State Building. He then went in to ask security for his drone back. Instead of helping, they called the cops.

27-year-old Sean Riddle, of Jersey City, NJ, was arrested yesterday sometime before 8:00pm, according to the New York City Police Department.

Riddle was charged with reckless endangerment, misdemeanor criminal mischief, and illegally navigating an aircraft over the city.