On April 7, 2008, the Legislative Counsel Committee of the State of Oregon sent a cease-and-desist letter to Justia, a free online resource for judicial decisions and statutes, claiming that Justia's posting of the Oregon Revised Statutes violates its copyright. The Committee is not claiming copyright in the text of the law itself. Instead, the Committee claims copyright in

the arrangement and subject-matter compilation of Oregon statutory law, the prefatory and explanatory notes, the leadlines and numbering for each statutory section, the tables, index and annotations and such other incidents as are the work product of the Committee in the compilation and publication of Oregon law.

Carl Malamud of Public.Resource.Org, another online source of free caselaw and statutes, has gotten involved in the dispute. Although the Committee did not send Malamud a cease-and-desist letter, he wrote to the Committee on April 13, indicating that Justia had shared its letter with him and notifying it that he had disabled the public's access to the Oregon Revised Statutes on his site. He followed up on April 15, notifying the Committee of various technical deficiencies in the version of the statutes publicly available on the Legislative Assembly's website.

In late April, Malamud, Tim Stanley from Justia, and their attorney Karl Olson participated in a conference call with representatives of the Committe, during which they discussed the possibility of a mutually acceptable licensing solution. At this time, the Committee proposed a "public license" to Justia and Public.Resource.Org and rescinded its initial demand that Justia remove postings of the Oregon Revised Statutes by April 30. However, in subsequent letters, Malamud and Olson (on behalf of both Public.Resource.Org and Justia) rejected the proposed license as "incompatible with how public domain data is distributed" and inconsistent with their understanding of copyright law. In his letter, Olson indicated that his clients intended to post the entirety of the Oregon Revised Statutes online by June 2, 2008. (Note: Justia has not removed its copies of the statutes, so this time frame appears to apply only to Public.Resource.Org.)

On May 16, 2008, Karl Olson sent another letter to the Committee, notifying it that Justia and Public.Resource.Org intended on filing a complaint for declaratory relief on or before June 2, 2008. The letter provided a link to the draft complaint.

On June 19, 2008, the Legislation Council Committee decided in a hearing not to pursue copyright actions regarding the statutes.

On March 28, 2008, a lawyer for the Religious Technology Center (RTC), the entity that owns copyright in the Church of Scientology's writings and religious materials, sent an email to Wikileaks alleging copyright infringement. The email complained that an unknown Wikileaks user posted certain of Scientology's "Advanced Technology" works on the site. It demanded that Wikileaks remove the allegedly infringing material and requested that the website "preserve any and all documents pertaining to this matter and this customer, including . . . logs, data entry sheets, applications . . ., registrations, forms, billing statements or invoices, computer print-outs, disks, hard drives, etc."

In response, Wikileaks issued a press release on April 7, 2008, in which it publicly refused to remove Scientology's documents and vowed to release several thousand pages of additional Scientology materials in the coming week. In the press release, Wikileaks also sharply criticized Scientology's history of litigation aimed at keeping its documents out of the public eye, arguing that the controversial religious group "aids and abets a general climate of Western media self-censorship."

As of April 14, 2008, Scientology has not taken further legal action.

On August 2, 2007, FranklinCovey, the owner of the copyright in the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, sent a DMCA takedown notice to Lycos, alleging copyright infringement. Lycos operates Angelfire, a website that offers free space, as well as a paid subscription system, for Internet users to post blogs, photo galleries, and other information. FranklinCovey claimed that unknown Angelfire users posted a full digital copy of The 7 Habits on the website. Lycos did not respond to this notice, nor to a follow-up notice sent a week later . FranklinCovey filed suit against Lycos on December 17, 2007, seeking damages and an injunction (see related database entry). The parties settled in February 2008.

Blogger "Spocko" posted audio clips from a talk radio program on San Francisco-based KSFO-AM on his blog in order to criticize what he viewed as racially insensitive and religioulsy intolerant rhetoric on the part of the radio hosts. In December 2006, ABC, Inc., which owned the radio station and the copyrights to the radio show content, sent a letter to Spocko's hosting service, 1&1 Internet Inc., claiming that the posted audio clips violated its copyrights and demanding that 1&1 direct Spocko to remove the content immediately.

After receiving ABC's letter, the hosting service shut down Spocko's blog, but Spocko moved the blog to a different provider. The Electronice Frontier Foundation took on the case and responded to ABC's letter on Spocko's behalf in January 2007. EFF's letter articulated in detail why Spocko's use of the audio clips for purposes of criticizing the radio program was a fair use protected by U.S. copyright law and the First Amendment. The letter warned ABC that its claim that Spocko had violated its copyright could subject the company to liability for knowing, material misrepresentation of a claim of copyright infringement in violation of section 512(f) of the DMCA and for violations of Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200, a California law prohibiting unlawful, unfair, or fraudulent business practices.

Neither side filed a lawsuit.

Paris Hilton sued Bardia Persa, Nabil Haniss, Nabila Haniss, and a number of anonymous defendants in January 2007 for copyright infringement, publication of private facts, and misapproriation of her right of publicity. The case revolved around a website, Paris Exposed, which offered viewers the ability to view personal materials belonging to Hilton for a fee. According to the complaint, the website contained Hilton's medical records, bank account information, credit card information, contracts and other legal documents, diaries, home videos, and photographs, which she had stored in a storage unit in California. Hilton alleged that the storage facility foreclosed on her unit because of a billing mix-up and then sold the contents at a foreclosure auction. The complaint alleged further that Nabil and Nabila Haniss purchased the materials for $2,775 and then sold them to the operators of the Paris Exposed website for a large sum of money.

Hilton's complaint, filed in federal court in California, alleged copyright infringement based on the defendants' unauthorized distribution and display of three works (apparently poems) created by Hilton -- "Love Letter," "I Can't Take It," and "How Would You Know?". Additionally, it alleged that the defendants had violated her privacy by publishing information contained in Hilton's medical and financial records, private home videos, audio taped conversations, diaries, and photographs, among other things. Finally, it alleged that the defendants misappropriated Hilton's right of publicity by using her name in the name of the website and displaying videos and other material containing her likeness for commercial gain.

In February 2005, when only the Hanisses had appeared in the action, the federal district court granted Hilton a temporary restraining, which barred the defendants from infringing her copyrights, publishing her private materials, and using her name and likeness. In late February 2005, the court granted Hilton a temporary injunction barring Bardia Persa from infringing her copyrights, publishing her private materials, and using her name or likeness. (Prior to the ruling, Hilton had acknowledged that the Hanisses had no part in operating the website.) Persa, apparently a resident of St. Kitts, never appeared in the action.

After the prelminary injunction issued, Paris Exposed shut down operations for a time, but then resurfaced at the same domain name. In June 2007, Hilton amended her complaint to drop Nabil Haniss from the lawsuit and to include claims against Green Brothers Limited, a St. Kitts company that allegedly was running the Paris Exposed website. The complaint also named three new individual defendants -- Karamooz, Thomas, and Green, who were alleged to be connected to the company.

In September 2007, Hilton settled with Nabila Haniss and dismissed the lawsuit against her. In October 2007, Hilton voluntarily withdrew her lawsuit against the remaining defendants, none of whom ever appeared in the action. The Paris Exposed website is still up and running.