E-Discovery 2.0

When discovery moved out of the filing cabinet and onto desktop computers and servers, it became e-discovery. Today, as the field expands beyond "traditional computers" to include cloud computing, data from smartphones, and recording devices in cars, a new era is dawning: E-Discovery 2.0. In an article Ira P. Rothken authored for California Lawyer Magazine he discusses five types of high-tech devices that are sure to test the rules of privacy, proportionality, preservation, and burden in e-discovery.

Isohunt and the Freedom to Search

In this interview with tech news site ars technica Ira Rothken discusses why the Freedom to Search the internet is important even for a torrent file search engine accused of secondary copyright infringement under an ambiguous theory of inducement.

isoHunt to be provided with interlocutory appeal

The Judge, at a status conference in January 2010, agreed to provide the isoHunt defendants after the injunction phase, but before the damages phase,  an interlocutory appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Class action lawsuit filed against T-Mobile, Danger, and Microsoft over Sidekick data loss

The Rothken Law Firm filed a  Federal nationwide class action lawsuit in the Northern District of California against T-Mobile and Danger, Inc. (a Microsoft subsidiary) over massive data loss by the Sidekick data service. The case is entitled Mapstead v. T-Mobile et al. Read more about this case at CNET News.com

According to the complaint the Sidekick service crashed on or about October 3rd, 2009 and then T-Mobile indicated that Danger, Inc., the service provider, lost massive amounts of customer data, and worse that due to backup failures it was highly unlikely it would recover such data.

The Federal Complaint alleges that T-Mobile and Danger marketed the Sidekick mobile phones as “automatically” storing and backing up customer data, such as contacts, appointments, and other digital files, and then breached its promises and was negligent in storing data in the cloud and backing up such data. The Complaint ask for monetary damages be paid to the class amongst other remedies.

"T-Mobile and its service providers ought to have been more careful in the use of backup technology and policies to prevent such data loss" says Ira P. Rothken an attorney working on the case. "We are hopeful that T-Mobile and the rest of the defendants will do the right thing, use this as an opportunity to redesign the system as a new standard for cloud computing storage, and provide full compensation for the data loss" states Rothken.

If you would like more information about the class action lawsuit or have any questions please fill out our web form here.

Torrentspy files appeal of copyright case involving Bittorent technology and privacy issues

Torrentspy and other defendants filed an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in a copyright case of first impression regarding Bittorent technology. In the appeal brief Torrentspy argues, amongst other things, that the Court was wrong in its procedures and wrong in its Judgment.

Torrentspy argues that the Court issued Orders, including forced logging of user behavior and IP addresses, that were inconsistent with Torrentspy's longstanding privacy policy. Torrentspy, on its own, cut off access to the United States to help alleviate the privacy concerns.

Ultimately the court in an approximately one hour hearing citing amongst other things lost and redacted data, terminated the case and later on, with little or no findings related to statutory damages, provided for a judgment without a trial. Torrentspy argues that the Court abused its discretion and that the procedures and Judgment were unfair under the circumstances. Read a news story here on the appeal.