Some countries in Europe, like France, are looking at ways of extending their copyright protection laws to streamed media, in addition to existing laws against unlicensed downloads. Other countries, it seems, are going in quite the other direction, as a recent decision in the Netherlands shows.

One more development in the legal fight between Samsung and Apple: a court in Australia has granted a March date for a case being brought by Samsung against Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) for patent infringement, with Samsung’s aim being to get the iPhone 4S banned from sale, unless the two sides…

At this week’s Strata Conference in New York, there’s a lot of discussion about data transparency. As masses of easily available, quickly analyzed data transform businesses, that data can also change how we regulate and legislate the world.

A sign of Twitter’s growing power, and increasing need to interface with government to get its message across: the company has hired a new head of public policy, Colin Crowell.

Bloomberg is in the process of acquiring legal information services company BNA for $990 million. As competition among the three largest financial news services continues to intensify, the legal services area is something that Bloomberg rivals Reuters (NYSE: TRI) and Dow Jones (NSDQ: NWS) have been looking to reach as…

Plenty of folks have come forward to oppose the proposed merger of AT&T (NYSE: T) and T-mobile, but none of them have the clout of the merger’s newest opponent.

Public interest groups and at least one FCC commissioner cheered on Thursday after a federal appeals court threw out part of the agency’s media cross-ownership rules that relaxed restrictions on owning a newspaper and TV station in the same market. The ruling was a blow to some of the nation’s…

First Google (NSDQ: GOOG), now Twitter—federal antitrust authorities are showing great interest in the tech sector these days. New reports of an antitrust investigation against Twitter have raised questions about the micro-blogging service’s relationship with its developers.

Senator Al Franken (D-Minn.) is one of a group of politicians that have been making a lot of noise about digital privacy in the past several months. He’s the one who called Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) to testify about the issue of location privacy last month. Now,…

As AT&T (NYSE: T) and T-Mobile USA continue to work their way through regulatory approval of their proposed $39 billion merger, it looks like some of the world’s biggest tech companies have already been won over. Yesterday, eight companies—including Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) and Facebook—have now been in…

A lot of people don’t like “bundling”—the practice of selling consumers access to a big chunk of cable channels, rather than allowing “a la carte” purchases of only the channels people want. But whatever issues consumers and their advcoates might have with bundling, the companies that do it aren’t breaking…

Some of the stories people are talking about this morning:»  Sony (NYSE: SNE) to report $3.2 billion loss as it struggles with production disruptions, hacker attack (AP) »  30,000 Twitter users could face legal action over gag breaches (The Independent) »  Foursquare and Groupon Planning Distribution Deal (AllThingsD) »  Interpublic’s…

The newest batch of privacy gaffes by tech companies aren’t just resulting in lawsuits—although it’s become clear, if it wasn’t already, that lawsuits are becoming inevitable consequences of privacy-related headlines. They’re resulting in serious attention on Capitol Hill, and not just from the usual suspects, either. Consider a few recent…

Some of the stories people are talking about this morning:»  Ahead of Earnings Next Week, Demand Media (NYSE: DMD) Shares Drastic Dip Due to Googley Panda-Monium. (AllThingsD) »  Will Google’s Search Ad Previews Break The Click? (Kevin Ryan/AdAge) »  Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) said it is adding some ABC (NYSE: DIS)…

There may well be action on Capitol Hill this year in online privacy, with bills being introduced by members of both parties. But the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) apparently plans to take action against some perceived bad actors right away rather than wait for legislation. Chitika, an online advertising company,…

It was a speech delivered last autumn by Prime Minister David Cameron, setting out his vision for a “Silicon Roundabout” in Shoreditch, east London, that first gave ammunition to the conspiracy theorists.

Democratic senator Al Franken has issued a rallying cry to “innovators and entrepreneurs” at SXSW to fight back against Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA) and other companies lobbying to pave the way for a two-speed internet.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed a bill into law Thursday that will require Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) and other internet retailers that use “affiliates” in the state to start paying the state’s 6.25 percent sales tax. Apparently, that spurred Amazon to quickly notify its Illinois affiliates—which include famed movie critic Roger…

Just about every member of the the Senate Judiciary Committee seems amped up to pass some version of a controversial anti-piracy bill, the Combatting Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act (COICA). The bill would allow the government to quickly shut down websites that are accused of copyright infringement or the sale…