Daily News Briefs: April  14, 2000
Date: Friday, 14 Apr 2000 20:04:40 -0700

Table of Contents
Subject: NEWS
Date: Friday, 14 Apr 2000 20:04:40 -0700

Top News
U.S. appeals court bars Elian's removal
AHP to Proceed With Fen-Phen Settlement
BP Amoco, Arco Merger Approved

Cyberlaw News
Ford, Texas DMV Battle For Web Site
Auction Dispute Centers on Question of Control Over Data
Amazon sued for patent infringement

Entertainment Law
Coppola Loses 'Contact' Suit

Criminal Law
U.S. busts marijuana ring, arrests Fedex employees
Are Hate Crimes Underreported?
Hate-crime prosecutions questioned

Unusual  Legal News
Morbid Stern Bit Proves Costly

Top News
U.S. appeals court bars Elian's removal
FindLaw News

A federal appeals court judge issued an emergency order Thursday barring
the removal of Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez from the United
States at least until Friday. The temporary order issued by U.S. Judge
J.L. Edmondson of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta applies
not only to federal immigration officials but to the boy himself and to
``any and all persons acting for, on behalf of, or in concert with Elian
Gonzalez.''

http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/s/20000413/elianorderurgent.html

AHP to Proceed With Fen-Phen Settlement
FindLaw News

American Home Products Corp (AHP.N) on Thursday said it would move ahead
with its proposed settlement with former users of diet drugs taken in
the once-popular ''fen-phen'' slimming cocktail, as only a tiny fraction
of those eligible decided to opt out of the plan ``More than 99 percent
of the estimated 5.8 million users of the anti-obesity drugs, Redux and
Pondimin, will be covered by the terms of the settlement,'' the Madison,
N.J.-based drug maker said in a statement.

http://news.findlaw.com/Business/s/20000413/americanhomefenphen.html

BP Amoco, Arco Merger Approved
FindLaw News

BP Amoco PLC promised Thursday to move swiftly to conclude its purchase
of Atlantic Richfield Co. after receiving government approval for the
merger that had been held up for months over concern about its impact on
competition. The Federal Trade Commission voted 5-0 to approve the
merger of BP Amoco and Atlantic Richfield, or Arco, for $27.6 billion
after an agreement to divest significant holdings in Alaska.

http://news.findlaw.com/news/s/20000413/bpamocodeal.html

Cyberlaw News

Tech-Deals - Internet Contracts - The Details
http://techdeals.findlaw.com
Meg Whitman & eBay, Dr. Koop's deal with drkoop.com & more
Amazon, AOL, eBay, Excite, iVillage, Netscape, TheStreet.com, Yahoo!

Ford, Texas DMV Battle For Web Site
FindLaw News

Opening statements began Wednesday in a dispute that could change the
way cars are sold over the Internet in Texas. Ford Motor Co. is asking
an administrative law judge to allow the automaker to reopen a used-car
Web site shut down by the state for violating franchise laws, arguing
that officials are curtailing e-commerce opportunities in the nation's
second largest market.

http://news.findlaw.com/news/s/20000412/fordtxdmv.html

Auction Dispute Centers on Question of Control Over Data
New York Times

A dispute that raises important questions about property rights on the
Internet will take a step toward resolution on Friday, when lawyers for
the auction giant eBay and a Web site called Bidder's Edge enter a
federal district court to debate the merits of a practice known as
"spidering." Bidder's Edge is one of a handful of so-called auction
aggregators - Web services that permit visitors to search for items that
are up for bid at several auction sites simultaneously. To compile its
auction listings, Bidder's Edge uses a software robot or "spider" that
periodically makes its way through the eBay site and others to extract
information. The accumulated data, which is not copyrighted, is placed
in a Bidder's Edge database so that site visitors can search it quickly.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/04/cyber/cyberlaw/14law.html

Amazon sued for patent infringement
ZDNet

Amazon.com Inc., which has been under fire for making certain
controversial patent claims, is now being sued by a San Francisco-based
music firm for, of all things, patent violation. Intouch Group Inc.,
which filed the suit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco earlier
this week, alleges that Amazon, as well as four other firms, violated a
patent governing the way consumers sample music online.

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2542378,00.html

Entertainment Law - Legally Entertaining

FindLaw Entertainment http://e.findlaw.com/

News, TV, Movies, Music and Law

Coppola Loses 'Contact' Suit
Washington Post

An appellate court has dismissed filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola's suit
against the author Carl Sagan and Warner Bros. for a share of the
profits on the book and 1997 motion picture "Contact." Coppola alleged
in his 1996 suit that he came up with the idea in 1975 for a television
program called "First Contact," about Earth's initial encounter with
extraterrestrials, and had a contract with Sagan to develop a script,
but the series never materialized. But the California Court of Appeals
affirmed the lower-court ruling that Coppola's claims were barred
because they were brought too late.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/style/news/A4646-2000Apr13.html

Criminal Law
When it absolutely, positively had to be there overnight
U.S. busts marijuana ring, arrests Fedex employees
FindLaw News

U.S. drug enforcement authorities announced on Thursday the arrest of
more than 100 people, including 25 employees of overnight delivery firm
Fedex [FDX], for trafficking in marijuana. The Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA) said the drug ring worked with a small number of
Fedex employees using company airplanes, trucks and facilities to
distribute marijuana with a street value of $140 million throughout the
United States.

http://news.findlaw.com/legalnews/s/20000413/WAT021309.html

Are Hate Crimes Underreported?
FindLaw News

Citing a 2 percent conviction rate on reported hate crime in this city,
a civil rights group claims a lack of police and judicial interest in
pursuing these cases nationally is discouraging victims, particularly
Asian victims, from coming forward. The 1998 study by the National Asian
Pacific American Legal Consortium (NAPALC) focused on the San Francisco
Police Department (SFPD) as an example of what it termed the nationwide
"under-prosecution of hate crimes" as "an important factor affecting
victim reporting."

http://news.findlaw.com/crime/s/20000410/hatecrime.html

Hate-crime prosecutions questioned
San Diego Union Tribune

Increasingly, California juries are being asked to scrutinize the
criminal behavior of defendants to decide whether their motive was bias
toward a particular group. The crimes that are can bring extra
punishment -- up to four more years in prison, depending on the crime.
It is a trend that many criminal-justice officials applaud, saying the
courts are becoming more sensitive to the acute trauma that comes with
being attacked because of one's gender, race, religion or sexual
orientation. Other criminal-justice experts find the trend troubling.
They say such prosecutions amount to special treatment for certain
victims. And, citing cases like McCall's, they voice concerns about
trying to fit a criminal's often complicated or indecipherable
motivations into a neat category.

http://www.uniontrib.com/news/metro/20000413-0010_1n13hate.html

Unusual  Legal News

Morbid Stern Bit Proves Costly
New York Daily News

Howard Stern doesn't mind paying for jokes, but one morbid gag may have
cost more than expected. Lawyers for the shock jock and Infinity
Broadcasting yesterday reached an out-of-court settlement with the
brother and sister of a deceased woman whose ashes Stern played with on
his show.

http://www.nydailynews.com/2000-04-13/News_and_Views/Daily_Dish/a-63186.asp

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