True, here the fMRI is being used by the defense as a means to elude the death penalty, and only in the sentencing portion of the trial—not as a tool of conviction, as a dubious EEG scan was used to convict a woman of murder in India last year. Specifically, the fMRI scan is being submitted as evidence that the defendant Brian Dugan's brain is abnormal—psychopathic—and so he shouldn't be subject to the death penalty. The jury disagreed, but took 10 hours to reach the decision that the state should kill Dugan for his crime. Without the scan, Dugan's defense attorney says it would've take them an hour.

It's kind of hard to grasp, conceptually, looking inside somebody's brain, literally peering into their mind. It's something from fiction, something paranormal—mind readers and psychics—as a means of detection, a means of determining right and wrong, truth and lies. Brain scans to determine how much punishment your crime merits logically leads into brain scans that figure out whether or not you committed the crime, into scans that reveal every crime you have committed, a persistent and inescapable confessional. What secrets would your brain spill? [Science Mag via Wired]

As a result of the individual motions by both companies, two hearings have been set for November 12 to determine whether there'll be a January trial. I'm not-so-secretly hoping that Judge William Alsup will look at the "user license agreements for both Mac OS X 10.5 and Mac OS X 10.6," arguments about Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the whole disc protection circumvention mess and make Apple and Psystar duke it out in court. Hell, I'll volunteer to transcribe the case for everyone's entertainment, stupid argument by stupid argument. Just make it happen. [AppleInsider via Crunch Gear]

The point at issue is network speed and how it relates to reliability; Verizon believes that AT&T's challenge "relies on the incorrect premise that speed is an essential element of the standard for measuring network reliability", to which AT&T countered: "Verizon's claim that speed is not a relevant factor to a reliable 3G network is preposterous". Verizon does not believe the claims of false advertising can be supported, and that the advertisements are "truthful, accurate, and substantiated". It's unclear when the court will render a decision, but I don't see AT&T coming out a winner either way. If Verizon loses, they'll have to change one or two words in their slogan—a change few will notice. If Verizon should win, the courts will have affirmed Verizon's their to having "America's Best 3G Network". [Reuters]

Roy, a New Hampshire resident, actually thought the letters she received from UMG's lawyers were either a joke or a scam and didn't respond for several months. Her reaction is pretty understandable; the RIAA simply directed her to a site where she could pay her "debt" with a credit card (which certainly seems like a scam) and, again, Roy did not own a damn computer.

UMG had mistakenly sued her due to the vast deficiencies in MediaSentry, the anti-piracy software the RIAA uses to track down pirates. MediaSentry incorrectly pinpoints IP addresses with not uncommon frequency, and this is obviously one such case. Roy mounted a case and UMG was forced to settle out of court, for fear that any decision at all would result in a precedent that could mean future suits could be thrown out as well. Unfortunately, the settlement does not include UMG paying Roy to apologize for being such a-holes about the whole thing, and neither side will receive any money. [Recording Industry vs. The People via Electronista]

An excerpt from the letter says that "the term POD has also been adopted and used extensively in the marketplace by consumers as an abbreviation to refer to Apple's IPOD player. The IPOD and POD marks indicate to consumers that a broad range of products, including portable electronic devices, computer software, and related goods and services bearing those marks and marks similar thereto originate from or are sponsored or endorsed by Apple." Yeah, OK. It also states that the design of the stand infringes on Apple's trademark because it looks like the new iMac designs.

Pivotal, the makers of the stand, obviously aren't pleased with the letter. This seems like a Monster-Cable-style dick move from a big company to a small out (a small one that makes accessories for Apple's products, no less), so hopefully it won't go anywhere. [TUAW]

Overall, the closing arguments by the defense were the same ones they made the whole trial: they never hosted or transferred any illegal content, just acted as an innocent middleman. They compared themselves to Google and telephone lines.

They also claimed that up to 80% of the content on the site is legal, which seems like a highly dubious figure to me, but the boneheaded prosecution never countered with any figures of their own, so that's the only stat we have.

As for the site itself, it was down on Monday due to a server outage. Luckily, there was Wi-Fi in the courtroom, allowing defendant Dredrik Neij to bring it back up from a laptop in the courtroom as his lawyer delivered closing arguments. Badass.

So what now? Well, the verdict is scheduled for April 17th, so we have some time to wait on this one. In the meantime? "I think we're going to go party," said defendant Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi. Oh, Pirate Bay. [Ars Technica]

• To win the case, the prosecution has to provide proof that copyright infringement has happened, and so plaintiffs gave examples of piracy that they committed using The Pirate Bay.
• The prosecution couldn't get powerpoint started at one point.
• The Pirate Bay isn't technically being charged for infringing copyrights, since they don't host any files. Instead, they're being charged with, ""Assisting in and preparing to committing copyright infringement." They pleaded not guilty.
• The prosecution couldn't tell the difference between megabytes and megabits.
• It isn't believed that The Pirate Bay organizers will have severe penalties brought against them.
• That's the bus the defendants, "Pirate Bay founders Gottfrid Svartholm Warg (aka Anakata), Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi (aka Brokep) and Fredrik Neij (TiAMO)" drove up in.
• Seats in the court are being scalped!

I've got mixed feelings about this trial. [Wired and Torrentfreak]

The case revolves around "fleeting expletives," which are swears said offhand that aren't planned for or repeated. It used to be the case that such instances weren't fined by the FCC, but in 2006 the FCC fined Fox for true American heroes Cher and Nicole Richie swearing during the Billboard music Awards.

So Fox has been battling the fining in court ever since, and it's now finally reaching the supreme court. Most first amendment scholars are on Fox's side on this one, and I'd have to agree with them. If drunk, coked up celebs can't swear accidentally on live TV and not face any consequences, is this really the land of the free? Maybe TV stations would get fined for stuff like this in North Korea, but not here. Hopefully the Supreme Court will end up on the side of justice, freedom and casual swearing. [Ars Technica]

So Echostar has decided that it will in fact be handing TiVo a check for $104 million plus interest, though TiVo is looking for further damages apparently, due to "EchoStar’s continued infringement of our Time Warp patent." More importantly, their victory here opens the door for TiVo to start hunting down everyone else selling a DVR, so the real ugly might still be on the way. [Zatz Not Funny]

Microsoft is arguing that Vista can run on slower machines, albeit with some of the eye candy turned off, and that this was explained in their campaign. In any case, we'll probably not get to see this play out, because it's likely that the matter will be settled out of court. [The Register]

"ECOtotal." YouTube usually responds by taking down the content and suspending the user's account, so it'll be interesting to see if they reveal ECOtotal's identity or help protect the little man from the corporate fat cats at Fox. We're hoping for the latter, if Fox is that concerned they should do an internal investigation to find out how the un-aired episode got leaked in the first place. – Louis Ramirez

Fox Seeks YouTube User's Identity [Hollywood Reporter]

I mean sure, you may get pissed that cellphones are going off, but if you're a judge, you probably shouldn't be acting like a jerk on the job. Best of all was his non-apology after the incident. "I regret that I had to take such severe measures." That's pretty much telling a guy you punched "I'm sorry your face got in the way of my fist." – Jason Chen

Judge shows just how much he hates cell phones [CNET]

He's being held on $3 million bail. We should hold a raffle to raise money! – John Biggs

Ferrari Driver Pleads Not Guilty to Crash Charges[LATimes]

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