The U.S. Congress should scrap two controversial copyright enforcement bills and start over with attempts to target foreign websites accused of infringement and counterfeiting, more than 70 groups have said.

Oracle has chosen a new trial in its lawsuit against SAP for copyright infringement, rejecting the reduction of a jury verdict by about US$1 billion by a federal court in September last year.

The BitTorrent search engine BTJunkie has shut down its website, the latest file-sharing site to take defensive action following law enforcement's shutdown of MegaUpload last month.

Some critics have blamed Silicon Valley tech firms for the massive online protests last month against two controversial copyright bills. Other groups have trumpeted the grassroots nature of the protests.

The U.S. White House has declined to respond to a petition calling for authorities to investigate the head of the Motion Picture Association of America for bribery related to comments he made following successful online protests against two controversial copyright enforcement bills.

I'm sure more than a few Computerworld readers will share my sense of unease about the recent events surrounding the file storage site Megaupload, its founder Kim Dotcom and the other alleged copyright infringement conspiracists.

Oracle agreed on Tuesday to bear the costs of a third attempt at estimating damages in its lawsuit against Google, rather than postpone the damages claims.

For Internet activists, last week's Web protests against two controversial copyright enforcement bills were a huge victory against three powerful and well-funded trade groups that pushed hard for passage of the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act.

The Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act are getting more negative attention, as major websites such as Wikipedia plan to protest the bills with blackouts on Wednesday. Even Google will join the action, with a link on its homepage explaining why the company opposes the legislation.

The latest release of the VLC media player is a huge hit, racking up nearly 8.6 million downloads since the 1.0 release last week, according to the makers of the software VideoLAN. But some observers - including movie studio lawyers - may feel the new software is just a little too good. In researching a review of the software, I was surprised to learn that it easily allowed me to copy encrypted DVDs directly onto my hard drive. That's something that has landed firms such as RealNetworks in court.