The irony is so thick, it’s smothering. Viacom, who sued Google for a billion dollars over copyright infringement, is now being sued by MoveOn.org and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for not understanding the very Fair Use principles the network relies on for its own parodies on "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report."

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) has been invoked on countless occasions by copyright holders in efforts to prevent the illegal use of their content. The NFL, however, is quickly finding out that the DMCA is also a powerful protective device for those engaging in fair use.

In a sweeping court enforced statement to the internet Michael Crook apologies to the internet for abusing the DMCA.

While this probably would not have been done to a major corporation, the issues with copyright continue on unabated, the EFF and 10ZenMonkies have gotten an admission from one of the internet’s more notorious personalities. The reputation that Mike has on the internet (for those that follow the darker seamier sides of the internet) is not a positive one, and is generally held in disregard.

Michael Crook, along with the rest of us, learned some valuable lessons. The biggest lesson we all learned (Crook much, much more acutely), is that you don’t screw with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The EFF eff’d him up good.

If a YouTube user feels one of their videos was an unfair casualty of Viacom’s recent war on copyright infringement, the Electronic Frontier Foundation wants to know about it. The nonprofit organization has posted its call to the user-generated disenfranchised on their home YouTube turf.

A California court made it clear to Apple that if the company wanted to find out who leaked details of an in-development product to bloggers, they’d actually have to do it legally. That lesson cost the company almost $700,000 in legal fee reimbursement.

Free speech meets corporate paranoia as the Electronic Frontier Foundation took up the cause of ‘Spocko’, an anonymous blogger who posted audio clips broadcast in San Francisco on ABC Radio to his site.

The RIAA has filed suit against AllofMP3 seeking back royalties for music downloaded between June and October of this past year. The filing of the suit has sparked reaction from both AllofMP3 and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

In his misguided desire to become notorious, Michael Crook has become the preeminent villain of the blogosphere, the target of a lawsuit by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a laughing stock, and a fascinating case study into blog-ethics, copyright law on the Internet, the tenets of Fair Use, the reach of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and how its abuse can affect free speech.

The potential for misuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act reared its head again as a controversial figure has used it to force the takedown of a Fox News screen capture of his image from a pair of websites.

After calling privacy reform legislation and for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to investigate AOL’s Data Valdez, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has issued a set of guidelines for keeping you private search history private.

Three online journalists sued by Apple gained a victory in appeals court when judges ruled in favor of a petition filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation regarding the protection of sources.

A battle that could determine whether bloggers may enjoy conventional journalistic protection behind the First Amendment has a court date coming up on April 20th.