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Facebook’s attorneys squared off Wednesday with the legal team of Paul Ceglia, a New York man who says that a 2003 contract proves he should own at least half of Facebook. Ceglia, for whom Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg did some work while at Harvard University, says he has a contract granting him at least half the ownership of Facebook. Facebook has denied the claim, saying that the contract and several other documents Ceglia provided are faked. The company subsequently filed to dismiss the suit last month.

A lawsuit by media giant Viacom against Google over copyrighted videos on YouTube can be heard in court again.

YouTube and Paramount Pictures have reached a deal to make nearly 500 films available to rent online, even while their parent companies continue to feud over a $1 billion lawsuit.

Facebook said Tuesday that it has filed a countersuit against Yahoo, claiming that Yahoo violates Facebook patents that relate to photo-sharing, the news feed, tagging digital media and other Web elements that build in social features in Web sites.

Yahoo Inc sued Facebook Inc on Monday over 10 patents that include methods and systems for advertising on the Web, according to a copy of the lawsuit.

That was the headline on a conservative blog following a $2.5 million judgment this month against blogger Crystal Cox in a defamation case tried in federal court in Oregon. It’s a case followed closely in both the blogosphere and in the traditional media, as it highlights the proliferation of blogging, the blurring of lines between journalists and bloggers and more libel cases born out of blog posts.

Righthaven's dream of corporate enrichment via frivolous lawsuits is in tatters, and the company's erstwhile partners are abandoning ship. The new CEO of MediaNews Group, John Paton, announced this week that its partnership with Righthaven would expire at the end of the month and that the company has no plans to renew it.

WikiLeaks says it's suing the European operations of Visa and MasterCard because they cut off services to the secret-spreading website last December.

An MSNBC investigative report, and related lawsuit, claims that AT&T has “systematically overstated” the data usage of iPhone and iPad customers. Lawyers for the plaintiffs, seeking class action status, hired an independent computer firm to compare the actual amount data used by iPhone and iPad customers with the amount that AT&T bills users for.

A freelance writer who successfully sued newspapers and magazines for copyright infringement will file a class-action lawsuit against the Huffington Post and AOL on Tuesday that seeks compensation for hundreds of unpaid contributors to the online publication.