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*HOT* Tech News And Downloads, I Would Read This Thread And Post Any Good Info
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28. November 2006 @ 07:35 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
The Beatles on iTunes

p2pnet.net News:- "Music is everybody's possession.

"It's only publishers who think that people own it."

One could add Apple Computer's Steve 'DRM' Jobs' name to that statement.

Anyway, the quote comes from John Lennon and it's particularly poignant given that The Beatles are supposed to be close to a deal that'll make official mp3 downloads available ---- but only through Apple's US iTunes iPod front-load site.

Quoting Fortune magazine, United Press International says EMI Records, "was acting as a middleman between Apple and Apple Corp".

Too late, Steve and Apple Corp. The Beatles are already on the p2p networks, and have been for years.

Also See:
United Press International - Beatles iTunes deal near, November 28, 2006

Report: Beatles iTunes deal near

NEW YORK, Nov. 27 (UPI) -- The Beatles are reportedly close to a deal that will make their official MP3 downloads available only through Apple's U.S. iTunes music store.

Fortune magazine reported Monday the deal would likely involve several million dollars and would make iTunes the exclusive digital distributor of the Fab Four's extensive library of rock classics.

Currently, the Beatles are available only on CD or through peer-to-peer MP3 sites.

While there has been no official comment, Fortune said Britain's EMI Records was acting as a middleman between Apple and Apple Corp., the company that handles the Beatles' business interests and is not connected to the Apple that runs iTunes and makes the popular iPod digital music player.
(Tuesday 28th November 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10563?PHPSESSID=...874f785d121dfdc




John Lennon Quotes

All we are saying is give peace a chance.
John Lennon

And so this is Xmas for black and for white, for yellow and red, let's stop all the fight.
John Lennon

As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.
John Lennon

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock and roll or Christianity.
John Lennon

Everything is clearer when you're in love.
John Lennon

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.
John Lennon

Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something.
John Lennon

He didn't come out of my belly, but my God, I've made his bones, because I've attended to every meal, and how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean. I'm so proud of all those things. But he is my biggest pride.
John Lennon

I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?
John Lennon

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong.
John Lennon

I don't believe in killing whatever the reason!
John Lennon

I don't intend to be a performing flea any more. I was the dreamweaver, but although I'll be around I don't intend to be running at 20,000 miles an hour trying to prove myself. I don't want to die at 40.
John Lennon

I don't know which will go first - rock 'n' roll or Christianity.
John Lennon

I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people.
John Lennon

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that... I believe in what I do, and I'll say it.
John Lennon

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.
John Lennon

If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliche that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that's his problem. Love and peace are eternal.
John Lennon

If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'.
John Lennon

Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one.
John Lennon

It doesn't matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I'm a woman or a man.
John Lennon

It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You'd wake up in a concert and think, Wow, how did I get here?
John Lennon

Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.
John Lennon

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.
John Lennon

Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given never forgotten, never let it disappear.
John Lennon

Love is the flower you've got to let grow.
John Lennon

Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it.
John Lennon

My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.
John Lennon

Newspaper people have a habit of putting you in the front pages to sell their papers, and then after they've sold their papers and got big circulation's, they say, 'Look at what we've done for you.'
John Lennon

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.
John Lennon

Part of me suspects that I'm a loser, and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty.
John Lennon

Possession isn't nine-tenths of the law. It's nine-tenths of the problem.
John Lennon

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
John Lennon

Rituals are important. Nowadays it's hip not to be married. I'm not interested in being hip.
John Lennon

Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn't insanity. Surrealism to me is reality.
John Lennon

The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?
John Lennon

The cross of the Legion of Honor has been conferred on me. However, few escape that distinction.
John Lennon

The more I see the less I know for sure.
John Lennon

The older generation are leading this country to galloping ruin!
John Lennon

The postman wants an autograph. The cab driver wants a picture. The waitress wants a handshake. Everyone wants a piece of you.
John Lennon

The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.
John Lennon

The worst drugs are as bad as anybody's told you. It's just a dumb trip, which I can't condemn people if they get into it, because one gets into it for one's own personal, social, emotional reasons. It's something to be avoided if one can help it.
John Lennon

There's nothing you can know that isn't known.
John Lennon

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.
John Lennon

We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow's nest of that ship.
John Lennon

We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity.
John Lennon

We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it.
John Lennon

When I hold you in my arms and I feel my finger on your trigger I know no one can do me no harm because happiness is a warm gun.
John Lennon

When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream.
John Lennon

You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!
John Lennon

You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
John Lennon

You have to be a bastard to make it, and that's a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.
John Lennon

You're just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You've got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It's all down to you, mate.
John Lennon

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/john_lennon.html
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28. November 2006 @ 07:38 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
That was awesome Ireland. A CNN/Reuters note on spam:

Quote:
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Criminal gangs using hijacked computers are behind a surge in unwanted e-mails peddling sex, drugs and stock tips.

The number of "spam" messages has tripled since June and now accounts for as many as nine out of 10 e-mails sent worldwide, according to U.S. email security company Postini.

As Christmas approaches, the daily trawl through in-boxes clogged with offers of fake Viagra, loans and sex aids is tipped to take even longer.

"E-mail systems are overloaded or melting down trying to keep up with all the spam," said Dan Druker, a vice president at Postini.

His company has detected 7 billion spam e-mails worldwide in November compared to 2.5 billion in June. Spam in Britain has risen by 50 percent in the last two months alone, according to Internet security company SurfControl.

The United States, China and Poland are the top sources of spam, data from security firm Marshal suggests.

About 200 illegal gangs are behind 80 percent of unwanted e-mails, according to Spamhaus, a body that tracks the problem.

Experts blame the rise in spam on computer programs that hijack millions of home computers to send e-mails.

These "zombie networks", also called "botnets", can link 100,000 home computers without their owners' knowledge.

They are leased to gangs who use their huge "free" computing power to send millions of e-mails with relative anonymity.

While "Trojan horse" programs that invade computers have been around for years, they are now more sophisticated, written by professionals rather than bored teenagers.

"Before it was about showing off, now it's about ripping people off," said SurfControl's Harnish Patel.

Spam costs firms up to $1,000 a year per employee in lost productivity and higher computing bills, according to research published last year.

Home computer users are at risk from e-mails that ask them to reveal their bank details, a practice known as "phishing".

The latest programs mutate to avoid detection and send fewer e-mails from each machine. Fast broadband Internet connections, which are always connected, help the spammers.

The gangs send millions of e-mails, so they only need a fraction of people to reply to make a profit.

"This is a constant game of cat and mouse," said Mark Sunner, Chief Technology Officer at MessageLabs, an e-mail security company. "The bad guys will not stand still."

They disguise words to try to outfox filters searching for telltale words. So, Viagra would become V1úgra.

When anti-spam experts clamped down on this, the spammers began to send messages embedded in a graphic instead of plain text. It is harder for filters to scan pictures.

Random extracts from classic books are often included to confuse filters looking for keywords.

Anti-spam laws have had mixed results.

The first U.S. convictions came last year, while Britain has yet to charge anyone under 2003 anti-spam legislation.

It is difficult to fight spam because the problem crosses international borders, said a spokesman for the UK Information Commissioner's Office, the body which enforces the law.

Some believe laws and filters will not defeat spam.

It will only end when people stop buying diet pills, herbal highs and sexual performance enhancers, said Dave Rand, of Internet security firm Trend Micro.

"The products they are selling by spam are exactly the same products that they sold in the Middle Ages," he said. "This really is a human problem, not a computer problem."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/11/...reut/index.html
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28. November 2006 @ 07:57 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Microsoft's Music Madness


Joe Wilcox
Joe Wilcox

Zune is a mistake. While Microsoft's Zune marketing beckons, "welcome to the social," the device is instead antisocial with the existing Windows Media ecosystem.

Most enterprises probably don't give too much of a hoot about portable music players, except where they present potential security risks. However, Microsoft's Zune music player and accompanying music store fragments the Windows Media market--and that's bad for everybody, whether the company or its partners and customers.

On Thursday, I cited Zune as one of 10 things for which Microsoft should be thankful. The player's introduction has given Microsoft me-too presence alongside iPod and the iTunes music store. Competitively, Microsoft badly needs this position. The long-term costs, however, may overwhelm the short-term gains.

Welcome to the Antisocial
Microsoft already had heavily invested in a Windows Media strategy that encouraged partner innovation. Zune creates yet another closed system, ala iPod and iTunes, which butts against Microsoft's investment in and commitment to Windows Media and its partners and customers. Where once Microsoft touted countless choices with PlaysForSure, Zune offers but one other choice to iPod and iTunes. The product is the antisocial member of the Windows Media commmunity.

MSN Music is a simple, straightforward example. Before the Zune launch, MSN Music sold tunes compatible with PlaysForSure devices. Now, fulfillment is either through the Zune Marketplace or Real Rhapsody, which content really isn't compatible with customers' existing non-iPod music players.

"Reinventing everything again isn't in sync with [Microsoft's] partner way of doing things," said Stephen Baker, vice president of Industry Analysis for market researcher NPD.

Microsoft should have solved other problems that hurt its Windows Media and PlaysForSure ecosystem, starting with ongoing synchronization problems with content and the myriad of portable devices. While hardware partners get the blame for failing to deliver compelling devices, Microsoft failed to improve the user experience with Windows Media Player.

"If the wheel wasn't working, they needed to look within and ask why aren't we being successful here, rather than reinvent everything," Baker said.

Stay the Course
Microsoft could have gone further by endorsing partners within its existing ecosystem rather than alienate them and its customers. MTV URGE music store is great example. The music store is integrated into Windows Media Player and it works as all the other supported music stores should. In personal testing, the user experience is satisfying--on par with iTunes--and synchronization is improved across multiple devices. Why is closed Zune Markeplace necessary when URGE delivers and supports many devices, rather than one?

On the device side, Toshiba is Zune's manufacturer. Microsoft could have endorsed or promoted Toshiba's Gigabeat, or successor device, as the company does with URGE. Such endorsements and supporting marketing could have encouraged other partners to do better. Meanwhile, Microsoft could have improved synchronization, which, by the way, is much better on Windows Vista than with Windows XP.

Windows Media PlaysForSure also supports new device categories, particularly mobiles and smartphones, that are reasonable repositories for personal music libraries--or rights-protected corporate training videos. Zune doesn't other rights -protected Windows Media Content. If Apple releases the rumored iPhone next year, where will be Zune? Even Microsoft's PlaysForSure partners would be further ahead, because they stayed the course from which Microsoft strayed.

Marketing Matters
The Zune course redirection negatively impacts Microsoft and its partners and customers. "Microsoft is going to take the money they could have used to promote PlaysForSure and use it for Zune,"Baker said.

Is it any wonder that iPod sells so well, given the amount of marketing? The iPod seems like the only choice in part because Apple's marketing is aggressive, while there is little to none from competitors. I have yet to see a single Zune commercial on TV, whereas I've caught iPod commercials on "Battlestar Galactica," "Bones," "House" and "Smallville."

Over the weekend, I found some Zune commercials over at MSN Soapbox. Judging from the ads, Microsoft's target demographic would appear to be the same as Xbox, or mainly 18-24 year olds. The ads:

* Concert

* Couple

* Picnic

* Dog

* Battle

The apparent demographic push, while synergistic with Xbox, butts against Windows Media positioning for consumers or the enterprise. Besides PlaysForSure choice positioning, Microsoft has gone after audiophiles and videophiles, people who probably are better able to plunk down $249 for yet another music player. Problem: Those same people would want the content available across devices, as is the case with the Windows Media. Sure, Zune uses Windows Media, but it's incompatible--that is antisocial--with most other Microsoft technologies and partner supporting products of the same name.

The First-Version Problem
Zune comes up short in another, really big way. One of Microsoft's corporate cultural tendencies is to view the first version of a product to be a work in progress. Pervasive attitude: A product's first version doesn't have to be good enough, and problems can be fixed later on.

There are very good reasons why Microsoft has a reputation for not getting products right until the third try.

Ultramobile PC is a good example of this approach--and so is Zune. The device clearly falls behind iPod, or even many PlaysForSure partner devices, in terms of heft and weight. The 30GB Zune is larger than the 80GB iPod, and Microsoft's player is enormous looking when put alongside iPod nano. As a latecomer to a market dominated by Apple, Microsoft needed to do better than 1.0, particularly when hardware partners are refining multi-generation music players and redefining multi-functional mobiles for music listening.

Nearly two weeks ago, I asked the question: "Why then should Microsoft create another bundle--music player, store and music format--that is incompatible with its own products?" My answer: Microsoft shouldn't have. Zune should have been, absolutely should be more social with longstanding Windows Media technologies and products.
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/g...2129TX1K0000535
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28. November 2006 @ 08:03 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Sony sends sound through your skin

11/28/2006 11:18:25 AM, by Nate Anderson

Consumers who want to use their bodies as a transmission medium for sound have been sadly limited in their options. Using Hasbro Toothtunes, kids can feel The Cheetah Girls' "Shake a Tail Feather" vibrating through their tiny jawbones, but now Sony has developed a human body transmission system for adults?headphones that use the human body as their wire.

The new technology appeared in a Sony patent filing that describes how engineers in the company's Tokyo research unit developed wireless headphones that rely on electrical signals sent through the body. The goal of the project was to design a body transmission system "with secrecy, with low power consumption, and without interfering with another communication system in a neighborhood."

IrDA (an infrared transmission protocol) and Bluetooth were both judged unsuitable. Infrared has quality problems when used in natural light and requires a line of sight between the transmitter and receiver. Bluetooth broadcasts over electromagnetic waves and is therefore not completely private. It's also open to interference.

Engineers turned instead to the human body, which can transmit electrical data between a pair of electrodes on the skin. Unfortunately, when people think about strapping metal electrodes to their skin, "Frankenstein" comes unavoidably to mind, so Sony tried to make the system more consumer-friendly. They did it by encasing the transmitting electrode in a conducting fabric, and by developing it in such a way that it only needs to be close to the skin?not touching it at all times.

The actual transmission occurs at a frequency between 500kHz and 3MHz and is currently capable of sending 48kbps through the body to the headphones, which have an electrode of their own that receives the signal. It certainly sounds cool, but are consumers really frustrated enough by headphone wires that they will pay a premium for shooting electricity through their bodies? Sony hopes so. They note in the patent application that "a headphone cable often becomes a hindrance and restricts the movement of a user when the cable winds around the body."

Having never been in tangled in my own headphone cord, I'm not sure that I'm the target market for the invention, but it's good to see that Sony is still cranking out novel ideas in the lab.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061128-8302.html
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28. November 2006 @ 08:05 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
FTC to crack down on telemarketing calls

11/28/2006 11:56:29 AM, by Jacqui Cheng

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) plans to start cracking down on automated telemarketing calls starting in January if its recent proposal makes its way through Congress. Telemarketers, who are understandably unhappy with stricter calling regulations, argue that the FTC's rules conflict with similar (but more lenient) regulations from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)?both of which regulate the telemarketing industry to some degree.

The FCC's current regulations only allow recorded calls to be made to customers with whom the businesses already have an "established" relationship, whereas the FTC's proposal entails a ban on making "robo calls" to any customer without written consent first. Because of the somewhat lenient definition of an "established" relationship?just one purchase is considered an established relationship?the FCC's rules allow leeway to telemarketers, who can then call customers for up to 18 months, even if they are on the national Do Not Call registry.

Telemarketers see the difference between the two regulations as a sign that the two agencies are not on the same level and will only create confusion among businesses. Telecommunications lawyer Charles H. Kennedy told the Wall Street Journal that "there's a low-level turf war between the two agencies. Instead of eliminating differences, they've decided to reconfirm it." Jim Conway, vice president of governmental relations at the Direct Marketing Association in Washington, added that "If you're a small company, you get very confused, and may not know who you're regulated by."

However, neither agency agrees that the discrepancies between the two should cause any problem at all. Many telemarketers are regulated by both agencies and the regulations are similar. "If they comply with our rule, they'll comply with the FCC," said Allen Hile of the FTC to the Wall Street Journal. The FCC stands in agreement that the FTC's proposal does not cause a problem for them.

Recorded telemarketing calls are preferred by the telemarketing industry for obvious reasons?they cost a lot less than hiring a live operator, and in 2003, consumers spent over $9.2 billion on telemarketing purchases according to the Direct Marketing Association. But surprisingly, consumers seem to also prefer recorded calls over live telemarketing calls. It seems that 65 percent of consumers have decided that recorded calls are the lesser evil, according to a recent study by Forrester Omnibus, because they allow consumers to press a button to immediately opt-out of receiving future calls and, for people like me at least, detect a marketing call immediately and hang up.

Also tied to constantly tightening telemarketing restrictions has been an increase in direct mail and e-mail from businesses, who are trying to find new ways to market to customers if they can't call them. If we think of it that way, perhaps robo calls aren't so bad after all?I would much prefer the occasional automated phone call that I can hang up on in exchange for a few less pieces of spam in my inbox every day. The general public can submit comments on the FTC proposal until December 18.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061128-8303.html
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28. November 2006 @ 08:09 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
London pilots "future crime" database

11/28/2006 8:56:54 AM, by Jacqui Cheng

Five London boroughs have begun to use a controversial database that profiles high-risk "future" offenders as part of a pilot program for a larger database in the UK. The goal will be for the police force to eventually have a list of the 100 most dangerous offenders based on detailed psychological profiling, which they believe would eventually help to reduce crime by enabling them to keep a closer eye on high-risk offenders, and possibly even stop them before committing crimes.

The idea behind the list is to make sure that high-risk criminals, such as serial murderer Ian Huntley, serial rapist Richard Baker, and the like make it onto the list for extra surveillance based on analysis of mental health reports and past criminal behavior. Behavioral criminologist from Scotland Yard's Homicide Prevention Unit Laura Richards told the Times that the point of the list is "trying to pick up Ian Huntley before he goes out and commits that murder. Then we have the opportunity to stop something turning into a lethal event.?

It's that sentiment, however, that scares many civil liberties groups who fear the outcome of authorities taking action based on such a list. This comes shortly after information commissioner Richard Thomas expressed his fears that the UK was waking up into a "surveillance society," expressing conern over how much information government agencies should be able to collect about its citizens. "Picking up" potential criminals before a crime has been committed could infringe on citizens' privacy as well as personal freedoms. Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, told the Times "It is quite right that the police should keep intelligence on suspected criminals, but it is obscene to suggest there should be a ?crime idol? list of those who might commit an offence."

Let's consider for a moment what good such a list might do. According to some reports, disagreements involving guns and drugs are the culprit for sudden surges in the murder rate, not serial killers. Would the future crime database take these types of altercations into account when determining who is most likely to commit a crime? From the description of the database so far, it seems not.

Similarly (and just to bring in the obvious Minority Report reference here), what about "crimes of passion"?murders that are not premeditated in any way and just happen at the spur of the moment? Actually, there may already be a technological "answer" to that in the form of agression-detecting CCTV cameras. These cameras with built-in microphones and voice analyzation software have already been installed in several locations in Holland, and are being considered for installation in London. The Times says that over a six-week test period, the cameras raised 70 genuine alarms (and how many false alarms?) which resulted in four arrests, but that authorities are "still assessing their impact on crime." Such cameras could be used in conjunction with the database. However since the installation of nearly 4.2 million CCTV cameras around Britain since 1994, the homicide rate has, at best, stayed roughly same. Adding microphones to detect some percentage of fights seems like throwing technology at a problem that doesn't need more technology.

Also under question are the logistics for using such a database. What threshold of activity would have to be required before deciding to arrest someone for a potential crime? There is no way to ethically test such a list?are the police supposed to identify murders in advance, but allow people to be killed so they can get statistics for a test run? Without testing, though, there would be no other way to know whether the list could be even remotely accurate. Is an untested system that could be totally inaccurate for predicting future behavior worth spending money on?

If heavy surveillance isn't doing much to prevent crime in the UK now, how will adding even more surveillance prevent uncommon murders such as those by serial killers? The database for predicting future crime incidents comes off as a flashy and intrusive solution that might only shave a small number off of the total homicides in a year?assuming that it even works.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061128-8299.html
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28. November 2006 @ 08:17 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Barney the Dinosaur lawsuit




p2pnet.net News:- Barney is a dinosaur with no imagination. Picks his nose and smells his toes and suffers from constipation."

That's one of the songs Emma, our daughter, and her friends sing about Barney, the disgusting Purple Dinosaur who plagues childrens' TV ------ and kids' parents.

But they used to like him. And Yes, when Emma was young, WE BOUGHT HER A BARNEY TAPE!!! OK? But only one. And it was from a garage sale. Which isn't to say we're not deeply ashamed today. But we were young, back then, young and inexperienced parents and ...........

But the creature is no joke. In fact, "BARNEY IS TO CHILDREN AS OSAMA BIN LADEN IS TO ISLAM," says Stuart Frankel from the 'Evil' link in his Small-But-Intense home page.

Check out some of the links on Frankel's Barney page site, such as this one.

Meanwhile, "I''ll sue you, you sue me, Oh what fun the suits will be," p2pnet posted back in October last year. That was when it was revealed warning letters were going out to sites with Barney spoof pix.

But they weren't all and now, "The corporate owners of the popular children's television character Barney the Purple Dinosaur have agreed to withdraw their baseless legal threats against a website publisher who parodied the character and to compensate him for fees expended in defending himself," says the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation).

"The agreement settles a suit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in August on behalf of Dr. Stuart Frankel against Lyons Partnership, owners of the Barney character."

Elizabeth Rader, James d'Auguste and Brian Carney, attorneys with Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld LLP, were defending Frankel's free speech rights pro bono and assisted in the case, says the EFF.

Also See:
EFF - EFF Accepts Barney's Surrender, November 28, 2006
Barney spoof pix - Bloody Barney: Oh, the Horror!, October 18, 2005

(Tuesday 28th November 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10564?PHPSESSID=...cdda7a7096b45c0
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28. November 2006 @ 08:37 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Latest toe in the movie download pond? Wal-Mart


By Caroline McCarthy
Staff writer, CNET News.com
Published: November 28, 2006, 8:40 AM PST
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Wal-Mart Stores has entered the fledgling but growing market of movie downloads with a new service that bundles a digital copy of a film with the purchase of a hard copy of the DVD.

The movie download program, announced Tuesday, begins with sales of the DVD of the Warner Bros. flick Superman Returns. Starting Wednesday, when customers purchase the disc from Wal-Mart, they will be able to choose from one of three options for a digital copy: $1.97 for a download formatted for portable devices, $2.97 for one that's compatible with computers, and $3.97 for one that works on both portable devices and PCs. Then, upon returning to their computers, buyers of the Superman Returns bundled DVD can enter a redemption code on Wal-Mart's beta video download site and obtain the digital version.

Wal-Mart hopes to eventually expand this service to more DVD-digital download packages, as well as to standalone downloads of movies and TV shows in the coming months.

As for compatibility, there is some fine print. The Wal-Mart downloads that are compatible with portable devices will be in Windows Media Player format, which means that they'll play on all devices that accept that format--including Microsoft's new Zune--but not Apple's iPods. And the PC-compatible downloads will require the Windows XP operating system and Windows Media Player 10. Mac and Linux users, at least for now, need not apply.

The market for digital video downloads is tempting but often volatile for even the sturdiest of retailers. For many of the new services, like AOL Video, it's really too early to gauge success, or lack thereof.

But some movie download services have already received distinctly negative reviews. The blogosphere didn't take kindly to Amazon's "Unbox" software. And less than a week ago, Microsoft's highly anticipated Video Marketplace feature of its Xbox Live service experienced a noticeably rocky launch.

http://news.com.com/2100-1026_3-6138907....-0-20&subj=news
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28. November 2006 @ 08:50 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   

RIAA Subpoenas Neighbor's Son, Calls His Employer
Posted by Zonk on Tuesday November 28, @11:43AM
from the kicks-his-puppy-puts-suger-in-his-gas-tank dept.
Music The Courts Businesses
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "To those who might think that I might be exaggerating when I describe the RIAA's litigation campaign as a 'reign of terror', how's this one: in UMG v. Lindor,
http://info.riaalawsuits.us/documents.htm#UMG_v_Lindor

the RIAA not only subpoenaed the computer of Ms. Lindor's son, who lives 4 miles away, but had their lawyer telephone the son's employer. See page 2, footnote 1."

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspo...ndors-sons.html


From Ray's comments: "You have a multi-billion dollar cartel suing unemployed people, disabled people, housewives, single mothers, home healthcare aids, all kinds of people who have no resources whatsoever to withstand these litigations. And due to the adversary system of justice the RIAA will be successful in rewriting copyright law, if the world at large, and the technological community in particular, don't fight back and help these people fighting these fights."


Transcript of Ray Beckerman talking about the RIAA law suits
Posted On: Thu, 2006-07-20 11:23 by PeterB

If you couldn't make it to the conference call with Ray Beckerman, a lawyer representing clients in cases against the RIAA, you can listen or download the audio from Archive.org

Transcript:

Gregory Heller DefectiveByDesign Campaign Manager:
So without further ado I turn it over to Peter Brown the Executive Director of the Free Software Foundation

Peter Brown:

Thanks, Gregory. And welcome, everybody.

On June 23rd, the Defective by Design campaign organized a phone-in targeting the executives at the Recording Industry Association of America (the RIAA) and similar trade organizations in Europe and Canada. We did this to allow our supporters to express their frustration with Big Media's attempt to force DRM into our technology and onto our society. Through the action we became aware of the work of Ray Beckman and his excellent blog 'Recording Industry vs the People'. Ray practices law in New York state and is the lead attorney there in the fight against the RIAA lawsuits .

From speaking to Ray about the campaign I came to realize that we are in fact fighting the same battle but just on two seperate fronts. That battle is the battle of consumer control. DRM is simply an attempt to win this battle with technology restrictions, and the other is an attempt to win the battle through intimidation and lawsuits, that they also hope will allow them to rewrite copyright law. It's very important that we realize what's going on in these lawsuits and that we realize that in fact there's no real financial support going on. The RIAA has really been allowed to run amok here and we need to take some action. So let me introduce Ray Beckman to you and let's find out what's happening with these lawsuits, how they're connected to DRM, and what we can do to help. Ray, why don't you spill the beans on what's going on?

Ray Beckerman:
For almost three years, the RIAA has been conducting a reign of terror and they have actually tripped across what is possibly their most effective device which is bringing lawsuits against defenseless people.

You have a multi-billion dollar cartel sueing unemployed people, disabled people, housewives, single mothers, home healthcare aids, all kinds of people who have no resources whatsoever to withstand these litigations. And due to the adversary system of justice the RIAA will be successful in rewriting copyright law, if the world at large, and the technological community in particular, don't fight back and help these people fighting these fights.

Every time you learn of one of those rare instances in the 19000 litigations in which one person has fought back, it means that there's a lawyer out there who's either working for free or getting a nominal fee for his work and you will notice that you will never see a big law firm in that category. For one thing, the big law firms are like any big corporation: they need to make a profit. That's what their primary purpose is. And they would be interested in representing the RIAA, not the poor people that the RIAA is sueing.

Now these cases raise very important legal issues relating to privacy, and not just music, but technology. The way this campaign begins is with an investigation that is not an investigation at all. The sophisticated audience to which I am speaking will realize how bogus it actually is.

They have an investigator pretend to be a user of KAZAA or one of the other similar file-sharing networks. He finds a shared files folder that has a goodly number of copyrighted songs in it. He has no idea whether those song files were obtained legally, whether though payed downloads, or through making personal copies from one's own CD for backup purposes, or whether anything illegal was ever done with those files, whether anyone ever copied one. And what he does: he takes a screen shot of this shared files folders (He of course does not see the folders, he merely sees the text in the metadata) and decides that this is a big shared file folder.

Then through some secret process which he will not share with us and has tried to conceal from the courts, he then associates it with a dynamic ip address. And then, after he has what he believes is the correct dynamic ip address, for the date and time at which he made that screen shot, he then brings a proceeding to get the name and address of the subscriber who paid for the internet access, which of course would tell us nothing. But once he gets that information he then sues the person.

The way he gets the information is through a one-sided lawsuit against a host of John Doe's. Usually the people who are named as defendants in these cases, live in cities hundreds of thousands of miles away from where the lawsuit is pending, and they only find out about it after an order has already been entered directing the turn over of information.

They usually receive only just a few days' notice and are told that unless they can hire a lawyer in that far off city and that lawyer can make a motion to quash the subpoena and vacate the order, that their information will be turned over. And of course at that point they don't even know that there's a lawsuit. Most of them do not even know that they have been sued. They don't have copies of the court papers, they don't have copies of the application for the order. They have absolutely no way to resist.

A couple of people have been alert enough to alert the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others, and so we've managed to bring a few cases in which we've attacked this initial John Doe process. But the judges, who are anything but digital natives, have no understanding of it, have given us very short shrift, haven't listened to anything that we've had to say. There was a case in 2004 where an elderly judge was told by a lawyer in his brief from the RIAA that from the metadata and the hash you could tell that these were illegally copied files, which was of course nonsense. But the judge actually referred to that in his decision as to why he was upholding the subpoena.

Once they get the name and address of the victim, they then basically seek to extort a settlement of either $3750 or $4250. If the victim calls them up and tells them that they've never even done any file sharing of any kind, that they have no idea what it's about, that they're completely innocent, the RIAA doesn't care and then it commences a federal lawsuit.

Now, defending a federal lawsuit is an extremely costly process. If you get into the merits of the case to prove that you're innocent, you've already lost because under any scenario you're talking tens of thousands of dollars at least in legal expenses in order to defend such a case.

Now there are some very important cases going on. In my office we've tried to attack process early on. We're the only firm that lately has made motions to vacate the John Doe cases. Once the name and address is known and they sue a person in their name, they still have this extremely vague complaint which tells you nothing because they know nothing. They say the defendant downloaded, distributed and/or made available for distribution certain song files. But they have no evidence of any downloading, they have no evidence of any distributing. And at most they can say that someone who might somehow be associated with the ip address might have made some files available. But they certainly don't know that the defendant did.

All they know that the defendant did was to write out a check for internet access. Now, we've tried to point out in our John Doe cases that the technical underpinning of the investigation is meaningless, that the metadata doesn't tell you anything, that it can be scrubbed, that it can be changed, that any real pirate would never leave the metadata of the thing he had perloined. And the IP address makes no sense because any real pirate would be using someone else's internet access account. The metadata tells you nohting, the hashmarks do not conclusively establish anything. Even seeing the shared files folder doesn't tell you which computer it resided on because all of these networks use one form or another of a hierarchy of computers (those with fast broadband connections and those with slow broadband connections, so you have the nodes and super nodes or whatever terminology they use). So that when you see the shared files, all you're seeing is metadata from one computer or from a group of computers that are connected to one node, but the judges have no clue. They actually won't even let me talk about it. One of the three motions had no oral argument. And the two that had an oral argument, the judges would not let me speak and kept cutting me off.

Now, there's a case called Electro vs. Barker which has become very important. This is a nursing student who was sued in her name. We made a motion to dismiss the complaint because doesn't specify any acts or dates or times of copyright infringement as the law normally requires. We've made several arguments like that before this motion and the RIAA put in an argument which basically fudged it. However, in this case they basically decided to go for the gold and they made a bold argument claiming that merely making files available on the internet is in and of itself a copyright infringement. It was a shocking argument because if it were accepted it would probably shut down the entire internet.

As a result of that bold argument, certain organizations came in putting in an amicus curiae brief to support Miss Barker's motion to dismiss. In reaction to that the Motion Picture Association and the United States Government put in briefs supporting the RIAA trying to... Well, the Motion Picture Association directly supported that extreme argument. The US government didn't quite go that far but it tried to support the RIAA by attacking another argument that had been made by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Meanwhile, Miss Barker is a nursing student. She has no money. She lives in the housing projects, and she has to have lawyers reviewing all these briefs, writing briefs for her etc. Now, this case is pending and the judge may call for oral argument or he may render a decision.

But if our motion to dismiss is granted and sustained on appeal it would mean the end of the RIAA juggernaut against innocent people not known to have committed a copyright infringement. And yet we've received no support of any kind from anywhere, and Miss Barker has no resources to defend this case.

In the case UMG vs. Lindor where the defendant Lindor is a home health aid who's never used a computer. She's never used a computer, she's never owned a computer, she's never even turned on a computer. The only connection she has had to a computer is that she has on occasion dusted near the parts which she believes are a computer. And yet she is being sued as an online distributor in peer to peer file sharing. This is a case started by her so we were not able to (we stepped in in the middle) so we're not able to attack the complaint, but we're seeking information on the cartel-like behavior of the RIAA and we're in all kinds of discovery disputes. The RIAA is trying to conceal information about how it conducts its "investigation" to conceal the information on how the different companies work together to run this campaign to destroy competition in digital music.

All these discovery disputes... There have been depositions and now they're calling... They've already deposed her and her son, they now want to depose various other relatives and her daughter. And meanwhile they've stonwalled every discovery request we've made. And unless the world comes together and helps these defenseless people the RIAA is going to win all these battles one way or another and they're going to rewrite the copyright law.

end.

Gregory Heller:
I want to thank everyone who was on the call today for joining us and to let you know again that this call was recorded and that the audio will be made available on our website later today at DefectivebyDesign.org.

Please blog about it. Tell your friends about it. Stop by the website. Be sure to sign our petition to Bono. You can get the link off the front page and also make a donation via the link on our front page in the upper right-hand corner to support Ray's work in defending some of these cases against the RIAA.

Thank you once again everyone. Thank you Ray and Peter. And stay tuned for more information from DBD about what's next in our campaign.
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/node/404
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DVD Jon Agrees: Zune Getting a Bad Rap
Topic: Things

Zune_fud_ii The Microsoft Zune doesn't let you use the Creative Commons license or play stuff from the iTunes store, the pricing system for purchasing music by the song is a little weird, and its chassis isn't quite as tough as I'd thought initially. But after using the Zune for two weeks and a day and being pretty satisfied with its design, features, and performance, I can't believe some of the stuff I'm reading about it. People really seem to have a problem with this thing -- especially the brown model.

The Zune isn't perfect, but neither is the iPod. In 1998, I thought the MP3 players we'd be seeing by 2006 would be more advanced than the iPod and Zune combined. Apple has made great strides with the iPod in many areas, especially ease of use and integration with its groundbreaking online service. But innovation has been spread too thin in the iPod line lately. Without real competition, it appears Apple has had the luxury of postponing next-generation features in order to squeeze extra product cycles out of the iPod line.

There have been complaints about the Zune's "three plays in three days" sharing limitation, but the iPod doesn't even have a wireless sharing feature to limit (or FM radio and a music subscription option for that matter). And somehow, people have gotten the impression that Zunes won't play MP3s downloaded from P2P sites; it plays them as much as the iPod does.

No one's talking about things like the Zune's nicely designed menu system, which takes advantage of the fact that the control moves in four directions rather than the two allowed by the iPod's scrollwheel, or any of the other nice touches I've noticed over the past couple of weeks.

I'm not the only one who thinks the Zune isn't all that bad, and even that it might be good. "DVD Jon" Johansen of DeCSS fame debunked a few of the myths surrounding the Zune that appeared in recent articles from the Chicago Sun-Times, SF Chronicle, and TechTree.
http://blog.wired.com/music/2006/11/dvd_jon_agrees_.html
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MY 2 BIG BIG BITCH'S OF THE MONTH,


Ripping DVDs may never be the same again

By Eric J. Sinrod
Published: November 29, 2006, 4:00 AM PST


perspective Just when you thought it might be safe to rip DVDs for use on your personal video player, the motion picture studios have filed a federal lawsuit in New York to put an end to such practices.

The studios certainly have financial and legal might behind them. But can they prevail?

In Paramount Pictures v. Load 'N Go Video, the motion picture studios brought legal action against a small company that loaded DVDs onto personal video players for its customers. According to the suit, Load 'N Go Video sold DVDs and iPods to its customers, and loaded the DVDs onto the iPods for customers who purchased both.

The motion picture studios assert that this practice violated the Copyright Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The studios say that before releasing their copyright works in DVD format, they employ an encryption-based DVD access control and copy prevention system that provides for protection of copyright content. According to the studios, Load 'N Go Video's practice of copying DVD content and then loading it onto the portable video players of its customers circumvents that copy protection system and thus violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

DVDs, as noted by the studios, are 5-inch-wide optical discs that contain recorded material in digital form. DVD technology, they add, has substantially improved the clarity and quality of viewing of pre-recorded content, and thus presents a heightened risk of unauthorized reproduction and distribution of copyright material because the material can be digitally copied and transmitted repeatedly without quality degradation. It is for this reason that the motion picture studios use CSS (content scramble system) to prevent the unauthorized access to and reproduction and distribution of copyright works contained in DVDs.

As acknowledged by the complaint, the customers of Load 'N Go Video purchase DVDs and portable video players, and pay a charge to Load 'N Go Video for loading the DVDs onto the portable video players. The motion picture studios highlight that a license has not been granted to Load 'N Go Video to copy, distribute or exploit their copyright works or to circumvent the CSS.

All well and good in terms of the complaint filed by the motion picture studios, right? Well, perhaps--and perhaps not. While the motion picture studios make technically valid legal points within the four corners of their complaint, there is another legal point of view that likely will be espoused by Load 'N Go Video, assuming the case continues to move forward.

The key point for Load 'N Go Video will be that its customers purchased both the DVDs and the portable video players. Thus, Load 'N Go Video simply has saved the customers the time and hassle of loading the content they paid for on the portable video players they also purchased.


Let's take the studios' argument to its extreme. A buyer could be subject to legal liability for ripping purchased DVDs at home onto a purchased portable video player without either first seeking permission or purchasing the content again for specific use on the portable video player. One wonders whether a court would embrace such an argument.

Load 'N Go Video likely will assert that it has engaged in "fair use" for copyright purposes, and that such fair use trumps the claims of the motion picture studios under the Copyright Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

While Load 'N Go Video under these facts does have a defense to assert, one must keep in mind that the motion picture studios, like the music industry, have been very successful to date in seeking to protect their copyright works. Stay tuned to see how this case plays out.
Biography
Eric J. Sinrod is a partner in the San Francisco office of Duane Morris. His focus includes information technology and intellectual property disputes. To receive his weekly columns, send an e-mail to ejsinrod@duanemorris.com with "Subscribe" in the subject line. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of Sinrod's law firm or its individual partners.

http://news.com.com/2010-1030_3-6139129....-0-20&subj=news




RIAA wants the Internet shut down

Interesting argument of the day

By Nick Farrell: Wednesday 29 November 2006, 08:38
ONE OF THE lawyers involved in defending cases bought against people by the RIAA claims that if the music industry wins a crucial case, the Internet will have to be switched off.

Speaking on the DefectiveByDesign anti-DRM campaign site, Ray Beckerman said the case of Electro vs. Barker has become very important for the web's future.

Barker was being defended by Beckerman who made a motion to dismiss the case because the RIAA had forgot to provide any acts or dates or times of copyright infringement as the law normally requires.

The RIAA argued that by merely making files available on the Internet Barker was making a copyright infringement.

Beckerman said that it was a shocking argument because if it were accepted by the court it would probably shut down the entire Internet. If you send any file on the Net the RIAA will be allowed to suspect that you are in breach of copyright.

What was more disturbing is that the RIAA called up its mates in Washington to back it up. Apparently the United States Government has put in motions supporting the RIAA. µ
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36027
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A JOKE,BUT FUN TO READ..

RIAA, MPAA Blitz: Part II


p2pnet.net News:- It's almost the season of goodwill and Hollywood's MPAA and the Big Four Organized Music cartel's RIAA will be again teaming up to launch Part II of their Christmas Blitz.

Called the World Library Copyright Wake Up Drive, the aim is to alert libraries to the danger they're in each time they allow a borrower to remove an unlicensed CD or DVD.

"Criminal sharing of any kind must be stopped, and that includes stealing copyright content by taking CDs and DVDs out of a library," says the RIAA's Fritz Mainwoe.

"This isn't about us," states the MPAA's Dolph Hilter. "It's about our artists and support staff and their children. It's about honesty and integrity and the American way and the things our forefathers fought for when they wrote the constitution because every time someone takes a DVD out of a library without paying us, an American industry worker is threatened with eviction or even starvation and if we don't stop it, who will?"

Working together, the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) will supervise local police around the world in raids on public libraries offering "illegal" CDs and DVDs.

Called Operation Santa, it's slated to run from December 24 until January 1, 2007, and will be coordinated by the US Department of Justice, supported by investigators from the Department of Homeland Defence and Microsoft, as well as CIA, NSA, RSPCA, SPCA and News Corp staff.

"We've put this together for months to coincide with the Christmas season," says Mainwoe.

RIAA and MPAA legal staff have drawn up World Library Copyright licenses which were hand-delivered in every country which has even one library, say the two entertainment organizations, going on:

"Under the terms of the license, libraries will charge borrowers an amount equal to 99 cents, or the local equivalent, for every track on a music CD, or $19.99 (or the local equivalent) for every movie DVD.

"Libraries which do not honour the license will be closed until they agree to fullfil their obligations to the record companies and music studios which work so hard to create and make available such superlative product."

====================

UPDATE - 9:00 am Pacific, November 29: THIS IS A SPOOF !!!! I can't believe the number of emails I've had on this, including several from alarmed librarians. That people believed this in spite if all the glaring (I thought) clues says a lot about Hollywood and the corporate music industry.

Also See:
Christmas Blitz - Xmas with the MPAA and RIAA, November 23, 2006


(Tuesday 28th November 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10570?PHPSESSID=...07148ed2a8721cb
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P2p footie streaming a No-No,


p2pnet.net News:- German Premier League soccer club Bayern Munich recently said it was ready to sue GooTube for video copyright infringement, and about this time last year, the UK Premier League was tracking sites offering illegal streaming of live football and was planning legal action against the ISPs hosting the sites.

Now, "The FA Premier League, Uefa, Cricket Australia and other sport bodies have employed a company called NetResult to police the internet for unauthorised video," says the BBC.

"Unauthorised video" means p2p viewing and, "China, already in trouble with American entertainment and software cartels for failing to put a stop to the thriving underground counterfeit production industry, is also now under attack for its burgeoning p2p streaming TV enterprises," p2pnet reported in 2005, going on:

"And ironically, for a change, commercial p2p companies aren't in the firing line. Instead, the likes of Microsoft and RealNetworks are named as the preferred delivery vehicles."

Another BBC story says, "An independent website has been told to stop putting footage of FA Premiership goals on the video website YouTube. "NetResult - a firm monitoring the internet on behalf of the Premier League - emailed a warning to the website, 101greatgoals.blogspot.com. It told the website it was 'infringing' Premier League copyright. Links from 101greatgoals to YouTube were thought to have been disabled by YouTube itself but other links to Premiership goals stayed in place."

According to the most recent Beeb item, it's an "ongoing challenge," says NetResult's Tim Cooper. "You could shut a website down today but tomorrow another 10 will appear."

Saturday premiership matches aren't shown on TV in the UK for fear that stadium attendances could suffer, says the BBC, but "most are available on the peer-to-peer services".

Some games are also streamed directly from individual sites, "and NetResult said it was lobbying internet service providers to shut these down," states the BBC, adding, "The BBC is currently prohibited from showing footage of Premier League goals on its website."

"The FA Premier League execs get their panties in a bunch everytime someone puts footage from Premiership matches online for public viewing without 'authorization'," says Ahmed on BlogFC, going on:

Considering that there are forums built entirely for this purpose and that there are thousands of such videos uploaded on YouTube every week, you can imagine the discomfort the Premier League has been feeling.

So what do they do? The hire NetResult to monitor the Internet, and they find, amongst other things, plenty of videos on YouTube. So they sent a DMCA notice to YouTube highlighting a bunch of videos (101greatgoals were not the only ones to suffer here - my 7 clips from the Chelsea - Reading match were ?removed?) and now we have a mess where bloggers who don?t have the foggiest idea about copyright law are being bullied for sharing something they love.

I remember an earlier incident like this when I put up Arsenal's season fixtures on Soccerlens and got a similar email warning - the license for the right to display season fixtures is 1700 Pounds, or something of that sort.

So now the question is - where will this lead us and where does it stop? If NetResult manage to do their job right (something I doubt but fear might happen), every website showing footage from Premiership matches will start receiving copyright violation notices.

From what little I know of such situations?if things go from push to shove, the Premier League will have to serve a DMCA notice to a website?s hosting service in order to force them to shut down that website (until the copyrighted material is removed). And rest assured; these guys have the organisational clout, and more importantly the pigheadedness required for such an undertaking.

So now what?

I?ll tackle the 'copyright' issue another time - for now, I invite you to visit my YouTube profile and watch all the goals I've uploaded before they are removed :)

Update: This happened before Google?s acquisition of YouTube, but it is interesting nevertheless.

Stay tuned.

Also See:
copyright infringement - Bayern Munich takes on YouTube, November 9, 2006
BBC - Illegal net sport faces crackdown, November 29, 2006
p2pnet reported - Coming soon: p2p TV streaming, September 3, 2005
BBC - Goal footage warning for website, October 31, 2006
BlogFC - Premier League comes after football bloggers, October 21, 2006

p2pnet newsfeeds for your site.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss
Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

If you're Chinese and you're looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent website blocking outside of China.

Download it here and feel free to copy the zip and host it yourself so others can download it.

(Wednesday 29th November 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10574?PHPSESSID=...0848275039702ef
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Hurricane Rita survivor RIAA victim

p2pnet.net News:- The Big Four Organized Music cartel's RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has claimed another victim.

This time it's an elderly lady, a survivor of Hurricane Rita, and once again, Sharman Networks' Kazaa p2p application features in the case.

But the woman, Rhonda Crain, is fighting back, demanding a trial by jury and saying the RIAA's actions "amount to extortion".

Pay us $4,500, the RIAA told her, and we'll leave you alone. Don't pay, and you're looking at $150,000 per song.


The RIAA lists more than 500 items, "some of which are not sound recordings at all, and none of which has been identified in any way as being possibly owned or licensed by Plaintiffs," says her lawyer, John Stoneham, in a court document.

Citing "a litany of other similar cases brought by the RIAA," she's also looking to the defence first raised in Arista v Greubel, says Recording Industry vs The People.

Kazaa paid a reported $115 million 'settlement' to move to the entertainment cartel side of the fence and David Greubel says the $115 million constitutes recovery in full for "injuries allegedly caused" by him and others.

"Plaintiffs did not seek to mitigate their damages, if any; instead, they filed their Complaint which was served upon Defendant with a cover letter offering to enter into settlement negotiations," says Stoneham, from the Beaumont, Texas, office of Lone Star Legal Aid.

Definitely stay tuned.

Also See:
Recording Industry vs The People - Elderly Survivor of Hurricane Rita Sued by RIAA in East Texas; Represented by Lone Star Legal Aid, November 28, 2006
$115 million 'settlement' - Kazaa deal paid for RIAA victim?, November 18, 2006



(Wednesday 29th November 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10575?PHPSESSID=...096c658d989e39a
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Russian government says "nyet" to AllofMP3.com

11/29/2006 10:40:08 AM, by Nate Anderson

The international noose around AllofMP3.com has been tightening for some time, and now it appears to have closed: the Russian government has agreed to shut down the site.

Russian and US negotiators have agreed on a bilateral trade agreement that should pave the way for Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization, and one major part of the deal concerned intellectual property issues. Russia has agreed to a set of terms for fighting optical disk piracy, strengthening border enforcement against counterfeiters, bringing their laws into agreement with international standards, and protecting pharmaceutical test data. But the biggest news is that the Russians have agreed to shut down "websites that permit illegal distribution of music and other copyright works," according to the Office of the United States Trade Representative. AllofMP3.com is specifically named in the agreement as an example site.

The Russian government must stop collection societies in the country from acting without the permission of rights-holders?a clear dig at licensing group ROMS. AllofMP3.com has claimed for some time that they are legal under Russian law because all of their works have been licensed by ROMS, and ROMS itself says that it "carries out its activity on the basis of the powers given directly by the Law, irrespective of the presence or absence of a contract with a rightsholder." In essence, ROMS has given out licenses to music without any permission from the copyright owners to do so.

Whether this is legal has been the subject of heated discussion for years, with AllofMP3.com most vocally asserting that it is. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry disagrees, saying, "Under the copyright laws of virtually every country in the world, including Russia, it is illegal to distribute recordings without the permission of the rights owners." ROMS was booted from CISAC, an international organization that represents 217 worldwide copyright societies, back in 2004.

Whatever the truth, Russia has agreed to modify its laws by June 1, 2007 to clarify that such activity is illegal. It will also implement the 1996 WIPO Internet treaties, and will take enforcement action against Russian websites that violate IP laws.
Mounting pressure

In recent months, pressure on the site has mounted. Visa stopped processing payments after being contacted by the IFPI, and a recent Danish court decision held that ISPs could be forced to block the site. Prominent US trade officials have been singling out the site by name for months, a sure sign that the bilateral US/Russian agreement wasn't going to pass without some action on IP rights.

The agreement was announced on November 19, but as recently as yesterday, November 28, AllofMP3 issued a combative press release arguing that the service is both fair to artists and legal in Russia. Mediaservices, the group that owns AllofMP3, even went so far as to issue a legal analysis of US law, claiming that US consumers have every right to download music from the site.

"If the RIAA had done its homework," said Vadim Mamotin, Director General of the company, "it would have discovered that even under U.S. law, consumers apparently have a legal basis to purchase music from AllofMP3. There is absolutely no legal basis for the campaign against AllofMP3."

The IFPI has not yet responded publicly to the news, but the RIAA's Neil Turkewitz said in a statement, "The US-Russia Agreement makes it clear that the US expects Russia to be in compliance with its TRIPS [Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights] obligations prior to concluding Russia's WTO accession. Permitting a site like allofmp3.com to operate is clearly not consistent with TRIPS, and the Agreement therefore calls for it to be shut down."

"Contrary to reports that are circulating," he added, "allofmp3.com has not been given 6 months to continue to operate, and we fully expect the Russian authorities to quickly take action to prevent the continued theft of intellectual property."

No one's yet sure how this will play out. The site is still up and running, but its days appear to be numbered. If you have any credit left in the site, now would be an excellent time to use it up.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061129-8315.html
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29. November 2006 @ 10:03 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Which CPU to buy for Christmas gaming?

11/29/2006 8:24:17 AM, by Jon Stokes

For years, one of my own personal holiday traditions has been to take advantage of the cold weather, lack of daylight, and time off by holing up somewhere and playing a computer game. Now that I have a whole new family to visit (post-wedding) and a new set of demands on my time, I won't able to partake of any PC gaming Christmas cheer this year, but if I did I'd need a substantial upgrade.

I suspect that many of you out there are thinking about upgrading this month, and for any number of reasons (e.g., you're a Christmas gamer like me, or you're going to give yourself a nice hardware present, or you have a Christmas bonus burning a hole in your pocket). So for those of you who're planning a major, performance-enhancing upgrade soon, I've put together this short article to get you the lay of the land.

Note that this article is primarily focused on high-end and mid-range processor upgrades, but I'll also mention GPUs, because graphics definitely factors into the bang-per-buck equation.
Obligatory, timeless upgrade advice: wait a month or two

My first piece of advice is pretty standard, but it's especially true this time of year: it's best to hold off on a major processor upgrade for a month or two, if you can. The conventional wisdom is that December is typically a bad month for upgrades, because vendors are focused on using the holiday shopping season to move a lot of existing inventory. The new stuff typically comes out after Christmas, so you'll want to wait and partake of the post-Christmas round of updates.

There are rumors that Intel at least will fit the aforementioned pattern this year. For budget-minded gamers, Intel's long-rumored low-end E4300 (codenamed Allendale) is supposed to hit the streets early next year. The E4300 is an underclocked Conroe on an 800MHz FSB, so it's being eagerly awaited by overclockers. So if you really want to save a few extra dollars, it might be better to hold out for the E4300 than to pick up an easily overclockable and relatively inexpensive E6200 or E6300.

On the high end, January 7 is the rumored launch date for a new quad-core part from Intel, the Q6600. This is going to be a bit slower (2.4GHz) and cheaper than the current QX6700, so if you absolutely must have a quad-core chip soon then try to hold out for this one. More on the quad-core issue below, though.

AMD's 65nm Brisbane core (basically a die shrink of the current 90nm Windsor core) is allegedly slated for launch on December 5. These Brisbane chips will have a significantly lower TDP than their current 90nm counterparts, so if you're planning an immediate AMD upgrade just wait a week and pick up one of these.
For those who can't wait

If you absolutely must upgrade this month, you have a few main options from both AMD and Intel.

On the AMD side, the enthusiast options look as follows:

* High-end: AMD Athlon 64 FX-62 Dual Core (2.8GHz, 2x1MB, Socket AM2), $695.99
* Mid-range: AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (2.6GHz, 2x512KB L2, Socket AM2), $350.00

As the list above indicates, mid-range AMD users who're planning on sticking with Socket AM2 are going to want to go with the very competitive Athlon 64 X2 5000+. This chip stands up pretty well to the E6600 in most games, so it makes for a great gaming processor that'll get you started on AM2. As I said above, though, wait a week for the Brisbane version of this part to debut.

For a high-end AMD selection, the Athlon 64 FX-62 is at the top of the Socket AM2 performance pile. But for what it's worth, if you're dying to spend north of $500 on a processor and you're also willing to get a new motherboard, then you'd be better off with the cheaper but higher-performing Core 2 E6700.

On the Intel side, the two best enthusiast choices are the following:

* Core 2 Extreme X6800 (Dual-core, 2.93GHz, 4MB L2, LGA 775), $966.00
* Core 2 Duo E6600 (Dual-core, 2.4GHz, 4MB L2, LGA775), $315.00

Notice that on the high end, I suggested the X6800 instead of the quad-core QX6700. For gamers, the much cheaper X6800 and E6700 beat the quad-core part in terms of raw performance. The vast majority of existing games and other applications do not take advantage of the two extra cores, so you're better off with the latter chips' combination of higher clockspeed (for the X6800) and lower operating system overhead (for both). Note that the story is different for video editors and 3D graphic artists, who will see major benefits from the two extra cores. If you absolutely must spend $1500 on a system upgrade right now, the best way to do it is to buy a X6800 and a GeForce 8800. For any game out there, that combination will handily beat a QX6700 plus a lesser card, and for the same amount of money.

If the application landscape changes in six months to favor quad-core, then you can go out and pick up a (by then) much cheaper quad-core replacement for the X6800.

As for the mid-range, some of you may have noticed that I skipped the E6700 in favor of its slightly lower-clocked sibling, the E6600. This is because I think the Core 2 Duo E6600 is clearly the best mid-range option from Intel. In most of the recent reviews I've read, the E6600, Athlon 64 X2 5000+, and E6700 are all neck-and-neck in most gaming benchmarks. Of course, the E6700 definitely outperforms the E6600, but not by enough to make it worth the $200 price premium. So skip the E6700, and put those extra two bills toward a good video card to go with your E6600.

So to sum up my main points:

* Wait until January or February to upgrade, if you can.
* For gamers who want to spend $1500 on an upgrade, hold off on quad-core for now and buy an X6800 and a GeForce 8800.
* For gamers who want the most bang for about $500, buy an Intel E6600 and good video card. Don't bother with the pricier E6700.
* For socket AM2 gamers who want to spend close to $700 on an upgrade, buy a new motherboard, a Core 2 Duo E6600, put the remaining $200 or so toward a video card. (Maybe sell your old AM2 motherboard on eBay, as well, so you'll have more GPU money.) Skip the AMD Athlon 64 FX-62, unless you're determined to stick with Socket AM2.
* For socket AM2 gamers who want to spend around $300, wait until December 5th and order an Athlon 64 X5000+ Brisbane.

I'm sure many of you will have a different perspective, so drop into the discussion thread and let us know your recommendations for pre-Christmas upgrades.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061129-8313.html
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[b]Maxtor drives get warranty cheer[/b]

11/29/2006 1:57:22 PM, by Jeremy Reimer

Seagate, owner of the Maxtor brand of hard drives since the company's purchase of the hard drive company last December, has announced that it extending the warranty on retail drive kits from one year to three years. The move brings the retail warranty in line with the offer the company previously extended only to bulk OEM purchases.

While not as significant a move as Seagate's 2004 move to standardize on five-year warranties for their own brand, the announcement should be good news for anyone purchasing hard drives at retail. All hard drives have a mean time before failure (MTBF) rating, due to their reliance on high-speed moving parts, so it is nice to have a warranty that lasts longer than one year.

The Maxtor brand name has been somewhat tarnished in recent year due to corporate troubles and manufacturing difficulties that ultimately led to the company being sold to Seagate. Personally, I experienced two 60GB Maxtor hard drive failures over a span of three years, and a friend of mine was unlucky enough to have had three such dead drives (two of them RMAs for the original failed drive!) Recently, Seagate announced that despite the bad image surrounding the Maxtor name, they would continue to use the brand for their "value" line of products, including the DiamondMax desktop and MobileMax laptop series of drives.

This move to extend warranties on the Maxtor line shows that Seagate may be reconsidering their decision to split the line between "value" and "performance" on a strictly brand level. The lack of a longer warranty may have been reinforcing the image of Maxtor drives as unreliable, something Seagate is anxious to end as soon as possible.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061129-8318.html
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US Bans Sales of iPods To North Korea
Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday November 29, @10:34AM
from the kim-on-a-segway-would-be-cute dept.
Businesses Politics
gamer4Life writes "The United States has created their list of products banned from being exported to North Korea. This list includes iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters. U.S. intelligence officials who helped produce the Bush administration's list said Kim prefers Mercedes, BMW and Cadillac cars; Japanese and Harley Davidson motorcycles; Hennessy XO cognac from France and Johnny Walker Scotch whisky; Sony cameras and Japanese air conditioners."



U.S. bans sale of iPods to North Korea


By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 56 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration wants
North Korea's attention, so like a scolding parent it's trying to make it tougher for that country's eccentric leader to buy iPods, plasma televisions and Segway electric scooters. The U.S. government's first-ever effort to use trade sanctions to personally aggravate a foreign president expressly targets items believed to be favored by Kim Jong Il or presented by him as gifts to the roughly 600 loyalist families who run the communist government.
ADVERTISEMENT

Kim, who engineered a secret nuclear weapons program, has other options for obtaining the high-end consumer electronics and other items he wants.

But the list of proposed luxury sanctions, obtained by The Associated Press, aims to make Kim's swanky life harder: No more cognac, Rolex watches, cigarettes, artwork, expensive cars, Harley Davidson motorcycles or even personal watercraft, such as Jet Skis.

The new ban would extend even to musical instruments and sports equipment. The 5-foot-3 Kim is an enthusiastic basketball fan; then-Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright presented him with a ball signed by Michael Jordan during a rare diplomatic trip in 2000. Kim's former secretary, widely believed to be his new wife, studied piano at the Pyongyang University of Music and Dance.

Experts said the sanctions effort ? being coordinated under the
United Nations ? would be the first ever to curtail a specific category of goods not associated with military buildups or weapons designs, especially one so tailored to annoy a foreign leader. U.S. officials acknowledge that enforcing the ban on black-market trading would be difficult.

In Beijing on Wednesday, U.S. and North Korean envoys failed to reach an agreement on when to resume six-party disarmament negotiations on Kim's atomic weapons program. Japan's Kyodo News agency cited unidentified people at the talks as saying that Kim demanded the U.S. freeze sanctions on luxury goods and other items imposed after the North's first nuclear test on Oct. 9.

The population in North Korea, one of the world's most isolated economies, is impoverished and routinely suffers widescale food shortages. The new trade ban would forbid U.S. shipments there of Rolexes, French cognac, plasma TVs, yachts and more ? all items favored by Kim but unattainable by most of the country.

"It's a new concept; it's kind of creative," said William Reinsch, a former senior
Commerce Department official who oversaw trade restrictions with North Korea during
Bill Clinton's presidency. Reinsch predicted governments will comply with the new sanctions, but agreed that efforts to block all underground shipments will be frustrated.

"The problem is there has always been and will always be this group of people who work at getting these goods illegally," Reinsch said. Small electronics, such as iPods or laptops, are "untraceable and available all over the place," he said. U.S. exports to North Korea are paltry, amounting to only $5.8 million last year; nearly all those exports were food.

The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, the trade group for the liquor industry, said it supports the administration's policies toward North Korea. The Washington-based Personal Watercraft Industry Association said it also supports the U.S. sanctions ? although it bristled at the notion a Jet Ski was a luxury.

"The thousands of Americans and Canadians who build, ship and sell personal watercraft are patriots first," said Maureen Healey, head of the trade group. She said it endorsed the ban "because of the narrow nature of this ban and the genuine dangers that responsible world governments are trying to stave off."

Defectors to
South Korea have described Kim giving expensive gifts of cars, liquor and Japanese-made appliances to his most faithful bureaucrats.

"If you take away one of the tools of his control, perhaps you weaken the cohesion of his leadership," said Robert J. Einhorn, a former senior State Department official who visited North Korea with Albright and dined extravagantly there. "It can't hurt, but whether it works, we don't know."

Responding to North Korea's nuclear test Oct. 9, the
U.N. Security Council voted to ban military supplies and weapons shipments ? sanctions already imposed by the United States. It also banned sales of luxury goods but so far has left each country to define such items. Japan included beef, caviar and fatty tuna, along with expensive cars, motorcycles, cameras and more. Many European nations are still working on their lists.

U.S. intelligence officials who helped produce the Bush administration's list said Kim prefers Mercedes, BMW and Cadillac cars; Japanese and Harley Davidson motorcycles; Hennessy XO cognac from France and Johnny Walker Scotch whisky; Sony cameras and Japanese air conditioners.

Kim is reportedly under his physician's orders to avoid hard liquor and prefers French wines. He also is said to own an extensive movie library of more than 10,000 titles and prefers films about James Bond and Godzilla, along with Clint Eastwood's 1993 drama, "In the Line of Fire," and Whitney Houston's 1992 love story, "The Bodyguard."

Much of the U.S. information about Kim's preferences comes from defectors, including Kenji Fujimoto, the Japanese chef who fled in 2001 and wrote a book about his time with the North Korean leader.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061129/ap_o..._ipod_diplomacy
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MS Anti-Piracy Tool Gets More Friendly
By Nate Mook, BetaNews
November 29, 2006, 4:59 PM

Microsoft has rolled out an update to its Windows Genuine Advantage Notifications component, which pops up a notice on the desktop informing users that their operating system is not legitimate. The revision introduces a wizard to improve the installation and validation experience.

WGA is a controversial part of Microsoft's new approach to battle counterfeiting and illegal copying of Windows. The first piece of this initiative, WGA Validation, was launched in July 2005. Microsoft later expanded the program with WGA Notifications.

Although the program is technically "opt-in," WGA is required when downloading software and updates from Microsoft. WGA has been generally well received, but reports surfaced earlier this year that WGA Notifications connects to Microsoft servers on a daily basis, sparking an outcry from privacy advocates.

With the final release of WGA Notifications at the end of June, Microsoft disabled this daily check, although the software does connect to the Redmond company every 90 to 120 days to check for updates. One such update was released yesterday, and adds four known compromised product keys to the validation check.

This means that users running versions of Windows XP installed with those product keys will be notified their operating system is counterfeit and be directed to purchase a new copy. Users who may have unknowingly purchased counterfeit software are eligible for a free genuine copy at no cost as long as they fill out a piracy report as well as provide proof of purchase and surrender the counterfeit CDs.

Microsoft is also hoping to give WGA a more friendly face with the update. A new wizard helps guide users through the installation process while providing more information on how the program works. In addition, customers will be give more details on their validation result, as well as resources to troubleshoot indeterminate results - which is a new category in addition to genuine and non-genuine.

Despite the implications behind Microsoft constantly checking up on a customer's computer, the company says over 60 percent of users who are prompted to install WGA do so. Still, that hasn't stopped two lawsuits stemming from WGA Notifications, alleging that the initial versions violated anti-spyware laws by "phoning home."

The new release of WGA Notifications will be available for download manually from Microsoft's Web site, and is being distributed through Automatic Updates as well.
http://www.betanews.com/article/MS_AntiP...ndly/1164837570
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Wal-Mart to Offer AT&T High-Speed Services
By BetaNews Staff, BetaNews
November 29, 2006, 12:30 PM

AT&T said Wednesday that it had reached a deal with Wal-Mart to offer its high speed Internet service in 570 stores across 13 states. Consumers would be able to learn about and purchase services from Wal-Mart's "Connection Center" kiosks. AT&T pointed to the potential reach of up to 150 million customers who shop in the nation's largest retailer each week as a reason for working with Wal-Mart.

AT&T will also offer Wal-Mart gift cards of $25 for ordering the company's Express service, and $75 cards for ordering Pro and Elite Service. Service fees would begin at $14.99 per month, with no term commitment. "We offer the fastest Internet speeds in the market for the price, which fits perfectly with the Wal-Mart everyday-low-price model," AT&T Consumer chief marketing officer Rick Welday said.
http://www.betanews.com/article/WalMart_...ices/1164818706
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Nero Premium Edition 7.5.9.0a


Author: Nero AG
Date: 2006-11-28
Size: 150 Mb
License: Shareware $70.00
Requires: Win All


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If you don't laugh, you'll cry,


p2pnet.net News:- A spoof is a mocking imitation of someone or something and, "THIS IS A SPOOF !!!!" - I said in an update to p2pnet's RIAA, MPAA Blitz: Part II.

I went on, "I can't believe the number of emails I've had on this, including several from alarmed librarians. That people believed this in spite of all the glaring (I thought) clues says a lot about Hollywood and the corporate music industry,"

The post kicks off with:

It's almost the season of goodwill and Hollywood's MPAA and the Big Four Organized Music cartel's RIAA will be again teaming up to launch Part II of their Christmas Blitz. Called the World Library Copyright Wake Up Drive, the aim is to alert libraries to the danger they're in each time they allow a borrower to remove an unlicensed CD or DVD.

RIAA and MPAA World Library Copyright licenses were hand-delivered to libraries, we said, going on that libraries wold have to charge borrowers an amount equal to 99 cents, or the local equivalent, for every track on a music CD, or $19.99 (or the local equivalent) for every movie DVD.

"Libraries which do not honour the license will be closed until they agree to fullfil their obligations to the record companies and music studios which work so hard to create and make available such superlative product," the post added.

Coincidentally, on the same day I ran RIAA, MPAA Blitz: Part II, in a post, Rob Hyndman referred to another BBSpot story which declared:

The MPAA is lobbying congress to push through a new bill that would make unauthorized home theaters illegal. The group feels that all theaters should be sanctioned, whether they be commercial settings or at home.

Hyndman says he pegged it as a spoof, "but I?ll admit that for a moment I had my doubts".

Back to Blitz: Part II, "PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A JOKE," begged one email and, "This is not really happening ----- is it?" asked a comment post, followed up by, "Despite the footnote, the story is not a spoof. Read the paper below and tell me which features have been implemented so far?"

This linked to a 1997 piece by Richard Stallman called The Right to Read and which includes such gems as:

For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in college - when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.

This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help her - but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrong--something that only pirates would do.

And

Later on, Dan would learn there was a time when anyone could go to the library and read journal articles, and even books, without having to pay. There were independent scholars who read thousands of pages without government library grants. But in the 1990s, both commercial and nonprofit journal publishers had begun charging fees for access. By 2047, libraries offering free public access to scholarly literature were a dim memory.

I also had a brief discussion with one of the librarians who'd emailed me and in her last note, she said:

"Actually, I probably don't spend enough time on copyright law, what with the PATRIOT Act, CIPA, and DOPA, to name a few acronyms to worry about. (If only I could simply concern myself with putting the right book in the right hands at the right time!)"

Actually, she shouldn't have to worry about copyright law at all.

Nor should scouts or young children.

But the reality is: Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, the members of the Big Four Organized Music cartel, and, Hollywood's Big Six movie studios, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, have succeeded in elevating an arcane commercial matter of interest only to them and their bottom lines to the level of major crime, painting their own customers, as well as millions of men, women and children around the world, as "thieves" and "criminals".

As I said in a post following another p2pnet spoof, "Verbal and pictorial lampoons have for centuries been used to focus the public eye on matters of public import".

And when it comes to the entertaiment cartels and copyright, things have reached the point where if you don't laugh, you'll cry.

Cheers! And all the best ...
Jon


p2pnet newsfeeds for your site.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss
Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

(Thursday 30th November 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10600?PHPSESSID=...45470b92af7093d

"THIS IS A SPOOF !!!!"

RIAA, MPAA Blitz: Part II

p2pnet.net News:- It's almost the season of goodwill and Hollywood's MPAA and the Big Four Organized Music cartel's RIAA will be again teaming up to launch Part II of their Christmas Blitz.

Called the World Library Copyright Wake Up Drive, the aim is to alert libraries to the danger they're in each time they allow a borrower to remove an unlicensed CD or DVD.

"Criminal sharing of any kind must be stopped, and that includes stealing copyright content by taking CDs and DVDs out of a library," says the RIAA's Fritz Mainwoe.

"This isn't about us," states the MPAA's Dolph Hilter. "It's about our artists and support staff and their children. It's about honesty and integrity and the American way and the things our forefathers fought for when they wrote the constitution because every time someone takes a DVD out of a library without paying us, an American industry worker is threatened with eviction or even starvation and if we don't stop it, who will?"

Working together, the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) will supervise local police around the world in raids on public libraries offering "illegal" CDs and DVDs.

Called Operation Santa, it's slated to run from December 24 until January 1, 2007, and will be coordinated by the US Department of Justice, supported by investigators from the Department of Homeland Defence and Microsoft, as well as CIA, NSA, RSPCA, SPCA and News Corp staff.

"We've put this together for months to coincide with the Christmas season," says Mainwoe.

RIAA and MPAA legal staff have drawn up World Library Copyright licenses which were hand-delivered in every country which has even one library, say the two entertainment organizations, going on:

"Under the terms of the license, libraries will charge borrowers an amount equal to 99 cents, or the local equivalent, for every track on a music CD, or $19.99 (or the local equivalent) for every movie DVD.

"Libraries which do not honour the license will be closed until they agree to fullfil their obligations to the record companies and music studios which work so hard to create and make available such superlative product."

http://p2pnet.net/story/10570
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30. November 2006 @ 12:22 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
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Nike+ IPod = Surveillance

By Annalee Newitz| Also by this reporter
02:00 AM Nov, 30, 2006

If you enhance your workout with the new Nike+ iPod Sport Kit, you may be making yourself a surveillance target.

A report from four University of Washington researchers to be released Thursday reveals that security flaws in the new RFID-powered device from Nike and Apple make it easy for tech-savvy stalkers, thieves and corporations to track your movements. With just a few hundred dollars and a little know-how, someone could even plot your running routes on a Google map without your knowledge.

The Nike+ iPod gives runners real-time updates about the speed and length of their workouts via a small RFID device that fits into the soles of Nike shoes, and broadcasts workout data to a small receiver plugged into an iPod Nano.

While this setup sounds convenient and cool, it didn't sit well with Scott Saponas, a computer science graduate student at the University of Washington in Seattle. After enjoying his Nike+ iPod for a few months, Saponas began to suspect there might be other, more nefarious uses for the gear.

He brought his concerns to University of Washington computer science professor Yoshi Kohno and fellow graduate students Carl Hartung and Jonathan Lester. After just a few weeks of tinkering, the four researchers discovered that the Nike+ iPod is, as Kohno put it, "an easy surveillance device."

The first problem is that the RFID in the shoe sensor contains its own on-board power source, essentially turning your running shoe into a small radio station capable of being received from up to 60 feet away, with a signal powerful enough to be picked up from a passing car.

Compare this with the roughly 3-centimeter to 10-inch read range of a typical consumer-grade RFID, such as the kind you find in smart tags in Gap clothing or in credit cards, which is passively powered by the reader.

Additionally, the sensor will reveal its unique ID to any Nike+ iPod receiver. With a quick hardware hack that Kohno said "any high school student could do in the garage," the researchers hooked a Nike+ iPod receiver up to a Linux-based "gumstix" -- a tiny, $79 computer that could easily be hidden in door frames, in trees next to jogging trails or in a pocket.

In their report, the researchers detail a scenario in which a stalker who wants to know when his ex-girlfriend is at home taps into her Nike+ iPod system. He simply hides the gumstix device next to her door, and it registers her presence as she passes by in her Nike shoes. If he adds a small "wifistix" antenna to the device, it can transmit this information to any nearby Wi-Fi access point and alert him to her presence via SMS or by plotting her location on Google Maps.

A thief could use a similar set-up to case several houses at once, figuring out when Nike-wearing owners are at home and when they aren't.

Neither Apple nor Nike had comments at press time.

Electronic Frontier Foundation staff attorney Lee Tien says the Nike+ iPod is a harbinger of things to come. "We're going to see more devices like this in the next few years," he said. "This isn't just a problem with the Nike+ iPod per se -- it's a cautionary tale about what happens when companies unwittingly build a surveillance capacity into their products."

UC Berkeley RFID researcher David Molnar agreed with Tien, adding, "This shows a need for independent oversight and investigation of these technologies before they go to market. These things happen because the people building devices don't think about privacy implications."

Molnar also speculated about how easy it would be for a company to build their own tiny readers and deploy them in a large environment, selling the data stream to those who would track spouses or teens, or collect information about how many people wearing Nikes visit malls or movie theaters. "Given that there are no laws about skimming data in California right now, it would be perfectly legal to do it there," he said.

The researchers, for their part, just want to see Apple, Nike and other manufacturers fix the problem. They offer a simple solution in their report, which is to build the sensors to speak to only one reader.

"Using relatively standard cryptographic techniques, you could make it very difficult to listen to broadcasts from somebody else's sensor," said Kohno. He hastened to add that he doesn't believe Apple and Nike purposefully designed the sensors to be surveillance-friendly. "I just think companies should be as aware of privacy issues as they are of safety issues," he said. "Too often, they aren't."
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