M&Mâs World Headlines: Mar 10/11, 2009
March 10
EMI`s Outrageous Lawsuit Against Developer Takes Its Toll Tech Crunch
Last month I wrote about a lawsuit filed by major record label EMI against Seeqpod, the questionably-legal free streaming music site. The suit isn`t Seeqpod`s first (Warner sued them last year), but it is notable for taking the music industry`s war against the web to a new low. Beyond naming a number of Seeqpod executives as part of the suit, EMI also decided to sue a hapless third party developer named Ryan Sit, who happened to use the Seeqpod API in one of his projects. Now Sit is being forced to shut down one of his projects – a lifestreaming service dubbed Swurl that launched last summer. I`ll leave the legality of Seeqpod for the courts to decide (the site doesn`t actually host any music files – it finds them scattered on pages across the web and streams them into its media player). But as I wrote last month, its case against Ryan Sit is ridiculous. Sit is a prolific developer who uses many APIs from different web services, and used Seeqpod`s API just as dozens of similar sites have before him. Suing him sets a precedent that could make developers weary of using any API, for fear that the service they`re tapping into could be doing something potentially illegal.
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Facebook helps nab tagger suspect CNet
A little advice for all you fledgling vandals out there: if you’re going to spray-paint the same doodle on properties throughout the province, you might not want to advertise that fact on Facebook. Officers say they were investigating a series of graffiti complaints in Selkirk and the rural municipalities of St. Andrews and St. Clements involving a cartoon face spray- painted on bridges, signs, properties and residences. The officers were later alerted to the fact the same design had appeared on Facebook — a tip that led them to an 18-year-old St. Clements man.
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UK gov gets twitchy on Google feature creep The Register
Google’s Latitude is a feature of Mobile Maps, and allows one to share one’s location with selected friends. Most concerns revolve around the premise that users might be “encouraged” to count their boss amongst those “friends”, but the Early Day Motion is more specific in asking that the UK Government “examine the privacy implications of Google Latitude and to take action to ensure that Latitude does not represent a privacy threat”. The problem with Latitude is Google’s publicity machine, and the awareness it generates. Mobile-phone users are still, generally, unaware that their location is being tracked and stored by the operator, and few are aware of applications such as Nokia’s sports tracker that offer the same capability. So while Google doesn’t bring anything technically new to the market, it does bring it with a lot more noise.
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Microsoft Shoots Own Foot In Iceland Slashdot
“The Microsoft Certified Partner model is: an MCP buys contracts from Microsoft and sells them to businesses as a three-year timed contract, payable in annual installments. With icelands economic collapsed, MS is saying “Pay up”, causing more economic grief. Those that don’t go bankrupt in turn are moving headlong to Free Software. Story is continued at this URL under the title, “Microsoft Skull-fucks Iceland`s Economy, Contracts Syphilis”.
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UK Government Wants To Kill Net Neutrality In EU Slashdot
“Not content with snooping on all Internet activity, the UK government now wants to introduce changes to the contentious EU Telecoms Package, which will kill net neutrality in the EU: ‘Amendments to the Telecoms Package circulated in Brussels by the UK government, seek to cross out users’ rights to access and distribute Internet content and services. And they want to replace it with a “principle” that users can be told not only the conditions for access, but also the conditions for the use of applications and services.
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New Zealand’s Recording Industry CEO Tries to Defend New Draconian Law Slashdot
“Campbell Smith, CEO of the RIAA equivalent in New Zealand, has written an opinion piece for one of New Zealand’s largest daily papers http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10560605&ref=rss explaining how its ok to cut internet users off after a complaint is made about filesharing.
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How the wireless industry stifles innovation Canwest
Public frustration over the state of the Canadian wireless industry has generally focused on consumer-oriented concerns including pricey data plans, misleading system access fees, and text- message charge policies. Given the consumer focus, the effect on Canadian business is rarely discussed. That is set to change as one of Canada’s leading media companies has stepped forward with explosive allegations about how the wireless industry is engaged in practices that stifle innovation by privileging access or controlling content on their networks.
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Pirate Party Politician Fired for His Political Views TorrentFreak
The Pirate Party has gathered a huge following in Sweden. More than half of all men under 30 are considering voting for the party in the upcoming European Parliament elections. However, being affiliated with the party is not without risks – even in a democracy.
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Excellent podcast on privacy risks of RFIDs BoingBoing
This week on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s excellent Search Engine podcast, host Jesse Brown has posted part one of a fantastic interview with Ann Cavoukian about the risks associated with RFID-enabled identity cards and other personal objects and devices.
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U.S. allies told to review role in secret renditions-Canada cited Reuters
Martin Scheinin, U.N. special rapporteur on protecting human rights while countering terrorism, cited “credible” reports that the United States sent suspects for interrogation at covert detention centers in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, as well as CIA-run “black sites” through at least May 2007. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Britain, Canada, Croatia, Georgia, Indonesia, Kenya, Macedonia and Pakistan appear to have provided intelligence or carried out the initial seizure of a suspect, according to Scheinin. Terrorism suspects were transferred to Afghanistan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Pakistan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Thailand and Uzbekistan, he said in the 26-page report.
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Amy Winehouse banned from entering US after alleged assault CNet
BRITISH singer Amy Winehouse will not get a work visa to travel to the United States in time to perform at a music festival because she was charged with assault last week, her spokesman said.
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Open Source emergency dispatch OpenISES destroyed by patent threat 2009 Wikileaks
This document contains a simple, guided system for processing calls for emergency aid. It was created free of charge and distributed with the OpenISES system but was removed from distribution and destroyed due to a patent threat from Priority Dispatch Corporation. This document has the potential to help save lives in areas that cannot afford proprietary emergency response scripts. 3. Emergency dispatch offices in areas unable to afford proprietary scripts (especially overseas where U.S. Patent Law does not apply), developers and emergency response personnel wishing to continue the project, and bloggers and journalists wishing to document some of the unsavory ways companies utilize the patent system.
March 11
Italian bloggers call for support from around the world to fight blogger-licensing in Italy Boingboing
Last week, I gave a talk in Milan and had the immense pleasure of sitting down to lunch with Davide Casaleggio and his colleagues, who work with provocateur, dissident and comedian Beppo Grillo on issues related to social justice and media in Italy. Now Davide sends along this call-to-action for bloggers around the world to help fight an initiative to force Italian bloggers to be licensed by the state.
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Law 2.0: JD Supra Frees Legal Content Techcrunch
Startup JD Supra is hoping to merge user generated content with the legal community. Founded by attorney Aviva Cuyler and launched last year, the site enables lawyers, law firms, and legal professionals to publish legal documents online. The source is credited for his or her work via a LinkedIn-like profile on the site. Access is free and anyone can search the database of memos, court filings, agreements and more. The site takes advantage of the notion that lawyers are active content creators and there should be a centralized place where this content can be uploaded, indexed and shared for free.
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Lawmaker wants Google Maps to blur certain buildings ZDnet
magine if all the hospitals, schools, churches, and government buildings that appear on online maps were nothing but blurs. That would not only reduce the usefulness of things like Google Maps and Google Earth, but it would be a huge undertaking for Google and would probably violate the First Amendment. But that’s exactly what California Assemblyman Joel Anderson, a Republican from El Cajon, is proposing in a measure dubbed “AB-255.” As justification for the proposed censorship, Anderson is citing terrorism.
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CRTC approves obituary channel Globe and Mail
Quebec entrepreneur seeks backing to bring death notices and tributes to the small screen. The French-language channel, which would air in Quebec, amounts to a TV version of the paid death notice pages in newspapers, giving families the chance to have sound, music, photos, video, text and other testimonials broadcast about their loved ones. [comment: Channel Death, sweet!]
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Wal-Mart Plans to Market Digital Health Records System New York Times
The company plans to team its Sam`s Club division with Dell for computers and eClinicalWorks, a fast-growing private company, for software. Wal-Mart says its package deal of hardware, software, installation, maintenance and training will make the technology more accessible and affordable, undercutting rival health information technology suppliers by as much as half.[Comment: yeah I want wal-mart involved with my personal and private medical data.. yup, I look as forward to this as channel death]
March, 2009
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March 11th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
“CRTC approves obituary channel”
Can’t wait to place an obituary to the music industry.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:22 am
then the movie network and ….
lol