p2pnet World Headlines – April 16, 2009
ISPs may be liable for illegal downloads Australian IT
The NSW Federal Court has not ruled out the possibility that an ISP could be in direct breach of copyright laws if it provides internet service to individuals that illegally share files on peer-to-peer networks. A group of copyright holders represented by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) put the claim to the court as a part of its copyright case against Perth-headquartered ISP iiNet. Most of AFACT’s original claims against iiNet lodged with the court last year were based on allegations that the ISP indirectly breached their members’ copyright. They alleged that iiNet effectively encouraged customers to engage in copyright breaches by failing to take steps to block illegal file sharing activity on its network. However, on February 19, AFACT lodged an amended statement of claim to the court containing new allegations that iiNet engaged in primary acts of copyright infringement alongside illegal file sharers simply by carrying the data through its network and systems. iiNet’s lawyers sought to have the claim removed from the group’s overall list of claims citing Federal Court rules that allow judges to dismiss matters that are unlikely to succeed before they go to trial. However, today, Federal Court Justice Dennis Cowdroy ordered AFACT to furnish further evidence to back its claim rather than strike it from the proceedings altogether.
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Twitter Film Festival Goes Live at Duke U. Wired Campus
About 30 students at Duke University spent a recent weekend watching YouTube clips and Twittering about them. That may sound like any other campus weekend in these high-tech times, but the hours of tweeting and YouTubing were actually part of the “First Ever Twitter Film Festival,” organized by Duke students taking an introductory film class. After embedding short YouTube clips from 39 movies on a blog and creating a shared Twitter account (twitfilm), the students spent April 4 tweeting their thoughts as different sets of clips were screened every hour. A roundtable Twitter discussion followed the next day.
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Internet used by more than half in U.S. election Reuters
More than half of U.S. adults used the Internet to participate in the 2008 election — the first time that threshold has been crossed, according to a study released Wednesday. Some 55 percent searched for political news online, researched candidate positions, debated issues or otherwise participated in the election over the Internet, the Pew Internet and American Life Project found.
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Security update for Internet Explorer, DirectX and Excel Heise Online
Eight updates from Microsoft aim to patch a total of 23 security vulnerabilities in various components and applications. Microsoft classifies a number of them as critical, because they enable code to be remotely infiltrated and run. On its own, the cumulative update (MS09-014) for Internet Explorer eliminates six vulnerabilities in versions 5, 6 and 7, although not each of them can be found in every version. Some expose users to an attack when they merely visit a crafted web site, though Microsoft reckons that, because of the complexity of these vulnerabilities, it’s very unlikely that practical exploits exist. At least no vulnerability have yet been found in Internet Explorer 8. The MS09-009 and MS09-010 updates eliminate two vulnerabilities in Excel and four in the Wordpad and Office text converters. One of the vulnerabilities in Excel had been known for at least six weeks, and had already been exploited for targeted attacks. There is still no patch for the vulnerability in PowerPoint that came to light last week. Update MS09-011 is intended to correct an error in DirectX 8.1 and 9.0 (a, b, c). This caused a problem in DirectShow when manipulated MJPEG streams were being played back, enabling code to be smuggled in and run.
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Analysis: Ad-Supported Music And Moral Hazard Billboard
As ad-supported music services increase in popularity and falter financially, content owners need to consider the consequences of their negotiations. Lowering rates may provide short-term relief, but doing so may limit the creation of better products and business models. Rather than save a distressed music service and endorse its current business, labels may want to encourage evolution by keeping rates unchanged.
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Nokia’s net profit falls 90 percent CNet News
If you were wondering how bad things have gotten for the mobile handset market, just take a look at Nokia, the world’s largest maker of cell phones. The company on Thursday reported a 90 percent fall in first-quarter net profits as the global recession took a big bite out of demand for mobile devices. For the first quarter, which ended March 31, Nokia said that net profits fell to 122 million euros ($161.3 million). A year earlier the company reported net profits of 1.22 billion euros. Analysts had expected the company to report net profits of about 306 million euros. The company’s sales fell to 9.27 billion euros from 12.66 billion euros last year. This was also below analyst expectations, which were counting on sales of around 9.80 billion euros.
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Microsoft says EU antitrust deadline extended Reuters
Microsoft Corp confirmed on Wednesday a report that it had received a one-week extension from EU antitrust regulators to respond to charges that it had sought to thwart rivals by bundling its web browser with Windows systems. “Microsoft confirms that the new deadline for the company to respond to the Commission’s statement of objections is April 28,” a spokeswoman said, referring to an unsourced reference to a new deadline reported on the website of the Financial Times. A spokeswoman for the European Commission said she could not immediately comment.
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After Police Confiscate His Computer, Boston College Student Fights Back Wired Campus
A Boston College undergraduate has asked a judge in Massachusetts to invalidate a search warrant issued to the police last month that led to the seizure of the student’s computers, iPod, cellphone, digital camera, and other electronic devices. Boston College police officers, working with state law-enforcement officers, made the search of his dormitory room as part of an investigation into allegations that the student, Riccardo Calixte, broke into a campus computer system to change grades and possessed a digital collection of pirated movies and music, among other things. No charges have been filed against Mr. Calixte.
April, 2009
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April 16th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
@Nokia:
Okay, this “headline” is actually pretty dumb.
Let’s forget the fact that in many areas there are more mobile devices than there are people (the penetration figures are thus above 100 percent.) So when everybody has five or six devices, the company can’t really expect them to keep buying more — how many people need twenty phones with the same functionality?
Let’s also ignore the fact that — absent so-called “power-users” — a lot of people don’t even know what brand their phone is, and/or just take whatever their carrier provides them (The “Free phone” with contract phenomenon.)
Now, at least in the U.S., the tendency has been for carriers to intentionally cripple most of their devices (so that people had to “buy” ringtones from the carrier instead of being able to import their own etc.) So it’s not particularly suprising that many carriers would opt for phones with a smaller feature-set. Prime example of this is something called “The Jitterbug”, specifically designed for people who want cellphones to be like PHONES, instead of the “smartphones” with as much processing power as your average laptop of a few years ago.
The only way to REALLY know whether “the global economic downturn” was having an effect (and what KIND) would be for someone to do an across-the-board study of all brands, with sales figures broken down by feature-set (so you wouldn’t be able to lump high-end “smartphones” and “Jitterbugs” together into the same statistic, since they’re actually optimized for very different demographics.)
Basic rule of thumb: after your market penetration is “100 percent”, your sales are GOING to slow down. It’s been known for years that there’s a very predictable pattern: a relatively-small “early adopter” clique followed by a mass explosion, and then a fairly-steady trend after the product becomes “mature”.
Well, cellphones and other “mobile devices” became ubiquitous at least three years ago, so trying to blame the “mature” phase of product development on “economic slowdow” is kinda shifty, to me.
Plus, I’d really love to know who these “analysts” predicting the sales-figures were. I’m always suspicious of blurbs containing allusions to “experts” or “a study” or suchlike, myself. Read the article on “Weasel words”, and you’ll definitely learn something.
The free publicity for the “suffering” Nokia corporation won’t hurt their sales figures any, either….
April 16th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Sorry, I should have specified the WIKIPEDIA article on “Weasel words”. I’m definitely a fan, not so much of Wikipedia as such, but of the “open content” paradigm.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
How ridiculous is that? How about making the mail system liable if people mail each other copied discs?
Will ISPs also be liable for people distributing kiddie porn or for swapping conspiracy plans for another terrorist bombing?
Thank god I don’t live in Australia.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
“ISPs liable for illegal downloads”
Well I like this.
Since the ISP’s are putting in a P2Ptax in Canada and profiting off of anyone who uses P2P or downloads, then it makes sense that users not be held liable, but rather only the executives who are profiting off of this. Bell, Cogeco, Rogers, videotron and anyone else who uses UBB with such low caps.
I say bring this to Canada.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
“ISPs liable for illegal downloads”
“Will ISPs also be liable for people distributing kiddie porn or for swapping conspiracy plans for another terrorist bombing?”
Why not? It would follow the exact same reasoning.
This is also a demonstration of why I keep saying that providers shouldn’t be allowed to have it both ways…
Either you’re a “dumb pipe” with zero liability that’s required to keep all things moving, or you’re a corporate-ass-kissing packet-sniffing control freak who has decided to toss away your “common carrier” status, thereby making you liable for everything.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
I must’ve tossed away my p2pnet cookie.
That was s’posed to be me @7:13pm
(In case it matters.)
: )
April 16th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
That was s’posed to be me
shud we care?
April 16th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
Well that’s what I meant. They should be held liable for all. No exception.
Very well said BTW.
==
“Either you’re a “dumb pipe” with zero liability that’s required to keep all things moving, or you’re a corporate-ass-kissing packet-sniffing control freak who has decided to toss away your “common carrier” status, thereby making you liable for everything.”.
==
April 16th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
“shud we care?”
Some people actually do.
When you get several “Reader’s Write” posts, it can sometimes become confusing trying to determine how many actual viewpoints are being voiced.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
SHouldn’t matter. Take it as a whole or take it individually.
What people to reg?
pffft
April 16th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/spanish-internet-community-unites-against-new-anti-p2p-minister-of-culture/2009/04/08
Yet another Minister of Fucking Culture.
Christine Albanel (Minister of culture of France) and Josee Verner (Heritage minister of Canada).