How the man in a van outsmarted Microsoft The Age

He has been called a “born creative thinker” and “a man of extraordinarily high principle”. Others consider his inventions frivolous and derivative. Not that Frederick Bailier Richardson III – aka Ric Richardson – particularly cares. As of last week, the 47-year-old inventor, surfer and one-time dirt-biker stands to reap the lion’s share of a $US388 million ($537 million) damages award from Microsoft, after a US jury found the software giant had stolen his technology.

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Worst Censorware Blocks Cannot be Fixed Slashdot

The ACLU is threatening to sue a group of Tennessee School Districts for using blocking software that blocks sites categorized as “LGBT” — that is, sites themed around lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender issues that would not be classified as pornographic. Some of the blocked sites include the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Human Rights Campaign. Legally, the school districts’ decision to block these sites seems fairly indefensible. The content being censored is political speech, not illegal to distribute to minors, and as the ACLU points out, by blocking these sites the school districts are engaging in “viewpoint discrimination”, since the schools allow access to anti-gay sites like Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality (which, ironically, features a disclaimer saying its content is not suitable for children). But, you never can tell with judges. A judge in Utah once ruled in favor of a school that suspended a student for wearing a t-shirt with the word ‘Vegan’. (Do you think the judge would have made the same ruling if the student’s t-shirt had said ‘Christian’?)

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Policy Toolkit Nearly Empty In Bid To Support Local TV Michael Geist

This week a steady stream of television and cable executives will appear in Ottawa before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage to discuss the “evolution of the television industry in Canada and its impact on local communities.” Members of Parliament from all parties will demand to know what companies like Rogers, CTV, and Canwest are prepared to do to ensure that local television broadcasting does not disappear in many smaller and medium sized communities. The current “crisis” feels new, yet the issues are nearly as old as Canadian broadcasting itself. The economics of Canadian broadcasting have relied on a range of policy support mechanisms that include: lucrative commercial substitution, which lets broadcasters substitute Canadian commercials during the simulcast of popular U.S. programs; market protection that has limited local competition; declining programming commitments that allows broadcasters to fill airtime with cheaper foreign programming; and corporate convergence approvals that have resulted in only a handful of big Canadian broadcasters. Broadcasters now argue these measures are insufficient and with the latest round of threats to shut down some local stations, MPs will be anxious to identify solutions to keep broadcasters in business. As they grapple with the issue, the MPs would do well to remember that at least three separate issues are often lumped together into the single umbrella issue of local broadcasting.

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Music and illegality Financial Times

Jazz is illegal. Probably. Isn’t that a shame? Well, at least if the soloist does not pay a licensing fee to the composer of the tune he just quoted in that eight-bar solo. And as for basing an entire song on the famous chord progressions taken from Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm something hundreds of jazz greats have done? Forget about it. Rap is illegal too at least the interesting rap of the 1980s that sampled hundreds or thousands of other tracks to produce a wall of sound. The boringly simplistic thudding rap of today is fine the two or three samples in each song have been cleared through an army of lawyers. The great classical composers? Well, it is a good thing they are not alive today. All those witty quotations, homages? All verboten. Get a licence or do not quote, Ludwig! As for a composer like Charles Ives, who scholars claim practised 14 different forms of borrowing in building his paean to the American musical spirit? Nowadays he would be advised to hire a good lawyer. Under contemporary law in the US,13 of them are illegal.

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Oracle gets Sun for $7.4 billion, MySQL for $0 CNet News

Back in the early days of computing, there was no such thing as a “software vendor.” Companies like IBM sold hardware/software integrated solutions and, really, software was developed simply to sell the value of the hardware. With Monday’s announcement that Oracle is acquiring Sun for $7.4 billion, however, Oracle is signaling its own “iPod moment,” seeking to compete with Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and others in integrated hardware/software systems. It’s a bold move, and not for the faint of heart. But then, no one would ever accuse Oracle of being faint-hearted. “I believe this is the first step down a different path,” Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz said in an e-mail to Sun employees, except that it’s not, as Gordon Haff points out in a post on CNET. What is new in the deal is that Oracle finally gets its wish to own MySQL. In 2007 Oracle offered as much as $850 million for MySQL, the third of its offers for the open-source database company.

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Apple netbooks manufactured by Foxconn rumoured The Inquirer

We’ve picked up on some Chinese whispering which would have us believe Apple could be about to release its very own netbook, with Foxconn Electronics chosen as the fruity toymaker’s main manufacturing partner. Digitimes and a plethora of Russian hardware sites are quoting Chinese-language site Commercial Times, which in turn is quoting sources from the component supply chain. These are whispering that Cupertino has sealed the deal with contract electronics manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry – or Foxconn – to bang out Apple netbooks. Commercial Times says Apple may also be contracting other manufacturers in Asia, but Foxconn seems to be the main firm in the running. The paper added that Apple’s MacBook is already set to become Foxconn’s big boost to notebook shipment growth in Q209. In the past, Foxconn has been contracted by the likes of Dell and HP and has done work for Apple on the Iphone. [Foxconn, you'll recall, once denied claims that workers making iPods labour under poor conditions. ]

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Why Google Is The New Pirate Bay Forbes

If the Swedish site shuts down, search engines could become the new starting points for digital pirates. This week has offered a hard lesson for pirates, both water- and Web-based: Keep a low profile and your illicit business can flourish. But draw too much attention, and you’re likely to get sniped.

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Don Henley sues Senate candidate over song use CNN

Don Henley, a founding member of “The Eagles,” is suing a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, claiming the candidate is misusing two of his popular songs. The suit filed Friday in federal court in California claims Charles DeVore is using Henley’s hit songs “The Boys of Summer” and “All She Wants to Do Is Dance” without authorization. The suit comes from two campaign videos that DeVore posted on YouTube that used Henley’s music, according to the lawsuit. In one of the videos, DeVore’s campaign changed the words of “All She Wants to Do Is Dance” to lyrics that attacked Sen. Barbara Boxer, the lawsuit alleges. Mike Campbell, who co-wrote “Boys of Summer,” is also named as a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

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April, 2009