Time to slay Canadian file-sharing myths The Star
This month marks the tenth anniversary of the debut of Napster, the peer-to-peer file-sharing service that had a transformative effect on the music and Internet services industries. While many commentators have marked the anniversary by reassessing Napster’s impact and speculating on what lies ahead, now is also a suitable time to put to rest two myths about file sharing in Canada. The two myths that dominate debate are: all file sharing is legal in Canada and, perhaps as a consequence of this, that Canada leads the world in illegal file-sharing activity. Neither claim is true  …

UK ‘must log’ phone and web use BBC
All internet and phone traffic should be recorded to help the fight against terrorism, according to one of the UK’s former spy chiefs. Civil rights campaigners have criticised ministers’ plans to log details of such contact as “Orwellian”.

Appeals Court Brings Back Lawsuit Over Possible Antitrust Violations Over .com Registry TechDirt
For a long time, there have been accusations of questionable sweetheart deals by ICANN and whoever got to manage certain top level domains — with no controversy bigger than the question of why VeriSign got to retain the .com and .net registries, and raise prices on it, without any opportunity for other providers to bid on the business (for the .com registry at least — there was bidding on .net)… an appeals court has reversed the lower court, and will allow the lawsuit to proceed, which could mean problems for VeriSign (and potentially cheaper domain name registrations). [Additional: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/06/05/BUQI181P2R.DTL&type=tech The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco reinstated a suit accusing VeriSign Inc. of colluding with the government-backed nonprofit that oversees domain names to fix prices and lock out competition.]

AOL User 927 Gets Staged Reading In New York The Consumerist
Back in Aug ‘06, a researcher ended up releasing 500,000+ AOL user search histories online and all sort of heck broke loose. One of the pieces of fallout was the search queries of User 927, who displayed a fondness for mold, mange, orchids, beauty and the beast disney porn and testicle festivals. The only sensible thing to do, of course, was to make it into a play. User 927, “a thriller about cyberstalking, search engines, and the way information is obtained, manipulated, and released in our wired world,” is getting a staged reading this Wednesday at LAByrinth Theater Co. in New York …

US cuts off ‘criminal’ net firm BBC
An American ISP allegedly involved in distributing spam and images of child abuse has been thrown off the net… The FTC alleges that Pricewert had created one of the “leading US-based havens for illegal, malicious, and harmful content”… Talking to technology news site Network World, a spokesman for Pricewert said the action was “unfair” and it would take legal action to defend itself.

The Changing Meaning of  ‘Unauthorized Access’ Princeton University.
In recent years, the law has been asked to respond to a variety of disputes involving accessibility of information and related technical standards and practices. These disputes cover the waterfront from the design of proprietary media players to network neutrality to privacy protection for search queries. So far, the law has been unable to generate compelling discourses and principles for evaluating them… Attention to the demands of everyday practice suggests that the law should shelter hacking and tinkering in many instances, and explains why those activities are valuable both intrinsically and instrumentally. [Found via BoingBoing: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/08/great-law-lecture-on.html]

Fight zombies, gameshow hosts, and copyright abuse Brain Chef
Online Web game – Brain Chef, “A fun addictive browser game. Simple to play, choose to be a human or a zombie and move around the map hunting other online players. Humans want to kill zombies. Zombies want to kill humans. Everyone wants to kill SecuROM.”

Last chance to tell the CRTC: Canadians deserve Al Jazeera Rabble
Two networks of groups, Canadians for Al Jazeera and Campaign for Democratic Media, have partnered in a campaign to support Al Jazeera English’s CRTC application to broadcast in Canada. Canada’s broadcast regulator is accepting public comments until June 8. These groups have already generated in excess of a thousand letters from the public in the hopes of giving Canadians the choice of watching a truly independent global news network among the overwhelming 500-channel universe currently available. Al Jazeera English, founded in 2006, joined the Al Jazeera Network, to have its own distinctive ‘Al Jazeera effect’ — changing the direction of the news flow to South to North and giving voice to the voiceless. Its independence from commercial and political pressure is challenging the paradigm of other news networks where there is increasing corporate concentrations of media ownership… The CRTC’s 30-day consultation period giving Canadians an opportunity to comment on AJE’s application to air in Canada ends today — June 8, 2009. To send a letter to the CRTC visit http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/al_jazeera

IBM sues the Philippines The Inquirer
Philippines sues back – BIGGISH BLUE and the Philippine government are engaged in a handbag war in that country’s courts after a government agency accused IBM of flogging faulty software. According to the AP, it all started when the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) ran an advertising campaign claiming that IBM had sold it faulty software.

Apple Gets Pwned, SF Store Is Now Advertising DVD Jon’s doubleTwist TechCrunch
Apple may be known for its advertising prowess, but this little marketing coup is going to go down as one of the most hilarious ad placements in recent history. doubleTwist, the company co-founded by renowned software reverse engineer DVD Jon, has managed to place a banner for its product directly next to the main entrance to Apple’s flagship San Francisco store. The ad invites passersby to try “The Cure for iPhone Envy”, which they can use to access their “iTunes Library on any device. In Seconds”. It’s clearly a message that Apple doesn’t want anything to do with. We’re hearing that Apple employees are currently scratching their heads as to how this appeared. So how did this wind up only a few feet from the store’s entrance, and directly beneath a giant Apple logo?… While DVD Jon has a long history of reverse engineering digital media security, doubleTwist is a perfectly legitimate software application that makes it easy to manage media files for a variety of hardware devices. It’s sort of like iTunes, except it works for nearly any device — not just your iPod and iPhone (you can find an extensive overview here, and the app now supports both Windows and Mac).

School worker’s Facebook post prompts suspension The Register
A member of staff at a school near Cleethorpes has been suspended on full pay for more than two months for briefly commenting on the behaviour of pupils on Facebook. The 35-year-old woman, Mrs M, who worked as a cover supervisor at Humberston Comprehensive School close to the Lincolnshire seaside town, is currently awaiting the result of an investigatory hearing, which could lead to her dismissal… The woman is unable to discuss her case publicly due to confidentiality rules surrounding disciplinary procedures. People close to the case, however, claimed her Facebook profile made no mention of the Humberston Comprehensive School.

La Russa & The AP Claims Twitter Settled Lawsuit… Twitter Sets The Record Straight TechDirt
Last week, St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa sued Twitter over a fake account made in his name. La Russa had no case. However, the AP reported that Twitter settled, deleted the account and agreed to donate an undisclosed sum to a La Russa-backed charity. This seemed like a really bad idea, because it would just encourage others who had fake accounts opened up to sue. Hell, if someone were really sneaky, they could get a friend to open up a fake account, and then go and sue Twitter to get some settlement money. Giving in to bullies with no legal basis can come back to haunt you. But… Twitter is claiming the story is not true…

Activision Sues EA Over Ownership Of Brutal Legend Video Game TechDirt
Back in February, we wrote about the saga of the video game Brutal Legend, which was being developed by game studio Double Fine, with an agreement for Vivendi Games to publish it. However, following Vivendi’s merger with Activision, the new company had dropped plans to release the game, leading Double Fine to go in search of another publisher — which it found in Activision’s biggest rival, EA. Except… suddenly Activision claimed it still owned the rights to publish the game even though it had no intention to actually do so. Apparently nothing came of that discussion until now… just as EA has ramped up its promotion of Brutal Legend, Activision has sued.

Council Of Europe: Access To Internet Is A Fundamental Right IP-Watch
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/06/08/council-of-europe-access-to-internet-is-a-fundamental-right/#more-4290
What applies offline is also valid online – an argument often used against internet communication by legislators – has been turned around to underline fundamental rights on the internet in a new resolution of the Council of Europe.

La. House backs 15-cent charge on Internet access Washington Post
A 15-cent monthly surcharge should be levied on Internet access across Louisiana to fight online criminal activity, the House voted 81-9 Thursday, over the opposition of Gov. Bobby Jindal… While White called it a usage fee, opponents called the charge a tax on Internet access. They also have questioned whether it would violate a federal law that prohibits states from taxing Internet services and would be challenged in court. “Today it’s Internet access. Tomorrow, what’s it going to be? A subscription to DirecTV?” said Rep. Austin Badon, D-New Orleans.

Follow p2pnet on Twitter.

June, 2009