[Ottawa] Academics blast university’s ‘snitch line’ Ottawa Citizen
The University of Ottawa has introduced what it calls an “honesty, integrity and transparency” reporting tool and what professors call a “snitch line.” In a e-mail to staff, acting vice-president of governance Nathalie Des Rosiers said the university has approved a policy on fraud and safe disclosure and “it is the duty of each employee to immediately report any incidents of wrong-doing related to University activities.” To that end, the university has introduced a trademarked system called ClearView Connects “a tool that allows employees to report quickly, anonymously and in complete confidence any incidents of theft, misappropriation of funds, falsification of documents, vandalism, unethical behaviour, etc.” Whistleblowers can provide information online or to a live operator on a hotline operated by ClearView. Reports are forwarded to Des Rosiers’ office. Phil Enright, executive vice-president of sales said the service is not a snitch line. It’s a communications tool to allow the organization to work better,” he said from Toronto. [Comment: ah.]

Recording artists claim their music is being boycotted over royalties BetaNews
The fight over whether US terrestrial radio broadcasters should pay the same performers’ royalties that Internet streaming radio broadcasters are paying, is getting extremely nasty. In a Facebook post this morning, the musicFIRST Coalition — a group of recording artists who actively lobby in favor of equal royalties on all platforms — stated it has filed a formal complaint with the Federal Communications Commission. In that complaint, the Coalition alleges that terrestrial broadcasters are actively boycotting airplay for its members’ music.

Cartoon lion urges Lancs kids to dob in terrorist classmates The Register
Primary schoolchildren in Lancashire are to be shown a police-produced film warning about the danger from terrorists, and urging them to report anyone with “extremist views” to the authorities. The film will be shown to “more than 2,000″ ten and eleven-year-olds by school liaison officers.

Apparently If You Work For The AP, You’re Not Allowed To Criticize Newspaper Management TechDirt
Want yet another example of the Associated Press’ out-of-date approach to things (as if there weren’t enough already)? The organization apparently officially reprimanded a reporter, Richard Richtmyer, who made an offhand comment on his Facebook page, mildly criticizing the management of McClatchy, a large newspaper chain (and, of course, an AP member). On the whole, the comment (about trouble at McClatchy) was pretty benign:…

Film, TV music composers urge copyright law change Reuters
Nathan Barr has scored horror films like “Hostel” and the HBO vampire series “True Blood,” but what really keeps the composer up at night is fear he will not get paid for music distributed online. “‘True Blood’ is my first big show for TV and it’s definitely going to see a lot of play on the Internet. It’s a big issue for me,” Barr, 36, told Reuters in an interview. “I don’t understand why composers don’t get paid if someone downloads it.” The issue is the latest digital copyright debate pitting creators in the entertainment industry on one side and studios, broadcasters, cable operators and technology companies on the other. Barr underscores how a growing number of artists — writers, actors and, yes, composers — feel they are not fairly compensated for content distributed on the Internet.

Court: Accidental file sharing is not a crime P2P Blog
A German court has ruled that a user can’t be criminally prosecuted for files that he unknowingly shared on a P2P network, according to heise.de. The case in question was about a user who had downloaded some “violent pornography.” The file sharing client he used for these downloads automatically shared files saved in its incoming folder with other users of the network, but the defendant maintained that he hadn’t been aware of this function. A lower court found him guilty nonetheless, arguing that an active user of a P2P client should be able to understand how it works, including the fact that it might share all downloaded data. The District Court of Oldenburg however disagreed, ruling that the name of the “incoming” folder suggested that these files weren’t also going out to other users.

Phorm gets £15m lifeline The Register
Phorm has today raised a £15m war chest by selling almost a fifth of itself to institutional investors at less than a quarter of its price last year. It’ll use the cash to cover its operating costs while ISPs continue to mull its web monitoring and profiling system.

Symantec, McAfee cough up $750,000 on auto-renewals The Register
Symantec and McAfee have agreed to pay $375,000 apiece to settle charges they charged fees against customer credit cards without authorization. Under a settlement announced Wednesday by New York attorney general Andrew Cuomo, the antivirus software makers also agreed to more clearly disclose any automatic renewal fees and provide a transparent and automated way for customers to opt out of them… “Customers have a right to know what they are paying, especially when they are unwittingly agreeing to renewal fees that will not appear on their credit card bill for months,” the release went on to say.

Indian outsourcers prepare for US trade war The Register
India’s outsourcers are girding their loins for a trade war with the US over Barack Obama’s attack on US companies who export jobs and hide profits overseas… Yesterday, India began its counterattack. Som Mittal, president of trade group Nasscom, told a meeting in Bangalore, India, that the US administration’s plans could spark retaliation from Delhi, if they started hurting India’s crucial outsourcing industry. The Times of India said that Mittal warned that if the US followed through on its protectionist threats, “This war could get started off”… Mittal pointed that India was a big market for many American products – including defence equipment – so its government had plenty of screws it could turn if Obama follows through on its threats.

Facebook disables ‘hate Muslims’ group CNet News
While it stopped short of changing its stance with respect to Holocaust-denial groups on its Web site, Facebook has confirmed that it has disabled a group I brought attention to on Saturday, called “I Hate Muslims in Oz.” “We disabled the ‘I Hate Muslims in Oz’ group a day or so ago because it contained an explicit statement of hate. Where Holocaust-denial groups have done this and been reported, we’ve taken the same action,” Facebook’s Barry Schnitt said in an e-mail Wednesday.

Google unfazed by 3 US government inquiries Associated Press
Google Inc. doesn’t believe it needs to change its ways despite three separate U.S. government inquiries into whether some of the Internet search leader’s actions are thwarting competition. “There is no reason to be upset or surprised with the scrutiny,” Dana Wagner, Google’s competition counsel, told reporters Wednesday. “It comes with the territory.” With technology playing an increasingly important role in society and Google steering most of the Internet’s traffic, Wagner said it’s understandable why the Obama administration is taking a close look at the Mountain View-based company.

T-Mobile downplays hacking fears The Register
T-Mobile USA is fighting suggestions its systems were breached by hackers with a new statement clarifying that although the limited data posted on an underground forum was genuine its ongoing investigation has uncovered no evidence of a wider compromise. T-Mobile issued a further (more emphatic) statement on Wednesday stating it had uncovered “no evidence that customer information, or other company information, has been compromised”…

Texas Politicians Want To Make It A Felony To Create Intimidating Fake Online Profiles TechDirt
The latest in a long line of questionable “cyberbullying” legislation has shown up in Texas, where the legislature has approved a bill that would make it a felony to create a fake social networking profile with intent to “harm, defraud, intimidate, or threaten” anyone. Of course, that seems rather broad.

Video Game Companies Still Bitching About Used Game Sales TechDirt
This has been discussed before, but apparently one of the big topics at E3 last week was video game publishers again being upset about the fact that they don’t get a cut of used game sales. What they never seem to mention, however, is that there’s simply no reason for them to get a cut of those sales. When you sell your house, do you get a cut of every sale after that?

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Case Over Computer Tech’s Right To Search Your Computer TechDirt
A few years back, we wrote about the case where a guy was arrested for possessing child pornography after techs at Circuit City found child porn on his computer, while they were installing a DVD player. The guy insisted that the evidence shouldn’t be admissible since the techs shouldn’t have been snooping through his computer — and a lower court agreed. The appeals court, however, reversed, noting that the guy had given Circuit City the right to do things on his computer — including testing out the newly installed software (which is how the tech claims he found the video). The guy appealed to the Supreme Court, who has declined to hear the case, meaning that the ruling stands for the time being.

iAwful – Internet Advocates’ Watchlist for Ulgy Laws Netchoice
Reckless and misguided laws, often originating at the state level, threaten to undermine the foundation of the free and open Internet. Some of the most serious threats to the Internet come in the form of lawmakers trying to ‘fix’ it…. NetChoice is a coalition of online companies dedicated to promoting commerce, choice and convenience on the ‘Net. We’ll discuss some of the key public policy issues affecting online services, including proposed laws and regulations, the imposition of new taxes, and online safety and security.

EU tells the US to allow online gambling The Inquirer
The EU has told the US to abandon its 17th century puritan roots and allow Internet gambling, just like it finally allowed drinking and dancing early in the last century. According to the AP the former English Colony of Virginia has been a laughing stock with its attempts to impose penalties on those who want a flutter online. Every time the US has appealed to the world to back its medieval attitude towards gambling the world courts have told it to get a life. Now the European Union has urged the United States to open talks on scrapping its ban on foreign online gambling companies, saying that breaks global trade rules.

BT has made it clear it thinks video sites need to pay up to cover increased broadband costs ITPro
BT is tired of the BBC and other video sites getting a “free ride” on its networks. Last week, the news broke that BT was “throttling” the BBC’s iPlayer video streaming system at peak times, which the broadcaster said was hurting viewers’ ability to watch television online. John Petter, managing director of BT Retail’s consumer business, has now accused the BBC of getting a “free ride”.

Student challenges prof, wins right to post source code he wrote for course BoingBoing
Kyle Brady writes, “Thanks to some perseverance and asking the right questions, SJSU professors are now prohibited from barring students from posting their code solutions online, as well as penalizing their students for doing so. A win for students, programmers, and copyfighters nationwide!” Kyle’s a student at San Jose State University who was threatened with a failing grade for posting the code he wrote for the course — he wanted to make it available in the spirit of academic knowledge-sharing, and as code for potential future employers to review — and when he refused, his prof flew into a fury and promised that in future, he would make a prohibition on posting your work (even after the course was finished) a condition of taking his course.

Marc – p2pnet

Follow p2pnet on Twitter.

June, 2009