p2pnet World Headlines – June 23, 2009
Out of balance Ottawa Citizen
Balancing security and privacy is one of the trickiest challenges in public policy. Unfortunately, the federal government has come up short in its proposed legislation allowing agents of the state to monitor the Internet use of ordinary Canadians.
Clement vows to boost high-tech sector Vancouver Sun
Industry Minister Tony Clement says copyright and privacy act reform will be at the top of his fall legislative agenda, two key areas he believes will help boost Canada’s high-tech industry. Several industry ministers have tried unsuccessfully to move Canada’s copyright laws into the digital age but have found balancing the rights of users, who often want more freedom to manipulate digital content, against the rights of content producers, who generally favour a tougher American-style approach to locking down digital music, movies, software and more.
Debate flares on [AU] net rules Australian IT
Sydney will this week host a heated international debate on the regulation of the internet, as its peak governance body resists pressure from Europe to become more independent of the US. The private, non-profit body ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which runs the internet’s network address system under contract from the US government, will hold its triennial international meeting in Sydney this week… They will also discuss plans and proposals to make some of the biggest changes to the internet ever attempted.
Fresno spammers plead guilty The Business Journal
Two Fresno men pleaded guilty today to a slew of federal charges for their part in a spam stock fraud scheme. The pair entered guilty pleas in a federal courtroom in Detroit along with so-called Michigan spam King Alan Ralsky, who sent out millions of span emails to create excitement about Chinese stocks.
German Court Rules Against Rapidshare BillBoard
The Regional Court of Hamburg has ruled in favor of German collecting society GEMA, which had requested that the court issue an order prohibiting file-hosting service rapidshare.com from making around 5,000 music tracks available on the Internet.
Report: Twitter Users Buy More Music BillBoard
A new NPD Group study finds that active Twitter users buy 77% more digital music downloads on average than non-users. Additionally, 12% of those who have bought music in the last three months also report having used Twitter, versus 8% of overall Web users.
Mexico signs agreement with Google to publicize archeology Canoe
Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History signed an agreement with Google Mexico to promote archeological and historical sites in a bid to revive tourism following the swine flu epidemic.
Now Video Wants To Be Free And Open Too: IP Policy Considerations IP-Watch
Video is becoming an increasingly important communication tool on the web, but questions must be asked about its future, said speakers a recent conference. Will it be a medium of self-expression, available for all, or a translation of television to the internet, where content is provided by some and consumed by the rest? A gathering of technologists, academics, filmmakers and others in New York last week issued a call for a freer video culture…. The Power of Pirates; Small Creators Sing the Blues – At the Open Video event, author Matt Mason argued “one of the best ways to grow your business is to give pirates the space to innovate on your ideas.”
EU, US Consumer Groups Issue Resolution On Enforcement; Demand Role In ACTA IP-Watch
The resolution calls for a halt to the plurilateral negotiation of an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) led by the United States, until the negotiating texts are made available to consumer groups and other conditions are met.
Court Says Anti-Telemarketing Law Covers Unsolicited Text Messaging TechDirt
Via Michael Scott we learn that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has found that the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) also applies to unsolicited text messages. The TCPA covers certain kinds of commercial marketing over telephones, and has a rule against the use of “automatic telephone dialing systems,” but it wasn’t clear if text messaging was an automatic telephone dialing system. The court has now said yes.
Social networking big boys must bow to EU data laws The Register
Social networking sites are legally responsible for their users’ privacy, Europe’s privacy watchdogs have confirmed. A committee of data protection regulators has said that the sites are ‘data controllers’, with all the legal obligations that brings. Users of the sites are also data controllers with legal obligations when they are posting on behalf of a club, society or company, the opinion said.
New Facebook blog: We can hack into your profile CNet news
Well, here’s an innovative way to get some buzz: FBHive, a new blog devoted to the discussion of all things Facebook, has debuted with the revelation that its creators have discovered a hack that can expose some crucial profile data No, it won’t expose your personal photos or wall posts. But, FBHive says, it can bring up all the “basic information” that you have entered into your profile, even if you’ve elected to keep that information private. This is the section that includes location, gender, relationship status, relationships (significant other, parents, siblings), political views, religious views, birthday, and hometown. That’s enough to be a problem in the identity theft department, as it could easily expose frequent password hints like dates of birth and mothers’ maiden names. Security holes are nothing new to social networks: last year, Facebook plugged a leak that exposed members’ protected photos via the Facebook mobile site, and another hole was discovered about a year ago that exposed members’ birth dates.
DHS To Kill Domestic Satellite Spying Program Slashdot
“The Bush administration had plans in place to use spy satellites to spy on American citizens. This morning the AP reports that new DHS head Janet Napolitano has axed those plans. ‘The program was announced in 2007 and was to have the Homeland Security Department use overhead and mapping imagery from existing satellites for homeland security and law enforcement purposes. The program, called the National Applications Office, has been delayed because of privacy and civil liberty concerns. The program was included in the Obama administration’s 2010 budget request,…
Grandmas Tell AT&T: We Don’t Want Metered Billing Either DSLReports
Last week New York Representative Eric Massa introduced a bill aimed at stopping ISPs from nickel and diming consumers with steep overage charges. AT&T reacted swiftly — claiming their metered billing trials in Reno and Beaumont are about being fair to grandmothers, and have absolutely nothing to do with protecting U-Verse TV revenues from Internet video. Amusingly enough, Stop The Cap got input from a number of actual grandmothers, who say they don’t really appreciate AT&T’s help. “We grandmothers know a ripoff when we see one,” says one poster.
MySpace to cut two-thirds of global workforce Reuters
MySpace, the social networking website owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, said on Tuesday it plans to cut about two-thirds of its international workforce and close at least four of its offices outside the United States.
Marc – p2pnet
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
June, 2009
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
German 3-strike law?
Anyone read German here?
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/CDU_Wahlprogrammsentwurf_beinhaltet_3-Strike-Out_Internetsperren%2C_20_Jun_2009
“Draft of the government program of the german conservative party (CDU). Contains plans for adopting graduated response measures (three strikes law).”
When I pass this through online translators I get the following:
“The pdf contains the current program of the CDU to the election to the Bundestag 2009.Es contains among other things the proposal of one ” 3-Strike-Out” Regulation (see line 2607, chapters IV.1) was introduced, similarly like it straight of of France government, and abgeschmettert by the constitutional court. This plans a blockage of the Internet connection, should a participant three times for injuries of interests of copyright admits to become. In the French model the contract is not quit, a user continues to pay here for its connection, gets however no more access on the Internet. This project represents a further aspect of the Internet Crackdowns by the CDU, is in the context from censorship law and externally stored data storage to be understood and proves the interest of the CDU to the penetration of interests of lobby in the Internet.”
Anyone able to properly translate this?
*********************
Also on wikileaks:
Bizarre California cult, Fellowship of Friends, attacks GodLikeProductions.com for reposting WikiLeaks expose, 21 Jun 2009
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Bizarre_California_cult%2C_Fellowship_of_Friends%2C_attacks_GodLikeProductions.com_for_reposting_WikiLeaks_expose%2C_21_Jun_2009
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Did anyone else catch the IP-Watch report above?
“The Power of Pirates; Small Creators Sing the Blues – At the Open Video event, author Matt Mason argued “one of the best ways to grow your business is to give pirates the space to innovate on your ideas.”
“Copying,” he said “is one of the reasons that the fashion industry is so dynamic.” Because three-dimensional clothes cannot be protected, slight modifications by several different designers is what gives rise to a trend.
The key is to make piracy work for you, said Mason, whose book The Pirate’s Dilemma argues that piracy can also be a business opportunity.
For example, he said, a band by the name of Guyz Nite released on video-sharing site YouTube – in response to the release of action movie Die Hard 4.0 – a song that humorously summarised the first three movies. It generated millions of hits before the legal department at 20th Century Fox, which owns the film, had it removed on charges of copyright violation. A few weeks later, Mason said, the marketing department heard about the video, and contacted the band to ask how much they would want to be paid to put the video on YouTube.
“Exceptional thieves” – people who are taking your idea but also adding value to it – are people you “need to compete with and learn from,” said Mason.
Ultimately, “the only way to control your content is to be the best provider of it,” said Eirik Solheim, project manager at Norway’s Public Broadcaster – which provides much of its content free on YouTube and Pirate Bay, where they gain eyes over pirated versions because their releases are higher quality.
“If a record company says you have to drive to the store and buy a record and Pirate Bay tells you that you can just download it at home with one click,” he said, “people take the path of least resistance.”
Further, the current IP system only “benefits 1 percent of artists, and for the other 99 percent it’s a clamp on our freedom of speech,” said Nina Paley, a cartoonist and creator of the animated film Sita Sings The Blues.
********************
Wow.
Doesn’t this fall in line with the report the other week (think it was Harvard?) about how P2P/downloads stimulates the economy and exposes more choice or the betterment of all (and not just some big media/movie/music business)?