New online services face threat from ISPs, CRTC told CBC
New services such as internet-to-TV video rentals could face unfair hurdles if internet service providers have the power to slow the applications of their choosing, Canada’s internet regulator was told Tuesday. “Giving carriers the power to slow down applications at their own discretion will change user behaviours, distort innovation and undermine the competitive market in applications,” said Jacob Glick, Canada policy counsel for Google, at the second day of Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission hearings in Gatineau, Que.

French student held because of photos and emails Reporters without Borders
… Relatives told Reporters Without Borders that Reiss’s digital camera contained photos of demonstrations that took place in Isfahan after the announcement of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed election victory. She had also reportedly sent emails about the demonstrations together with photos of them. “Reiss’s arrest is typical of the crackdown that the Iranian authorities have orchestrated since 12 June, “Reporters Without Borders said. “The international community must urgently press for her release. Her fate is similar to that of the hundreds of Iranians who are currently being held in Iran for circulating news and information.” Reiss has been taken to Tehran’s Evin prison.

Pope Benedict XVI on Intellectual Property Michael Geist
KEI notes that Pope Benedict XVI has issued an encyclical letter denouncing the excessive zeal for assertions of intellectual property rights in knowledge. The Pope states “on the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, especially in the field of health care.” [Comment: Copy/Pasted in whole. Also see http://www.keionline.org/blogs/2009/07/07/pope-ipr/ and http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2009/07/pope-benedict-vi-on-ip.html]

If the answer is yes, then you gotta confess! Excess Copyright
This is in contrast to my earlier posting today about a constructive encyclical from the Pope about excessive IP in general but and health care in particular. The Knights of Columbus, a pillar of the Catholic Church, now regards piracy as a breach of the “shall not steal” seventh of the Ten Commandments. According to this interpretation, you must now confess if you have “pirated materials: videos, music and software.” [Comment: Also see http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/2009/07/pope-benedict-vi-on-ip.html from the above story]

Carphone Warehouse abandons Phorm The Inquirer
Carphone Warehouse ISP Talk Talk has ended its agreement with Phorm, a further blow to the purveyor of “personalised advertising services” after BT dumped the company Monday. [Additional: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/070809-talktalk-follows-bt-and-dumps.html?hpg1=bn]

Music labels take (more) Irish ISPs to court The Register
Bow like Eircom or else – The Big Four music labels want every ISP in Ireland to adopt a “three strikes” policy against repeated illegal file-sharers, and they intend to sue until they get their way. With Ireland’s top internet provider, Eircom, having already bowed to the music industry’s demands to cut off service to accused offenders, the labels are moving down the line with court proceedings against two more major ISPs.

Internet Radio Reaches Deal on Royalty Rates PCmag
After two years of debate, Internet radio stations have finally reached a deal with copyright holders regarding royalty rates. The price of the deal, however, will force Web radio station Pandora to limit the amount of free listening available each month, according to founder Tim Westergren… The revised royalty rates, however, are “quite high” and will force Pandora to make some adjustments, he said. Users will now be limited to 40 hours of free listening per month. Those who go over 40 hours will be given the option to receive unlimited access for the remainder of the month for 99 cents. They can also upgrade to the subscription-based Pandora One. “In essence, we’re asking our heaviest users to put a dollar (well, almost a dollar) in the tip jar in any month in which they listen over 40 hours. We hope this is relatively painless and affordable–the same price as a single song download,” Westergren wrote. [Additional: http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i0a5fa05df2f2bdcf6a9551cca9f8b0cd]

CC licensed kids’ book art from India BoingBoing
Maya sez, “Pratham Books is a non-profit trust that publishes high quality books for children at affordable prices and in multiple Indian languages. We have already uploaded some of our books under a CC-license on our Scribd account. We have also started uploading illustrations from our books for people to remix and reuse…

Google, YouTube Win Dismissal Of Some Damages Claims Billboard
A U.S. judge dismissed some damages claims in a copyright infringement lawsuit against Google Inc and its video-sharing Web site YouTube.com but left open the possibility that non-U.S. based rights owners could seek damages for live broadcasts, if they prevail. A group of sports and music copyright holders, led by the UK-based Football Association Premier League, had argued that foreign works were exempt from any registration requirements under the U.S. Copyright Act. But the judge ruled that damages are not available for any foreign works that were not registered in the United States, except those that fall under a “live broadcast exemption” in the Act.

Google maps Australian property market Herald Sun
Google has added a real estate search to its Google Maps application in Australia – letting users quickly check out a property’s “location, location, location” online. The search covers buying and renting and lets users filter properties by type, price, location and real estate agent… Google spokesman Andrew Foster said the company had worked with local agents to provide a bank of listings before today’s launch. [Comment: Soon I'll be able to see how much p2pnets HQ is worth, thanks to google!]

US, S. Korean Web sites attacked Canoe
South Korean intelligence officials believe North Korea or pro-Pyongyang forces committed cyber attacks that paralyzed major South Korean and U.S. government Web sites, aides to two lawmakers said Wednesday. The sites of 11 South Korean organizations, including the presidential Blue House and the Defence Ministry, went down or had access problems since late Tuesday, according to the state-run Korea Information Security Agency. Agency spokeswoman Ahn Jeong-eun said 11 U.S. sites suffered similar problems. She said the agency is investigating the case with police and prosecutors. In the U.S., the Treasury Department, Secret Service, Federal Trade Commission and Transportation Department Web sites were all down at varying points over the July 4 holiday weekend and into this week, according to American officials inside and outside the government. Others familiar with the U.S. outage, which is called a denial of service attack, said that the fact that the government Web sites were still being affected three days after it began signalled an unusually lengthy and sophisticated attack. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.

The Secret ‘Profits’ Of YouTube TechDirt
…That said, really the only truly worthwhile parts of the article are the ones where analyst Keith McMahon speaks up. He seems to be one of the few folks out there who actually has bothered to look at YouTube within the larger context of Google itself, and makes a few important points about (a) why YouTube helps Google in many other ways and (b) Google benefits from the widespread belief that YouTube is losing tons of money:…

Another defamation suit: ZGeek owner sued for alleged defamatory forum comments Electronic Frontiers Australia
The operator of the Australian discussion forum ZGeek has been named as a defendant in a defamation suit for material posted by ZGeek users to a thread about a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Another forum is apparently also named as a defendant in the claim. The plaintiffs are apparently seeking $42 Million in consequential damages, claiming that they lost a film deal as a result of criticism of the conspiracy theory in the discussion fora. What makes this claim stranger is that the owner of the site states that he complied with earlier takedown notices sent by the plaintiffs’ lawyers about the alleged defamatory material.

Chinese forces stem ethnic clashes Canoe
Hundreds of helmeted troops in riot gear swarmed the central square of the capital of western Xinjiang on Wednesday after ethnic riots left at least 156 dead. The city’s Communist Party boss promised those behind the killings would be executed…. Chinese authorities have been trying to control the unrest by blocking the Internet, including social networking sites such as Facebook, and limiting access to texting services on cellphones. At the same time, police have generally been allowing foreign media to cover the tensions. On Wednesday, workers in Internet cafes in two other Xinjiang cities, Turpan and Kashgar, said Internet connections had been cut. “The police came to us and told us to shut down our Internet cafe for the next three days, but who knows how long this will last,” said the manger of the Huo Zhou Internet cafe in Turpan. He would give only his surname, Pei.

ReadWriteWeb Interview With Tim Berners-Lee, Part 1: Linked Data ReadWriteWeb
… the interview will be published in two parts, with Part 1 today on the topic of Linked Data. Part 2 will explore other topics and will run tomorrow.

Yahoo, NFL players union settle lawsuit Canoe
Yahoo Inc. and the NFL Players Association have reached a settlement over the use of players’ statistics, photos and other data in Yahoo’s popular online fantasy football game, but details were not released Tuesday. Santa Clara, Calif.-based Yahoo sued the NFLPA last month in U.S. District Court in Minnesota, claiming Yahoo shouldn’t have to pay royalties to use the data because the information is already publicly available. Yahoo dropped the lawsuit Monday, and a judge formally dismissed it Tuesday without prejudice, which leaves open the possibility of bringing it up again. Officials from both parties said a settlement was reached.

OpenSSH exploit rumours swarm The Register
As milw0rm shuts up shop – Rumours are circulating about the active exploitation of systems running older versions of OpenSSH, the open source remote administration utility. Security watchers at the SANS Institute’s Internet Storm Centre report circumstantial evidence of a mischief, including a log ostensibly showing an attack in progress, posted last Friday. In the absence of actual exploit code nothing can be confirmed… ISC advises sys admins to upgrade to the latest version (5.2) of OpenSSH. The rumoured exploit is different from a confirmed denial of service attack posted on hacking site milw0rm, ISC notes.

DropRecord Uploads Your Files to Multiple Hosts Lifehacker
Bulk uploading a file you want to share to multiple file hosting services is quite a time saver. DropRecord is a simple way to upload your files to over a dozen hosts. DropRecord will accept files up to 500MB in size and will upload to over a dozen file hosts including the big players like RapidShare, MegaUpload, and EasyShare. Once you upload your file you’re given a unique URL for the file which shows the hosts it was successfully uploaded to and provides quick links to download it from them.

U.K. scientists create sperm from stem cells CanWest
A team of British scientists claimed Wednesday to have created human sperm using embryonic stem cells, in a medical first that they say will lead to a better understanding of fertility. Researchers led by Professor Karim Nayernia at Newcastle University and the NorthEast England Stem Cell Institute (NESCI) developed a new technique that allows the creation of human sperm in the laboratory. Scientists told the Daily Telegraph in Britain that this research could pave the way for the creation of sperm for female stem cells — a breakthrough that could lead to women having babies without the need for men. [Comment: damn...]

Marc – p2pnet

Follow p2pnet on Twitter.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

July, 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.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 4:26 pm and is filed under P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

HOME

Viewed 1193 times