p2pnet World Headlines – July 23, 2009
French Anti-Piracy Sanctions Delayed Billboard
The French music business has expressed its disappointment after the National Assembly president’s decision to postpone until September the vote on the sanctions side of the Creation and Internet law.
[AU] Privacy Commissioner to look into Facebook report News AU
Australian authorities are looking into whether Facebook is in breach of local privacy laws in the way it handles user data. A report released by Canadian Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart last week found “serious” flaws in some of the social networking site’s practises…. Australian Privacy Commissioner Kartin Curtis this week said her office was investigating the findings of the report and whether they breached local law. “My office is examining the report of the Canadian Privacy Commissioner`s year-long investigation into a complaint it had received against Facebook,” said Ms Curtis. “A number of the privacy issues raised… could arise under the Australian Privacy Act.
Two new Mozart works discovered The Star
The International Mozarteum Foundation says it has discovered two new works composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The Salzburg-based foundation says in a brief statement that the previously unknown works are piano pieces. [Comment: Let us know when it's ready for download and to be enjoyed by all]
‘Erotic’ Madonna phone messages for sale The Star
Madonna’s latest release will cost a little more than usual and will be available in only one, curiously archaic format: microcassette. “Madonna Erotic Phone Messages” will be among several lots of Material Girl-related arcana up for grabs next week in the Rock & Roll Pop Art Auction. Minimum bid: $25,000 (U.S.). That works out to about $1,470 a minute. Contained on “two original microcassettes from Jim Albright’s answering machine,” the 17 minutes of messages date from 1992-1993, when Madonna was dating Albright, who was her bodyguard before becoming romantically involved with the singer…. The Rock & Roll Pop Art Auction will also feature non-Madonna items, including Jimi Hendrix’s first contract signed by Hendrix and promising him the princely amount of $1 …
Province drops outside review of eHealth Ontario The Star
The New Democrats are fuming after the Liberal government quietly dropped a promised independent review of scandal-plagued eHealth Ontario. The government had said PriceWaterhouseCoopers would look into procurement practices at the provincial agency, which is working to create electronic health records for Ontario residents. But last Friday, Health Minister David Caplan agreed to a request from eHealth to drop the outside review, saying it would duplicate the work of Ontario’s auditor general. NDP critic Peter Kormos says the government is worried about more bad news emerging from eHealth and is simply buying itself some time by cancelling the outside review. Premier Dalton McGuinty has already apologized for the spending scandal at eHealth, which included $5 million in untendered contracts and expense abuses by consultants being paid $2,700 a day.
Analysis: How Much $ Is In The Middle? Billboard
New music venture Polyphonic, the creation of music industry veterans Brian Message, Adam Driscoll and Terry McBride, aims to re-write the artist contract and blaze a new trail in the music business based on a model of less risk and more modest potential than the major labels. As previously reported, Polyphonic intends to invest directly into artist businesses, offering an alternative to the traditional label-driven investment model of the music industry. Polyphonic will supply an investment and all copyrights will remain the property of the artist. Polyphonic will earn a share of the profits generated by all revenue earned from artist activities, similar to artist manager earnings. The venture is garnering some attention, most of which has examined the “what” and “why” aspects of their business, but many questions are still unanswered about how the company is going to earn money and, just as importantly, manage that risk.
Apple Legal Reportedly Hinders Reporter’s Investigation of iPods Catching Fire Mac Rumors
Amy Clancy of KIRO 7 TV in Seattle reports on her investigation of complaints of iPods overheating, smoldering and catching fire. The complaints, made to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, amount to over 800 pages of documentation covering 15 incidents that Apple’s lawyers repeatedly tried to prevent Clancy from accessing under a Freedom of Information Act request. It took more than 7-months for KIRO 7 Consumer Investigator Amy Clancy to get her hands on documents concerning Apple’s iPods from the Consumer Product Safety Commission because Apple’s lawyers filed exemption after exemption. In the end, the CPSC released more than 800 pages which reveal, for the very first time, a comprehensive look that shows, on a number of occasions, iPods have suddenly burst into flames, started to smoke, and even burned their owners. The complaints cover a broad array of iPod models over the years
Shield Law Overturns Warrant for Student Photographer Wired
Legal protections for journalists were upheld last week in a San Francisco Superior Court decision. Counsel for a San Francisco State University photojournalism student successfully won a motion to quash a search warrant executed by police earlier this year….. Journalistic protections have been the subject of much legal wrangling. In a famous 2006 California case, video blogger Josh Wolf was held in contempt for a record-setting 226 days. Wolf contended that the state`s shield law was intentionally circumvented by a Federal grand jury, which is not beholden to state laws. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, in its final opinion, dismissed Wolf`s claims of being a journalist because he was not affiliated with a news agency at the time he filmed a protest in which a San Francisco police officer was wounded and a patrol car set on fire. Wolf`s imprisonment ended when he and the prosecution agreed through judicial arbitration to simultaneously surrender and publish the contentious footage.
Is The BBC An AP Parasite? TechDirt
Over the last few months we’ve been hearing all these claims about how various “aggregators” and internet sites that simply rewrite articles from “mainstream” publications are somehow “parasites.”…. Anyway, not long after that, I saw that the BBC appears to have a very similar article, and it’s quite clear that all they did was rewrite the AP’s article. At one point, they do credit the AP, but the article is almost a direct paraphrase of the AP’s. So does the AP start calling the BBC a parasite, too? Or does it finally realize that no one owns the news,…
Plot thickens in the case of Apple worker ’suicide’ The Inquirer
Apple contractor Foxconn has said that it has suspended a security official after the death of a Chinese worker. Sun Danyong, 25, reported a missing Iphone 4G phone prototype and was beaten by Foxconn employees who were terrified of the wrath of Steve Jobs. His house was illegally searched and Sun’s body was found at the bottom of his multi-story apartment block.
Web users deserve honesty CanWest
If Canada’s Internet providers want to keep federal regulators from tightening the rules on their lucrative industry, they could start by being honest with their customers about the quality of their service. By selectively cutting access speed for certain kinds of web use — without telling their clients — firms such as Bell, Shaw and Rogers are proving the need for tighter federal regulation of Internet providers…. The ISPs argue that their so-called “access management” improves the overall Internet experience for the majority of their customers. That’s possible, especially when many customers use the Internet mainly for basic web access and e-mail. That benefit comes at the expense of more sophisticated users, however, and creates an unfair playing field — especially when those sophisticated customers are the most likely to be paying more for high-speed access. The ISPs should be up front about their policies, and allow customers to make their own choices based on honest information. To do anything else is to prove the need for further federal intervention in the industry.
New taxes will increase cost of Bell [Canada] TV programming Digital Home
Bell TV recently began informing its customers that, effective September 1st, the company will be adding an additional monthly fee of 1.5% to customer`s bills.
Schwarzenegger addresses Cali woes in online video Canoe
When a tall, muscular man wields a 2-foot-long knife on-camera, it’s usually not for a thank-you video.
Holy site enters the Twitter age Canoe
Judaism’s holiest prayer site has entered the Twitter age. The Western Wall now has its own address on the social networking service, allowing believers around the globe to have their prayers placed between its 2,000 year-old-stones without even leaving their armchairs.
Videotron strikes roaming agreement with Rogers Canoe
Future cellphone customers of Quebec-based Videotron will be able to use their mobile phones in the rest of Canada under a deal negotiated with Rogers to roam on its national network.
Alaska Officials Using Copyright To Try To Stifle Images Of Killed Wolves TechDirt
So, we just had the story of police in the UK trying to abuse copyright to prevent the showing of speed camera photos. Now we’ve got a somewhat similar story in the US, pointed to us by Michael Scott, involving officials in Alaska using copyright to try to force offline photos of “aerial wolf kills.” Apparently, the Alaskan gov’t goes around and shoots wolves from helicopters to control the wolf population. Not surprisingly, some find this rather distasteful. One wildlife protection group obtained the government’s photos of killed wolves from March of this year using a public records request, and put them online… at which point the gov’t claimed that it was a copyright violation.
Naked Cowboy to run for NYC mayor Canoe
The Naked Cowboy might be considered a quirky asset to New York City’s tourism industry. Now the Times Square traffic-stopper says he’d make a mighty fine mayor. Robert Burck, who performs in his underwear, made his candidacy official Wednesday. He aims to give the buttoned-up, third-term hopeful, billionaire Michael Bloomberg, a run for his money. Burck says: “Being naked is a whole lot more than having no clothes on: It’s about transparency in politics, it’s about telling the naked truth.”
Don’t Let Google Close the Book on Reader Privacy EFF
Google is poised to radically expand its book service, monitoring the digital books you search, the pages you read, how long you spend on various pages, and even what you write down in the margins. Google could then combine your reading habits with other information it has about you from other Google services, creating a massive “digital dossier” about you, your interests, and your concerns. With numerous reports of government efforts to compel online and offline booksellers to turn over records about readers, the time is now for Google to pledge to protect reader privacy.
Cops and ISP in paedophile data mix up The Register
Police acting on dodgy data from an ISP raided an address and arrested a completely innocent person for being part of a paedophile ring, according to the government’s electronic surveillance scrutineer. The 2008 annual report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner, Sir Paul Kennedy, published this week, revealed few details about the incident, which he described as “a very unfortunate error”. The mix up was blamed on confusion between the unnamed ISP and unnamed police force over international time zones.
EU privacy watchdog warns on transport monitoring The Register
New systems planned by the European Commission to ease traffic problems across Europe do not adequately protect the privacy of travellers, according to the regulator set up to monitor the privacy implications of Commission actions. The European Commission plans to create a framework within which it will be easier for governments and transport operators to set up EU-wide tracking and monitoring systems for transport…. Though the systems are aimed at making transport more environmentally friendly and less time consuming, Hustinx said that they could be used to monitor individuals’ movements across the continent.
Adobe Flash flaws exploited The Inquirer
Insecurity experts claim to have uncovered attacks in the wild in which malicious Acrobat PDF files are exploiting a vulnerability in Flash and dropping a Trojan onto computers. Symantec has warned that any software that uses Flash could be vulnerable to the attack. This means that Adobe Reader is also vulnerable because its Flash interpreter is targeted, too. Adobe has admitted that it is aware of reports of a potential vulnerability in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.1.2 and Adobe Flash Player 9 and 10. It is planning an update soon, it said.
“Net neutrality” gets white hot as FCC drafts broadband plan Ars Technica
Net neutrality has largely died down as an issue in Congress, but the war over the idea has resumed at the FCC as the agency drafts its national broadband plan. Is it just a new “price control” or a precious part of the “public interest”?
Teach kids to be safe on the net by getting them to think critically about censorware BoingBoing
My latest Internet Evolution feature proposes that the best way for schools to protect their students on the Internet is to assign them curriculum that asks students to investigate all the ways that the school’s censorware sucks — blocks useful material, easily circumvented by students, interferes with teachers, invades privacy and enriches sleazy censorware companies. By systematically approaching the efficacy of censorware, students learn statistics, critical thinking, research skills, civics, and the scientific method — and they help to expose the worse-than-useless solution represented by using censorware on school networks…. Worst of all, censorware teaches kids that the normal course of online life involves being spied upon for every click, tweet, email, and IM.
Miro open video player/client gets a major update BoingBoing
Dean from the Participatory Culture Foundation sez, “Miro, the free and open source internet TV application, got a nifty update today! Improvements in Miro 2.5 include: speedier performance, audio podcasts, interface polish, and lots of tweaks. The mission behind Miro, as well as its non-profit developer the Participatory Culture Foundation, is to decentralize and fully democratize television as it moves online….
South Korea fines Qualcomm $208 million in anti-trust case Reuters
South Korea’s anti-trust agency on Thursday imposed a $208 million fine on Qualcomm Inc and ordered the U.S. wireless chip and technology company to stop discriminating against companies using competitor’s products. The Korean Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) ruling deals a blow to Qualcomm, which counts Korean mobile phone makers Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and LG Electronics Inc — the world’s No.2 and No.3 respectively — as its major clients.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
July, 2009
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