Lessons for Canada from Tenenbaum Trial Excess Copyright
The take away message for Canadians here is that statutory minimum damages should NOT be available against individuals for ANY copyright infringements that involve private non-commercial acts or against any other party where there is a bona fide basis to believe that the activity is fair dealing. In all statutory damages cases, a Judge should have the ability to remit such damages down to zero in order to avoid draconian remedies that don’t exist in other areas of the law or in other major countries, other than the USA and Canada.

China bans Web sites from glamorizing mafia lifestyles Canoe
China has banned Web sites from advertising or linking to games that glamorize violence, another step in China’s censorship campaign aimed at ensuring social stability ahead of the 60th anniversary of communist rule on Oct. 1. A notice posted on the Culture Ministry Web site on Monday said games that promote drug use, obscenities, gambling, or crimes such as rape, vandalism and theft are “against public morality and the nation’s fine cultural traditions.” “Such online games promote the glorification of mafia life … and are a serious threat to the moral standards of society causing vulnerable young people to be adversely affected,” the notice said. The ban on the Web sites starts immediately.

Formerly Classified Global Warming Spy Photos Released SlashDot
“The Obama administration has released more than a thousand intelligence images of Arctic ice, following a declassification request…. The photos, kept classified by the Bush administration, show the impact of global warming in the Arctic and the retreat of glaciers in Washington and Alaska.”

Ubisoft Plans to Have Piracy Solution in Place This Year Kotaku
Piracy has taken a hefty toll on Ubisoft, according to company head Yves Guillemot, but the developer and publisher say they are hard at work on a tool that should help reduce the negative impact. “Altogether on console, the piracy is low,” Guillemot said. “On the PC the piracy is quite a lot. We are working on a tool that would allow us to decrease that on the PC starting next year and probably one game this year.”

Almost all Windows users vulnerable to Flash zero-day attacks Computer World
Over 90% of PCs run at-risk Flash, 48% have buggy Reader, says Secunia – More than 9 out of every 10 Windows users are vulnerable to the Flash zero-day vulnerability that Adobe won’t patch until Thursday, a Danish security company said today. According to Secunia, 92% of the 900,000 users who have recently run the company’s Personal Software Inspector (PSI) utility have Flash Player 10 on their PCs, while 31% have Flash Player 9. (The total exceeds 100% because some users have installed both.) The most-current versions of Flash Player — 9.0.159.0 and 10.0.22.87) — are vulnerable to hackers conducting drive-by attacks hosted on malicious and legitimate-but-compromised sites. Antivirus vendors have reported hundreds, in some cases thousands, of sites launching drive-bys against Flash.

Hackintosh netbook compatibility updated Tuaw
Boing Boing’s gadget blog has updated the list of potential hackintosh netbooks (http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/12/17/osx-netbook-compatib.html). You can ponder the whole thing or cut to the chase: “…get a HP Mini 1000 or a Dell Mini 9/Vostro A90.” While the Mini 9 has been discontinued, the Vostro A90 is apparently a rebadged version of the highly hackable Dell and it works just as well as the original.

Looking for a Reason to Jailbreak? How about Spotify and Google Voice? ReadWriteWeb
Yesterday, Swedish music service Spotify announced their application’s submission to Apple iTunes App Store. Spotify, which already boasts over 6 million users in Europe, is somewhat of an iTunes alternative – albeit with streaming tracks instead of downloads. However, the similarity between the two services leads some believe that Apple, notorious for booting apps that duplicate iTunes functionality, won’t approve the new Spotify iPhone application. And in another example of Apple’s totalitarianism, the company also just pulled Google Voice and other third-party Google Voice applications from the App Store. Luckily for jailbreakers, problems like those above are less of an issue. There’s currently an open source Spotify client app available for download and the third-party GV Mobile app for Google Voice is coming soon.

Student Files Lawsuit After Teacher Demands Facebook Password, Logs Into Account & Distributes Private Messages TechDirt
CitMediaLaw points us to a lawsuit filed in Mississippi, concerning a high school student who turned over her Facebook password at the demand of a teacher at the school. The teacher proceeded to log into her account, read her private messages and then send them around to others at the school, causing a lot of problems for the girl. [Comment: ah good ol' American educators]

Permission Culture: Want To Quote A Single Sentence In A Book? Pay Up! TechDirt
… yet another (and another and another) example of copyright law gone insane. It involves Kyle Gann, a music professor, composer, author, etc. who was working on his latest book, but had to drop an entire section because he wasn’t allowed to quote short sentences that are, themselves, apparently considered works of art, without getting permission from the original authors: I’ve been trying to get permission simply to refer to Fluxus pieces like La Monte Young’s “This piece is little whirlpools in the middle of the ocean,” and Yoko Ono’s “Listen to the sound of the earth turning.” And of course, Yoko (whom I used to know) isn’t responding, and La Monte is imposing so many requirements and restrictions that I would have to add a new chapter to the book, and so in frustration well past the eleventh hour, I’ve excised the pieces from the text.

Dutch spam suspect fined €250K The Register
Dutch telecoms regulators have fined a junk email spammer €250,000. Reinier Schenkhuizen was ordered to pay €250,000 by local regulator OPTA. Of this, €150,000 was for distributing junk emails and €100,000 for failing to create a means for recipients to unsubscribe to unwanted messages, according to local reports. OPTA alleges that Schenkhuizen was a “persistent spammer”, who distributed 21m junk mail messages via online mass-mailing portal ADVERTERENisGRATIS, which is owned by Schenkhuizen’s firm Serinco Benelux.

Satire website survives domain name challenge The Register
Free speech protects political parody, rules WIPO – A website that parodied the site of a political lobbying organisation has survived a domain name challenge from the target of its satire because there was no commercial exploitation of the name, even though it was deliberately confusing.

Apple contractor pays suicide’s family $44,000 The Inquirer
Foxconn has paid $44,000 to the family of a Chinese factory worker who apparently committed suicide after being interrogated by one of the Apple contractor’s employees. Sun Danyong’s girlfriend has been given an Apple Mac as compensation for her lost bloke who flung himself off a building following Foxconn’s questioning. Part of the deal appears to be that Foxconn can continue to blame Sun for the loss of an Iphone prototype.

AT&T files false advertising claim against Verizon MobileBurn
AT&T claims that Verizon’s tagline, “America’s Most Reliable 3G Network” and similar advertising taglines are not true. Verizon has asked a U.S. court for a judgement that its claims are true and do not violate trademark laws.

Rogers To Upgrade Wireless Network to 21 Mbps Cable360
Rogers Wireless has begun a Canada-wide deployment of a 21 Mbps High Speed Packet Access Plus (HSPA+) wireless network. Following the successful expansion of its high-speed network to 7.2 Mbps last year, Rogers will, starting in August, progressively increase wireless network download speeds up to 21 Mbps in the Greater Toronto Area, and expand over the coming months to other cities across the country.

Online posts bite dog kennel Montreal Gazette
An Ontario dog owner has been found guilty of slandering a commercial dog breeder based in Shawville with online comments about the poor health of a black Labrador retriever she bought from the family-run business three years earlier. Lorie Gordon of Brockville, Ont., has been ordered to pay $10,000 in damages to James, Charlene and Nicole Labombard, the owners of the Paws R Us Kennel, as well as $4,000 in court costs. The decision was rendered July 22 in Ottawa by Deputy Judge Michael Galligan of the Ontario Superior Court, Small Claims division. Gordon said yesterday she will appeal the decision with the help of donations from animal rights advocates…. In Quebec, a Superior Court judge ruled this month that Rawdon town officials acted appropriately when they shut down a website to stop anonymous users from posting derogatory comments about the mayor and police chief…. Gordon’s posts about the two dogs she got from Paws R Us – a black Labrador retriever that had to be put down because of severe hip dysplasia and a dog that was diagnosed with epilepsy – generated hundreds of comments on pets.ca before they were removed, he said.

ISPs won’t be forced to reveal true speeds PCPro
Ofcom says that ISPs will be under no obligation to reveal the true speed of their services to customers, despite the regulator’s extensive research into broadband connections. New figures released by Ofcom reveal that the average broadband speed in the UK is only 4.1Mbits/sec, with some leading ISPs offering less than half the advertised “up to” speed. [Comment: Why tell the truth?]

Facebook slaps faces on ads The Register
The appearance of Facebook users’ photos in ads that crop up on their friends’ pages has once again raised questions about the social networking website’s privacy policies. Presenting images of a surfer’s friends alongside ads makes an online pitch stand out and makes it far more likely that surfers will check out the goods on offer. However, the tactic backfired spectacularly after one Facebook user was confronted by an ad for a dating website (”Hot singles are waiting for you!”) that came accompanied by a photo of his missus. The man’s wife had not become a member of the site in question, but her photo was lifted anyway after a third-party advertiser used the photo scraped from her Facebook profile.

Verizon Wireless asks federal court to thwart AT&T, say ‘most reliable network’ ads are true Sun-Sentinal
Verizon Wireless asked a federal court Monday to rule that claims it makes in advertisements, including its position as “America’s most reliable 3G network,” are truthful and accurate. Verizon Wireless is striking back at AT&T Inc., which challenged Verizon’s advertising with the National Advertising Division of the Council for Better Business Bureaus on July 1. AT&T said Verizon’s claims that it runs the best and most reliable third-generation wireless networks are false and unproven.

CMEC seeks review of K-12 Copyright Board tariff Excess Copyright
Just over a month ago, the Copyright Board awarded Access Copyright (AC) a tariff of $5.16 for every kid in school in Canada from Kindergarten to Grade 12 – except in Quebec, where there is a similar organization to AC. As I pointed out on June 26, 2009 – the day the Board’s decision was released: The amount per FTE paid for on behalf of K-12 students will more than double to $5.16 from the amount previously paid. With almost 4 million FTEs, and an increase of almost $3 per FTE over the previous negotiated rate, Access Copyright will reap a windfall of about $12 million a year from Canadian taxpayers – not counting those in Quebec….. AC already wants to triple this rate for K-12.

Globalive says it is ‘Canadian’ and accuses Telus of delaying approval process Canadian Business
New cellphone player Globalive Wireless says it’s a Canadian-controlled company and has accused competitor Telus  of trying to delay its launch later this year…. He added that Telus is looking for additional ways to intervene in the hearing on Sept. 23, which could extend the process and give Telus access to Globalive’s business plans. Globalive is one of a new generation of wireless carriers that is emerging to challenge Rogers, Bell and Telus – Canada’s three national cellphone services. It’s looking to be Canada’s fourth major wireless carrier, with a presence across the country except for Quebec. Telus said it wants Globalive to prove how it’s a Canadian company with its current ownership structure.

The US Copyright Glass House cont’d Excess Copyright
The European Commission has released a document entitled the UNITED STATES BARRIERS TO TRADE AND INVESTMENT REPORT 2008. On the copyright front: 1. It notes the continued failure by the USA to address the violations adjudicated by the WTO in 2001 in the Irish Music case, which I’ve mentioned many times in this blog, e.g. here. 2. It notes the continued failure of the US to provide broadcasting and or public performance rights to performers and producers and its failure to join the Rome Convention of 1961. 3. It notes the very limited extent of moral rights in the USA, despite US accession to the Berne Convention in 1989. The Report also notes the US multilateralism and unilateralism, as exemplified particularly in the notorious annual 301″ exercise, which has been rendered ineffective against WTO members as a result of an EU challenge and 1999 WTO ruling….

Aussie ‘Net filtering trial deemed a success despite problems Ars Technica
A round of testing for Australia’s Internet filters has concluded. Five of the nine participating ISPs are happy with the results, even though only 15 customers from one decided to take part in the test. …Not all ISP customers were keen to participate in the study, however, leading to some very real concerns about how representative the test results truly are. At Nelson Bay Online, only 15 users—one percent of the customer base—participated. At another ISP, a couple of customers complained that a “standard” porn site had been completely blocked. Two of the nation’s largest ISPs, Telstra and InterNode, have completely refused to participate. Fans of filtering will no doubt use the testing results as evidence that the proposed barrier should be implemented nationwide as soon as possible.

Average UK broadband just over half advertised speed The Register
Half empty? The average downstream speed received by UK households is just 57 per cent of the average advertised rate, according to Ofcom research. Data from the regulator’s hardware-based performance monitoring network shows that while the average broadband package is sold as “up to” 7.1Mbit/s, it actually delivers 4.1Mbit/s.

Marc – p2pnet

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