Bezos: “stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles” Excess Copyright
… There are obvious lessons to be learned here for Canada. “It’s the DMCA + , stupid” might be a good place to start as CRIA, CIRPA, CMPDA. ESA and others try to bring the DMCA + to Canada. The DMCA + term extension + “three strikes” are the triple crown that CRIA, CMPDA, ESA and their various emanations are trying to bring to Canada. This is precisely the kind of regime that led Bezos and Amazon into this fiasco. Ministers Clement and Moore and their officials will hopefully take note.

Chinese Hackers Attack Web Site Over Uighur Film, Festival Says Bloomberg NewsChinese hackers made repeated attempts to change the Web site of the Melbourne International Film Festival, Australia`s biggest, to protest a documentary about a Uighur activist that organizers refuse to withdraw. The hackers were successful twice on July 25, redirecting visitors to a page displaying the Chinese flag and slogans criticizing The 10 Conditions of Love, a film about exiled activist Rebiya Kadeer. Statements on the Web page signed by Old Jun included: We like film but we hate Rebiya Kadeer. We like peace and we hate East Turkistan terrorist. Please apologize to all the Chinese people, said Louise Heseltine, the festival`s publicist. Chinese filmmakers responded to the festival organizers` decision to go ahead with the screening of The 10 Conditions of Love by withdrawing four of their films. The two most recently withdrawn, Claustrophobia and Miao Miao, were intended to replace the first two removed, Cry me a River and Perfect Life, Heseltine said. The government in Beijing accuses Kadeer of orchestrating clashes in the western province of Xinjiang between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese earlier this month that left 192 people dead.

Media moguls rethink Web advertising in downturn Reuters
The recession-fueled advertising downturn underlines the urgency of using the Web to glean data and target consumers directly, rather than blasting them with a barrage of TV-style ads, media executives say. At the Fortune Brainstorm: TECH conference in Pasadena this week, Walt Disney Co Chief Executive Robert Iger opened a discussion about new ways to market to consumers, when he described himself as, “pretty bullish about what technology is going to allow in terms of behavioral tracking.” ….To that end, Barry Diller, chief executive of Web giant IAC/InterActiveCorp, said Internet advertising must evolve from displays and become integrated into the content of websites.

Labour MP quits over McKinnon extradition vote The Register
Exhaustion and disillusionment with the role of backbench MPs as lobby fodder for the government are the main reasons behind MacKinlay’s decision to quit. But the politician also cited disappointment at the willingness of his colleagues to cave in to party pressure rather than sticking up for their beliefs. The final straw came with the failure of 74 Labour MPs who had previously signed motions in support for Gary McKinnon, who is fighting against extradition to the US on hacking charges, to vote in favour of an opposition motion to review the extradition treaty. The review was defeated by 290 votes to 236, after 59 Labour MPs who previously supported McKinnon voted with the government and a further 15 abstained. Only ten Labour supporters of McKinnon stuck by their principles and voted in favour of the review in defiance of government whips. MacKinlay criticised his colleagues’ lack of resolve in a Daily Mail article (here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1200270/ANDREW-MacKINLAY-This-feeble-wobbling-McKinnon-bad-democracy.html).

Telcos battle over clients Australian IT
AAPT and Internode have struck out at Australia’s dominant internet providers for allegedly delaying the smooth transfer of customers to their networks. In the past 18 months AAPT has doubled its advertising expenditure and invested more than $10million in new campaigns to attract subscribers to its broadband business through the promotion of “Unlimited” broadband packages. AAPT chief executive Paul Broad has branded the new campaign a success in attracting record inquiries to the business, but the process of converting those inquiries into subscribers has been difficult. Mr Broad said it was becoming “impossible” to sign up new customers because of waiting times imposed on subscribers when they moved from a competitor’s network to AAPT’s. The delays in churning customers from Optus and Telstra had meant that only three out of every 10 customer inquiries were being converted into new subscribers. “There’s not any issue churning between the smaller players because we all have fast-churn agreements in place, it’s when you deal with the two big gorillas — Optus and Telstra — that there are problems,” Mr Broad said. “In particular, churning Optus cable customers is almost impossible because you first must make them a Telstra copper customer before you can get them. This process can take up to eight weeks and by that time no customer is interested.” Optus deflected responsibility for the slow transfer and said the blame lay squarely with Telstra. “A significant part of a customer’s experience during a Consumer DSL churn is impacted by Telstra’s involvement within the end-to-end process,” an Optus spokeswoman said. “This occurs even when there is a transfer between two non-Telstra providers, because there is a requirement for the copper to be disconnected and reconnected by Telstra technicians.” National ISP Internode also blamed Telstra, saying Australia’s dominant telco was delaying customer transfers to maintain its profit margins.

STS Telecom Seeks over $100 Million in Damages from AT&T in FCC Complaint Press Releases
As the Justice Department Steps Up Its Antitrust Enforcement Efforts, Florida-based STS Telecom Alleges Fraud, Discrimination and Unfair Competitive Practices Against AT&T. In a classic David and Goliath confrontation, a complaint filed earlier this week with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) by Florida-based STS Telecom against AT&T follows four years of broken promises, lies, and bait and switch tactics by reconstituted telecommunications giant AT&T, according to Keith Kramer, STS executive vice president of legal and regulatory affairs. He indicated the complaint is to be evaluated by the FCC under an expedited review process. STS Telecom alleges in the complaint that AT&T failed to comply with Congress`s much embattled Telecommunications Act of 1996 in refusing to provide STS fair and reasonable access to various telecommunication services. As a result, AT&T severely restricted STS` access to Florida`s profitable residential and small business markets. Kramer said that AT&T used strong arm tactics to force it into buying services that were unnecessarily expensive, while refusing to sell STS other essential network services as promised, and as mandated by Congress. According to Kramer, AT&T`s anticompetitive actions have accumulated over the past four years, resulting in substantial business losses and deterioration of its previously robust residential and small business market share.

Skype is a threat to Russian national security – Telco profits, that is The Inquirer
Telephone companies in Russia have asked Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to shut down Skype in the country. The powerful lobbying group, which was formed in partnership with Putin’s party, has not admitted that Skype is hurting its companies’ revenues. Instead it is using the argument that Skype is a threat to national security. The lobby has created a working group to draft legal safeguards against what it said were risks posed by Skype and other Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone services.

Network Solutions breach exposed 500k card accounts The Register
A breach at Network Solutions has exposed details for more than 500,000 credit and debit cards after hackers penetrated a system it used to deliver e-commerce services and planted software that diverted transactions to a rogue server, the hosting company said late Friday.

More Ways to Speak Out: SpeakOutOnCopyright.ca Profile Pix, Banners and Buttons Michael Geist
The reaction to SpeakOutOnCopyright.ca has been tremendous with thousands of visitors since the site launched last week. Over the weekend, the site added the opportunity for everyone to spread the word during the current copyright consultation. A new promotional page has been launched that includes images for Twitter and Facebook profiles, along with banners and buttons for websites, blogs, and any other online presence. There are less than 50 days left in the consultation so no time like the present to speak out on copyright. [Comment: Copy/pasted in whole]

Copyright rules must protect innovation, groups say CBC
Debate heats up over digital locks  … Groups such as the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists say digital locks or digital rights management (DRM) are an “important issue in terms of preventing piracy.” …No legal requirement for ban: prof – On his blog, Geist argued against a similar ban in Canada, saying there are many legitimate reasons to circumvent a digital lock and there is no international legal requirement to institute such a ban. The blog entry is posted on the new website he launched Thursday called Speakoutoncopyright.ca to encourage public participation in the government copyright consultations.

Botched judge threat probe downs Fathers 4 Justice website The Register
The government faces accusations of technical incompetence and waste after it went to the High Court to shut down the Fathers 4 Justice website, wrongly claiming campaigners had threatened to publish the home addresses of 237 judges. Lawyers for Matt O’Connor, the controversial group’s founder, are now preparing action against the Ministry of Justice to recover costs and damages from taxpayers. He alleges civil servants failed to perform basic checks on the origins of the threat before launching a legal attack.

What real piracy looks like: biopirate loses patent over century-old latinamerican staple crop BoingBoing
You hear a lot of talk about piracy in the developing world, about Nigerian markets filled with bootleg DVDs or Chinese iPod knockoffs. But if you want to see what real piracy looks like, look at the bio-pirates, people and corporations who receive patents on common life-forms from the developing world (abetted by the sleepy and lackadaisical US Patent and Trademark Office) and then use their might and muscle to tax people for growing, consuming and exporting the plants they’ve lived with for centuries, on the grounds that these plants are now some rich person’s property. One such injustice is finally drawing to a close. US Patent Number 5,894,079, belonging Colorado’s Larry Proctor, has been struck down. Proctor brought home some yellow beans from a Mexican market and filed for a patent on them in the 1990s, neglecting to tell the USPTO that the beans had been a dietary staple in latinamerica for over a century.

Taiwan consumer org ‘froze’ Dell bank account The Register
Taiwanese authorities froze one of Dell’s bank accounts for two days during a consumer law suit about pricing fiascos, local media report. The account lockdown was part of the fallout after the company’s Taiwanese online store incorrectly priced 19-inch LCD monitors at only $15, instead of $148. Twenty-inch monitors were also priced wrongly…. There is also a report of a subsequent notebook pricing error, with the Latitude E4300 notebook priced at $562 instead of $1,850. That was later corrected too, with Dell offering a $600 discount instead of honouring the displayed price. The refusal by Dell to take its mistakes on the chin and sell the ordered goods at the displayed prices has caused damage to its reputation in Taiwan. The local Consumer Protection Commission has said these were legally-displayed prices which Dell had to honour, and that the company faced a fine if it did not stand by them.

Dell settles discrimination suit for $9.1M Canoe
Dell Inc. said Friday it has agreed to settle a federal gender-discrimination class action lawsuit brought by former employees for $9.1 million. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, Dell said $5.6 million will be used for payments to class members and for litigation costs.

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