p2pnet World Headlines â Sept 4, 2009
Project Gutenberg Canada submits comments to the Copyright Consultations Industry Canada
Founder of Project Gutenberg Canada, a website distributing free digital editions of books in the Public Domain Public Domain is at risk, and needs the active protection of the Government of Canada. The author of the submission, Dr. Mark Akrigg, makes five major recommendations:
This is what the online cellphone cost calculator would have looked like Montreal Gazette
Here`s the slideshow showing what it would have looked like. If you don`t see the embedded slideshow, see it on Slideshare by clicking here.
Montreal Children`s to webcast H1N1 talks Montreal Gazette
The Montreal Children`s Hospital will host two free web-based lectures to give parents and caregivers helpful information about the H1N1 flu virus. One webliner will be offered in English on Sept. 14 at 8 p.m. A French-language lecture will take place at 8 p.m. on Sept. 16. The weblinars will be class-room style, allowing for interaction between the speaker and participants. Each webinar is open to 100 participants. To register go The Montreal Children`s Hospital website http://www.thechildren.com [Comment: Hmm, Streamed public health notices and education to keep you alive during an epidemic. Doesn't that make the internet sound essential?]
Copyright reform back in spotlight The Spectator
Assuming they do more than just listen to big-media companies, there is some hope that the next attempt at new legislation will finally be a balanced approach that respects the consumer. Be willing to stand up for your rights as a consumer of intellectual property.
Author and copyright expert Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing Submission to the Canadian Copyright Consultation Craphound
[Comment: Worth the read]
YouTube may stream movie rentals Montreal Gazette
Online video site YouTube is in talks with several major movie studios about renting movies to users by streaming the movies over the Internet according to a person familiar with the talks on Wednesday. It would mark the first time the world`s most popular video site would charge its users to watch videos. YouTube, which is owned by Internet search giant Google Inc, has held discussions with Lions Gate Entertainment Corp, Sony Pictures, a unit of Sony Corp, and Time Warner Inc`s Warner Brothers about online movie rentals, the person said.
Vancouver artist`s jingle for Wal-Mart goes viral Montreal Gazette
Reaction from TV and online viewers prompts full-length song A 30-second Wal-Mart jingle is turning out to be a major career booster for Vancouver singer-songwriter Hannah Georgas Georgas co-wrote the acoustic-pop jingle with Mother Mother`s frontman Ryan Guldemond Georgas released her first independent EP, The Beat Stuff, a whimsical collection of acoustic-pop tunes, in January. Thanks to her Wal-Mart ad, Starbucks has now licensed The Beat Stuff to play in its entirety in its 10,000-plus locations in North America.
Amazon.com lashes out at Google`s digital book settlement Canoe
Online bookseller Amazon.com Inc. is warning a federal judge that Internet search leader Google Inc. will be able to gouge consumers and stifle competition if it wins court approval to add millions more titles to its already vast digital library.
Viral Web site mocks Wal-Mart customers CNN
It`s a blog where people post, and make fun of, pictures of out-of-shape, poorly dressed and otherwise awkward people shopping at Wal-Mart. And, in less than a month, with no marketing to speak of, it`s become the toast of the Internet. People of Wal-Mart, a gag started by two 20-something brothers and their buddy to share crazy pictures with their friends, has gone viral. A spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc. declined to comment for this story. [See, http://peopleofwalmart.com/]
Facebook members who buy `friends` could be banished Australian IT
Facebook has warned that members who buy friends from an Australian online marketing company could face banishment from the social network. The Brisbane-based firm, uSocial.net, offered this week to sell a Facebook user 1000 friends for $US177 ($211) and 5000 friends â the limit imposed by Facebook on a standard profile account â for $US654. Facebook fan pages have no limits and USocial.net said it could supply 10,000 fans for $US1,167. USocial caused a stir earlier this year with a similar offer to users of popular micro-blogging service Twitter seeking to increase their number of followers.
FTC urges privacy policy for Google books Reuters
Google Inc should develop a privacy policy for its plan to digitize millions of books that limits use of consumer data, the Federal Trade Commission said in a letter to the company.
MPAA Pushes Once Again To Close the Analog Hole Slashdot
The MPAA is once again trying to badger the FCC into approving Selectable Output Control, which would plug the `analog hole` during broadcasts of some prerelease HD movies. MPAA bigshots met with seven staffers from the FCC Media Bureau last week, calling the petition a `pro-consumer` (!) move designed to `enable movie studios to offer millions of Americans in-home access to high-value, high definition video content.` At least the studios are now acknowledging that SOC would break the functionality of some HDTVs, an admission they were previously unwilling to make: `What`s interesting about the group`s latest filing, however, is that it effectively concedes that the output changes it wants could, in fact, hobble some home video systems.
Consumer Advocates In Germany Helping Those Accused Of File Sharing TechDirt
It looks like the concerns over copyright holders taking advantage of people online in Germany by doing things like sending threatening letters based on weak evidence, or even putting up their own files to try to find file sharers is worrying some consumer advocates. A consumer advocacy group in the country is now promising to help those who get such pre-settlement letters to respond to them while protecting their rights.
Techie-Conference Smackdown Wall Street Journal
An upcoming New York arts and technology event, dubbed the Audience Conference, is scheduled for Nov. 5 and 6, but it`s managed to ruffle some techie feathers well in advance. Several of its speakers, including TechCrunch`s Michael Arrington, Mahalo`s Jason Calacanis and CNET editor Dan Farber, are well-known in new-media circles. According to Loren Feldman, founder of video-production company 1938 Media and one of Audience`s producers, the name comes from its intended focus: How to reach out to and engage an audience. It`s not really a conference in the traditional sense, where there`s panels and guys giving spiels, so to speak, Mr. Feldman said. We have many, many heavyweights, quote unquote, but the show is really about the audience.
How I cross-site scripted Twitter in 15 minutes, and why you shouldn’t store important data on 37signals’ applications Brian Mastenbrook
Today the Ruby on Rails security team released a patch for a cross-site scripting issue which affected multiple high-profile applications, including Twitter and Basecamp. If you’re concerned about the issue and would like to see the patch, please read the advisory from the Rails security team. In this post, I discuss the overall process of finding the issue, and the reason why I’d suggest that no important information be stored on the 37signals applications (Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, and Campfire). Finding software security issues is a creative art. With multiple layers of stacks and protocols combining to form a single application, finding an issue requires seeing which layers and components can be mixed together to create a behavior not originally intended by the program’s designer. Sometimes, inspiration strikes and the pieces fall into place quickly. After seeing a bug in Unicode handling in an unrelated program a few weeks ago, I suddenly had an idea: “I wonder if there are any web applications which have Unicode handling problems that might be security issues?” My attention quickly turned to Twitter, the only web application I had open at that moment. A few minutes later, I had JavaScript from a URL query parameter falling through the escaping routines and running in the main body of twitter.com. Bingo! Cross-site scripting, the stuff that Twitter worms are made of. But was this a Twitter-specific issue, or did it affect other sites too?
Taxpayers should not have to fund feminist porn The Local
The idea of [Swedish] feminist porn may be attractive to some but there is no reason for the state to cough up half a million kronor to fund its production, argues Beatrice Fredriksson, a member of the Moderate Party’s youth organisation and author of the Anti-Feminist Initiative blog. Thursday September 3rd sees the premiere of Mia Engberg’s `Dirty diaries`, a feminist porn movie funded by the Swedish Film Institute. Engberg received 500,000 kronor ($69,000) from the Institute to make the movie. Engberg has also tried to make feminist porn before, which has resulted in a lesbian porn film and a film of women’s’ facial expressions at the point of orgasm. Her vision is to get make the porn industry more appealing to women, all in the name of feminism. She also claims that women’s sexuality is more multi-faceted than men’s.
Marc – p2pnet
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
September, 2009
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September 4th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Technology can save your life!
Tactical Canned Bacon: Bacon Will save you Think Geek
http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/wacky-candy/c399/
Tactical Canned Bacon is the very best canned bacon we’ve ever tasted. This bacon is in actual strips – blessed with the magic of preservatives to last over 10 years in the can. Sure, you have to refrigerate after opening, but we bet you’ll eat it all too quick to worry about that.
Now you never have to worry about having bacon on hand after the apocalypse or when you get sent away for downloading a tune.
September 4th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
NY Post Reporter Admits That It’s Company Policy Not To Credit Blogs Or Other Sources
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090904/0416086107.shtml
the reporter confessed and noted that it was company policy not to credit bloggers. In this case, it involved a local New York City blog that goes by the charming name NewYorkShitty.com. Last month, it reported on an illegal gym in the neighborhood. A little over a week later, the big News Corp/Rubert Murdoch-owned NY Post wrote an article covering just that story that seemed pretty obviously taken straight from the original.
So, the author of the blog post, one “Miss Heather” contacted one of the NY Post reporters, who quite openly admitted to using the blog post for his story, and then said it’s against corporate policy to credit bloggers with scoops. Apparently, the same applies at the NY Daily News as well:
Post policy prevented me from crediting you in print. Allow me to do so now. You did a fantastic reporting job. All I had to do was follow your steps (and make a few extra phone calls).
I won’t discuss at length the policy of not crediting blogs (or anyone else). I’ll just briefly explain that as long as we can independently verify every bit of info, we don’t credit.
September 5th, 2009 at 9:30 am
” I wonât discuss at length the policy of not crediting blogs (or anyone else). Iâll just briefly explain that as long as we can independently verify every bit of info, we donât credit. ”
Just like Murdoch said, News ain’t free, except to me.
September 5th, 2009 at 9:33 am
Oh, btw ..
Why the fuck don’t they bother to ‘Independently Verify’ what the RIAA lawyers and labels say ?
Oh, duh, that’s right .. Rupert has as a stake in one of those Labels ( and some MPAA crap ) too.