p2pnet World Headlines: March 24, 2011
Liberals hope to prevent Tories from dodging contempt findings before election Canadian Press
The Liberals are trying to ensure the Harper government doesn’t dodge two contempt-of-Parliament bullets before heading into a federal election. A Liberal confidence motion is destined to topple the minority Conservative regime on Friday. It already cites the government for refusing to fully disclose the cost of its tough-on-crime agenda, corporate tax cuts and plans to purchase stealth fighter jets. Now, Liberals are thinking of amending the motion to include reference to International Co-operation Minister Bev Oda being in contempt for misleading Parliament.
Massive demonstrations in Benghazi supporting Air Strike and angry at Russia Alive in Libya
MySpace Traffic Falls Off Cliff [CHART] Hypebot
At SXSW, I had several very smart industry insiders tell me confidently that it’s only a matter of time before MySpace makes a comeback. Judging from new traffic stas, the resurection better happen soon. According to Comscore, in one month between January and February of this year, worldwide unique visitors to MySpace fell a whoping14.4% from 73 million visitors to 63 million. That’s just about half the visitors that the site had just one year ago.
Manhattan Federal Judge Kimba Wood Calls Record Companies’ Request for $75 Trillion in Damages ‘Absurd’ in Lime Wire Copyright Case The American Lawyer
Does $75 trillion even exist? The thirteen record companies that are suing file-sharing company Lime Wire for copyright infringement certainly thought so. When they won a summary judgment ruling last May they demanded damages that could reach this mind-boggling amount, which is more than five times the national debt. Manhattan federal district court judge Kimba Wood, however, saw things differently. She labeled the record companies’ damages request “absurd” and contrary to copyright laws in a 14-page opinion. The record companies, which had demanded damages ranging from $400 billion to $75 trillion, had argued that Section 504(c)(1) of the Copyright Act provided for damages for each instance of infringement where two or more parties were liable. For a popular site like Lime Wire, which had thousands of users and millions of downloads, Wood held that the damage award would be staggering under this interpretation. “If plaintiffs were able to pursue a statutory damage theory predicated on the number of direct infringers per work, defendants’ damages could reach into the trillions,” she wrote. “As defendants note, plaintiffs are suggesting an award that is ‘more money than the entire music recording industry has made since Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877.’” [Also see Does LimeWire owe the RIAA $1.5 trillion?]
Report: Networks Target Time Warner Cable iPad App DigitalMediaWire
Time Warner Cable’s recent launch of a “TV Everywhere” iPad app, which provides subscribers with online access to certain cable channels to which they subscribe, has prompted cease-and-desist letters from networks, Business Insider reported, citing an industry source. Time Warner Cable declined to comment for the story.
Apple Remove Samba From OS X 10.7 Because of GPLv3 Slashdot
The upcoming release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Server will remove the formerly bundled open source Samba software and replace it with Apple’s own tools for Windows file sharing and network directory services. In both Mac OS X Server and client editions, Samba enables Macs to share files with Windows clients on the network and access Windows file servers. It has also later allowed Mac OS X Server to work as an NT Domain Controller to manage network accounts and make roaming profiles and home directories available to Windows PC users. However, the Samba team has moved active development of the project to the more strict GPLv3 license, which prevents Apple from using the software commercially. Apple is now said to be recommending Active Directory to users who are still dependent upon the older NT Domain Controller network directory services. Apple has previously stopped contributing code to GCC and started looking at other options like LLVM because of GCC’s switch to GPLv3.
Nielsen Sues ComScore in Fight Over Web Traffic Measurement Hollywood Reporter
The battle between firms keeping score of Internet traffic is heating up as The Nielsen Company has just filed a lawsuit against ComScore for violating five patents relating to the collection, analysis and reporting of information concerning computer activity. The complaint was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Virginia. Nielsen charges that ComScore’s various products infringe upon its patents, including one for a “Computer Use Meter and Analyzer.” Ironically, Nielsen was once itself sued over this same patent by Jupiter Media Metrix. In 2002, the parties came to a settlement whereby Nielsen/NetRatings gave Jupiter a $15 million cash infusion in exchange for the patents in question.
Mood Media to buy U.S. rival Muzak Montreal Gazette
Mood Media Corp. of Toronto is set to become a global leader in background music systems after reaching a deal to acquire rival Muzak Holdings LLC for $305 million U.S. in cash. Muzak, based in Fort Mill, S.C., emerged from bankruptcy protection last year after scaling back its debt to about $230 million U.S. At the time of its Chapter 11 filing in 2009, Muzak was owned by private equity firm Abry Parnters. Mood Media provides background music and digital signage for businesses in North American and Europe. By adding Muzak’s United States customers — including restaurants, malls and hotels — Mood Media becomes a major global provider of background music and in-store media technology. [A target for Anonymous? Just kidding 
]
March, 2011
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan
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March 24th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
Open Letter to Globe & Mail
http://ninoricci.com/news/open-letter-to-globe-mail
Freelance writer for the “Globe and Fail” has bankrupt them due to his wage for writing the article and the frequent flyer miles.
Globe and mail now only hires highschool volunteers to take care of accounting.
March 24th, 2011 at 6:43 pm
CRTC announces that Rogers Communications has made a $275,000 payment for its use of automated calling devices without consent
http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/com100/2011/r110324.htm
With the payment, Rogers, like Bell and Telus, admit no guilt to attacking people with telemarketing spam.
In addition, Rogers called its’ unsolicited phone spam a “public service” and not marketing spam as they tossed automated recordings at people to buy more prepaid minutes for their cellphones. Rogers stated the rules should be changed to allow their “public service announcements”. See: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/rogers-pays-275000-after-telemarketing-probe/article1955368/
(I wonder if the writer of that above G&M article will be paid one day when G&M comes out of bankruptcy and can once again hire an accountant or an accounts payable person?)