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Music

Why the RIAA Doesn't Want Defendants Exonerated 199

RageAgainsttheBears writes "The RIAA is beginning to find itself in an awkward position. A few of its many, many lawsuits don't manage to end in success for the organization. Typically, when they decide a case isn't worth pursuing (due to targeting the wrong person or not having sufficient evidence), they simply move to drop the case. Counterclaims are usually dropped in turn, and everyone goes separate ways. But recently, judges have been deciding to allow the RIAA to drop the case, but still allowing the defendant's counterclaim through. According to the Ars Technica article: 'If Judge Miles-LaGrange issues a ruling exonerating Tallie Stubbs of infringement, it would be a worrisome trend for the RIAA. The music industry has become accustomed to having its way with those it accuses of file-sharing, quietly dropping cases it believes it can't win. It looks as though the courts may be ready to stop the record labels from just walking away from litigation when it doesn't like the direction it is taking and give defendants justice by fully exonerating them of any wrongdoing.'"
The Internet

Submission + - Rapidshare vs. Gema

Martin writes: "Ghacks blogs about how Rapidshare, one of the largest file hosters in the world, is currently under heavy fire in Germany. The Gema, which administers the copyrights of more than 60,000 members as well as those of over 1 million rights owners from all corners of the world managed to get a court ruling (German website) in their favor. The court ruled that the hoster could be held responsible for copyright violations committed by users who upload copyrighted material to Rapidshare servers. The court furthermore ruled that Rapidshare had to implement filters that would prevent further copyright violations.."
Games

Submission + - Games Firm Pursues 500 Pinball 'Pirates'

ColinPL writes: "Zuxxex, the German games software distributor, has hired lawyers to chase down about 500 British file-sharers, launching the first in a series of swoops by computer forensic experts.

File sharers were reported under court orders served on 18 ISPs at Davenport's request after computer forensic experts associated their IP addresses as sources for downloaders of Dream Pinball 3D, a computer game that's unleased in the UK — it goes on sale in June."
Security

Submission + - Digg.com Accounts Compromised

An anonymous reader writes: There is a cross-site scripting vulnerbility on the registration page of popular social networking site Digg.com. The hole allows cookies and sessions of logged-in users to be hijacked, compromising the account. The exploit can be triggered simply by a user clicking a maliciously-crafted link. A full explanation and sample exploit code is available here
Education

Submission + - Citizendium open for reading

Electrawn writes: "Citizendium is now open for everyone to view. Major AP stories hit wire in the next hour. Site moves from a pilot phase to a beta phase. -Jason Potkanski, Citizendium"
Unix

Journal Journal: SCO says GNU doesn't have a license

I was browsing SCO's website trying to figure out development tool options for SCO OpenServer 5.0.6 (I know, I know) and stumbled across this.

It describes one of the three options for OpenServer 5.0.7 as:

Yahoo!

Submission + - Bloggers spot more Yahoo copyright violations!

Viswam writes: "Indian bloggers spot more Yahoo copyright violations!
The search is on, and the search company is on the hot seat

March 12, 2007 (IDG News Service) — Yahoo Inc.'s problems with Indian bloggers over unauthorized reproduction of their content on its Indian portals may be just beginning. Bloggers claim they have identified more instances of their content being reproduced without permission on Yahoo's Indian portals. Yahoo's Indian subsidiary has yet to come up with an appropriate response that satisfies the bloggers. After bloggers complained about Yahoo India's unauthorized publication of recipes from a blogger called Su, the subsidiary apologized on Thursday. In a statement, it said it regretted any inconvenience caused by the inadvertent Yahoo's Indian subsidiary on its Malayalam-language portal. Yahoo did not refer to Su or her blog by name, and also blamed the mistake on its content provider Webdunia.com (India) Pvt. Ltd. A Malayalam-language version of the statement was posted by Yahoo on its Malayalam portal, but that did not satisfy the bloggers. The issue is not about Yahoo publishing her content without attribution, said Su reacting to Yahoo's statement in an e-mail Saturday. The bloggers, whose content she said was stolen, are fighting against Yahoo violating their copyrights, she wrote. Su has demanded a written apology from Yahoo for allegedly stealing her blog content. The blogger describes herself as a housewife from Kerala in south India in her blog. She said that her next step would be to take the dispute to court on a number of charges including copyright violation, if "Yahoo keeps on washing their hands off and tries to do a mockery of an apology." Bloggers in India are also compiling a list of content allegedly stolen from them by Yahoo's content provider, and posted to Yahoo's portals in India. The 12 incidents of copyright violation and content theft identified so far may be only be the tip of the iceberg, a blogger wrote Sunday. The content on Yahoo's seven Indian languages portals is provided by Webdunia.com under the express representation that Webdunia.com has all the necessary rights and authorization for all the content provided by them, Yahoo India said last week. Yahoo India did not comment on the most recent allegations by bloggers, but a spokeswoman said on Monday that the company is likely to issue another statement soon."
Software

Submission + - OpenOffice.org Submits Open Letter to Dell

jlbooker writes: OpenOffice.org has submitted an open letter to Michael Dell in response to the overwhelming requests on Dell's IdeaStorm site for the OpenOffice.org 2 software suite to be factory-installed on Dell systems. From the letter: "Let's have a conversation about how we could build an "OpenOffice.org supplied by Dell" product to give your customers what they are asking for."
Privacy

Submission + - No passport for Britons refusing mass-surveillance

UpnAtom writes: "From the And you thought Sweden was bad dept:

People who refuse to give up their bank records, tax records & details of any benefits they've claimed and the records of their car movements for the last year, or refuse to submit to an interrogation on whether they are the same person that this mountain of data belongs to will be denied passports from March 26th.

The Blair Govt has already admitted that this and other data will be cross-linked so that the Home Office and other officials can spy on the everyday lives of innocent Britons.

Britons were already the most spied upon nation in Western Europe. Data-mining through this unprecedented level of mass-surveillance allows any future British govt to leapfrog even countries like China and North Korea."
Wii

Submission + - Features the Wii Opera Browser is Screaming for

frenchy64 writes: "With the next release of the Wii Opera Browser just around the corner, there is just so much potential to fulfil it's overwhelming. Okay, we know it needs Tabs, updated Flash and all that jazz, but what else could be included? The Wii Gamers have an editorial suggesting features such as DS Connectivity for an easy wireless Keyboard, Wiimote Gestures, and Browse-While-Playing capabilities (to name a few)!"
Privacy

Submission + - SWIFT applies for Safe Harbor Protections

KDR_11k writes: The Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT, the system used for all international bank transfers) is now applying for Safe Harbor protections in the US following a dispute with the EU over handing data to US authorities (of course with subpoenas). EU data protection laws don't allow giving peronal information to other entities without the consent of the person the information is about which already caused the dispute over handing passenger data to US authorities. SWIFT hopes that with these Safe Harbor protections they will no longer be forced to give up information they aren't allowed to but Safe Harbor does not apply to banking organizations. Now it depends on whether SWIFT is a banking institution (they claim they aren't) and whether they are a data processor or controller (they claim the former, apparently data protection laws only apply to the latter).

The EU's proposed solution is that SWIFT should abandon its US data center to bring its data out of range of US officials.
XBox (Games)

Submission + - Xbox Live Marketplace Digital Rights MISManagement

Divalent writes: "For over fourteen months, Microsoft has been aware of a problem that is presented to a user if they attempt to play an XBL arcade game or a game with premium paid downloadable content on any other machine than the one it was originally downloaded on. (See forum thread begun on 12/18/05)

MS has not come forward and publicly acknowledged the problem. Their representatives on the forums have even gone so far as to say, despite it's frank illegality, that those that had consoles stolen or replaced, in or out of warranty, from retailers will not have the workaround solution applied to their accounts unless they have explicit proof of said replacement. This means if your box breaks out of warranty, you cannot simply trash it and head to a store and buy a new one. You must somehow show continuity and PROVE to Microsoft that your old box is broken and has been replaced by the one you say it has been replaced by. Whatever happened to content being tied to your Gamertag, an ID that is uncopy-able and can only be logged onto one console at any one time? Where was the mention prior to launch of tying content to Gamertag AND the first console used to download the content before launch? That little detail wasn't even brought up until the Fall Update in October '06.

Currently there is a group of users who have had enough of this mismanagement of the growing segment of users with this problem. It is felt that Microsoft has its choice of a myriad of solutions such as Apples (de)authorizing protocol for iTunes. You can get a synopsis of the problem at Parallax Abstraction's blog on the matter here along with his recommendations of what to do. Included in the suggestions, whether you've personally been effected by the problem or not, is the urging to sign a petition that asks Microsoft to change the Digital Rights (Mis)Managment scheme currently in place."
Television

Submission + - TV delays drive viewers to piracy

Astat1ne writes: The Register has a story about the delays Australian TV viewers are experiencing with overseas-produced series and how it is driving many of them to download the shows via BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer networks. From the story: "According to a survey based on a sample of 119 current or recent free-to-air TV series', Australian viewers are waiting an average of almost 17 months for the first run series' first seen overseas. Over the past two years, average Australian broadcast delays for free-to-air television viewers have more than doubled from 7.9 to 16.7 months." According to the article, the situation is compounded by the fact that Australian viewers are unable to download legal copies of the episodes from the US iTunes website and are turning to unauthorised means to get copies of their favorite shows.

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