An anonymous reader writes "A blogger named Spocko had his blog shut down by ABC/Disney lawyers because he had posted clips from an ABC Radio-affiliated program and commented on their content, as well as informed show advertisers of what exactly they were paying for. Spocko merely pointed out the content that station KSFO was broadcasting, and as a result Visa pulled their advertising from the station. More companies were reportedly considering pulling their ads. A YouTube video summary is available. From the Daily Kos article: 'How'd he do it? He did it the way it's always done - by working within the law, identifying points of weakness, exploiting them and being absolutely tenacious ... It appears to me as if Disney is attempting to bully a little guy in an unethical manner. Any media lawyer worth the air she breathes knows that Spocko's use was well protected.'"

The results of two scientific studies have shown that dolphins are capable of recognizing rhythms and pitch and are able to reproduce them. In order to best demonstrate this ability the scientists chose the epic, Batman theme song and were able to teach a shortened version to the dolphins who reproduced it in response to certain stimuli.

Jason Pillai writes to tell us ZDNet is reporting that at last month's Microsoft Worldwide Parter Conference in Boston Ryan Gavin, director of platform strategy, claimed that one of the big downsides to open source is complexity. From the article: "Gavin noted that the flexibility of open-source software in meeting specific business needs also means systems integrators and ISVs have to grapple with complexity costs. 'It's challenging for partners to build competencies to support Linux, because you never quite know what you're going to be supporting,' he added. 'Customers who run Linux could be operating in Red Hat, [Novell's] Suse, or even customized Debian environments,' he explained. 'You don't get that repeatable [development] process to build your business over time.'" More than once I have had complaints that my setup is more difficult than necessary. Is open source really that much harder, or just different than what most are used to?

theodp writes "U.S. digital entertainment company Gracenote has obtained licenses to distribute the lyrics of more than 1 million songs. Music publishers are still mulling legal action against Web sites that provide lyrics without authorization." From the article: "Ralph Peer II, Firth's counterpart at peermusic, said licensing lyrics should boost worldwide music publishing revenues, estimated at about $4 billion annually. Peer said he hopes the unauthorized sites will seek licenses. 'I think we'll see a reasonable increase, as much as a 5 percent increase, in industry music publishing revenues five years out from where we are right now,' Peer said."

Boudewijn Rempt writes "Amazon's recommendation system recommended me "Open Source Game Development: Qt Games for KDE, PDA's and Windows" when I was looking for an introduction to OpenGL. While it does contain two chapters on OpenGL, there's much, much more. It's not just an introduction to writing open source games, it's a complete introduction to participating in open source projects like KDE." Read the rest of Boudewijn's review.

j0e_average writes "The Washington Post is running a review of Microsoft's next version of Media Player, and its integration with MTV's new music service Urge. According to reviewer, Rob Pegoraro, 'Not only does this new, Windows XP-only software promote Urge to the exclusion of other retailers, you can't shop at this store-- or even just play your Urge downloads -- in any earlier version of Windows Media Player.' The Microsoft/Urge subscription model contains a new twist as well: 'Urge also lets you rent songs: $9.95 a month (or $99 a year) lets you download all the tracks you want to a computer, while $14.95 ($149 a year) lets you transfer those downloads to most newer Windows Media-compatible players. These rented songs can't be burned to CD and go silent if you stop paying the fees.'"

UseFree.org writes "The position of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) was strengthened today when the free & open source K Desktop Environment (KDE) announced that it has joined the ODF Alliance. KDE developer David Faure has been instrumental in developing the OpenDocument standard, which is already implemented in KOffice, KDE's office suite. Faure says: 'The fact that KOffice provides an independent implementation of the OpenDocument file format, and was able to take part in its specification, proves that OpenDocument is actually a standard, not just a rubber stamp on Sun's OpenOffice file format. What makes an open standard is not merely approval by a committee, but independent implementations.'"

Billosaur writes "From NPR, we get a Marketplace story about the theft of corporate laptops and the sensitive data they may contain, specifically how to handle the repercussions. From the story: 'TriWest operates in about 21 states. It's based in Phoenix, Arizona. In December of 2002, somebody broke into the company's offices and stole two computer hard drives.And those hard drives contained the personal information of 550,000 of our customers from privates in the military all the way up to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.' How they handled the situation earned them an award from the Public Relations Society of America."

Zoxed writes ""A two-part documentary, 'The Code Breakers' will be aired on BBC World TV starting on 10 May 2006. Code Breakers investigates how poor countries are using FOSS applications for development, and includes stories and interviews from around the world." The first part is screening tonight on BBC World."

ComputerWorld is reporting that John Winske, president of the Disability Policy Consortium, is raising some questions about the accessibility of the OpenDocument format. From the article: "Winske, who has muscular dystrophy, said he instantly remembered how Microsoft had to be "prodded and dragged, kicking and screaming" to make its software accessible during the transition from DOS to Windows. None of the prominent desktop applications that can create and save documents in OpenDocument currently work well with screen readers, magnifiers and other assistive technologies -- at least at a level comparable to that of products from Microsoft, whose 40-person Accessibility Technology Group is now widely praised by disabilities advocates."

Andy Updegrove writes "Last week, the Massachusetts Information Technology Division (ITD) issued a Request for Information (RFI) on any plugins that might be under development to assist it in migrating from a MS Office environment to one based upon software that supports ODF. The RFI acknowledges the fact that it may be necessary or advantageous to see some of the code in Office in order to enable the types of features that the ITD is looking for. Conveniently, Jason Matusow, Microsoft's Director of Standards Affairs, had this to say on the occasion of ODF's approval by the members of ISO and the IEC: "The ODF format is limited to the features and performance of OpenOffice and StarOffice and would not satisfy most of our Microsoft Office customers today. Yet we will support interoperability with ODF documents as they start to appear and will not oppose its standardization or use by any organization. The richness of competitive choices in the market is good for our customers and for the industry as a whole." Presumably such support will include helping the plug-in developers that will assist Massachusetts migrate from a MS Office environment to one based upon ODF-compliant office productivity software."