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United States

ASCAP Declares War On Free Culture, EFF 483

Andorin writes "According to Drew Wilson at ZeroPaid and Cory Doctorow, the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), a US organization that aims to collect royalties for its members for the use of their copyrighted works, has begun soliciting donations to fight key organizations of the free culture movement, such as Creative Commons, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public Knowledge. According to a letter received by ASCAP member Mike Rugnetta, 'Many forces including Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation and technology companies with deep pockets are mobilizing to promote "Copyleft" in order to undermine our "Copyright." They say they are advocates of consumer rights, but the truth is these groups simply do not want to pay for the use of our music. Their mission is to spread the word that our music should be free.' (Part 1 and part 2 of the letter.) The collecting agency is asking that its professional members donate to its Legislative Fund for the Arts, which appears to be a lobbying campaign meant to convince Congress that artists should not have the choice of licensing their works under a copyleft license."

Comment Re:Not the only conservative views he's pushed (Score 1, Informative) 617

Bullshit. That's the same tired tripe they've been pushing since well before the civil rights movement. You can't discriminate against blacks and you can't discriminate against gays. Get used to it.

Actually, in a democracy you can discriminate against whoever the hell you want as long as the majority agrees with you. Get used to it.

Which is why the United States is not a Democracy, nor has it ever been.

The United States is a Representative Constitutional Republic, and always has been.

I think the reason for the Founder's decision on this form of Government couldn't be clearer, just look at the country today.

You've got an overwhelming majority...who believe utter nonsense.

When you think about it, our system is really only one of two that could contain itself long enough to achieve so-called "Superpower Status". The other (apparently, looking at history) was Communism (speaking of the former Soviet Union).

However, seeing as the United States is still here and still retains it's Superpower status, I believe we've proven that only the mixture of Democracy and Authoritarianism that is the "Representative Republic" form of Government can withstand the long haul of time.

Comment Re:Who exactly is fighting back? (Score 1) 641

That's your problem right there. You are basing your opinion on blind belief rather than looking at the facts. So when the facts clearly contradict your beliefs, you have to come up with excuses, such as "but they are calling it climate change rather than global warming, so that means I'm right after all!"

Comment Mostly RFC's mostly suck ditch water. (Score 1) 168

RFC's are like democracy, it is the worst form of government known on the face of the planet, it is just better then everything else we have tried thus far.

At their best they are precise and ambiguous, at their worst they are inscrutable and comprehensible.

Specifications via consensus means that every pissant and their cousin gets to have a whack at making sure their sacred ox does not get gored, or conversely making sure that the sacred ox of someone they don't like does in fact get gored and gored badly.

Having actually sat down and traced through a few of these I feel your pain. At some point they pretty much kinda work, sorta, maybe. After a couple of cocktails and a few huffy e-mails you might actually get to grips with whatever the problem is and get some work done. Unfortunately by then you have forgotten what the hell you were trying to do in the 1st place.

Bug

Win7 Can Delete All System Restore Points On Reboot 449

An anonymous reader writes "Astonishingly, the so-called system restore feature in Windows 7 deletes restore points without warning when the system is rebooted. This forum thread on answers.microsoft.com shows some of the users who have experienced the problem. Today I did a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate 32-bit (no dual boot), and noticed that whenever the machine rebooted after installing an application or driver, the disk churned for several minutes on the 'starting Windows' screen. Turns out that churning was the sound of my diligently created system restore points being deleted. Unfortunately I only found this out when Windows barfed at a USB dongle and I wanted to restore the system to an earlier state. This is an extraordinarily bad bug, which I suspect most Windows 7 users won't realise is affecting them until it's too late."
Math

The Data-Driven Life 96

theodp recommends a somewhat long and rambling article by Wired's Gary Wolf, writing in the NY Times Magazine, on recording and mining data about your personal life. "In the cozy confines of personal life, we rarely used the power of numbers. The imposition on oneself of a regime of objective record keeping seemed ridiculous. And until a few years ago, it would have been pointless to seek self-knowledge through numbers. But now, technology can analyze every quotidian thing that happened to you today. 'Four things changed,' explains Wolf. 'First, electronic sensors got smaller and better. Second, people started carrying powerful computing devices, typically disguised as mobile phones. Third, social media made it seem normal to share everything. And fourth, we began to get an inkling of the rise of a global superintelligence known as the cloud.' And the next thing you know, exercise, sex, food, mood, location, alertness, productivity, even spiritual well-being are being tracked and measured, shared and displayed."
Privacy

Facebook's "Evil Interfaces" 244

An anonymous reader writes "Tim Jones over at the EFF's Deep Links Blog just posted an interesting article on the widespread use of deceptive interface techniques on the Web. He began by polling his Twitter and Facebook audience for an appropriate term for this condition and received responses like 'Bait-and-Click' and 'Zuckerpunched.' Ultimately, he chose 'Evil Interfaces' from Greg Conti's HOPE talk on malicious interface design and follow-up interview with media-savvy puppet Weena. Tim then goes on to dissect Facebook (with pictures). So, what evil interfaces have you encountered on (or off) the Web?"
Television

One In Eight To Cut Cable and Satellite TV In 2010 502

r0k3t writes "It looks like people are finally getting sick of overpriced, ad-infested cable and satellite TV. I had predicted that by 2005 we would mostly be using the net for video — seems like I was a few years off. From the article: 'A cutting-the-cord trend has been the subject of speculation for some time, as networks have increasingly made television programming available for free on the Internet. But a combination of other factors, including a growing number of battles between cable companies and networks, soaring Internet video viewings, and an increase in connected TVs and devices, suggest the trend is finally upon us. ... The biggest reason why customers will cut the cord, according to the study, is the growing cost of pay-TV service. Cable and satellite viewers pay an average of $71 per month, and they receive an average annual price hike of 5%, according to research firm Centris.'" How many of you have made the switch to Internet-only TV, or are considering it? Any regrets?
America Online

Russian Company Buys ICQ 136

An anonymous reader writes "AOL has sold ICQ to Digital Sky Technologies (DST), Russia's largest Internet company, for US$187.5 million. DST's offer was apparently more attractive than those of Russia's ProfMedia and China's Tencent. ICQ, originally released in 1996 and bought by AOL in 1998 for US$407 million, was one of the world's first major instant messaging systems. Although largely forgotten in English-speaking countries, it remains widely popular in Central Europe, Russia, and Israel. Moscow News has additional coverage of the deal."

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It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. - Voltaire

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