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United States

Justice Department Promises Stronger Copyright Punishments 322

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the dancing-the-big-business-polka dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has stated that the Justice department will be getting even harder on copyright infringement, targeting repeat offenders. The new 'Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007' is headed for Congress promising to 'hit criminals in their wallets' hoping to ensure that any 'ill-gotten gains' are forfeited.
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA Defends "Expert", says "everyone

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Arguing that "everyone in his field proceeds the same way that he did", and that "there is no other way to do what he did" (pdf), the RIAA opposes Ms. Lindor's motion to exclude the testimony of Dr. Doug Jacobson at trial based on Dr. Jacobson's deposition testimony in which he admitted that neither his work, nor that of MediaSentry, upon which he relied, had any of the ordinary indicia of "reliability" required of expert testimony in federal court."
Businesses

Submission + - Can you punish your users?

Submitted by beerdini
beerdini writes: Every company that I have worked for has an employee technology agreement that everyone that uses a computer needs to sign off on. The agreement usually says that failure to follow the rules will result in the termination of technology privileges. Has anyone ever worked at a place that actually has removed someone's technology privileges for a violation? In my opinion, doing this would be more a punishment for the person's co-workers since they would have to make up for that person's lost privileges, and management is usually unwilling to enforce the guidelines that they've spent countless hours discussing and printing on those documents that they make everyone sign. Are there any realistic forms of "punishment" that IT staff can enforce to teach their users to stop doing the things that are a violation of the workplace policy? Techniques that after getting proper authorization from supervisors that would punish the violating user but still allow them to perform the duties of their job?
Censorship

Submission + - Dreamhost removes access to sites with HD-DVD key

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Dreamhost, a big hosting company is removing access to sites to sites with the HD-DVD key (spanish site hosted in DH) and request delete HD-DVD key above re-activate their(s) site(s), this is the email:

DreamHost Abuse/Security Team

Hello,

We have received complaint from the Advanced Access Content System Licensing Administrator (AACS LA) regarding a posting to your site at the following location:

It appears that on the page above you are publicizing their AACS processing key "clave en cuestión", which can be used to decrypt the Fair Use-encroaching digital rights management (DRM) software that their firm provides to content owners for use in HD-DVD players.

While we believe that the "cat is out of the bag" and that their AACS system is inherently flawed, the similarly flawed Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention rules technically makes this a violation of US copyright law. As such, we have had to remove access to the above site by renaming its parent directory. Once you can ensure that the above entry is no longer visible, you may re-enable it.

The AACS' legal counsel has provided an email address of csims AT proskauer DOT com for you to contact should you wish to do so.

If you have any questions, please let us know.

Jeff,
The AACS fight versus bloggers is just started...
Google

Submission + - Orkut to be censored

Submitted by William Robinson
William Robinson writes: The popular web site Orkut is planning to apply censorship on its contents. From this news from CNN "And if you have been concerned of web pages with obscenities scrawled over the national flag, or even others criticising the Father of the Nation or the ones negating political leaders — then sit back as these are going to be out of the website soon. Just report these to the Mumbai Police and chances are that not only will the pages be erased, but the creators brought to book for there has been an informal tie-up between the Mumbai Police and the Orkut management." What will be the level of censorship?
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Second Life meets Real Life Trouble

Submitted by
Zephida
Zephida writes: "The BBC is reporting thatSecond Life is being investigated by German police following allegations that some members are trading child abuse images in the online world http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6638331.stm FTA: The investigation follows a report by a German TV news programme which uncovered the trading group and members who pay for sex with virtual children. The police are now trying to identify the Second Life members involved. Linden Lab, the creator of Second Life, said it would help identify users and pass on details to prosecutors"
Power

Submission + - Wisconsin Orders Gas Station to Raise Gas Prices

Submitted by
hahafaha
hahafaha writes: "Raj Bhandari, a gas station owner in Wisconsin, offered a 2 cents/gallon discount for gas to seniors, and 3 cents/gallon to those that supported youth sports. However, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture is threatening to penalize him for each discounted gallon, with the fine at a judge's discretion. According to the Department, he is violating Wisconsin's Unfair Sales Act, which requires stations to sell gas for about 9.2 percent more than the wholesale price."
Google

Submission + - Google Apps Problems

Submitted by
dawhippersnapper
dawhippersnapper writes: "Google's DNS has had major failures today for their Google Apps, I have not seen a reply from Google yet.

http://groups.google.com/group/hosted-the-basics/b rowse_thread/thread/ba884d5bf12c1704

This shows a list of some people experiencing the problems.

The problem is the Custom URL option uses a CNAME to change their hosted apps to ghs.google.com, then Google's DNS server routes it to the proper page. I believe the latter function is broken."
Censorship

Submission + - Uri Geller Using DMCA to Block YouTube Clip

Submitted by
There is No Spoon
There is No Spoon writes: "The EFF has filed a lawsuit against Uri Geller over his DMCA Takedown Notice targeting a YouTube clip critical of his claims of psychic powers. The video, which is twelve minutes long, apparently contains no more than a three second clip of Uri, which is the only part he could possibly claim copyright on. Thus, the EFF believes that this was a clear case of fair use and they are asking for damages, an injunction against Uri, and attorney's fees. Note that this is not the first time Uri has sued his critics, as one critic has pointed out, "[Uri] calls himself a psychic and has sued several people for millions of dollars for saying otherwise. His psychic powers were not sufficient to reveal to him, however, that he would lose all the lawsuits against his critics.""
The Internet

Submission + - VA Tech Shooting Spurs Domain Exploiting

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "I just read an article about a guy who registered the following domain names shortly after the VA Tech incident: CampusKillings.com, VirginiaTechMurders.com, SlaughterInVirginia.com & VaTechTheMovie.com. Fred McChesney was hoping to make a quick buck by offering these domain names after the incident — although he hasn't sold any so far, he has donated a memorial domain to the students. He likened his entrepreneurial endeavor to "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." It's interesting because some of these domains were revoked: "Jeremiah Johnston, chief operating officer for domain name broker Sedo.com, said his company has shut down domains named after the victims as well as dozens of others related to the tragedy, including BlacksburgBloodbath.com and SchoolSlaughter.com." While these domain names may be seen as socially sick or unkind to the families, is it really ok to revoke the right to select a domain based on this? Will this lead the way for politicians to force down domain names that are negative political commentary? Where does one draw the line? Will this happen for every widely publicized news event?"
Microsoft

Submission + - FAA Balks At Vista Hardware Requirements

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: New details have come to light about the FAA's moratorium on upgrades to Window Vista and Office 2007. InformationWeek reports on a leaked internal memo from top Federal Aviation Administration officials, which worries that Vista requires "twice the memory ...than that currently specified in the FAA Desktop standard configuration." The memo, dated January 26, 2007, (a few days before the Vista launch) was hand signed by FAA CIO Dave Bowen and VP for acquisition James Washington. The memo also warns tech staffers at the FAA to be on guard against heavy sales pitches from Microsoft during the initial rollout period for Windows Vista. "We anticipate that this introduction will be accompanied by significant advertising hype and salesperson activity," the document states. (The original story on the FAA moratorium is here.)
Movies

Submission + - George Lucas Anounces Two New Star Wars Movies

Submitted by alberion
alberion writes: In interview to the Fox News, George Lucas anounces two new Star Wars Movies. From the interview:
Lucas tells me he will make two more live-action films based in the "Star Wars" era. "But they won't have members of the Skywalker family as characters," he said. "They will be other people of that milieu." The two extra films will also be made for TV and probably be an hour long each. But, like "Clone Wars," Lucas doesn't know where on TV they will land.

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