FiniteElementalist - Slashdot User

Submission + - Usaspending.gov Federal Spending Tracker Online (usaspending.gov)

Submitted by FiniteElementalist on Sunday December 16, 2007 @04:33PM

FiniteElementalist writes: Champions for government transparency can now view some of the fruits of their labor as Usaspending.gov is online. This site provides easy access to a plethora of searchable data about US Federal Government spending, such as federal contracts and assistance. It also provides an API for small scale accesses to the available data. Usaspending.gov was created as a result of the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 introduced by Senators Coburn (R-OK) and Obama (D-IL).
(PS Don't get too worried about the red warning text at the bottom, other than you shouldn't setup automated or bulk data gathering from the site.)

Comment Little incentive for them to stop it (Score 2, Insightful) 352

by FiniteElementalist on Monday November 19, 2007 @03:13AM (#21404505) Attached to: Comcast Targets Unlicensed Anime Torrenters

There's basically been tacit allowance of widespread copyright infringement for unlicensed anime because there is little incentive for the Japanese companies to try to stop it. That's because the English market for an unlicensed anime isn't open yet; they need someone to translate and distribute it. There's no money to be lost yet, so they can mostly benefit from the infringement to market the shows and get data on what's popular in the western markets. The only downside is the risk of not being able to stop infringement once they license, but many fansubbers will stop translating willingly when it is licensed. And people will still pirate anyways...

Comcast however, has a direct interest in stopping this: it eats up bandwidth. So I would guess they are either mostly or completely behind this rather than the copyright holders. I wonder if they even have permission from the copyright holders to send these out.

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