Stormy seas writes "Congressman 'Hollywood' Howard Berman (D-CA) used a House subcommittee hearing today to express his view that the DMCA was in need of a rewrite. In his view, it doesn't go far enough. During his opening remarks for a hearing on the PRO-IP Act, Berman said that the DMCA's Safe Harbor needs further scrutiny and that it might be time to make filtering mandatory. There's more: Berman also 'wants to examine the "effectiveness of takedown notices" under the DMCA, and he'd like to take another look at whether filtering technology has advanced to the point where Congress ought to mandate it in certain situations.'"

sehlat writes "Via BoingBoing comes the news that Western Digital's My Book(TM) World Edition(TM) II, sold with promises of internet-accessible drive space, is now restricting the types of files the drive will serve up. 'Western Digital is disabling sharing of any avi, divx, mp3, mpeg, and many other files on its network connected devices; due to unverifiable media license authentication. Just wondering -- who needs a 1 Terabyte network-connected hard drive that is prohibited from serving most media files? Perhaps somebody with 220 million pages of .txt files they need to share?'" Update: 12/07 03:28 GMT by Z : To clarify, it actually seems as though this is a bad summary. The MioNET service that WD packages with the networked drives is responsible for the rights of users via the network. There are a few (obvious) ways to get around that.

pwizard2 writes "Gamepolitics reports that controversial Miami attorney Jack Thompson faces the start of an ethics trial this morning, a process which could ultimately see him disbarred. The review board has set aside the entire week to hear details on the case. 'Over the weekend, Thompson turned to the Florida Supreme Court in an apparent effort to block this morning's trial from moving forward. In one court filing Thompson asserted that he was willing to accept a 90-day suspension of his license to practice law. The embattled attorney claimed that such an offer had been on the table, but that the Florida Bar was now seeking his permanent disbarment.'"

HeavensBlade23 sends in an article from the German site Spiegel Online about mounting evidence that nuclear radiation may not be as deadly as has been widely believed. The article cites studies by German, US, and Japanese researchers concluding, for example, that fewer than 800 deaths are attributable to the after-effects of radiation in over 86,500 survivors of the Hiroshima bombing. Other surprisingly low death rates are reported in studies of Chernobyl and of a secret Siberian town called Mayak, devoted to producing plutonium, that was abandoned after a nuclear accident in 1957.

theodp writes "Brought together 7 years ago by a threatened boycott over Amazon's 1-Click patent, Tim O'Reilly and Jeff Bezos vowed to reform the U.S. patent system. So in The Register's Open Season podcast (@12:25), Andrew Orlowski finds it very ironic that news of a victory by LOTR choreographer Peter Calveley against Bezos' 1-Click patent broke as O'Reilly was once again busy trotting out Amazon-tied speakers to headline a Web 2.0 conference, this one sponsored by Fenwick & West, the prestigious law firm bested by Calveley. Orlowski notes that O'Reilly, who now counts Bezos among his investors, was oddly silent for a self-described software patent protester, especially one who once vowed to torpedo 1-Click. Equally untalkative was Bezos, who deflected questions on the damage done by Calveley's DIY legal effort, telling a Wall Street analyst to 'refer to our public filings' (although nothing on the subject appears in the 8-K and 10-Q filings). One last dose of irony — in explaining the prior art he used to reject the 1-Click claims, a USPTO Examiner cited the very same TV remote control patent that was deemed to be unsuitable in a 1-Click prior art contest run by the O'Reilly and Bezos-bankrolled BountyQuest (just last year, Amazon testified to Congress that the contest failed to find prior art for Bezos' patent)."

mijio writes "It's not the first time that Italy discusses Internet censorship. The last year, after some guys appeared in a video punching and blaming a kid with Down syndrome, Minister of Education Fioroni brought in to trial two of Google Italy's managers and then proposed and strongly sustained his idea of censoring the Internet to protect the young. Now Ricardo Levi, the prime minister's right hand, is finally successful in promulgating his law on internet censorship. With the goal of "promoting and enriching the pluralism of information," the law rules that everyone involved in "editorial activity" must be subscribed to the "Registry of Operators of Communication" to be prosecutable in case of defamation, where "editorial product" is defined as "any product with purpose of information, education, divulgation, entertainment, aimed at publication, no matter the form it is realized in and the mean it is distributed with." When inquired about the effects of this rule for bloggers, Levi responded, "We have no interest in touching amatorial or personal sites, it would be not feasible". The Times speaks about this paradox as well."

tburton writes "Viacom has put the entire eight year run of the Daily Show with John Stewart online. The content is available from the official Daily Show site, and features clip rating, tags, and numerous community features. The whole thing is supported by relatively unobtrusive contextual ads. 'Viacom's decision to post its entire archive--while fighting YouTube in the courts--sets the scene for a battle between the established media players and their high profile entertainment brands against the user generated content sites, most notable YouTube. Also watching closely the Viacom experiment will be the telco IPTV industry which has seen the market place change rapidly as the quality of online video continues to improve, with at least one platform/site, Vimeo, already offering 1280X720 HD quality direct from the browser.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Security researchers at a recent summit predicted US voters will be targeted by web-based dirty tricks campaigns as the 2008 election gets nearer. Spam, botnets and phishing all provide good opportunities to mislead voters and attack rivals with little risk of being caught, they say."

Anonymous Terrorist writes "Back in the midsts of time, when I was a lad and gopher was the height of information retrieval I read The Anarchist's Cookbook in one huge text file. Now it appears the UK government considers possession of the book an offense under the Terrorism Act 2000 and is prosecuting a 17 year old boy, in part, for having a copy of the book. 'The teenager faces two charges under the Terrorism Act 2000. The first charge relates to the possession of material for terrorist purposes in October last year. The second relates to the collection or possession of information useful in the preparation of an act of terrorism.'"

cnet-declan writes "The Bush administration's copyright czar says the RIAA's $222,000 recent jury verdict against a Minnesota woman shows copyright law is 'effective' and working as planned. C|Net's coverage has comments from Chris Israel, the U.S. Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement. Israel is formerly a senior Commerce Department official appointed by President Bush in July 2005 who previously worked for Time Warner's public policy arm (Warner Bros. Records is one of the plaintiffs in the RIAA case). The site also features an interview with Rep. Rick Boucher, no fan of the RIAA, on whether Congress will change the law, an analysis of why U.S. copyright law is broken, and four reasons why the RIAA won."

An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian government's top copyright policy maker has been moved aside after revelations that she was in a personal relationship with Hollywood's top Canadian lobbyist. The development is raising questions about how the MPAA got an anti-camcording bill passed in only three weeks and what it means for the introduction of a Canadian DMCA."

Billosaur writes "In what can only be seen as the opening salvo in an attempt to control what users can do with content, the German parliament has approved a controversial copyright law which will make it illegal to make copies of CDs and DVDs, even for personal use. The Bundesrat, the upper part of the German parliament, approved the legislation over the objections of consumer protection groups. The law is set to take effect in 2008, and covers CDs, DVDs, recordings from IPTV, and TV recordings." A few folks have noted that this story is incorrect. The original link seems to be down now anyway. Sorry.

Can you say "the SCO, the" in German? writes "Trading of SCO's stock has been halted on news that SCO has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. This move just so happens to fall on the eve of SCO's trial with Novell. One would think that their prior boasts were mostly bluster, that they believe they have almost no chance of prevailing at trial, and that they're now desperate to protect their executives from SCO's creditors while seeking yet another delay. From the release: 'The SCO Group intends to maintain all normal business operations throughout the bankruptcy proceedings. Subject to court approval, SCO and its subsidiaries will use the cash flow from their consolidated operations to meet their capital needs during the reorganization process. "We want to assure our customers and partners that they can continue to rely on SCO products, support and services for their business critical operations," said Darl McBride, President and CEO, The SCO Group. "Chapter 11 reorganization provides the Company with an opportunity to protect its assets during this time while focusing on building our future plans."'"