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Comment Re:They make it sound like a natural thing (Score 2, Insightful) 70

Also reading between the lines can be amusing.

"...and we passionately believe that working in partnership with ISPs to develop first-class, safe, legal, digital music services is the way forward."

Digital music services that are controlled by BPI members that is. Not music services controlled by "new media" companies or independent record labels.

"the [ISPs] need to educate their customers not to steal music..."

The ISPs need to educate their users not to take advantage of the fact that modern packet-switched networks make it very easy to transfer information and that ultimately music is just information. The ISPs need to educate their users that only the big, 20th century media companies that grew big by distributing music on plastic discs of various sorts (when that was the most technologically cutting edge way of distributing music) can distribute music in the 21st century, even when music consumers are voting in droves with their wallets and saying that they aren't so interested in plastic discs of finite capacity containing semi-arbitrary selections of tracks any more. The ISPs need to educate their customers not to circumvent these old business models. Also the ISPs need to educate their users that the copyright laws of the printing press era are rigid and unchangeable, even when they are spectacularly unsuited to and incapable of dealing with "mass piracy" brought on by the aforementioned ease of transferring information.

Yes, that's what ISPs need to educate their users about in the eyes of Big Media.

Feed Engadget: Uniquephones's iPhone unlock release 'slowed' by AT&T lawyers (engadget.com)

Filed under: Cellphones

Hope you weren't waiting in tense anticipation to get your hands on Uniquephone's iPhone unlock software, because things certainly aren't going as planned. Reportedly, the gurus behind the software unlock were contacted by "a Silicon Valley law firm" who is "slowing down the release of the software." Of course, they still claim to have the app "ready to go," but until this legal hubbub gets cleared up, it seems like their method of freeing your iPhone will remain a well kept secret. We'll keep you posted.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


Data Storage

Submission + - Seagate to be sold to Chinese tech company

An anonymous reader writes: Chief executive William D. Watkins of Seagate Technology disclosed that an unnamed Chinese technology company is interested in buying Seagate. The offer causes concern among government officials because, even though disk drives are not export-controlled technology, there is fear that hard disks and drivers may be modified to include backdoors. This is of particular importance as Seagate manufactures harddisks with builtin encryption.
Linux Business

Submission + - PWC migrates to OpenBSD after crippling by Windows (computerworld.com.au) 1

Renegade88 writes: "After months of network failures and depleted IT budget, newly hired IT manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Japan was "forced" to migrate half of the company's Windows servers to OpenBSD to stabilize and secure their network. After eliminating the frequent downtime and data loss PWC had experienced for months, Mark Uemura was ordered to reinstate their Checkpoint firewall for political reasons. The Checkpoint server was later overwhelmed by a network virus so rather than taking it offline again, PWC placed an OpenBSD firewall in front of the Checkpoint Firewall! Mark's advice: "My experience is that if something has to be done, just do it — don't ask! [Management] will thank you later.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft struggling to gain endorsement for OOXML (computerworld.com.au)

Tri writes: The Open Source Industry of Australia (OSIA) has formally contacted Standards Australia, requesting that Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) format not be endorsed by the body as an ISO standard.

  "Quite apart from the technical problems with OOXML, the main problem from OSIA's point of view is a substantive one — the 'standard' is designed so that it can only be implemented by a single vendor", said Brendan Scott, Director of Open Source Industry Australia. "So, while in theory a third party could create an independent implementation, in practice it is very unlikely", he said.

It's funny.  Laugh.

Submission + - Two-Word Malware License Agreement (theregister.co.uk)

Tech.Luver writes: "theRegister writes via Stopbadware.org about 'two-word' license agreement of a malware, " it's refreshing to find an agreement that gets straight to the point without wasting users' time scrolling down through something they aren't going to read anyway. A license agreement for a malware-bundled codec from hotelcodec(dot)com simply says: "FUCK YOU".""
Patents

Submission + - UK Government rejects copyright term extension (culture.gov.uk) 1

e6003 writes: "The UK Government has responded to a report from the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee which (inter alia) had backed the extension of phonographic performance copyright from its present 50 years. The Government response [PDF document] notes (in response to paragraph 28 on page 15 of the PDF) that the Gowers Report considered the call for a term extension on economic and moral grounds but rejected all the arguments in favour of term extension, as did an EU Commission report. The Response concludes, "Taking account of the findings of these reports, which carefully considered the impact on the economy as a whole, and without further substantive evidence to the contrary, it does not seem appropriate for the Government to press the [European] Commission for action at this stage." Pleasingly, the Response also notes "The Government will undertake a public consultation this Autumn about making an exception to copyright legislation to allow format-shifting for private use." It's technically an infringement of copyright in the UK to rip CDs to your iPod and even the music industry has agreed something needs to be done about this."

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