Become a fan of Slashdot on Facebook

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Commun ications (Score 1) 130

by avronius (#26212261) Attached to: Space Is Just a Little Bit Closer Than Expected

This is significant in more than just military satellite operations. The global phone system, international trade, global e-mail, etc. Even radio communications can and will be affected (think shorter range 'skip'). Does anyone have an idea as to the 'why'? TFA is a little sketchy...

Isn't communication to big to fail? I can't wait to read THIS bailout story...
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - RIAA litigation may be unconstitutional

Submitted by dtjohnson
dtjohnson writes: A Harvard law school professor has submitted arguments on behalf of Joel Tenenbaum in RIAA v. Tenenbaum in which Professor Charles Neeson claims that the underlying law that the RIAA uses is actually a criminal, rather than civil, statute and is therefore unconstitutional. According to this article, "Neeson charges that the federal law is essentially a criminal statute in that it seeks to punish violators with minimum statutory penalties far in excess of actual damages. The market value of a song is 99 cents on iTunes; of seven songs, $6.93. Yet the statutory damages are a minimum of $750 per song, escalating to as much as $150,000 per song for infringement "committed willfully."" If the law is a criminal statute, Neeson then claims that it violates the 5th and 8th amendments and is therefore unconstitutional. Litigation will take a while but this may be the end for RIAA litigation, at least until they can persuade Congress to pass a new law.
Operating Systems

Submission + - Vote XP, Vista or Neither!

Submitted by peepleperson
peepleperson writes: The BBC is running a poll on its Technology page. Which do you prefer — XP, Vista or Neither? Thought I'd bring it to the attention of Slashdot readers, as I know you can be counted on not to slew the results. Oh no, siree.
Music

Submission + - Jamendo Shares Advertising Revenue With Artists

Submitted by sylvinus
sylvinus writes: The free music website Jamendo which hosts more than 2000 albums under Creative Commons licenses has just announced that it will share half of its advertising revenue with the artists. The website already offers high-quality BitTorrent and eMule downloads for all the albums and allows users to make a donation to the artists they like via PayPal. With many websites like Revver or Metacafe already paying content creators for their most popular videos, will revenue sharing become a must-have for media publishing websites?
Businesses

Submission + - Online money transfer firm NETeller suspends trade

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: NETeller, the leading independent online money transfer business, has suspended trading due to two former executives being arrested on Monday. http://www.gambling911.com/ or http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/investing-and-markets /article.html?in_article_id=416479&in_page_id=3.
John Lefebvre and Stephen Lawrence [founders of this hugely successful eProcessing company that handles the micro-transactions for a large number of online gambling websites] were arrested at their homes Monday.
Businesses

Submission + - Verizon spins off rural lines

Submitted by ffejie
ffejie writes: Verizon has announced that it will be spinning off rural assets to FairPoint Communications. The deal will close sometime in 2007 and is worth $2.7 Billion. 1.6 Million phone lines, 234,000 high speed (DSL) subscribers and 600,000 long distance customers will be moved to FairPoint in an effort for Verizon to shed it's low margin lines in rural areas. The sale has been rumored since at least the summer. With Verizon offering high speed FiOS (FTTP) to only it's local service areas, what will happen to the consumers stuck with a smaller telco like those moving to FairPoint? In the future, will there become an even deeper digital divide between the rural users and the high revenue areas?
The Internet

Submission + - Dear Senator Feinstein: please don't PERFORM

Submitted by
tcahill
tcahill writes: "tcahill thinks Senator Feinstein's new PERFORM act requires some audience participation. The Senator's Website is set up to receive email (1), perhaps slashdot readers might want to send her some appropriate audience feedback. Most politicians are more impressed by individually written letters than mass mailings. For example, here is what tcahill sent:

Regarding the PERFORM Act, it fundamentally offends the principle of free speech that you would contemplate mandating that only certain forms of communication (those using approved DRM) would be permitted for those broadcasting over the Internet. You can only do harm by persisting in seeking to impose controls over — not what information — but how information itself is disseminated. Beyond the constitutional offense inherent in what you contemplate, there are anti-market and anti-innovation assumptions inherent in your assumption that you can dictate exclusively which forms of technology are to be used. Finally, you clearly endanger the principle of fair use by mandating all internet broadcasts must be protected by DRM, which, by law, may not be circumvented. As I know you to be a progressive I am confident you will see the error in your approach and stand down.

Links

1. http://feinstein.senate.gov/email.html"

Slashdot Top Deals

You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred. -- Superchicken

Close