Comment Re:Second Life! (Score 1) 180
Dwight K. Schrute, is that you? Jim's stop watch got you down again? :-(
Submission + - Watermark system scours the net for infringement
Almond Cookie writes: What if all copyrighted material contained watermarks, and software could scan videos and images online for those watermarks in order to report back to the content maker? A new patent filing shows plans for such a system to crawl sites like YouTube and MySpace for images or video that's copyrighted, which seems to focus more on casual piracy than that being done on P2P networks. Will it really work though? From the article:
For the system to work, players at multiple levels would need to get involved. Broadcasters would need to add identifying watermarks to their broadcast, in cooperation with copyright holders, and both parties would need to register their watermarks with the system. Then, in the event that a user capped a broadcast and uploaded it online, the scanner system would eventually find it and report its location online. [...] Generally we've laughed off most watermarking solutions because they seemed like solutions in search of a problem. Now that Google has learned the hard way that content owners want to be paid when their content shows up on YouTube, we may see more of these "solutions" in the future.
Feed 'Fair Use' Bill Returns, Gutted (wired.com)
Submission + - Your Dream Machine...
isaachulvey writes: "If you could put together your dream machine with any components you want, what would it be? Obviously price is not a factor here or we'd all be putting together 800 MHz systems with 128 MB of RAM... This is your dream machine, so be creative, go as over the top as you need, remember overkill is not a crime."
Submission + - Gmail let's you get mail from other POP3 accounts.
snower1313 writes: "Gmail has just added a new feature for a limited number of users that allows 3rd party POP3 account emails to be retrieved into your Gmail Inbox. "You can retrieve your mail (new and old) from up to five other email accounts and have them all in Gmail. Then you can even create a customized 'From:' address, which lets you send messages from Gmail, but have them look like they were sent from another one of your email accounts.""
BitTorrent Video Download Store Falls Flat 195
seriously writes "We've all heard about BitTorrent going legit this week with legal movie and TV show downloads. Ars Technica took a look at the service to see how usable it was and ran into a few snags, including not being able to download or even open the video files on some computers. However, the ones that they did manage to open varied a lot in quality. Overall, they blame DRM: 'Without knowing whether browser compatibility and dysfunctional video files are a rare occurrence or not, it's hard to say whether BitTorrent's service is a good one overall. Our initial experiences have been disappointing and frustrating, and guess what the culprit is once again? DRM. Why the DRM failed to work on 50% of our purchases is not clear, but whatever the cause, it's simply unacceptable.'"
Submission + - FAIR USE Act the death toll for copyright reform?
Peacemaker writes: Response to Rep. Boucher's FAIR USE Act from around the web has been mostly positive, but the bill may become the biggest roadblock in the quest for meaningful copyright reform. 'Why would Boucher, traditionally a staunch supporter of real DMCA reform, choose to put it on the back burner this session in favor of reforming secondary liability rules? It's a pretty good guess that Boucher's allies in the consumer electronics industry had a big influence on his decision. Indeed, the legislation appears to be an attempt by the consumer electronics industry to make a separate peace with copyright interests, leaving the broader movement for balanced copyright policies to soldier on without its support.' While the bill would solve some real problems, 'Boucher should defend that proposal on the merits instead of pretending that his legislation would reform the DMCA or shore up fair use.'
