An anonymous reader writes "Suppose a commenter posts a libelous comment here at Slashdot. Can Slashdot and its owners be sued for defamation? A federal appeals court just held that no, they cannot. The court noted that a federal law was designed to ensure that 'within broad limits, message board operators would not be held responsible for the postings made by others on that board,' adding that, were the law otherwise, it would have an 'obvious chilling effect' on blogger speech."

Milwaukee's_Best writes "Skype has just asked the FCC to force wireless phone companies to open their networks to all comers. Skype essentially wants to turn the wireless phone companies into just another network of the kind currently operated on the ground. This would require carriers to allow any phone to be used on their networks, and for any application. Users would simply purchase a voice or data plan (though these could easily converge into a data plan if VoIP calling is used) and then use the device of their choice to access the network of their choice. Think of it as network neutrality for cell networks. Given the competition that exists within the industry, is this needed?"

cancan writes "The NY times is carrying an article about how the RIAA is hiring hip hop artists to make mix tapes, and then helping the police raid their studios. In the case of DJ Drama and DJ Don Cannon, they were raided by SWAT teams with their guns drawn. The local police chief said later that they were 'prepared for the worst.' Men in RIAA jackets helped cart away 'evidence'. Just the same, 'Record labels regularly hire mixtape D.J.'s to produce CDs featuring a specific artist. In many cases, these arrangements are conducted with a wink and a nod rather than with a contract; the label doesn't officially grant the D.J. the right to distribute the artist's songs or formally allow the artist to record work outside of his contract.' " This is more of the shenanigans that we've previously discussed on the site.

Nurgled writes "On Sunday John Panzer announced that AOL now has experimental OpenID server support. This means that every AOL user now has an OpenID identifier. OpenID is a decentralized cross-site authentication system which has been growing in popularity over the last few months. AOL is the first large provider to offer OpenID services, and though they do not currently accept logins to their services with OpenID identifiers from elsewhere, they are apparently working on it. The next big challenge for OpenID proponents is teaching AOL's userbase how to make use of this new technology."

goombah99 writes "The "creator" of the Dance move known as the electric slide has filed a DMCA based takedown notice for videos he deems to infringe and because they show "bad dancing". He is also seeking compensation from the use of the dance move at a wedding celebration shown on the Ellen Degeneres Show. Next up, the Funky Chicken, the moonwalk, and the Hustle? More seriously, does the DMCA have any limit on its scope?"

moszern asks: "The startup I work for is growing to the point where we are need to do some serious hiring. We are toying with the idea of setting up a booth at a upcoming local college job fair. For the most part it seems these events are all the same with nothing much distinguishing each company from the next. Have you ever been to a job fair where a company had a very unorthodox booth or way of attracting potential employees? What would you want to see at a job fair to grab your attention?"

gollum123 writes about a dream come true and a dream dashed. Brian Emmett, a software consultant from the San Francisco Bay area, entered a contest sponsored by Oracle in 2005. He answered some questions on Java coding, won a free trip into space, and then reluctantly gave it up. The latter decision came once he had computed the taxes he would have to pay on the $138,000 prize — roughly $25,000. From the article: "Since the Internal Revenue Service requires winnings from lottery drawings, TV game shows, and other contests to be reported as taxable income, tax experts contend there's no such thing as a free spaceflight. Some contest sponsors provide a check to cover taxes, but that income is also taxable."

Siker writes in to point out his blog post — Why Gentoo Shouldn't Be On Your Server — which seems to have stirred up a lot of discussion, including a thread on the Gentoo forums. From the post: "I firmly believe in updating server software only when you need to. If you don't need new features, and things are working, why change anything? If you update anything you will undoubtedly need to update configuration files. You will need to fix things that break in the upgrade process... This is hard with Gentoo. Gentoo wants you to change a lot of stuff. It wants to be bleeding edge."

Unpaid Schill writes "Over on the O'Reilly Network, there's an interesting piece about how Microsoft tried to hire people to contribute to Wikipedia. Not wanting to do the edits directly, they were looking for an intermediary to make edits and corrections favorable to them. Why? According to the article, it was apparently both to let people know that Microsoft will not 'enable death squads with their UUIDs' and also to fight the growing consensus that OOXML contains a useless pile of legacy crap which is unfit for standardization."

ack154 writes "The Register reports that a St Louis based company, Somark Innovations, has successfully tested RFID tattoos to be used for tracking cattle and other animals. Details are limited for the actual tattoo, but it's said to contain no metals and can be read up to about four feet away. Engadget has some more details on the matter. And yes, the article does mention RFID tattoos are possible for people, specifically the military. From the article: 'The system developed by Somark uses an array of needles to quickly inject a pattern of dots into each animal, with the pattern changing for each injection. This pattern can then be read from over a meter away using a proprietary reader operating at high frequency.'"

Lawrence Person writes "The attempt to require political bloggers to register as lobbyists previously reported by Slashdot has been stripped out of the lobbying reform bill. The vote was 55 to 43 to defeat the provision. All 48 Republicans, as well as 7 Democrats, voted against requiring bloggers to register; all 43 votes in favor of keeping the registration provision were by Democrats."

ubermiester writes "InfoWorld reports that Windows Vista will be available for legal download as of January 30th — the same day it will be available in retail stores. MS-NBC Online notes that, 'a relatively low number of computer users are likely to get Vista by downloading it from the Internet, but the mere availability indicates that Microsoft is fiddling with distribution methods for the extremely profitable franchise at the core of its business.' It will be available via the MS Marketplace site in conjunction with a Circuit City offering. Additionally, users who decide to 'upgrade' to a more expensive version of the OS can simply activate the features they want by unlocking them via online activation."

Stony Stevenson writes "Even while Cisco Systems is suing Apple for violating its iPhone trademark, an open-source enthusiast is accusing Cisco itself of infringing copyright in the same product. From the article: "Cisco has not published the source code for some components of the WIP300 iPhone in accordance with its open-source licensing agreement, said Armijn Hemel, a consultant with Loohuis Consulting and half of the team running the GPL Violations Project, an organization that identifies and publicizes misuse of GPL licenses and takes some violators to court."

covert.c writes "A real-life drama in the political world has spilled over into the virtual, as the Second Life headquarters of France's controversial Front National political party fell to violent protesters. The anti-FN activists, who had armed themselves with slogans, placards and weapons, leveled the digital buildings occupied by Front National. Second Life is often home to established political and social movements. It seems logical that opposing forces would also choose to make SL their stage."

FredDC writes "Germany is seeking support among other European countries to ban violent videogames during its EU Presidency, according to Infoworld. In an initiative led by Franco Frattini, the European Justice commissioner, Germany is pushing for restrictions on the sale of games with violent content of any kind, from Half-Life to Star Trek . In the eyes of the EU, gaming and real-world violence is 'linked', and steps should be taken to prevent the purchase of these games by younger people. From the article: 'The German government said it will conduct a study of all the different national rules concerning video games, with a view to setting Union-wide norms. Its initiative makes the prospect of a ban much more likely. Video game violence became a hot political issue in Germany at the end of last year when 18-year-old Sebastian Bosse shot up a high school in Emsdetten, Germany, injuring 37 before fatally turning the gun on himself. Police said Bosse spent most of his waking hours playing Counter-Strike.'" This, just days after two Final Fantasy VII fans were arrested in connection with a series of killings.