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theodp writes "IBM has been temporarily banned from receiving future contracts with federal agencies, the Environmental Protection Agency confirmed on Monday. The suspension went into effect last Thursday due to 'concerns raised about potential activities involving an EPA procurement,' the agency said in an e-mailed statement. Under a reciprocal agreement among federal agencies, when one issues a ban, the others follow it. The EPA said it will not comment further on the matter. An IBM spokesman said he had no immediate comment. 'You don't see this very often, particularly for large companies,' commented a stunned industry analyst, mentioning a bankrupt MCI as a notable exception. IBM earned an estimated $1.5 billion in revenue from federal prime contracts in fiscal 2007."

The decision many lawyers had been expecting — that the RIAA's "boilerplate" complaint fails to state a claim for relief under the Copyright Act — has indeed come down, but from an unlikely source. While the legal community has been looking towards a Manhattan case, Elektra v. Barker, for guidance, a case in which amicus briefs had been submitted by various industry groups and the US Department of Justice (see case file), and from Warner v. Cassin, a similar motion in the same Court's Westchester division, the decision instead came from Senior District Court Judge Rudi M. Brewster of the US District Court for the Southern District of California, in a decision denying a default judgment (i.e. the defendant had not even appeared in the action). Judge Brewster not only denied the default judgment motion but dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. Echoing the words of Judge Karas at the oral argument in Barker , Judge Brewster held (pdf) that "Plaintiff here must present at least some facts to show the plausibility of their allegations of copyright infringement against the Defendant. However, other than the bare conclusory statement that on "information and belief" Defendant has downloaded, distributed and/or made available for distribution to the public copyrighted works, Plaintiffs have presented no facts that would indicate that this allegation is anything more than speculation. The complaint is simply a boilerplate listing of the elements of copyright infringement without any facts pertaining specifically to the instant Defendant. The Court therefore finds that the complaint fails to sufficiently state a claim upon which relief can be granted and entry of default judgment is not warranted." An HTML, non-pdf, versions of the decision is available on p2pnet.net.

Can it be that the RIAA, or the "Big 4" record companies it represents, are short on funds? It turns out that despite the Judge's order, entered a month ago, telling them to pay Debbie Foster $68,685.23 in attorneys fees, in Capitol v. Foster, they have failed to make payment, and Ms. Foster has now had to ask the Court to enter Judgment, so that she can commence "post judgment collection proceedings". According to Ms. Foster's motion papers (pdf), her attorneys received no response to their email inquiry about payment. Perhaps the RIAA should ask their lawyers for a loan.

Rio writes "A man accused of being a member of a notorious group of Nigerian identity scammers was arrested during a routine traffic stop in Florida, according to the Secret Service. A WKMG-TV report said Rilwan Soetan, who is on the U.S. Secret Service's "Most Wanted List," was taken into custody in Hamilton County."
http://www.local6.com/news/13851685/detail.html

You may recall earlier this year that law professor Wendy Seltzer received a DMCA takedown notice from the NFL for posting a short clip to YouTube of the part during the Super Bowl where the announcers state the famous warning that often reads something like "Any rebroadcast, reproduction or other use of the pictures, accounts or descriptions of this game without the express written consent of Big Sports League, is prohibited." What got lost in the Seltzer story over whether or not posting that particular clip to YouTube was legal, was that her point in using it was to show how sports leagues were making claims to rights that copyright didn't actually give them. It appears that enough others have noticed this as well that a trade group, backed by various big name tech companies, is now asking the Federal Trade Commission to prevent broadcasters from making such "deceptive" copyright statements. The group is claiming that this incorrect statement that clearly reaches beyond the rights copyright provides, is harmful to consumers and technology companies. Of course, in the sports leagues' (and other content companies') defense, it appears that plenty of people ignore the bogus copyright warning anyway.
http://techdirt.com/articles/20070801/011957.shtml

i_like_spam writes "In a story covered by the National Press Photographers Association, photojournalists are protesting a new rule for the upcoming National Football League season that will force them to wear red vests emblazoned with the corporate logos of Reebok and Canon during televised games. The chair of the NPPA's Ethics & Standards Committee said 'it totally goes against our Code of Ethics to force photographers to advertise as if they were some sort of NASCAR vehicle. We are independent gatherers of news, storytellers with no agendas.' The NFL responded by stating that it's not a problem because the logos are small and have been used on vests at other sporting events without protest."

The referee for Jack Thompson's Florida Bar issues, Sheila M. Tuma, has allegedly requested that Thompson seek psychological testing and accept a 91-day suspension of his law license. The e-mail explaining the situation was sent to GamePolitics by Thompson himself. The claim could not be verified as the Florida Bar did not respond to requests for comment. The recommendation comes following issues stemming from Thompson's Bully case last year where there were issues regarding his professional conduct.
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/07/03/thompson-says-florida-bar-requested-he-get-psych-test/

techie writes "A latest column on MadPenguin.org suggests that Microsoft may not be really interested in killing Linux for mainstream users. It's after something else, and it's getting its way already. Read on to find out what it is. The author states, "Love it or hate it, Microsoft's IP attacks will continue, Linux user numbers will continue to grow and broad spectrum adoption throughout the rest of the world will grow and flourish. Microsoft's not interested in destroying Linux in the slightest. Why would they? it's been a fantastic vehicle for them to land a firmer grip on the corporations throughout the US."

ardent99 writes " President Bush has used signing statements to instruct federal agencies in the executive branch to disobey the law. The non-partisan Government Accountability Office has studied a small sample of recently passed laws for which Bush has issued signing statements, and found that under presidential advisement, 6 of 19 laws have been disobeyed, 10 were enforced as written, and 3 have not yet been found applicable. Bush believes that as president it is his prerogative to set aside laws."

DrunkenTerror writes "The latest results for Valve's Steam hardware survey are in, and they provide a valuable look at the types of systems most gamers are using. They also show a much lower uptake of Windows Vista than Microsoft will likely be happy with. Only 5.27 percent of respondents had upgraded to Windows Vista. Ars Technica reports."

Beeb blanches at user generated filth

The Web 2.0-tastic BBC just loves "user generated content". So when London's Olympic team unveiled its logo for the 2012 games to much mockery earlier today, what could be better than unleashing the Wisdom of the Crowd?

http://go.theregister.com/feed/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/04/bbc_olympics_cx/

soliptic writes "Today the London 2012 Olympics committee unveiled their new logo, to a mostly derisory and hostile reception. In response, the BBC website challenged the public to do better, and showcased some entries both on the website and on BBC1. Unfortunately, one entry (SFW) wasn't exactly based on the inspiring premise it claimed! Is this the first example of a goatse prank getting all the way through to national network television?"
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b331/rynooo/06c184d9.png

Riley Munoz writes "Hey Slashdot, Once again the herald of anti-gaming, Jack Thompson, points his misguided finger towards another big fish in the gaming industry, Microsoft. With a scornful letter forwarded to Game Almighty today, Thompson thrashes on the recently released Halo 3 Beta and puts blame on Bill Gates, again, if this "hyper violent" video game lands in hands of any minor. Sample paragraph: "Here's the deal, Mr. Gates: Either Microsoft undertakes dramatic, real steps, through its marketing, wholesale, and retail operations to assure that Halo 3 is not sold, via the Internet and in stores, directly to anyone under 17, or I shall proceed to make sure that Microsoft is held to that standard by appropriate legal means. I have done that before successfully as to Best Buy, and I shall do so again as to Microsoft and all retailers of Halo 3." http://www.gamealmighty.com/story-individual/story /Jack_Thompson_Lays_His_Legal_Sites_on_Halo_3/ Thanks for any links! Riley Munoz -Community Manager riley@gamealmighty.com www.GameAlmighty.com"

mcgrew (sm62704) writes "The tech press has been talking about Vista's shortcomings for quite a while now; Slashdot has posted numerous stories. Today I saw a "Tech Talk" in the St Louis Post Dispatch, one of the US' largest mainstream newspapers. The article is about a "normal" (i.e., non-geek) user's woes. From the article:

After his initial computer purchase from a local retailer, he tried starting Vista and had no luck: It gagged on other preinstalled software, and the retailer had no remedy. He received a replacement laptop.

On our colleague's second try, he ran into a wall with Microsoft, which insisted through its online validation process that his copy of Vista was not legitimate. About a third of all new Vista owners with valid copies of the OS already have suffered through this. The retailer assured our colleague that his Vista was valid but replaced his laptop again anyway to solve the problem.

Armed with yet another new laptop, our colleague escaped repeats of the first two problems but hit a new bump: Vista refused to acknowledge his computer's peripheral devices, even though Microsoft's own hardware compatibility list said it should.

He returned to the retailer and this time asked for his money back. He says he might try buying his first Mac with the refund. "There's only so much I'm willing to put up with," our colleague said. "I just wanted the [expletive] computer to work, you know. Isn't that all anyone wants?"

I notice that he returned the second computer because of MS' onerous DRM, which insisted that the OS was counterfeit. I'm aghast that one in three valid copies are flagged as "pirated". Note: I'm not a Mac user; my OS of choice is Mandriva."

Roland Piquepaille writes "As you probably know, carbon nanotubes have very interesting mechanical, electrical and optical properties. But they are 'small.' Now, researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) have developed a process to build extremely long aligned carbon nanotube arrays. They've been able to produce 18-mm-long carbon nanotubes which might be spun into nanofibers. Such electrically conductive fibers could one day replace copper wires. The researchers say their nanofibers could be used for applications such as nanomedicine, aerospace and electronics. Read more for additional references and an illustration showing a CNT array image of UC's mission statement."