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The Internet

Senators Call For Hearing On Carrier Content Blocking 152

Posted by kdawson
from the net-neutrality-by-any-other-name dept.
HangingChad writes "Two Senators on Friday called for a congressional hearing to investigate reports that phone and cable companies are unfairly stifling communications over the Internet and on cell phones. Now that the Senate is getting into the act, Comcast will probably want to come up with some new talking points as their old ones were leaked."
Mozilla

Guerilla Marketing, Mozilla Style->

Submitted by
spinlight
spinlight writes "Mozilla recently launched Operation Firefox, a guerilla marketing campaign that challenges firefox fans to submit their plans to prominently display a 3.5' firefox logo in the location of their choice. Plans must include the location, time and method by which the logo will be placed. 50 plans from around the world will be chosen, and the winning teams will receive free stickers to carry out their plan.
Mozilla is encouraging teams to place stickers anywhere that is 1) legal 2) doesn't put you or your team in danger.
After placement, teams will need to submit a final photograph of the logo which Mozilla will use for promotional material."
Link to Original Source
The Courts

RIAA's First Trial Starts Today in Duluth

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA's first trial starts today, in Duluth, Minnesota, in Virgin v. Thomas. The case is being widely covered by, among others, Associated Press, Wired, and Ars Technica. Since a number of people have indicated they will be going to the courthouse and watching the trial, I am hoping for citizen coverage as well. If any of you get to the trial and can report back, drop a comment here as well. The day before the trial the Judge excluded 784 pages of documents the record companies needed to prove they actually own the copyrights to 14 of the recordings in question, because they had failed to turn over the documents when they were supposed to, instead waiting until 2 weeks before the date of trial."
Hardware Hacking

Apple issues warning on iPhone unlocking

Submitted by
daveschroeder
daveschroeder writes "Today Apple issued a statement which says, "Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone's software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed." This does not include "hacking" the phone to install third party applications or ringtones, only unlocking the phone. This is because unlocking changes the baseband radio firmware, which is expected to be updated along with the next iPhone update to address other issues. Apple adds, "This has nothing to do with proactively disabling a phone that is unlocked or hacked. It's unfortunate that some of these programs have caused damage to the iPhone software, but Apple cannot be responsible for...those consequences." While unlocking a phone is legal for an end user under a current DMCA exemption, the vendor is under no obligation to guarantee the phone will remain as such when official software updates are applied; many users of unlocked handsets simply never update the phone, but the iPhone is in a different category. It is likely that since the current unlocking mechanisms use a broader buffer overflow condition, this will also be fixed in the next software update.

Note to editors: the already-submitted story in the firehose is remarkably incorrect (has NOTHING to do with "hacking", just unlocking), so please don't accept it."

Comment: Free M2M not Limited to iPhone (Score 1) 1

by pjsab0 (#20682033) Attached to: UK iPhone plan doesn't add up
AT&T has been offering free mobile to mobile calling for several years now; it's not an exclusive iPhone deal. That being said, it doesn't look like O2 currently offers free mobile to mobile on any plans, at least not one that I could find on http://shop.o2.co.uk/tariffs/18_months/Texter. I doubt even Apple could convince a cellular provider to add that sort of feature if it did not exist already.
The Courts

Tanya Andersen Brings Class Action Against RIAA

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Ever since the RIAA's litigation campaign began in 2003, many people have been suggesting a class action against the RIAA. Tanya Andersen, in Oregon, has taken them up on it. The RIAA's case against this disabled single mother, Atlantic v. Andersen, has received attention in the past, for her counterclaims against the RIAA including claims under Oregon's RICO statute, the RIAA's hounding of her young daughter for a face to face deposition, the RIAA's eventual dropping of the case "with prejudice", and her lawsuit against the RIAA for malicious prosecution, captioned Andersen v. Atlantic. Now she's turned that lawsuit into a class action. The amended complaint seeking class action status (pdf) sues for negligence, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, federal and state RICO, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress, violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, trespass, invasion of privacy, libel and slander, deceptive business practices, misuse of copyright law, and civil conspiracy."
Censorship

AT&T Practices Political Censorship->

Submitted by
grcumb
grcumb writes "Pearl Jam reports that their live webcast from Lollapalooza was censored by AT&T. The statement on the band's website outlines their concerns in the context of the ongoing Net Neutrality 'debate':

"AT&T's actions strike at the heart of the public's concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media.

"Aspects of censorship, consolidation, and preferential treatment of the internet are now being debated under the umbrella of "NetNeutrality." Check out The Future of Music or Save the Internet for more information on this issue.


It's refreshing to see that at least some of our media darlings have a clue about what this debate is about,"
Link to Original Source
Music

When IP Protection Incites Consumer Rage

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "How many industries of late have managed to generate such genuine consumer hatred over the last several years? says Richard Menta about the record industry. He was refering to that industry's aggressive activities to control its content in the digital age and he makes a solid argument that these efforts, including oppressive DRM tactics and legal actions, have alienated the consumer to the point where it is a key contributor to decreasing CD revenues. This quarter alone EMI saw a 20% drop in CD sales, while Warners 3rd quarter loss widened. The article lays out 17 events including the Sony rootkit scandal and the payola scandal that have tarnished the industry's public image and undermined its credibility with the average record buyer."
Censorship

MSNBC caves in to pressure from China 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes "Two days ago I found a news story about recent arrests of protesters in China via searching for "Tibet" on MSNBC. Today I went back to look at it again, and there is no evidence such a story ever existed on MSNBC, yet the story is easily found on other news sites:

Never mind whether you care about the Tibet issue, this apparent quiet censorship by Microsoft/NBC, no doubt as a result of China's constant pressure to paint a happy picture for the Olympics makes MSNBC a sham as a news organization. Maybe it's a bad idea for a media outlet to be in bed with a large US corporation that sees China as a huge growth market? Ya think?

Amusingly, I also just noticed you also cannot create a Hotmail account with the phrase "tibet" in it."

If you flaunt it, expect to have it trashed.