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Swedish Anti-Piracy Lawyer Gets New Name 'Pirate' 178

Posted by samzenpus from the the-power-of-the-prank dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet (in Swedish) reports that Henrik Pontén, a lawyer of Antipiratbyrån, a Swedish organization against file sharing, has received a notification from officials that an application for change of his name has been approved and a new first name 'Pirate' has been added to his name. Authorities do not check the identity of persons applying for name changes. Pirate Pontén now has to apply for another change in order to revert the change."
Censorship

Japanese ESRB Bans Rape Depiction In Games 662

Posted by Soulskill from the touchy-subjects dept.
eldavojohn writes "The Ethics Organization of Computer Software (EOCS), now 233 companies strong, and met in Tokyo yesterday to ban a controversial title from Japan known as RapeLay, an eroge game (something much more adult than the more popular dating simulators). It's gotten a lot of press as reviewers have noted at one point the player must force sex on a 12-year-old. More importantly, the large ($353 million annually) adult game industry in Japan will now need to stay away from rape in their games if they wish to remain a member of EOCS. RapeLay seems to be available on Amazon's UK and JP sites, sparking outrage and causing a former US Ambassador to Japan to write an editorial criticizing Japan, saying, 'Only Japan allows people to possess these hideous images without penalty. Six of the G-7 countries have found ways to protect the innocent from being prosecuted for possession of child pornography. Is it not time for Japan to find a way to punish the guilty?' Singapore's Straits Times has more details, pointing out that it's still not illegal to possess these materials in Japan. We discussed this and other games last month in an editorial."

Opera 10 Benchmarked and Evaluated 277

Posted by CmdrTaco from the faster-is-better dept.
CNETNate writes "Dial-up connections and flaky Wi-Fi are made significantly more tolerable with Opera 10, it seems. After yesterdays news that Opera 10's first beta had landed, some testing was in order. One major new feature is Opera Turbo — server-side compression — which shrinks pages before sending them down your browser. With a 100Mbps connection throttled to a laughable 50Kbps, Opera 10 proved itself to outperform every other desktop browser on the planet, and there are graphs to prove it. Javascript benchmarks put the new browser in fourth place overall, after Chrome 2, Safari 4 and Firefox, but it indeed passes the Acid3 test with a perfect score. If you ever use a laptop on public Wi-Fi, to not have Opera 10 installed could be a big mistake"
Businesses

Buying a Domain From a Cybersquatter 800

Posted by samzenpus from the ask-nicely-but-bring-a-big-stick dept.
Nevo writes "A partner and I are in the planning stages of a business. We've decided on a name that we'd like to use but the domain name is already registered. The owner has a single 'search' page up (similar to the one at www.goggle.com)... clearly not a legitimate business interest, but since we don't own a trademark on this name it doesn't qualify as bad faith, I don't think. Does anyone have any experience buying domains from these operators? Do you have any advice on how to approach the owners of these domains to get them at a reasonable cost?"
Security

Should Auditors Be Liable For Certifications? 209

Posted by samzenpus from the pass-the-buck dept.
dasButcher writes "Enterprises and mid-size business rely on auditors and service providers to certify their systems as compliant with such security regs and standards as PCI-DSS or SOX. But, as Larry Walsh speculates, a lawsuit filed by a bank against an auditor/managed service provider could change that. The bank wants to hold the auditor liable for a breach at its credit card processor because the auditor certified the processor as PCI compliant. If the bank wins, it could change the standards and liabilities of auditors and service providers in the delivery of security services."
Music

Music Streaming to Overtake Downloads 254

Posted by samzenpus from the how-do-you-steal-a-stream dept.
Barence writes "Streaming will overtake download services to become the dominant force in the online music industry, according to industry insiders. The claim comes in the wake of the PRS cutting the amount of royalties streaming services have to pay songwriters to about a third. Sites will now pay the PRS 0.085p per track, compared to the 0.22p they paid previously. On-demand streaming services still have to pay the record labels about 1p for every track streamed, however. Steve Purdham, CEO of music service We7, says the move will accelerate the growing trend towards online streaming which has seen newcomers such as his site and Spotify attract millions of users in less than a year. 'Over the next 12-24 months you'll see a move towards listening [online],' Purdham told PC Pro. 'Why do you actually need to have something downloaded on your PC? The streaming idea is really the future.'"

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