Tiberius_Fel - Slashdot User

Submission + - Porn to be blocked by Australian Goverment (news.com.au)

Submitted by wallior on Thursday August 09, 2007 @11:02PM

wallior writes: In a bid to swing voters, John Howard is promising $189 million (AU) on 'cleaning up the internet'. Blocking pornography, removing terror sites and scouring MySpace and Facebook for online predators. Also included will be free internet blocking tools available for all families. The presentation was primarily aimed at Christian voters.

"...the federal Government will enter an unprecedented partnership with service providers to filter pornography at the source..."

Submission + - Helping to clear a man's name by deleting it (wendymcelroy.com)

Submitted by

fima59

on Thursday August 09, 2007 @03:07PM

fima59 writes: "Apparently the fellow's job prospects are severely damaged by his name on the Web being connected to child porn — even a connection that clears him of guilt. Prospective employers do what has become customary: an online search on an applicant's name — and there he is. Hundreds and hundreds of times — I checked. And, so, the fellow has assumed the laborious task of contacting each online site and source that mentions his name. http://www.wendymcelroy.com/news.php?extend.931"

Submission + - AT&T Censors webcast

Submitted by

mcgrew (sm62704)

on Thursday August 09, 2007 @09:17AM

mcgrew (sm62704) writes: "Several outlets, including the Chicago Tribune (ironically with Registration required), Salon (also rather obnoxious), The LA Times, the WSJ and others are reporting that Pearl Jam webcast its Lollapalooza music festival Sunday "without a hitch" as the Trib says, until lead singer Eddie Vedder slamed George Bush. The Tribune reports

The performance, sponsored by AT&T Inc. and carried on AT&T's "Blue Room" site, omitted the lyrics "George Bush, leave this world alone" and "George Bush, find yourself another home" as part of a version of the song "Daughter," according to the Pearl Jam Web site.
AT&T claimed it was a "mistake".

Slashdot readers will no doubt cry that it wasn't censorship at all, since it wasn't a government entity that did the censoring. But seeing as how the multinational corporations are the puppetmasters of "our" government through its method of financing elections, I'd say any censorship by any MNC is a defacto government censorship."

Submission + - Red Cross sued for using... a red cross (iht.com) 4

Submitted by

Swampash

on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @11:25PM

Swampash writes: "Johnson & Johnson, the health-products giant that uses a red cross as its trademark, is suing the American Red Cross, demanding the charity halt its use of the red cross symbol on products it sells to the public."

Submission + - To Translate Harry Potter is a Crime (reuters.com)

Submitted by on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @06:40PM

An anonymous reader writes: An article on Reuters informs that police arrested a teenager suspected of posting his own translation of the latest Harry Potter novel on the Internet weeks before the official French release. [...] "Concerned that such acts of counterfeiting are threats to basic authors' and creators' rights, (author J.K. Rowling and Gallimard) immediately agreed to support the investigation as it was launched," spokeswoman Marie Leroy-Lena said in a statement. "It is not a young person or a fan we are talking about here — these are organized networks that use young people,".

Submission + - Chair of BU Computer Science Dept Fights RIAA

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @05:16PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Two expert witnesses, one the Chairman of Boston University's Computer Science Department, have submitted declarations supporting the motion of a Boston University student trying to vacate the RIAA's ex parte discovery order in Arista v. Does 1-21. Prof. Bestavros stated that some of Linares's factual statements were "not possible" (pdf), while Jesse Stengel stated that some of Mr. Linares's contentions were "not true" (pdf). These declarations, attacking the underpinnings of the RIAA case set out in the declaration of Carlos Linares, were referred to in Arista v. Does 1-11, the Oklahoma case in which several Oklahoma State University students have attacked the order which had been granted ex parte permitting the RIAA to subpoena their names and addresses from the university. These filings come on the heels of rulings in New Mexico and Virginia denying the RIAA's ex parte discovery motions."

Submission + - When IP Protection Incites Consumer Rage

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @03:48PM

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.

Submission + - Google Filters Torrents From Search Results (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by HiddenL on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @03:27PM

HiddenL writes: According to TorrentFreak.com:

Google has been filtering its search results for years. That's proven very useful for the Chinese government, and of course content owner representatives like the MPAA and RIAA. According to Google, the filtering of torrents from the search results is a response to the DMCA complaints they receive. The owner of SumoTorrent told TorrentFreak that he discovered that A search on Google for sumotorrent now triggers the following message at the bottom of the results page:

In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.
A search for other BitTorrent sites like Torrentspy and Torrentreactor comes up with the same message (note. the sites are still indexed but some results are removed).
Apparently "Do No Evil" includes mass filtering of legitimate content.

Submission + - Google News to Add Participants Comments (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

* * Beatles-Beatles

on Wednesday August 08, 2007 @02:57AM

* * Beatles-Beatles writes: "We'll be trying out a mechanism for publishing comments from a special subset of readers: those people or organizations who were actual participants in the story in question. Our long-term vision is that any participant will be able to send in their comments, and we'll show them next to the articles about the story. Comments will be published in full, without any edits, but marked as "comments" so readers know it's the individual's perspective, rather than part of a journalist's report.
http://googlenewsblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/perspec tives-about-news-from-people-in.html"

Submission + - Does Caffeine Perk Up Memory? (sciam.com)

Submitted by

Raver32

on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @11:15AM

Raver32 writes: "Trying to cut down on your coffee consumption, ladies? Well if you're of a certain age, you might want to reconsider. A new study from France found that women — especially those 65 and over — who reported drinking three-plus cups of java daily did better on memory tests than compeers who drank one or fewer cups a day. "Caffeine is a psychostimulant which appears to reduce cognitive decline in women," study author Karen Ritchie of INSERM, the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research in Montpellier, France, said in a statement."

Submission + - Eight-million-year-old bug is alive and growing (newscientist.com)

Submitted by

CarrieSmith

on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @11:03AM

CarrieSmith writes: "An 8-million-year-old bacterium that was extracted from the oldest known ice on Earth is now growing in a laboratory.
http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn1243 3"

Submission + - South Korea Drafts Robot Ethics Laws (physorg.com)

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @09:15AM

eldavojohn writes: "The nation that aims to have a robot in every home by 2013 has started a project aimed at a law for the ethics of robots. Robots are becoming more mainstream and something must be done to prevent hideous attacks like this video where an observers finger is nearly bitten clean off by a robot run amok. But all joking aside, there is call for this. A robot has already been deployed as a robotic guard at a school in South Korea & they see more applications for mechanized drones such as border patrol, assisting the elderly or even babysitting. We may not be too far from our first Robbie the Killer Robot Court Case."

Submission + - Companies Aim to Index the World's Names (physorg.com)

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @09:04AM

eldavojohn writes: "There's only 6.5 billion of us here, how hard could it be? Spock.com doesn't think it will be that hard and has deployed spiders to MySpace, Friendster & Bebo. My tinfoil hat says clean your profile while my logic hat snorts and says good luck with that ... although they do claim 100 million profiles with a million new profiles a day. I wonder how they control dupes or people with the same name?"

Submission + - Intellectual Property Rights Association - Home (intellectualpropertyassociation.com)

Submitted by

Pali3333

on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @08:17AM

Pali3333 writes: "The Intellectual Property Association is on organisation that is striving to uphold the virtues of Intellectual Property Rights world wide while providing advice, assistance as well as networking opportunity for its members. It supports and promotes the commercialisation of Intellectual Property by its members. http://www.intellectualpropertyassociation.com/"

Submission + - Setback for Novartis in India Over Drug Patent (nytimes.com)

Submitted by

efuzzyone

on Tuesday August 07, 2007 @03:07AM

efuzzyone writes: "NYT reports that an Indian court Monday rejected a patent law challenge, allowing drug companies to continue to making less expensive generic drugs, much of which flow to the developing world. Aid organizations declared the ruling a victory for the "rights of patients over patents," but the Swiss drug company Novartis, which filed the case, warned that the ruling would discourage investments in innovation and would undermine drug companies' efforts to improve their products."

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