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Businesses

MIT Student Plans to Take on RIAA 169

Posted by Zonk from the go-fightin'-nerds dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "MIT's online newspaper, The Tech, reports that a student named as a John Doe by the RIAA is planning to fight back against their questionable legal tactics. The anonymous student told The Tech that he is 'the victim of a fishing expedition by the RIAA,' and is 'disappointed that MIT isn't going to step up ... Other schools like Boston University and the University of Oregon have resisted RIAA subpoenas of student records more actively than MIT has, he said'. Maybe his attorneys will be able to get some assistance from some of the Harvard Law School students in Professor Nesson's 'Evidence' class, who have been assigned — as part of their coursework — the drafting of a motion to quash an RIAA subpoena."
Space

SpaceShipTwo Design and Pics Released 245

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-i'll-never-be-able-to-afford dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Designs and photos for Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic's new suborbital spacecraft, SpaceShipTwo, and its carrier aircraft, WhiteKnightTwo, have been released." Lots of specs and numbers if you're interested in that sort of thing although nothing hugely detailed.
Censorship

Submission + - Australian Govt wants mandatory net censorship (techcrunch.com)

Submitted by ghostcorps
ghostcorps writes: Say hello to our shiny new Government. The more things change the more they stay the same."

"To be censored by the Australian Government is "pornography and inappropriate material." X rated pornography is illegal online in Australia, as are casino style internet gambling, certain forms of "hate" speech and R rated computer games.

As recently as the week prior to the election, Labor Party candidates were telling those concerned about the proposed law that the censorship wouldn't be compulsory, and that the "clean feed" would be opt-in, not opt-out. Today's announcement by Telecommunications Minister Stephen Conroy states that the censorship regime will be mandatory, although people will be able to opt-out of it. The problem of course then becomes if you opt-out questions will be asked as to why you want out, which in itself may lead to Government monitoring.
Media

Submission + - Limewire On One-Third Of All PCs WorldWide (fastsilicon.com)

Submitted by
mrneutron2003
mrneutron2003 writes: "Though not exactly a new story, eMediaWire put out a press release earlier this month on a survey conducted by Digital Music News and BigChampagne regarding the market penetration of the big kahuna of p2p applications, Limewire. From a survey sample of 1.66 million desktops worldwide they found Limewire present on 36.4% of all PC's in the survey.
It's an impressive statistic when you think about it. This is higher per-seat penetration than Firefox, Windows Vista, or a host of other big name applications that get alot more attention from the press and industry.

The report noted that market penetration this year compared to last year however only grew by a scant 2.3%. Whether this is due to market saturation issues, or the legal climate of late is hard to discern. Still with numbers like that, it's no wonder the RIAA is hounding Limewire LLC like there's no tomorrow. That is one heck of a "captive market" they don't want competition from.

It is becoming increasingly clear however that the industry is beginning to wake up to the futility here, what with EMI and a few other labels beginning to distance themselves financially from the RIAA and the IFPI, Warner's DRM free deal with Amazon, so on and so forth. We doubt the RIAA has the support of it's label partners to the extent of being able to sue a third of the earths PC users. The labels are slowly beginning to see how fruitless that tactic is, and we doubt they'll support pouring what's left of their dwindling margins into that money pit.

The fact that an estimated third of the pc connected human race is technically breaking the law is the big statistical "WOO HOO!" here, but hardly the real issue being dealt with. The real battle is about who's in charge. And it's safe to say that individuals using Limewire, and Limewire LLC itself, are the ones holding the cards that count.
http://www.fastsilicon.com/off-the-wall/limewire-on-one-third-of-all-pcs-worldwide.html"

Feed Techdirt: Consumers May Get Temporary Reprieve As Canadian DMCA Is Delayed (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
A few weeks ago, Michael Geist began calling attention to plans in Canada to introduce a copyright reform bill that seemed to basically give Hollywood everything it wanted. This resulted in protests, phone calls, emails, letters, faxes and many other forms of communication as concerned Canadian citizens made it clear to their government that they did not appreciate being sold out while having copyright reform turned into the Entertainment Industry Welfare Act. While the Industry Minister Jim Prentice tried to weakly defend the forthcoming bill, it seems that the outpouring of protest has resulted in a temporary victory, as it appears that the introduction of the bill will be delayed. Hopefully, the delay is to actually spend some time understanding the issues, rather than trying to wait for those pesky citizens to quiet down so the bill can be introduced with less fanfare.

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Networking

Submission + - Cisco's biggest acquisitions of 2007 (networkworld.com)

Submitted by whitehartstag
whitehartstag writes: Cisco made 11 acquisitions this year culminating in 126 purchases since Cisco's birth. It made three more acquisitions than it did last year, when it spent a measly $256 million buying ho-hum technologies. This year was different, not only in the sheer dollar size of some acquisitions, but also because of the breadth of technologies it acquired. From social networks to broadband wireless, Network World takes a look at Cisco's top-six acquisitions of 2007, and discusses what Cisco should have bought and what Cisco may be looking to buy in 2008.
Music

Submission + - "Open source" MP3 player requires propriet (makezine.com)

Submitted by nil0lab
nil0lab writes: Make Magazine's store is offering a so-called "Open Source MP3 Player" that upon further inspection turns out to require a proprietary compiler- the "More info & specs here" page offers "The hex files, if you can't afford to buy the compiler."

I normally like Make Magazine, and O'Reilly, their publishers, but I think here they are taking a bit of a liberty with the term "open source".

Feed Engadget: Zune round-up: unboxing gallery, leaked units locked 'till launch, and customiza (engadget.com)

From feed by engfeed

Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video


Ahead of the official launch of the updated Zune range on Tuesday, there's been a deluge of new information about the device and its new features. First up we have the inevitable unboxing photos, although there's an interesting surprise in store if you manage to get one before the official availability date: Microsoft has required that you go to a website to "activate" your new Zune, and that website ain't up yet. Bummer. If you do manage to pick one up before Tuesday like these unboxers, you can look forward to a $25 gift card with your purchase at Target. We're getting to like this Zune + discount habit.

There's also rumors that Microsoft is planning to enable online purchasers of the Zune 80 to choose different case colors and four lines of text engraving. That's unconfirmed for now, but pretty good news if true. Microsoft kinda messed up the coloring deal last time around. Also, and straight from the horse's mouth, comes the news that the Zune's software won't require you to delete all your music if you want to sync to a second computer. How nice of them.

Read - Zune 80 customizable casing? (ZuneScene) [Thanks, Kevin P. and Michael]
Read - Zune v2 features rundown (ZuneBoards) [Thanks, Mike]
Read - $25 gift card with Zune purchase [Thanks, Ryan]

[Thanks to Ed S. for the unboxing photos]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Feed news.com: EA donates SimCity to OLPC (news.com)

From feed by cnetfeed
Electronic Arts has gifted their massively successful, highly educational game to the foremost promoter of children's computers for the developing world.

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