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Censorship

Submission + - BT ordered to block links to Newzbin 2 website (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A UK High Court judge has ruled that BT must block access to a website which provides links to pirated movies. Justice Arnold ruled that BT must use its blocking technology CleanFeed — which is currently used to prevent access to websites featuring child sexual abuse — to block Newzbin 2.

"Currently CleanFeed is dealing with a small, rural road in Scotland," ISPA council member James Blessing told BBC Radio 4's PM programme. "Trying to put Newzbin and other sites into the same blocking technology would be a bit like shutting down the M1. It is not designed to do that."

Digital rights organisation the Open Rights Group said the result could set a "dangerous" precedent. "Website blocking is pointless and dangerous. These judgements won't work to stop infringement or boost creative industries. And there are serious risks of legitimate content being blocked and service slowdown. If the goal is boosting creators' ability to make money from their work then we need to abandon these technologically naive measures, focus on genuine market reforms, and satisfy unmet consumer demand," said ORG campaigner Peter Bradwell.
Advertising

Submission + - Who Killed Spotify (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The BBC reports that ad supported music service Spotify is bringing strict limits to its service, allowing users ten hours listening time per month and a lifetime total of five plays per track. Rory Cellan-Jones discusses how much their hand was forced by the labels, and how much it was down to their own desire to move more than the current 15% of users to their paid subscriptions. The overwhelming reaction from users seems to be straightforward disappointment at the loss of a service which managed to bridge the commercial radio business model and modern listening habits. As the first response to the announcement said: "So long Spotify. It was nice knowing you. Guess I'll go back to pirating music again then.".
Idle

Submission + - Louis Vuitton sues over depiction of bag in artwor (mediareport.nl) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A fellow art student of mine (yes there are Artists on Slashdot as well) has been sued by Louis Vuitton for depicting one of their bags in her painting. Her painting is wholly original, however LV is demanding 5000 euros a day because the '..pattern of this bag infringes its design rights..' and and for her to cease displaying her original artwork on her website. It might be preaching to the choir here on slashdot, but these cases need all the attention they can get.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - NYT Paywall Cost $40million (harvard.edu)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Aside from wondering who will pay more than the cost of a Wall Street Journal subscription in order to subscribe to the New York Times, my biggest question right now is how the NY Times spent a reported $40-50 million writing the code (Bloomberg; other sources are consistent). Google was financed with $25 million. The New York Times already had a credit card processing system for selling home delivery. It already had a database management system for keeping track of Web site registrants. What did they spend the $40-50 million on?
Censorship

Submission + - Tolkien Estate Censors the Word "Tolkien" (boingboing.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Following their recent attempt to censor a work of historical fiction containing Tolkien as a character, the estate have now issued a takedown notice to someone making buttons with the words "While you were reading Tolkien, I was watching Evangelion" on them, claiming "intellectual property right infringement". Predictably, this has led to widespread blog coverage, a new store has appeared offering a range of 'censored' Tolkien items, and the 'offending' product has had vastly increased exposure as a direct result of the removal.
DRM

Submission + - HarperCollins Destroy Library eBooks After 26 Loan (boingboing.net)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: HarperCollins have decided to change their agreement with e-book distributor OverDrive. They forced OverDrive, which is a main e-book distributor for libraries, to agree to terms so that HarperCollins e-books will only be licensed for checkout 26 times. Librarians have blown up over this, calling for a boycott of HarperCollins, breaking the DRM on e-books--basically doing anything to let HarperCollins and other publishers know they consider this abuse.

Cory Doctorow adds: "DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day. ... And that's why libraries should just stop buying DRM media for their collections. Period. It's unsafe at any speed.

I mean it. When HarperCollins backs down and says, "Oh, no, sorry, we didn't mean it, you can have unlimited ebook checkouts," the libraries' answers should be "Not good enough. We want DRM-free or nothing." Stop buying DRM ebooks. Do you think that if you buy twice, or three times, or ten times as many crippled books that you'll get more negotiating leverage with which to overcome abusive crap like this? Do you think that if more of your patrons come to rely on you for ebooks for their devices, that DRM vendors won't notice that your relevance is tied to their product and tighten the screws?

You have exactly one weapon in your arsenal to keep yourself from being caught in this leg-hold trap: your collections budget. Stop buying from publishers who stick time-bombs in their ebooks. Yes, you can go to the Copyright Office every three years and ask for a temporary exemption to the DMCA to let your jailbreak your collections, but that isn't Plan B, it's Plan Z. Plan A is to stop putting dangerous, anti-patron technology into your collections in the first place. "
The Internet

Egyptians Find New Ways To Get Online 202

Posted by timothy from the all-this-stuff-makes-me-want-to-visit dept.
angry tapir writes "Groups like We Rebuild have scrambled to keep Egypt connected to the outside world, turning to landline telephones, fax machines and even ham radio to keep information flowing in and out of the country. Although one Internet service provider — Noor Group — remains in operation, Egypt's government abruptly ordered the rest of the country's ISPs to shut down their services just after midnight local time Thursday. Mobile networks have also been turned off in some areas."
Electronic Frontier Foundation

Submission + - EFF Uncovers Widespread FBI Intelligence Violation (eff.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: EFF has uncovered widespread violations stemming from FBI intelligence investigations from 2001 — 2008. In a report released today, EFF documents alarming trends in the Bureau’s intelligence investigation practices, suggesting that FBI intelligence investigations have compromised the civil liberties of American citizens far more frequently, and to a greater extent, than was previously assumed. Using documents obtained through EFF's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, the report finds:
  • Evidence of delays of 2.5 years, on average, between the occurrence of a violation and its eventual reporting to the Intelligence Oversight Board
  • Reports of serious misconduct by FBI agents including lying in declarations to courts, using improper evidence to obtain grand jury subpoenas, and accessing password-protected files without a warrant
  • Indications that the FBI may have committed upwards of 40,000 possible intelligence violations in the 9 years since 9/11
Mars

Submission + - Russians close to "reaching Mars" (myway.com)

Submitted by Dthief
Dthief writes:

The all-male crew of three Russians, a Chinese, a Frenchman and an Italian-Colombian has been inside windowless capsules at a Moscow research center since June. Their mission aims to help real space crews in the future cope with the confinement and stress of interplanetary travel. The six men are due to "land" on Mars on Feb. 12 and spend two days researching the planet. They then begin the months-long return flight to Earth, expected to be the most challenging part of the mission. In an effort to reproduce the conditions of space travel, with exception of weightlessness, the crew has living quarters the size of a bus connected with several other modules for experiments and exercise. A separate built-in imitator of the Red Planet's surface is attached for the mock landing.

Have they learned anything from this?
Censorship

Submission + - British ISPs Respond on Filtering (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: UK ISPs have responded to culture minister Ed Vaisey's comments regarding pervasive, opt-out only porn filtering, bringing up many of the technical and civil-liberties issues also raised on Slashdot. In response to the government proposal, Nicholas Lansman, secretary general of the Ispa industry body, said: "Ispa firmly believes that controls on children's access to the internet should be managed by parents and carers with the tools ISPs provide, rather than being imposed top-down.". Trefor Davies, chief technology officer at ISP Timico, commented that "Unfortunately, It's technically not possible to completely block this stuff. You end up with a system that's either hugely expensive and a losing battle because there are millions of these sites or it's just not effective. The cost of putting these systems in place outweigh the benefits, to my mind,". Mr Davies also feared that any wide-scale attempt to police pornographic content would soon be expanded to include pirated pop songs, films and TV shows. "If we take this step it will not take very long to end up with an internet that's a walled garden of sites the governments is happy for you to see," he said.
The Military

North Korea Says War With South Would Go Nuclear 608

Posted by Soulskill from the cruisin'-for-a-bruisin' dept.
A reader writes "According to reports from the Uriminzokkiri, the official website of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a war with South Korea would involve nuclear weapons, and '[will] not be limited to the Korean peninsula.' The article goes on, 'The Korean peninsula remains a region fraught with the greatest danger of war in the world. This is entirely attributable to the US pursuance of the policy of aggression against the DPRK (North Korea).'"
Power

CA's First Molten Salt Energy Plant Approved 270

Posted by timothy from the high-on-sodium dept.
An anonymous reader writes "This year we've seen molten salt power plants start to pick up steam around the world, and now the technology is heating up stateside — California just approved its first molten salt energy plant. Designed by SolarReserve, the plant uses heliostats to focus thermal energy on a power tower filled with salt, which is able to reach very high temperatures (over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit) and can hold heat for an extraordinary length of time. Heat from this reserve of molten salt can then be pumped through a steam generator to provide on-demand energy long after the sun has set."
Government

Submission + - British Govt Releases Spending Data (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In a move sure to have transparency activists salivating, the UK government has some 195,000 lines of data detailing its financial outgoings. The BBC reports that "All spending of more than £25,000 made between May and September was published — in line with a pre-election commitment by the Conservatives — although some departments also published spending over £500. People are being encouraged to pick through the enormous quantity of online information to spot waste and hold ministers to account."
Censorship

Submission + - UK Twitter Users Declare "I'm Spartacus" (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Tweeters have joined forces to support Paul Chambers, the man convicted and fined for a Twitter message threatening to blow up an airport. A so-called "I'm Spartacus" campaign encouraging users to "re-tweet" his words has also become a huge hit. The hashtag #IAmSpartacus is currently the number one trending topic on Twitter in the UK, with #twitterjoketrial in second place. Chambers is believed to be the first person convicted in the UK for posting an offensive tweet. After the hearing, actor and Twitter fan Stephen Fry tweeted that he would pay Chambers' fine. Comedian Dara O'Briain tweeted that the verdict was "ludicrous" while Peep Show actor David Mitchell said it was "punishment for flippancy".

Submission + - Anti-Piracy firm e-mails reveal firm scam (torrentfreak.com) 4

Submitted by
Khyber
Khyber writes: "A recent DDoS attack against a UK-based anti-pirating firm, known as ACS:Law, has resulted in a large backup archive of the server contents being made available for download, which has been done and is now being hosted by the Pirate Bay. Within this archive are e-mails from Andrew Crossley basically admitting that he is running a scam job, sending out thousands of frivolous legal threats on the premise that a percentage pay up immediately to avoid legal hassles."

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