RandomStrategy - Slashdot User

Submission + - P2P Ruled as "Completely Neutral" in Spain (publico.es)

Submitted by Sir Mal Fet on Tuesday December 20, 2011 @11:46AM

Sir Mal Fet writes: In line with previous rulings discussed here, a judge in spain has ruled that P2P technologies are "completely neutral" (original in spanish ; Google translation ), thus dismissing a lawsuit originated in 2008 from the Spanish Association of Musical Producers (Promusicae), Warner, EMI, and Sony suing Pablo Soto, a spanish man who created the Blubster, MP2P y Piolet programs to share files. The labels demanded 13 million euros in damages arguing that the mere existence and distribution of P2P technologies violated copyright, but the ruling stated the technology itself was neutral, so the creator could not be held responsible for how the software was used, and demanded that they pay for legal expenses. Promusicae said it was going to appeal the ruling.

Comment Re:Proof that pop music is in the gutter (Score 1) 243

by RandomStrategy on Friday July 01, 2011 @09:36AM (#36632846) Attached to: Is There a Formula For a Hit Song?

But....if we didn't have Rebecca Black's "Friday"..........we wouldn't have Stephen Colbert singing a cover of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqstF4V4Nl4

Comment Of course (Score 1) 243

by RandomStrategy on Friday July 01, 2011 @09:00AM (#36632540) Attached to: Is There a Formula For a Hit Song?

Of course there is a formula, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

Comment And the Streisand Effect begins.... (Score 1) 884

by RandomStrategy on Thursday March 31, 2011 @03:44PM (#35681672) Attached to: Congressman Wants YouTube Video Covered Up

....now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Submission + - New York Times Struggles With Paywall Attacks (ibtimes.com)

Submitted by RedEaredSlider on Monday March 28, 2011 @01:41PM

RedEaredSlider writes: With The New York Times' controversial paywall set to go live this afternoon at 2 p.m., discussion of the move has made the natural transition to methods of bypassing it.

As expected, a number of loopholes and hacks have appeared. One of the more notorious methods appeared almost instantly. Using a Twitter account named @FreeNYT, an anonymous user aggregated every article the newspaper posted the Twitter. The site caught The Times' notice and before long, The Times requested that Twitter suspend the account, arguing that it violated its trademark.

Another loophole uses four lines of CSS and JavaScript. Canadian developer David Hayes managed to strip the Time's website of any mention of digital subscriptions in addition to getting past the paywall. The hack was released in the form of NYTClean, a bookmark easily installed in web browsers.

Submission + - SSL Cert Weaknesses Exposed By Comodo Breach (infoworld.com)

Submitted by

snydeq

on Thursday March 24, 2011 @04:07PM

snydeq writes: "InfoWorld's Woody Leonhard delves deeper into the Comodo SSL scandal and finds the breach calling into question the integrity of the SSL certification process itself. 'While the press has focused on the sensational fact that Comodo's site was hacked from an Iranian IP address, we really should be asking three questions: How did somebody working with an Iranian IP address get a username and password from Comodo with enough clearance to create SSL certificates? Why did Comodo issue SSL certificates for google.com, live.com, yahoo.com, mozilla.org, and skype.com? Why are browser updates used to revoke SSL certificates?'"

Submission + - Copyright Troll Complains of Defendants Legal Fees

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens writes

on Thursday March 10, 2011 @05:26PM

Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Steve Green writes in the Las Vegas Sun that copyright enforcement company Righthaven, accused of coercing defendants into settling with threats of damages of $150,000 and forfeiture of the defendants’ website domain names, is complaining that one of its litigation foes is needlessly running up legal costs that Righthaven may end up having to pay. In one of its more extensively-litigated cases, Righthaven sued the Democratic Underground last year after a message-board poster re-posted the first four paragraphs of a 34-paragraph Review-Journal story. After suffering a fair-use setback in another case involving a partial story post, Righthaven tried to drop its suit against the Democratic Underground, which would have resulted in a finding of “no infringement.” But the Democratic Underground is pressing for Righthaven to pay its attorneys fees and says new evidence had surfaced that would bolster their case. “Defendants agree that this case should be over — indeed, it should never have started. But it should not end until Righthaven is called to account for the cost of the defense it provoked," say attorneys for the EFF. "To allow Righthaven to avoid compensating those who have no choice but to defend would be unjust and unsupportable." In other news, Righthaven has filed five more lawsuits, bringing their total since March 2010 to 246 lawsuits."

Submission + - openSUSE 11.4 Released (opensuse.org) 2

Submitted by

MasterPatricko

on Thursday March 10, 2011 @04:57PM

MasterPatricko writes: "The openSUSE community is pleased to announce the 11.4 release of the distribution. "We are proud to announce the launch of 11.4 in the openSUSE tradition of delivering the latest technology while maintaining stability. The 11.4 release brings significant improvements along with the latest in Free Software applications. Combined with the appearance of new tools, projects and services around the release, 11.4 marks a showcase of growth and vitality for the openSUSE Project!"

This release is available now (direct download and bittorrent) as installable DVD or KDE/Gnome LiveCD images, as well as being installable over a network or as a live upgrade from a previous openSUSE release. Highlights include Linux kernel 2.6.37, improved package management, KDE SC 4.6.0, Gnome 2.32 with a preview of Gnome 3, Firefox 4.0, LibreOffice 3.3.1, and the debut of a rolling release project called Tumbleweed. 11.4 images are also already available for customization on SUSEstudio, and you can build your own packages for 11.4 and other GNU/Linux distros on the openSUSE Build Service."

Comment Exception? (Score 1) 2

by RandomStrategy on Wednesday January 26, 2011 @12:20PM (#35009654) Attached to: Vaporhardware! 10 Gadgets That Won't Ever Ship

The only exception that I can see is May 3rd...we get Duke.

Comment Best Application of this... (Score 1) 1

by RandomStrategy on Thursday January 20, 2011 @01:29PM (#34941598) Attached to: Italian Scientist claim cold fusion breakthrough

I hope that this means I can get a suit of Power Armor from Fallout 3 in the next few years.

Submission + - Autism-Vax Doc Scandal was Pharma Business Scam (bmj.com)

Submitted by Sockatume on Wednesday January 12, 2011 @09:07AM

Sockatume writes: In his second report, Brian Deer exposes how MMR-autism prophet Andrew Wakefield aimed to profit from the vaccine scare. Two years before the research that "discovered" the MMR-autism link, Wakefield began courting interest in a hundred-million-dollar diagnostics firm. The doctor hoped to seed the company with government legal aid money and profit by charging "premium prices" for new diagnostic tests to be used in vaccine injury lawsuits. By the time Wakefield published, the proposals had expanded into producing new "safe" vaccines, two businesses to gather legal aid funding, and interest from partners including Wakefield's own hospital. The scheme ultimately disintegrated with the arrival of new leadership at Wakefield's hospital and ongoing scrutiny into his research.

Submission + - Record labels to pay for copyright infringement (canoe.com)

Submitted by innocent_white_lamb on Monday January 10, 2011 @05:54PM

innocent_white_lamb writes: Sony Music Entertainment Canada Inc., EMI Music Canada Inc., Universal Music Canada Inc. and Warner Music Canada Co. have agreed to pay songwriters and music publishers $47.5 million in damages for copyright infringement and overdue royalties to settle a class action lawsuit.

Comment This says it all about the 'change' (Score 1) 853

by RandomStrategy on Tuesday December 21, 2010 @03:45PM (#34632760) Attached to: Obama FCC Caves On Net Neutrality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1FFVWEQnSM

I'm not republican and by no means democrat, I don't even really identify with the tea party. Just laying that out on the table.

Comment Hipster much? (Score 1) 412

by RandomStrategy on Monday December 20, 2010 @03:52PM (#34619670) Attached to: Tron: Legacy

"Ironically and sarcastically" ...... Learn what the definitions of those words are, then make another attempt at using them correctly. Thank you, come again!

Submission + - ITU softens on the definition of 4G mobile (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg on Friday December 17, 2010 @04:58PM

alphadogg writes: After setting off a marketing free-for-all by effectively declaring that only future versions of LTE and WiMax will be 4G, the International Telecommunication Union appears to have opened its doors and let the party come inside.

In October, the global standards group declared that after long study, it had determined which technologies truly qualified for its IMT-Advanced label, sometimes called 4G (fourth-generation). Only two systems made the list: LTE-Advanced, an emerging version of Long-Term Evolution technology, and WirelessMAN-Advanced, the next version of WiMax, also called WiMax 2. Neither is commercially available yet.

Stripping the official 4G title from current LTE and WiMax, which both had claimed it, was the perfect foil for T-Mobile USA to wholeheartedly advertise its HSPA+ (High-Speed Packet Access) network as 4G.

But in a recent press release http://www.itu.int/net/pressoffice/press_releases/2010/48.aspx about the opening of the ITU World Radiocommunication Seminar 2010, the august United Nations-affiliated agency appears to have caved in.

"As the most advanced technologies currently defined for global wireless mobile broadband communications, IMT-Advanced is considered as '4G,'" the press release said, "although it is recognized that this term, while undefined, may also be applied to the forerunners of these technologies, LTE and WiMax, and to other evolved 3G technologies providing a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third generation systems now deployed."

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