TX297 - Slashdot User

Comment They already know it (Score 1) 204

by TX297 on Monday January 24, 2011 @01:43AM (#34978626) Attached to: The Fall of Traditional Entertainment Conglomerates

What do you think the DMCA, ACTA, COICA, etc are all for? Going after petty downloaders? No. The media companies already know that they can use the same laws passed under the guise of "combating piracy" to shut down and irreparably harm indie and upstart companies. "Whoops, we accidentally flagged your band's website for copyright violations on recordings we don't own the rights to. No problem, just submit an appeal to the Attorney General's office and it'll be removed in a few weeks/months/years. Oh you were actually making money? I'm sure we can work something out..." With all this legislation pretty much working off the DMCA, there will be fuck all punishment for false allegations, thanks to our friend "in good faith" (in hastily-written antipiracy algorithms). You think the courts have been made a mockery of so far? You haven't seen anything yet.

Comment Re:Samples? (Score 1) 515

by TX297 on Thursday April 22, 2010 @03:04PM (#31943876) Attached to: Treasury Goes High-Tech With Redesigned $100 Bills

There's actually an answer to this: Become a Banknote Equipment Manufacturer

Comment Damages figure, anyone? (Score 4, Interesting) 507

by TX297 on Friday September 18, 2009 @01:48PM (#29468889) Attached to: RIAA's Elementary School Copyright Curriculum

With a teacher's help, students then calculate how "big a problem" songlifting isâ"by multiplying the total number of songs by $0.99.

So they're basically admitting that the actual damages are just $0.99 a song? Seems like a way to take the RIAA on under the 8th amendment using their own propaganda against them.

Comment I say let them do it (Score 1) 249

by TX297 on Saturday December 27, 2008 @04:15PM (#26243681) Attached to: Fairpoint Pledges To Violate Net Neutrality

All it would prove to Joe Schmuck is that net neutrality is bad. We're relying on public awareness of net neutrality, and what better way to do it than to piss off a whole group of subscribers?

Sen. Ted "Tubes" Stevens Is Indicted 553

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday July 29, 2008 @02:55PM from the eating-our-own-pork dept.

Many readers are letting us know about the indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens on seven counts of making false statements on his financial disclosure forms. We discussed the raid on the senator's house a while back. Everyone's favorite technologically challenged senator is the longest-serving Republican in the history of the upper house. An Alaskan paper gives deep background on the probe that has ensnared Stevens and a number of other Alaska political figures.

FCC Votes To Punish Comcast 188

Posted by Soulskill on Sunday July 27, 2008 @10:16AM from the time-for-your-whoopin' dept.

MaineCoasts brings news that three out of the five FCC commissioners have voted in favor of punishing Comcast for their P2P throttling practices. The investigation of Comcast has been underway since January, and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin made clear their conclusion a couple weeks ago. Ars Technica has coverage as well, noting: "The initial report on the vote said nothing about which way Republican commissioners McDowell and Tate might lean. FCC watchers wouldn't be at all surprised to see both vote against the order; the really interesting moment could come if they support it. Having four or even five commissioners support the order would send a strong bipartisan signal to ISPs that they need to take great care with any sort of discriminatory throttling based on anything more specific than a user's total bandwidth."

Comment ICANN? (Score -1, Redundant) 61

by TX297 on Saturday July 05, 2008 @01:03PM (#24064993) Attached to: ICANN Loses Control of Its Own Domain Names

More like ICANT

ICANN Loses Control of Its Own Domain Names 61

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday July 05, 2008 @04:59AM from the heal-thyself dept.

NotNormallyNormal writes "CBC picked up an AP story about ICANN recently losing control over two of their domain names on Thursday, June 26. A domain registrar run by the group transferred the domains to someone else. ICANN's press release had this to say: 'As has been widely reported, a number of domain names, including icann.com and iana.com were recently redirected to different DNS servers, allowing a group to provide visitors to those domains with their own website. It would appear the attack was sophisticated, combining both social and technological techniques, but was also limited and focused.' Comcast has had similar troubles lately as well."

AP Targets Blog Excerpts With DMCA Notices 131

Posted by Soulskill on Friday June 13, 2008 @07:15PM from the out-of-cite-out-of-mind dept.

Ian Lamont points us to The Industry Standard, which reports that the Associated Press has filed DMCA takedown notices against news site 'The Drudge Retort' for excerpting portions of AP news releases. The site's creator, Rogers Cadenhead, has posted his analysis of the letters sent to him by the AP. Employees of the AP have defended the notices in posts on various blogs, saying, "We get concerned when we feel the use is more reproduction than reference, or when others are encouraged to cut and paste. That's not good for original content creators; nor is it consistent with the link-based culture of the Internet that you and others have cultivated so well."

Who Runs RIAA's Settlement Information Center? 172

Posted by kdawson on Monday April 28, 2008 @05:16AM from the detecive-work-cuts-both-ways dept.

eatonwood writes "Who is behind the RIAA's collections efforts? This comment at CallFerret says it is a company called PSC and lists a bunch of websites and contact information for them, but the connection to RIAA is still not completely clear (aside from the presence of a couple of clearly RIAA sites on the same server as PSC's). Anyone know anything more about who is doing RIAA's dirty work?"

An AI 4-Year-Old In Second Life 234

Posted by kdawson on Friday March 14, 2008 @09:37AM from the currents-and-eddies dept.

schliz notes a development out of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where researchers have successfully created an artificially intelligent four-year-old capable of reasoning about his beliefs to draw conclusions in a manner that matches human children his age. The technology, which runs on the institute's supercomputing clusters, will be put to use in immersive training and education scenarios. Researchers envision futuristic applications like those seen in Star Trek's holodeck."

House of Representatives To Discuss Wiretapping In Closed Session 264

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday March 13, 2008 @11:01PM from the maybe-they-are-trying-to-be-ironic dept.

Nimey brings word that for the first time in 25 years, the US House of Representatives will use a closed-door session to discuss proposed wiretapping legislation. The old legislation expired last month when government officials could not agree on retroactive immunity for the telecommunications providers who assisted with the wiretaps. The most recent version of the bill, proposed by House democrats, does not include telecom immunity. Because of that, President Bush has stated his willingness to veto the bill. The Yahoo article notes, "The closed-door debate was scheduled for late Thursday night, after the House chamber could be cleared and swept by security personnel to make sure there are no listening devices."

SCO Goes Private With $100 Million Backing 411

Posted by Zonk on Thursday February 14, 2008 @05:34PM from the this-is-just-a-touch-unexpected dept.

AmIAnAi writes "Just when you thought it was all over, the SCO story takes a new twist. SCO has received $100 million financing from Stephen Norris Capital Partners to get them out of Chapter 11 and go private 'The move gives Stephen Norris, whose namesake founder was a co-founder of private equity giant The Carlyle Group, a controlling interest in SCO, which now has a platform to continue its court battle with Novell Inc. over royalties from the Unix server operating system, SCO's main business ... According to a statement from the company, SNCP already has a business plan for SCO that includes pursuing its legal claims.'"

RIAA Wants $1.5 Million Per CD Copied 408

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday January 30, 2008 @06:04PM from the even-the-beatles-aren't-that-great dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Not content with current statutory damages, the RIAA is pushing for higher damages for infringement, damages that would total $1.5 million for copying a CD with ten songs. It's all part of debate over the proposed PRO-IP Act. William Patry, a lawyer who wrote the seminal seven-volume reference on US copyright law, called it the most 'outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the US.'"

DRM-Free Music Spells Trouble? 634

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday January 23, 2008 @06:44PM from the dogs-and-cats-living-together dept.

digitaldame2 writes "Many opponents of DRM have been overjoyed at recent efforts to free media from its grip. But PC Mag Editor-in-Chief Lance Ulanoff believes the whole world has gone mad. His view is that our digital economy will collapse this way, and it could be followed by countless others. 'The music industry's moves have been terrified reactions to staunch the bleeding of millions of dollars in revenue down the drain. For maybe a year, music companies thought they had the situation under control, but then album sales tumbled. Retailers, musicians, and some music-industry execs thought DRM was the culprit, and they soon joined the chorus of consumers calling for its head. Now consumers are getting their wish, and the music industry will continue to crumble. Giving up control of content and giving it away free are not rational ideas in a market economy, yet everyone's cheering.'" Is the removal of restrictions from our media really that big a deal?

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