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Facebook

Germany Says Facebook's Facial Recognition Is Illegal 278

fysdt writes "Although we think it's generally a pretty nifty feature, valid concerns over the misuse of Facebook's auto-recognition tagging have lead Germany to ban it entirely. That's right — Facebook in its current state is now illegal. The German government, which possesses perhaps the world's most adamant privacy laws as a result of postwar abuse, considers Facebook's facial recognition a violation of 'the right to anonymity.'"

Comment Re:WHAT DOES IS MATTER THAT IT'S A RIP-OFF? (Score 1) 494

Say what you will about what copyright law *should be* but previous posters are telling you what copyright law *is now*. Unfortunately for OP he looks like he's dead in the water under not just current copyright law, but trademark as well. If you don't like the situation, you've already used soap box so get on to using ballot box and hopefully you can get it changed without resorting to ammo box.

Comment Re:Liability (Score 1) 354

More likely than not, federal diversity jurisdiction. Happens if you have none of the plaintiffs in the same state as any of the defendants and the amount in controversy is > $75,000. Also can happen if you have a federal claim and a state law claim (involving the same set of facts and circumstances) comes along for the ride under supplemental jurisdiction.

Comment Copyright law may have forced Amazon's hands... (Score 1) 646

It may have been premature for Amazon to remotely delete under 17 USC 503 and 509 but those sections clearly authorize a court of competent jurisdiction to "order the destruction or other reasonable disposition of all copies or phonorecords found to have been made or used in violation of the copyright owner's exclusive rights, and of all plates, molds, matrices, masters, tapes, film negatives, or other articles by means of which such copies or phonorecords may be reproduced." Amazon, having the technical capability, might have been compelled by order to exercise that capability. Now, Amazon did not have to resort to deletion without a court order but may have seen the writing on the wall: either get screwed by the publisher for willful copyright infringement or screwed by a class action breach of contract by Kindle users and picked the lesser of two evils. Ideally Amazon should have bit the bullet for the consumer experience by docking the company who put the unauthorized 1984 up on the Kindle marketplace and getting authorization for either the existing or a new copy of 1984 for its consumers in as seamless a transition as possible but of course then the shareholders would have gotten angry and sued Amazon for doing something clearly unprofitable leaving pretty much no one happy.

Comment "Work" is an Album (Score 2, Insightful) 296

As much as I would like to hold that infringing multiple songs off an album constitutes a single infringement, I don't see how that can be reconciled with the fact that each song may have different lyricists, composers, singers, etc - each of which have their own part of the bundle of sticks that constitute the copyrights in a song (god save you if it is a sound recording). Even if one were to take that the band (and by extension the RIAA) has assignments of copyright from all the various people who have a stick in the combined work, that still leaves the problem of multiple copyrights, works, and infringements.

At least from a damages perspective though, we should treat all of those infringements as having a net total worth of that song's fraction of the album's value. Everyone might not be particularly happy with their fraction of a sale but in theory everyone agreed to the contracts that setup the whole divvying scheme (bargaining power is a discussion for another day).

Programming

Whither the 19th IOCCC? 124

dazedNconfuzed writes "Whatever happened to the 19th IOCCC? The opening thereof was announced over two years ago and the winners' names were posted, but the source code was never released — leaving the results of the 2006 contest unknown as we get well into 2009. Emails to questions@ioccc.org just bounce. Surely the quiet absence of a high point of geekdom becomes news at some point!"
Businesses

MPC Computers Shutting Down 137

davidphogan74 writes "MPC Computers (formerly Micron's computer division) notified the Idaho Department of Labor in a letter on 12/29/2008 that it would terminate its remaining employees. The company had been operating under the protection of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy since November, after it laid off 200 employees in October. MPC said 147 employees would be terminated immediately and 51 would be retained while the company liquidates its assets. Last year, MPC bought the professional business unit of PC company Gateway, which itself had been bought by Acer earlier that year. MPC had sold business technology hardware to mid-sized business, government agencies, and education organizations since 1991."

Comment Re:GOVERNMENT CAN'T HOLD COPYRIGHTS (Score 1) 222

Not entirely true - see 17 USC 105: Copyright protection under this title is not available for any work of the United States Government, but the United States Government is not precluded from receiving and holding copyrights transferred to it by assignment, bequest, or otherwise. Note this only applies to the federal government and does not restrict state and local governments from claiming copyright with the exception of their laws and court decisions. Usual IANAL, consult your legal advisor before use.

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