Thursday , March 28 2024

Science and Technology

Lessig on the RIAA Suit

We have written about the multi-billion dollar lawsuit the RIAA just filed against four college students – copyright activist and Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig weighs in on the situation: They say I’m a pessimist about the future of freedom on the net, and they’ve got two books of mine to …

Read More »

Spammer and Alleged Software Pirate Sues

Spam scum George Allen Moore Jr., “Dr. Fatburn,” didn’t like being outed by angry geek and went to court: Francis Uy, a self-described computer geek from Ellicott City, decided to fight back by employing a tactic increasingly used by a small cadre of e-mail users fed up with spam: Outing …

Read More »

Government Has Simultaneous Arabic Translation

They’ve been talking about this for 20 years, but now real time translation is “good enough“: Most Americans likely have difficulty understanding the broadcasts of Al Jazeera, the Arab news network, but several government agencies now can watch it while simultaneously receiving an English translation of the programming. Virage Inc., …

Read More »

Which is It? Maybe Both

Declan McCullagh on the Computers, Freedom and Privacy (CFP) conference: At the 13th annual Computers, Freedom and Privacy (CFP) conference, attendees fretted about shrinking privacy, growing online censorship, and their reduced ability to make “fair use” of music, video and software girded with anticopying technologies. Events included panels with titles …

Read More »

Leafy Wi-Fi

Additional wireless access in Manhattan parks: downtown business improvement district is planning to establish free high-speed wireless Internet access in six parks and public spaces in Lower Manhattan next month, significantly expanding the availability downtown of wireless connections to the Internet. Officials of the Alliance for Downtown New York, the …

Read More »

More on RIAA Suits

The RIAA is doing itself a grave disservice by calling public attention to its battle against file sharing: by employing increasingly aggressive tactics against sharers they run the risk of inflaming the public at large against them, which may force politicians – heretofore largely in the industry’s pocket – to …

Read More »

It Still Sucks

New tentative deal between RIAA and webcasting reps (Digital Media Association) on webcasting royalties: SUMMARY OF DiMA-SOUNDEXCHANGE PROPOSAL FOR INTERNET RADIO ROYALTY RATES & TERMS Scope: Covers digital audio transmissions of sound recordings by commercial webcasters (“eligible nonsubscription transmission services”) and subscription services (“new subscription services”), subject to the statutory …

Read More »

Tori Wants Your Help On Her “Taxi Ride”

Tori Amos is looking for help making her music video for her single “Taxi Ride“: Epic Records, in partnership with Apple QuickTime and RollingStone.com, is pleased to announce the creation of “Tori’s Taxivision”, a new on-line contest in which fans get the opportunity to create a music video for Tori …

Read More »

MP3’s With Your Happy Meal?

An interesting take on the “music as utility” model from Greg Blonder: In the late 1800s, when a tenant sought to warm a cold apartment, she had to buy her own coal from passing coal wagons and then haul it in coal buckets up to her fourth-floor kitchen. This apparently …

Read More »

Straight From the Horses’ Websites

Cynthia Webb has an excellent column in the Washington Post today listing the many and various military websites providing direct access to info on the war: The Internet offers users worldwide an unprecedented amount of news and commentary about the war in Iraq. But unlike the last war in the …

Read More »