Well, it’s being reported that Viacom has issued 100,000 takedown notices to YouTube regarding content used in videos that are subject to their copyright. YouTube has obliged and removed all the videos, but it’s interesting (and quite funny) that Viacom have had to admit to “no more than” 60 mistakes, so far. Basically, they’ve made up legal demands that YouTube remove people’s home videos over which they have no copyright interest whatsoever!
I found this quite funny, and I hate to see the all-powerful legal threats being thrown around… especially when they’re wrong! Enjoy the video clip below from the EFF - you may want to read their comment on this story.
A recent article on The Register reported that msn messenger (the network itself rather than the program) bans you from sending certain phrases to your contacts. One of which is “scroogle.org” - this is odd considering that Scroogle is a tool that alters Google searches and has nothing to do with Microsoft whatsoever. As El Reg also stated, it may just be that the term “Scroogle” is something particularly unsavoury and it’s just that nobody knows it’s true meaning. However, this story got me (and hopefully you) thinking.
Every time you perform a Google search, your IP address is logged and a uniquely identifiable cookie is placed on your system. This means that there will always be a record somewhere of all the searches you’ve ever made. Google say that they won’t hand out this information to anyone unless requested to by a law enforcement agency. But this begs the question… if Google don’t use the data, why do they keep it?
In a surprising coincidence, only 3 days after I wrote a previous article regarding a lawsuit against the creators of free software, the FSFE (Free Software Foundation Europe) have launched a “Freedom Task Force” aimed at providing legal advice and protection to the creators of free software. Interestingly, the project is being led by Shane Coughlan - the lead developer of the Mobility Project, which I’m personally involved in. The full story can be found at The Register but I think you’ll agree that this is an extremely welcome step forward in software development as it offers free legal protection to developers with regard to GPL violations. It also may provide help to part-time developers who may be threatened into submission by legally questionable claims of DMCA violations etc.
In a remarkably obscure law suit, the Free Software Foundation, Novell and Red Hat have all been sued by Daniel Wallace over accusations of price fixing and uncompetitive practices. His reasoning: These companies all distribute software for free.
At initial glance, the lawsuit seems plainly ridiculous since laws against price fixing are there to protect consumers and keep prices at a minimum. However, it is a warning bell showing just how much of an impact open source software (in particular, Linux) is having on the software market. If you think of the charges in terms of anti-competitive terms, companies working together to produce free software could in theory be construed as anti-competitive - who can compete with a free product in terms of price?
The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) are an organisation that have been around for some time, and their aim is to fight for consumer’s rights regarding products and policy in the digital age. Despite being primarily American-orientated, the ramifications of their court cases, policies and appeals have international consequences.
I recently watched their Corruptibles video with great interest. It’s a fairly basic flash animation that outlines how new DRM (Digital Rights Management) systems could/will affect you in your every day lives. It’s worth a bit of a laugh, and it makes you think… but does it make you think what the EFF are trying to push?
Did you know that AT&T are currently being sued? This may not sound like a big deal - a large US corporation is being sued. But it becomes interesting when you find out what they’re being sued for.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) are suing AT&T because they illegally installed methods to tap its customers phones and log all internet traffic. And what was the purpose of this? To pass all the data to the American NSA.
Unexpectedly, a US judge has ruled against Apple who were seeking a court injunction requiring an ISP to name a blogger. This started quite a long time ago when Apple were a little upset to discover some of their secrets relating to a forthcoming product release were leaked in a blog. They claimed that the blogger must reveal his source so that they could find out who the leak was.
In the current privacy climate, I was very surprised that the judge ruled in favour of privacy for the blogger - it is fair that bloggers be allowed to protect their sources just like a member of the press has a legal right to do the same. However, the ruling looks far from secure, and Apple may triumph yet. Read the rest of this entry »
According to this news story, the US Government have been illegally demanding people’s personal data from banks, credit card companies, telephone companies etc without getting the correct court authorisation first. All this at a time when the infamous “Patriot Act” is allowing them to monitor email traffic and internet data… even though they promise not to use it unless there’s “reason for suspicion.” Read the rest of this entry »
RSS
February 10th, 2007 by 
Adam 
3 Comments »
In a surprising coincidence, only 3 days after I wrote a 
In a remarkably obscure law suit, the Free Software Foundation, Novell and Red Hat have all been sued by Daniel Wallace over accusations of price fixing and uncompetitive practices. His reasoning: These companies all distribute software for free.