corporate
Why we tweaked our copyright notice
A couple of weeks ago, we ran an article on the various overbroad copyright notices one finds in books and on TV sports. You know the sort of thing—”any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL’s consent is prohibited.” The piece focused on a pair of lawyers who had complained about such notices back in 2007, and we wanted to know what had happened with those complaints. The short answer: not much.
Continue reading »Congress ethics inquiry probe leaked online
p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- A report saying the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides are being investigated about concerns including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling has been leaked online. It, “appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations,” says the newspaper. “The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer.” The 22-page Committee on Standards Weekly Summary Report, “gives brief summaries of ethics panel investigations of the conduct of 19 lawmakers and a few staff members,” says the story, going on the committee’s review of investigations, “became available on file-sharing networks because of a junior staff member’s use of the software while working from home … ” The staffer was fired, says the story.
Continue reading »Newspapers continue downhill slide
In much the same way the corporate entertainment industry has lost its relevancy thanks to P2P communications, the downhill slide of the US press corps(e) continues as newspapers are forced to give way to online scribes, the vast majority of them ordinary people. “The Audit Bureau of Circulatations reported today that the average weekday circulation of the nearly 400 daily papers that reported sales slid 10.6% between April and September compared to the same six-month period in 2008,” says the Los Angeles Times , going on, “That was bigger than the 7.1% decline recorded during the previous six months.” Of America’s five biggest dailies, the Wall Street Journal, “displaced USA Today as the nation’s largest daily, notching a slim 0.6% gain in subscribers to reach slightly more than 2 million,” says the story, continung: “USA Today’s circulation fell 17% to 1.9 million as the Gannett Co. paper, which gets many of its sales at hotels and airports, was hit by the slump in travel.
Continue reading »Become a Canadian Pirate!
|| Politics:- Don’t just sit there complaining. Do something about it. Join today! Join what?
Continue reading »Striking a balance with copyright
|| Politics:- Probably the single most pernicious notion used to defend the status quo in regard to so-called intellectual ‘property’ is that we need to ’strike a balance’ between rights-holders, and everybody else. Why pernicious? I mean, this ‘balance’ idea actually does work in a lot of situations.
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