HUDSON RIVER "LANDING"!!!

An Irish Solution?

Ireland Will Implement Website Blocking

Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner has ordered a halt on the “three-strikes” regime because of its conflicts with privacy policies and the failure of the country’s Internet service provider Eircom to properly apply the “graduate response system”.
The issue dates back to 2009, when the Irish Recorded Music Association had reached an agreement with one of the largest ISPs in the country on the issues of unauthorized file-sharing. Under this agreement, the ISP, supervised by the outfit members (EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner), had to introduce the graduated response system.

A year ago, Eircom promised that it would be proceeding with implementation of the protocol which might lead to the suspension and ultimately disconnection of Internet service for those subscribers who deliberately and persistently violate copyright legislation.

Nevertheless, something went wrong when the ISP sent 300 notification letters to the wrong people. This failure wasn’t taken easy by the country’s Data Protection Commissioner that launched an investigation to establish the legality of the “three-strikes” regime. A report was released, saying that the authorities have decided to put a halt to the practice.

The industry experts agree that today both the courts and the official Data Protection Commissioner are starting to understand the fundamental right of users to access the web, and not to be tracked while doing so. Despite the fact that things looked bleak for the entertainment industry, one more report was released recently, revealing that website blocking can be considered as an alternative solution.

According to the local media, Seán Sherlock (Minister of State for Enterprise) is going to publish an order early next year which will allow copyright owners, after obtaining a court order, to deny access to violating services with the help of broadband providers. However, it is still unclear which websites will be classified as infringing.

The decision of the minister was mainly influenced by EMI’s threats to sue Ireland if it fails to find a feasible solution against digital piracy. In response, the Department of Enterprise, Innovation and Jobs said to EMI that the order is expected to be published and applied as law in January 2012.

iPhone….Help??

Man rings 911 about broken iPhone

A US man has been arrested after dialling 911 on five different occasions to complain about his broken iPhone.
A US man has been arrested after calling 911 to complain about his broken iPhone.
Michael Alan Skopec rang the police on five different occasions and the officials eventually visited his home just before 1am in Kendall County, Illinois, and discovered he appeared to be intoxicated, according to The Smoking Gun.
The 48-year-old man didn't say what was supposed to be wrong with the gadget or what he wanted the police to do about it and he was eventually arrested for arrested for obstructing a peace officer.

Censorship!!!

SOPA Opponents Created Emergency IP Lists

Legislation known as SOPA is getting closer and closer towards final passage, which makes a lot of users very nervous. Today it looks like a very predictable development is taking place – Internet users are generating the lists of IP addresses to bypass DNS filtering.
The expectations are that DNS censorship could soon become a reality in the United States. If a company or government entity decides to make an online service disappear, it would be just the one complaint away from reality. From the very start, experts saw groups sending IP lists over networks like IRC in order to make sure that the web remains relatively unfiltered. Today the concept of sharing unfiltered domain names became a reality.

A lot of users seeing the list in question might not necessarily know what to do with the addresses. That’s why people also publish different guides on how to maintain a HOSTS file, attaching screenshots. Such instructions show what to do with an IP address you get from the list. If you are looking for an IP address to a site not found in the emergency SOPA list, you can obtain it by different ways. First of all, you are able to obtain the IP address of your favorite site via web hosting instruments or even using command prompt. Best of all is if you obtain the IP address before the domain is filtered.

In fact, many industry observers believe that this would become a new norm after SOPA passes. However, there is a problem with this way – the matter is that you are putting your Internet security in the hands of people generating those lists of IP addresses. For example, if one of the users were to add an IP address to the list in question which actually points to a malicious site instead of the real online service, then the troubles start for other users. That’s something that should be manually fixed on the end-users part. Another solution is to remove the entry entirely. In fact, that’s the part that makes a lot of insecurity experts freak out over this suggested bill – because it would make the web less secure. Indeed, if the government wasn’t considering DNS filtering in the SOPA legislation at all and left the automatic DNS system alone, this issue wouldn’t be causing security problems in the first place. However, the authorities seem to pay little attention to such issues.

How Darth Vader Really Earns A Living!

Oh…How the mighty fall!!

Good For Canada…..Sense At Last!!

Canada’s Artists Call for Legal File-Sharing

Songwriters Association of Canada is one of Canada’s most prestigious assets, with members including Bryan Adams, Randy Bachman and Carole Pope. The outfit’s Vice President Jean-Robert Bisaillon claimed that the web has animated the music business, and this claim actually reflects the group’s views on file-sharing. They believe that file-sharing is actually the best music provider people can have today, so instead of fighting progress the copyright owners should better think of making it legal, while compensating the musicians who choose to share their content.
The outfit explained how file-sharing represents an opportunity, not a threat, to the entertainment industry. In addition, it’s also trying to gain the stakeholders’ sympathy by pushing the idea of monetizing file-sharing via a licensing system for consumers. The group pointed out that by monetizing behavior instead of any specific technology, musicians and copyright owners will create a basis for the business model which is able to continue for decades instead of trying the impossible task of monetizing the ever shortening cycle of changing technology.

Songwriters Association of Canada believes that the practice of file-sharing is actually great and virtually unstoppable. That’s why they want to establish a regime letting everyone to keep on doing this without stigmatizing the consumers but rather looking for a way for musicians and copyright owners to be compensated for their works being shared.

Another positive aspect is that people will be able to find music which isn’t available in the commercial realm offer. They will also be able to find a higher quality and afford music even if they are poor. Most importantly, consumers will be able to discover new musicians and recommend them to friends.

Meanwhile, the big labels’ concerns aren’t actually focused on the musicians’ wellbeing, since they try to control the market as long as they are able to and as long as it will bring them profit, even if it is derived from legal action. On the other side, music is proved to be much better off with the Internet, as it allows for musical discovery regardless of distance and time, sparking co-operations between artists unimaginable before. Finally, it was the web that has helped musicians to book international tours without expensive long-distances charges and postal delays.

Greed…Nothing Else But Greed

Publishers Go Greedy With Apple

Six of the top publishers have cooperated in order to fix a price for ebooks higher than that of a hard copy – this is regardless of the fact that the cost of making an ebook is less than the cost of a hardback.
Wall Street Journal revealed that the price fixing was agreed on at the behest of Steve Jobs, who wanted to open an Amazon style ebook shop but didn’t want to involve discounting that made Amazon that successful. So, Jobs and six publishers have negotiated a new pricing model – they were undoubtedly happy since they felt that this move preserved the value of books and encouraged other businesses to enter the electronic book market.

This deal promises guaranteed profits on best-selling titles for such retailers as Barnes & Noble that today accounts for 27% of the digital books market, along with Amazon. All this offers tremendous profits for the publishers, but not many benefits for consumers.

This new pricing deal among publishers can prevent retailers from discounting electronic books without their permission, while there’s no similar agreement about printed books. Although the stores are still able to cut the price for printed books as much as they want to entice readers to purchase, they will now have to comply with the new, higher prices for e-books set by the copyright owners.

It looks like the publishers decided that people will now pay more money for the benefits of electronic books like portability and convenience. However, this might become the biggest own goal in the history of publishing. Currently the readers are forced to choose between the goods that are more expensive, they have to get mailed to them (but can be kept on shelves), and the goods which are instant but much cheaper. So, if the publishers force readers to pay higher prices for electronic books, they would abandon the idea in droves.

In addition, it’s unclear how copyright owners want to justify the margins in the scam. Currently, a typical book contract pays 3-10% of the final cost to the writer, while the distributor and retailer receive 50-60%, and the publisher gets the rest. While distribution of a printed book was quite expensive, since it required shipping and storage, an ebook costs a fraction of that. It may even be as low as 5% after the distributor takes a cost for delivering the product to the reader. However, the publishers didn’t increase the share of the authors who are still left with contracts. In other words, writers won’t see much money at all.

No Ticket?

Commuter who tackled fare dodger 'was pushed to the limit'

The family of a commuter who was filmed throwing a suspected teenage fare dodger off a train last night insisted he was a "quiet man" who had been "pushed to the limit".

Alan Pollock, 35, a financial manager with one of the world's biggest asset management firms, was applauded by passengers when he dragged 19-year-old Sam Main from the Edinburgh-Perth train.
He intervened after the student failed to produce a valid ticket during an angry confrontation with a conductor.
Footage of the incident has been viewed 600,000 times on the internet and a Facebook group called, "Pay yer train ticket or the big man will chuck ye aff", has been set up in his honour.
The burly businessman, who was casually dressed in a rugby top at the time, is a performance manager with the blue chip investment management company BlackRock in Edinburgh.
He has refused to comment and is said to be embarrassed by the attention, but his father Jim, a retired accountant, said he brought his son up to know "right from wrong".
"It's very out of character for Alan. He must have been pushed to the limit. I was a wee bit disappointed no one actually got up and helped him."
He said his son would not have acted without the conductor’s permission to intervene.
“He's not impulsive, but the situation was getting out of hand and the inspector wasn't able to do anything. He's got his family's support.”
At their home on the banks of the River Forth in Stirling, the asset manager’s wife Avril described the father-of-three as a "quiet man".
He joined BlackRock last June, specialises in risk analysis and describes his interests as investing, running, hillwalking and canoeing. A spokesman for BlackRock refused to comment on the incident.
Meanwhile, Mr Main insisted yesterday that he was “clearly assaulted” and called for Mr Pollock to be charged.
The second year surveying student at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh suffered cuts and bruises when he fell on the platform at Linlithgow station, one stop short of his destination at Polmont.

The Italians Are Annoyed?

Italy Angry with Switzerland for Protecting File-Sharers

Recently the Swiss government made a decision to endorse a law according to which non-profit file-sharing is considered legitimate. The Swiss government believes that the so -called “illicit” downloads don’t actually hurt the entertainment industry like various anti-piracy groups claims they do. However, this decision has led to a hostile reaction from the Italian government.
Italy is known in file-sharing circles for the legislation pleasing entertainment industry, which it has adopted in a popular form of “three-strikes” regime. Under this law, Internet users accused of copyright violation could have their broadband connection terminated.

Italy has issued a kind of response via Enzo Mazza, the president of the Italian music industry group FIMI (known in the country as Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana), the next day after Switzerland had made an announcement. This response was a bit childish, claiming that Switzerland was the country that had hid the loot of history’s biggest criminals, and whose banks had shielded tax evaders. Now this country is also accused of protecting Internet thieves.

However, Switzerland had reasons to decide so. The country’s government made their decision after consulting a federal study and different researches, all of which conclude, along with some other things, that piracy doesn’t actually cause the country any significant economic damage. Instead, the experts pointed out that file-sharing only affected big foreign companies.

Meanwhile, the same federal study revealed that despite the fact that about 30% of Swiss citizens aged over 15 do have a habit of downloading copyrighted content like films and music, this doesn’t really influence their buying habits in regards to entertainment. In other words, industry experts are sure that the Internet users do not spend less because they download stuff for free. Nevertheless, Italy wasn’t the only country that applied such strict anti-piracy penalties – they have been also introduced by a number of other countries like France, all of them currently receiving much disapproval by the study in question which really doubts the legitimacy of the “three-strikes” regime.