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No, that comment was not "from the article". It was "from the Peter Jamieson, the BPI Chairman. Let's not go crediting MSNBC for writing incorrect articles.

Also, here's a link that works in Firefox (MSNBC didn't load for me w/ Firefox): http://www.out-law.com/page-5967

This Website does not obey standards itself by requiring cookies, but not providing any privacy statement about their use and not proving any opt-out choice. This is both rude and illegal in Europe.

"need to include ... a statement to individuals which clearly outlines a user's rights as well as an 'opt out' choice."
Cookies Present Legal Woes

Cookies are only allowed "...on condition that the subscriber or user is provided with clear and comprehensive information in accordance with [the Data Protection Directive about] the purposes of the processing and is offered the right to refuse such processing".
Data protection law passed in Europe

The moral for Caffeine Junkies is - check your own standards compliance before criticising alleged problems with IE.

They're sueing, and I would too, given Microsoft's willingness to pay companies upon "stealing" a name.

You might not remember, but when XBox came out, there was quite the hubub locally (where I'm at). The XBox name was in use here by a firm in Michigan, at least a few years before the XBox's release (1999).

Microsoft quietly handed this company a rather sizable sum of money. The company founders were millionares many times over (the rumors place the settlement in the low 20 million range).

If I was a member of the "Vista" board, I'd go after Microsoft, too! It's free money!

This seems to be the problem really doesn't it? No matter how great the web site is, you can easilly bypass it's safe-guards.

Here's an interesting example of the cavalier disregard some people have for their person data.

Free pen for your password

In this case, people willing to reveal their passwords for a free pen.

Game developers are required to report all disk contents to the ESRB and to the console manufacturers, whether that content is accessible or not. In fact, if it's not accessible, Sony will make you take it off the disk.

This just simply isn't true. There exist plenty of unfinished areas and sidequests in games like Final Fantasy X (PS2) and KOTOR2 (XBOX) that didn't make it into the final cut because of the rush to meet shipping dates. You can't seriously expect a developer who is under extreme pressure to get a game out to market on time to check every nook and cranny of their virtual universe to make sure that it is entirely "accessable", can you? And what if some programmer accidentally leaves some monster.is_invincible() set to true on a gateway boss to a sidequest, thereby making that sidequest inaccessable to those who don't patch the game?

If Sony and Microsoft call them on violating their console licence, they could put an end to Rockstar's future Xbox and PS2 titles.

Maybe we should talk about how Microsoft has a history of not giving a flying fsck about any sort of standards and practices law. Given that they would rather pay $600MM fines than take their products off the shelves, I don't see them pulling the plug on the cash-machine that is GTA because of any futile standard or law. And finally:

Set aside the moral issues, and Rockstar still made a very stupid business move.

Um, I don't know if you remember what it was like to be a kid, but if I were still a 15 year old guy that hadn't yet bought GTA:SA and I read about a this mod on the internet, I'd pretty much sell my kidney(s) to get a copy of the game. This is advertising you can't pay for, and Rockstar knows that.

Rebates are an excellent example. The suckers buy the product and don't mail in the rebate, we mail in the rebate and save money.

Not if you shop at CompUSA.. But then again, who does?

(The smarties buy their stuff at Newegg and build it themselves.. Or buy Macs ;)

For those who would like to read a similar article without having to give out information:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5 ?nn20050112a1.htm

and here:

http://www.out-law.com/php/page.php?page_id=bluele dinventorse1105540939&area=news

Pretty nice chunk of change for this guy. Although the company made quite a cunk themselves off of his work.

As others will point out, it will not stop spam completely. Nothing will. We put people in prison for other things and that has not stopped crime.

I am however happy that the country with the largest amount of spam is finaly doing something.

Well i think we're getting a shitty deal in the UK when 0.99 euro converts to 65p and UK users have to pay 79p a track!

Shitty, maybe, against EC trade rules, definitely. See last week's news on airline price ticket differences in the EU. The European Commission ruled that airlines could not price differentiate on tickets according to which country in the EU the customer lived in.

I'd think pretty long and hard before answering these questions. This group appears to be a MS astroturf (false grassroots) organization, going as far as quoting that shill Didio from the Yankee Group.

The survey is full of misleading questions and will *force* you to admit you steal. Watch out.

> The results - with expert legal analysis - will be published free - we're not doing this to sell reports etc.

if you go to the site, you'll notice that on their front page they're advertizing Microsoft FUD by way of the Yankee Group.

what sort of analysis will the results of this survey be subjected to? I fear a slant....

> The results - with expert legal analysis - will be published free - we're not doing this to sell reports etc.

if you go to the site, you'll notice that on their front page they're advertizing Microsoft FUD by way of the Yankee Group.

what sort of analysis will the results of this survey be subjected to? I fear a slant....

Let 'em know.

Contact Form

I did. Everyone should. They are either being very ignorant or malicious. Either way, they need to know that we know.

The Integraph suit deals with Itanium stuff, as is stated here. The SSE/Hyperthreading suit is another company (MicroUnity) and another suit (same article).

Now, from what I understand, MicroUnity's MediaProcessor is a fine-grained multithreaded processor. There's limited information here and here, which may be the processor with the alleged patents that have been infringed upon. But what about University of Washington's SMT group? They put out their first paper in 1995. The Alpha EV8 (21464), before it got canned, was supposed to have SMT (and the Alpha group went from Digital to Compaq and then to Intel). I'm speculating that Intel got Hyperthreading from Alpha who got it from Washington. DEC/Compaq worked with Washington's SMT group, as Luiz Barroso is listed on the Washington SMT page (interestingly, he works for Google now. His Google article is quite interesting).

...but here's a link to a relevant article.

I hope someone counter-sues them into the dust!

[... Arlene McCarthy] complains about the "huge amount of disinformation" in a statement to her British representative fellows. Her most suspicious sources for the misinformation seem to be open-source-driven groups and small and mid-sized companies, who temporarily closed down their web servers last week "due to software patents" and demonstrated against the directive in Brussels.

"This is a dishonest and destructive campaign designed to cause confusion about what the Parliament is trying to achieve", she outraged. The unexpected lobbyists and demonstrants would assail the representatives with factually incorrect claims and organized phone call campaigns in the representatives' offices. If they succeeded, this would "sound the death knell for our brightest and best European inventors, whilst the US and Japan will demand licence fees from European companies for the use of their patents." [...]
The strong opposition against software patents seems to be simply unforseen by the makers of the directive and therefore unplanned. [...]

[...] Demonstrations and fierce lobbying have led Arlene McCarthy, UK Labour MEP and the leader of the European Parliament's legal affairs committee, which is reporting to Parliament on the draft Directive, to state that she had never been treated so aggressively over her years as an MEP as she has in the preparation of this report. [...]

Yeah, SCO seem to have a short memory. This is what they said before:
SCO argues that if Linux distributors are so confident that no infringement has occurred, they should indemnify their end users for any liability.

This is a growing issue at the moment. Initially the US ask for data as a security measure and the European Union complied. Recently the US has stepped back from it's pledge to only use the data for security checks. The US doesn't want to give assurances that the data wont be used for other purposes.

This looks like it may escalate. There are suggestions that european airlines may loose landing lights and face fines. This could lead to a tit for tat response. Airline war anyone?

See this article in computerworld.com and hi pakistan has info on the US threat to deny landing rights while out-law.com has news on the EU response.

They've appealed the ruling mentioned above.

It's nice to have big business on the people's side every once in a while (even if they're doing it for business reasons, it's still nice). Especially when it's my company (thus the Anonymous...).

There is some more information here and here.

At least the P2P United group stepped in, offering to pay the fine.
Saying "We don't condone copyright infringement, but it's time for the RIAA's winged monkeys to fly back to the castle and leave the Munchkins alone."

Seems to me they are using shock and awe. The girls mother, when confronted with the charge, instantly agreed to settle the action.

If you want news, go to the source.