Slashback: Membership, Quarkiness, Audioggogy

Slashback this fine tax-day evening (you did remember, right?) brings you updates on Gentoo Linux, Mike Myer's brush with the Humor Police, Microsoft's spin on the waning Hailstorm, and more. Read on for the details.

A tornado's worth of spin control. telstar writes "The Code Report is reporting that last week's story from the New York Times concerning the death of Hailstorm was not entirely accurate. A Microsoft spokesperson has stated that Microsoft is shifting from a model in which MSN was the sole operator to a model where the operation of these services is available to multiple operators."

Onan Meets Midas. daoine writes: "Reversing the outcome of an earlier argument, boston.com is reporting that MGM and New Line Cinema have reached an agreement that permits New Line to continue with the Goldmember name. It also stipulates that further satirical names must be approved by MGM."

Does dishes, saves gas, freshens your breath, cleans your pets ... Apparently, Gentoo Linux is contagious. JigSaw writes: "OSNews features an interesting review of Gentoo Linux 1.0 and they call it 'the fastest loading, fastest-operating Linux distribution to date.' Gentoo may be the fastest Linux for a workstation today, but according to the review, it still has some problems, most notably, annoying bugs. However, it still manages to score a glowing 8.2 out of 10 overall."

Reader sckevyn also points to the Gentoo PowerPC page for those equipped different.

First steps always seem small. camusflage writes "Yahoo has a story from ZDNet about TheKompany's recent release of tkcPlayer for the Zaurus, which is being billed as the first portable Ogg Vorbis player. A player for a format not many people are using on a platform even fewer people are using. Admirable, but not likely to be a commercial success."

Honey, your quark is showing. ngrier writes "As a quick follow-up to the story posted here a few days ago regarding the potential quark star, the NASA APOD today is a picture of the aforementioned star."

Comments

Errr, what happened to the law?

[NanoGator]

"It also stipulates that further satirical names must be approved by MGM."

Since when do they need permission to use a parodized name? I thought that parody law not only allowed one to use a similar name ('Goldmember' is not THAT similar...), but also their original artwork could be closely mimicked.

Anybody remember reading about that guy who put up an 'aolsucks.com' site? AOL attempted to sue him because he used their artwork to parodize him. His lawyer said he was well within his rights because it was a pardoy/criticism of the company.

Question: Wouldn't the same logic be applied as it was for this guy, or is there a variable I'm not considering?

Re:Errr, what happened to the law?

[outlier]

Keep in mind that this is not a decision that involved the legal system. The original decision was made by the MPAA, which both studios are members of. Essentially, the industry is policing itself, and both groups agreed to be bound by those decisions.

They could sue each other if they wanted, but they've settled in this way.

Re:Errr, what happened to the law?

[Servo5678]

Sort of... MGM and New Line joined a club (MPAA). One of the rules of the club is that you can sort out disagreements within the club.

First rule of Film Club: Do not talk about Film Club.

Re: Slashback

[rmohr02]

HOMER: Would you look at those morons... I paid my taxes over a year ago!

LISA: You have to do your taxes every year, dad.

Homer: Ahh! Marge! How many kids do we have? Oh, no time to count, I'll just estimate! Uh...nine!

Marge: Homer, you know we don't h--

Homer: Shut up, shut up! If I don't hear you it's not illegal! OK, I need some deductions, deductions... ah!! Business gifts!

[Homer grabs the boat painting from above the couch and hands it to Marge.]

Here you go, keep using nuclear power!

Marge: Homer! I painted that for you!

Homer: OK, Marge, if anyone asks, you require twenty four hour nursing care, Lisa's a clergyman, Maggie is seven people, and Bart was wounded in Vietnam!

Bart: Cool!

IEEE Reconsiders DMCA Restriction

[Captn Pepe]

A note that I think should have gotten into today's Slashback -- the New Scientist is reporting that the IEEE has rescinded its decision to make all paper submitters agree not to violate the DMCA in their articles, amid a storm of protest.

"The plan is to remove the reference to the DCMA," says Bill Hagen, intellectual property rights manager for the IEEE. "It's controversial to say the least. We've been getting a lot of correspondence, comment and opinion and have been forced to reconsider it."

This is even better than preserving the status quo, because in this case the hooplah got the problems of the DMCA out in front of the IEEE membership, which is very large and includes some extremely influential people. Score one for the good guys.

My delusion that lawyers are rational human beings

[Alsee]

MGM was negotiating to place an ad for the upcoming Bond adventure "Die Another Day" before the "Austin Powers" film

That really sums up the value of MGM's case against Goldmember. If they genuinely felt that the name tarnished their James Bond property then why the hell would they want to use it to advertize a Bond film?!

It also stipulates that further satirical names must be approved by MGM.

Ok, maybe I'm having delusions that lawyers are actually rational human beings, but you *could* read that to mean MGM realized it was a frivolous lawsuit and to avoid a countersuit they stipulated they would approve any and all satirical names in the future. :)

-