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Slashback: Spamnation, Long-Distance, Libel

Slashback with updates and amplifications on Apple's stance on DRM, EasyInternetCafe's court battle over CD burning, a copyright law being drafted after Lessig's own heart, the lawyer vs. eBay saga, and VoIP calling with Linux. Read on below for the details.

But sir, all of these songs are under the Open Content License! atta1 writes "In an article on The Register, EasyInternetcafe has lost its court battle against British Phonographic Industry (BPI) over burning downloaded music to CD."

When last mentioned (August of last year), EasyInternetCafe was trying to avoid fines from BPI for letting Internet cafe customers burn to CD music they'd downloaded there.

After all, somebody's got to write 'em. g_adams27 writes "Several weeks ago, Larry Lessig proposed anti-spam legislation he'd like to see Congress pass -- legislation which he was willing to bet his job on. Now it looks like Washington might be taking his bet... and they want us to help out!

A congressional aide appears to be drafting legislation based on Larry's suggestions and is asking the Politech list for suggestions. The proposed law is posted here."

IP leases are nicer than telephone leases. Lots of people were interested in the story posted the other day about VoIP support in GnomeMeeting. I mentioned there that theKompany had a VoIP application for Zaurus owners; Shawn Gordon of theKompany writes with information about a forthcoming desktop version as well.

"So we released tkcPhone a few weeks ago, we found some issues with Net2Phone that we've just finished sorting out today, and we've about wrapped up the tkPhone beta, which we expect in a day or two. Having tkPhone allows us to do some things we couldn't on the Zaurus, like make use of a Speex codec which is part of the Xiph umbrella these days, we couldn't use it on the Zaurus because it requires floating point support. We also can have a system tray notifier and a roomier user interface. Because we spent so much time optimizing everything to work on the Zaurus, it means your desktop performance is going to be very good.

We decided to use SIP as opposed to H323 for a lot of reasons: smaller, faster, lighter, newer, easier hardware requirements. So with our phone a regular sound card and a headset/mic will typically suffice for what you need or want to do. Our arrangement with Net2phone means that in addition to PC-to-PC calls, you can make PC-to-phone and PC-to-mobile calls as well. The prices range from free to as little as $0.02 per minute in the U.S. and $0.03 minute internationally. You're already paying for your internet access, might as well start to piggyback this stuff.

tkPhone is not free however, it is $9.95 for the electronic version of the application. We expect to have it up for sale about February 10, 2003."

And as several readers pointed out, if you're interested in VoIP on Linux, you should also check out the sites of both the Bayonne project (mentioned several times before)and asterisk (also discussed here).

You mean they're against my inalienable right to watch movies for free? geekee writes "An article on CNET states that the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) will include DRM support in the MPEG-4 open standard. Without DRM, the ISMA doesn't believe MPEG-4 will be able to compete against proprietary standards such as that provided by Microsoft since content owners 'want continually improved tools, with rights management.' For instance, Movielink, an online movie rental source, has opted to support Microsoft and RealNetwork formats because of their DRM capabilities. An interesting thing to note is that Apple is a member of the ISMA, and has previously declared its opposition to DRM."

Money talks, and sometimes it says nasty things. scubacuda writes "Since eBay removed the alleged libelous statements, Roger Grace has agreed to drop his libel lawsuit for $2.5 million in punitive damages from eBay and $100,000 from Tim Neeley (who wrote that the magazines he bought from Grace had arrived late and in a worse condition than advertised). Interestingly, eBay removed the feedback not because it was 'negative,' but rather because 'the contact information for the seller was not correct.' Chris Donlay, eBay spokesman, says, '[T]hat is one of the circumstances in which we will consider removing the feedback,' EBay attorneys even went to far as to claim that Grace's original lawsuit is 'completely without merit.'"

(Here's the Slashdot post from last Saturday, 'Attorney Sues eBay over Negative Feedback'.)

9 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Okay, hands up everyone... by AndroidCat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Who read that as "EasyInternetcafe has lost its court battle against British Pornographic Industry"?

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    1. Re:Okay, hands up everyone... by RIT+Beast · · Score: 4, Funny

      I must say, I also was wondering why pornstars had united against CD burning.

    2. Re:Okay, hands up everyone... by AndroidCat · · Score: 2, Funny

      I figured that they were burning copyrighted porn onto the CDs, but when I hit the "music" part, I reread it. (I mean, the music in most porn videos is pretty lame .. not that I've seen many .. CITY-TV runs them on Friday nights. There was nothing else on. My VCR hookup is busted .. oh poot!)

      --
      One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
    3. Re:Okay, hands up everyone... by roady · · Score: 2, Funny

      Do you know the difference between a pr0n movie and a Britney Spears video ?

      The music is better in the porn movie.

  2. Man am I confused.. by NanoGator · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Having tkPhone allows us to do some things we couldn't on the Zaurus, like make use of a Speex codec which is part of the Xiph umbrella these days, we couldn't use it on the Zaurus because it requires floating point support."

    How many of those are typos and how many are actual product names?

    --
    "Derp de derp."
  3. Find the bug by DennisZeMenace · · Score: 2, Funny


    If ($movie->{MPEG4Header}{isCopyProtected} = 0) {
    $movie->play();
    }

    1. Re:Find the bug by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      If ($movie->{MPEG4Header}{isCopyProtected} == 0) { $movie->play(); }

  4. Re:Proposed email subject lines. by cpeterso · · Score: 1, Funny


    If all unsolicated commercial emails included "ADV:" in the subject lines, then most users, ISPs, and email programs would automatically delete those easily identifiable emails. That is not fair for those of us who are just trying to make a living sending unsolicated commercial emails!

  5. Re:Unfortunate if we do... by cptgrudge · · Score: 2, Funny
    So, perhaps if we didn't have laws against driving cars over people's lawns, then we might have flying cars by now.

    I knew it!

    --
    Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium