Slashback: Archives, Leak, Fanfilm

Slashback tonight brings some corrections, clarifications and updates to previous Slashdot stories, including word from the worlds of corporate patent lawsuits, secretive publishers vs. inquisitive readers in Canada, and the pitiful teachers versus the splendid kids in Pennsylvania. Read on for the details. Sir, this sentence mangling machine is Pl88^74djliivc33mq again! I posted a story earlier this week which scrambled in its summary the facts of the matter. My post, as reader Raymond Fingas points out, said that the "Internet archive ... has been sued by the firm Harding Earley Follmer & Frailey." Fingas was one of several readers (thanks to all!) to correct me on this, writing "According to the linked article that isn't the case; instead they are being sued by Healthcare Advocates, represented by the firm McCarter & English. Further, the article says that Harding Earley Follmer & Frailey is actually being sued along with the Internet Archive.."

Alacritech settles litigation with MSFT and BRCM An anonymous reader writes "Alacritech, Microsoft Corporation and Broadcom Corporation today announced that they have entered into agreements that settle all outstanding disputes between Alacritech and Microsoft, as well as provide Microsoft and Broadcom access to Alacritech's patent portfolio relating to scalable networking. (Previously mentioned on Slashdot here and here.)"

Sir, you have no right to read about your rights. Hobart writes "Richard Stallman has just posted on his personal website a request for his readers to 'Don't Buy Harry Potter Books,' and offered to leak the plot - in protest of the Canadian Supreme Court ruling forbidding the purchasers from reading the books they paid for. A memorable quote in the Times article says '...There is no human right to read.'"

Don'tcha think felony is a bit strong for a few button presses? ZombyHero writes "In a follow-up to a previous story, the 13 high school students from Kutztown, PA charged with felony computer trespassing for violating district usage policy are fighting back. They've hired lawyers have begun talking with the Assistant DA. As a former student of the school, I know that the district is used to getting its way. Hopefully this will knock them down a few notches."

Starship Exeter flies again! An anonymous reader writes "There's a new episode of Starship Exeter, a fan-made feature set in the original series Star Trek universe. The new episode, The Tressaurian Intersection, follows on from The Savage Empire, which was featured on Slashdot before. This time it's better than ever... better than the original series, in fact! You can watch the entire episode online."

Treasure hunts, commence. We've posted quite a few interesting applications for Google's mapping service; now phauly writes "I created an Animated Google Map (with some gnus and mozillas attacking Microsoft office) using Google Maps API. I think it would be easy to create real playable Games on Google Maps. For sharing ideas (and implementations!) I created the Games on Google Maps wiki page. For now some ideas are: risk, freeciv, freecraft, car races on real maps! Feel free to edit the page suggesting/revising/implementing ideas."

Comments

Re:When someone puts up a website...

[ColaMan]

Should this guy have a right to erase his past creations?

Not any more. Semantics aside, it was publicly broadcast at the time. The world doesn't work like Outlook and its "Recall Message" feature, as much as you would appear to wish it did. People create history as they go through life.... or would you prefer some 1984-esque alternative?

Perhaps he should have lived by the old axiom of "Never say something that you wouldn't want repeated in court."

You can't erase your past

[e9th]

Forget the digital age -- authors have never been able to unpublish their books, nor models their images.

This is not a new problem.

Re:When someone puts up a website...

[booyabazooka]

When you release something to the public, you DON'T have a right to take it out of circulation. To use an analogy-

You're viewing a website like a poster that you put up on your front door. Of course, a year later you have the right to take that down, and no one should be allowed to forcably place that back on your door.

But the web doesn't work that way. When I put up a website, I'm not putting up a poster; I'm setting up a news stand and handing out copies to everyone who walks by. Do I have a right to take back all of those papers I handed out, and disallow every person who took one from showing it to somebody else?

Re:When someone puts up a website...

[ShieldW0lf]

For example, say there is a college kid who really likes beer and porn. He likes it so much, he sets up a website that becomes popular, it lists different beers, and reviews porn. One drunken night, this college kid uses his cell phone to take a couple low resolution pictures of himself having sex, and he puts it up.

A few years pass, somehow he graduates and starts looking for work. Someone tells him that his website comes up when googled, and that might not be the best thing when it comes for finding work.

So the guy pulls the plug. beerandporn dot com dies. Or did it? It seems others liked his hobby as well, and downloaded all the content, and started hosting it. Problem is, google now links to these new sites, with his face and work for the world to see.

Should this guy have a right to erase his past creations?

No, he shouldn't. If we're ever going to get over judging each other for such stupid bullshit when most of us have done something comperable or worse, the first thing we need is to have them all out in the open.