Slashback: IP Protection, ReligiousDocument, LiPS Savings

Slashback tonight with updates and clarifications on recent Slashdot stories, including some more fuel for the Sony fire, a closer look at the Intellectual Property Protection Act, ministers jumping on the OpenDocument bandwagon, another spammer gets his due, founding members of the new LiPS board speak out and more - read on for details.

Sony leading a price-fixing cartel? Sheridan writes "Hot on the heels of the SonyBMG XCP rootkit fiasco The Times is reporting that Sony may have been charging online retailers up to 15% more for its products than high street outlets in an attempt to block online bargains from forcing prices down. Perhaps they're trying to recoup some of their losses on the rootkitted CDs, although somebody ought to let them know that most of their loss was to their reputation, which this certainly won't help."

Deconstructing the IP protection act. Brent writes "Ars Technica takes a more in-depth look at the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2005 and shows that some of the original fears of the Act were overstated. The article states that the act is primarily concerned with criminal acts of infringement, namely infringement done for commercial gain or competitive advantage, and not with criminalizing the mere attempt at commonplace infringement. In short, the act is aimed at commercial piracy. The article also ends with an reasonable challenge to the US government, including the call for a referendum on consumer rights and the penalization of the use of any digital rights technology that impedes fair use."

Even the clergy are jumping into the OpenDocument fray. da6d writes "The LXer has an article about clergy joining the fray surrounding Microsoft's refusal to support OpenDocument. From the article: '[they] see Microsoft's stance as intentionally withholding support so that it can turn a technical business decision into a political fight. By refusing to support OpenDocument, Microsoft is ignoring the cross-platform document sharing needs of visually impaired users, not only in Massachusetts, but also in the other 49 states, not to mention the rest of the world. The economically disadvantaged will also suffer from the lack of Opendocument support in Microsoft Office.'"

UK spammer gets his due. delete writes "Notorious UK internet spammer Peter Francis-Macrae, who referred to himself as "weaselboy", has been convicted of fraud. The 23-year-old earned more than £1.5 million through his activities, primarily through spam mails offering the registration of unavailable domain names. Up to £425,000 of his earnings remain unrecovered."

Linux to make smartphones and high end communication devices cheaper. nitinah writes "In an interview with Phonemag, the founders of LiPS comment that mainstream adoption of Linux would make smartphone and high end communication devices more affordable than ever before. Founding members John Ostrem, lead scientist of PalmSource and Michel Gien, EVP of Jaluna also commented that Linux would also extend the economics to not just phones but applications and services."

Comments

Re:fp

[slavemowgli]

You must be so proud.

Re:Strange...

[Swamii]

I would venture a guess that God doesn't care too much about the opinions of men, even if it's a half-hearted acknowledgement of God, which Intelligent Design appears to be.

I'm not here to stomp on your views on ID, whatever your views on it. This is just my 2 cents, but forcing people who don't believe in God to make some sort of acknowledgement of God in a classroom isn't a good idea, wouldn't you agree? I can't imagine secularists teaching ID favorably; in fact, I'd rather they not even teach it. Instead, I say let children be taught whatever science believes at the time, with the disclaimer of, "Hey, this is our best guess as to how this happened."

Getting back on your subject, I think God cares less about forcing school teachers to talk about ID, and more about we (parents) teaching our kids our faith and values, showing them how to act by living godly lives ourselves. I can't imagine Jesus being up in arms over forcing schoolteachers to teach ID alongside evolution, honestly, I really can't imagine Christ doing that.