Posts filed under 'e-Life'
“AllofMP3.com was perhaps the only online music store where hardcore members of the file-sharing community would spend money - other than newsgroup access. For a few cents per track, customers could download songs from a catalog of millions without any type of DRM (Digital Rights Management). Currently, the AllofMP3.com domain is off line and inaccessible. However the mirror site AllofMP3.ru displays the message, “Attention | We are sorry but the server is closed for [maintenance]. If AllofMP3 is truly dead, it’s the end of an online icon. AllofMP3.com was more popular than iTunes in many markets, and showed that for the right price and file compatibly, people were willing to buy music online…” (Read full article here)
July 2nd, 2007
“Google has finally released a long-awaited native Linux application: Google Desktop for Linux. As with the already shipping OS X and Windows versions, Google Desktop enables Linux users to search for text inside documents, local e-mail messages, their Web history and their Gmail accounts. The first version supports many popular versions of Linux. It comes in the form of both RPM and a DEB distribution packages. The RPM can be installed on Red Hat, Fedora, SUSE, and Mandriva distributions. The DEB will install on Debian and Ubuntu systems. The program works with both KDE and GNOME…” (Read full article here)
June 28th, 2007
“As promised, MySpace has just launched its YouTube-inspired video sharing site MySpaceTV. It’s a faithful YouTube clone: videos appear at the top left and the tabs, upload button and related videos all mimic the appearance of the more popular video sharing site. There’s no doubt that the developers were given a link to YouTube and told “clone this”…” (Read full article here)
June 28th, 2007
“According to a new Internet and Multimedia 2007 report by Edison Media Research, the internet has passed radio to become Americans’ second “most essential” medium and is quickly closing in on television since the subjects were last studied five years ago. The study surveyed consumers ages 12 and older to choose the “most essential” medium in their life, the report revealed 36 percent of consumers chose TV, followed closely by 33 percent choosing the Internet, while radio and newspapers sat at the bottom of the list with 17 and 10 percent respectively…” (Read full article here)
June 27th, 2007
“TorrentSpy decides to not block US visitors and chooses to filter pirated content from its search results instead, something which ISOHunt plans to do as well. It’s a sad day for those in the US who use TorrentSpy or ISOHunt, two of the world’s largest public trackers sites, to find movies, music, and more to download for it seems the party’s nearing an end. It’s being reported today that TorrentSpy and ISOHunt plans to use a hash-based system called FileRights to automatically filter BitTorrent trackers that link to pirated content from its search results to help satisfy a suit brought against them by the MPAA for the illegal facilitation of copyrighted material…” (Read full article here)
June 26th, 2007
“Thousands of U.S. webcasters plan to turn off the music and go silent this Tuesday, June 26th, to draw attention to an impending royalty rate increase that, if implemented, would lead to the virtual shutdown of this country’s Internet radio industry. In March, the Copyright Royalty Board announced that it would raise royalties for Internet broadcasters, moving them from a per-song rate to a per-listener rate. The increase would be made retroactive to the beginning of 2006 and would double over the next five years. Internet radio sites would be charged per performance of a song. A “performance” is defined as the streaming of one song to one listener; thus a station that has an average audience of 500 listeners racks up 500 “performances” for each song it plays…” (Read full article here)
June 24th, 2007
“Google is threatening to shut down the German version of its Gmail service if the German Bundestag passes it’s new Internet surveillance law. Peter Fleischer, Google’s German privacy representative says the new law would be a severe blow against privacy and would go against Google’s practice of also offering anonymous e-mail accounts. If the law is passed then starting 2008, any connection data concerning the internet, phone calls (With position data when cell phones are used), SMS etc. of any German citizen will be saved for 6 months, anonymizing services like Tor will be made illegal…” (Read full article here)
June 24th, 2007
“As many as 1500 Pentagon computers were brought offline on Wednesday in response to a cyber attack. Defense Secretary Robert Gates reported of the fallout both that the attack had ‘no adverse impact on department operations’ and that ‘there will be some administrative disruptions and personal inconveniences.’ When asked whether his own e-mail had been compromised, Gates responded, ‘I don’t do e-mail. I’m a very low-tech person…” (Read full article here)
June 22nd, 2007
“Last week, a press release was issued by Ellacotya that suggested something quite startling - HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, aka Web traffic) had for the first time in four years overtaken P2P traffic. The results were surprising, as BitTorrent alone has dominated the Internet with some estimates suggesting it can consume up to 60% of an ISP’s traffic. Yet within a few hours, Ellacotya’s findings were quickly becoming headline news. Could it be true that YouTube, with its enormous popularity, had finally led Web traffic back to its previous glory? Well there’s Hertz, and there’s not exactly…” (Read full article here)
June 22nd, 2007
“A federal judge in New Mexico has put the brakes on the RIAA’s lawsuit train, at least in the US District Court for New Mexico. The case in question is part of the RIAA’s campaign against file-sharing on college campuses and names “Does 1-16,” who allegedly engaged in copyright infringement using the University of New Mexico’s network. In a ruling issued last month but disclosed today by file-sharing attorney Ray Beckerman, Judge Lorenzo F. Garcia denied the RIAA’s motion to engage in discovery. This means that the RIAA will not be able to easily get subpoenas to obtain identifying information from the University…” (Read full article here)
June 20th, 2007
“YouTube has announced that they plan to go international. The video site, owned by Google, has launched nine country-specific versions across Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK. The BBC reports: ‘YouTube is now stressing its credentials as a platform not just for user-generated content but also for professional broadcaster and advertisers. The company says it has more than 1,000 global partners, with more than 150 deals signed in Europe since March. [Chad Hurley, YouTube co-founder] said: “We respect copyright and we want to create new revenue streams to create opportunities. “We have been working with rights holders to help them leverage new audiences…” (Read full article here)
June 19th, 2007
“Apple reports that it took Apple just two days to reach 1 million downloads of its newest Safari Web browser for Windows. If these downloads manifested into regular Safari users, then we just might have a third major browser on the Windows platform. If Safari can obtain a 10% market share on Windows, then it would further weaken IE’s position and give standards-based browsers more leverage with developers…” (Read full article here)
June 16th, 2007
“NBC/Universal general counsel Rick Cotton suggests that society wastes entirely too much money policing crimes like burglary, fraud, and bank-robbing, when it should be doing something about piracy instead. ‘Our law enforcement resources are seriously misaligned,’ Cotton said. ‘If you add up all the various kinds of property crimes in this country, everything from theft, to fraud, to burglary, bank-robbing, all of it, it costs the country $16 billion a year. But intellectual property crime runs to hundreds of billions [of dollars] a year…’” (Read full article here)
June 16th, 2007
“A judge has delayed his ruling on the eBay patent infringement case. eBay has been involved in a legal dispute over the use of its popular “Buy it Now” button, which allows consumers to skip the bidding and purchase items on eBay directly. The patent suit was filed six years ago by MercExchange L.L.C. In May of 2003, a jury ruled in MercExchange’s favor finding that eBay did in fact infringe on the patent, but in 2005 the US Supreme Court ruled that MercExchange was not automatically entitled to a court order blocking the offending service, essentially handing a victory down to patent reform advocates. However, the ruling by the Supreme Court does not affect the final judgment of the court…” (Read full article here)
June 15th, 2007
“Michael Geist’s latest Toronto Star column features a behind-the-scenes look at how Canada got its movie piracy bill based on internal government documents obtained under the Access to Information Act. Few will be shocked to learn that Hollywood lobbyists provided draft legislation months earlier as part of their barrage of lobbying, though the documents show that advisers to the Minister were skeptical that the proposal would accomplish anything…” (Read full article here)
June 12th, 2007
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