YouTube has been linking copyrighted videos uploaded by third parties to their respective content owners. This occurred with a Modest Mouse video, which YouTube linked to the official Modest Mouse page. The link says "Contains Content From: Sony BMG," and it may be YouTube's way of preventing content owners from removing videos uploaded by fans.
Up until now, YouTube has said it shouldn't be held responsible for the copyright violations performed by its members, but it has also been very cooperative in removing copyrighted material when asked. Last year Google announced a video identification system, permitting content owners to identify (and choose how to share or remove) their content, so it seems this is what's at play here.
We're sure YouTube doesn't like to remove member videos. It's bad for business: a site with unhappy members typically means a site that eventually has no members. But if YouTube's just linking videos instead of removing them, it must be a positive step for consumers in the ongoing Copyright war.
Perhaps it's a blatant F.U. to content creators everywhere or maybe it's just an F.U. to Rockstar, but the Pirate Bay has gone out of its way to temporarily rename itself "Liberty Bay" in honor of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV.
The purpose for the publicity stunt is unclear, but -- considering the company's line of work -- it's likely to get the word out on the highly-rumored rumored Grand Theft Auto IV torrents that all the young kids blab about nowadays. Though we don't think the site's blog will address the gutsy move unless Rockstar starts throwing a fit, we'll let you know if things gets messy.
We can't deny some of us here at Download Squad love open source software. But there's not a damn fool here that will disagree with the statement: "Bill Gates is an extremely intelligent man." We won't disagree that he's done amazing things for technology as a whole. And yes, we even wish heartily we had the faith in ourselves to say if we had that much moolah, we'd be even half as charitable with it.
But right now we're all kind of standing around scratching our heads and saying, "Wha?"
Today Techdirt points out a nice little quote by the venerable Mr. Gates in a Wired article. It seems as though Gates says that open source created a licensing situation "so that nobody can ever improve the software." All right, now, that would be a self-defeating license, wouldn't it? What have the brain-sucking aliens done with the Bill Gates we all know and love whose intellect we respect greatly?
Of course, we're willing to throw poor Bill a bone. The Wired quote is not a complete quote. It very well could be out of context. They then quote him saying that pharmaceutical companies who invent drugs should be able to charge for them. Well, yeah. Duh. And people who develop open source applications can also charge for them.
Open source doesn't necessarily mean it's free as in beer. Conversely, just because the local brewery is giving away free lager, it doesn't mean you'll get anywhere asking for the recipe.
We're wondering if Wired slipped up, or if Bill Gates is truly puzzled about the distinctions between free software and open software? Has he read the GPL? There are quick versions on their site... so even those of us who aren't as smart as Gates can get the general idea.
Facebook may be synonymous with social networking these days. But just a few years ago, wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg was a student at Harvard, where the founders of ConnectU say he stole their idea for a web site where students could connect with one another. The two companies have been fighting things ou tin the courts for a while now, and today the New York Times reports that Facebook is "finalizing a settlement with the founders of ConnectU."
Neither Facebook nor ConnectU have issued statements regarding the rumored settlement, and it's not clear what the terms of the settlement are. But Facebook has apparently dropped its countersuit against ConnectU.
We're fairly confident that Facebook with its pockets (and swimming pools) lined with money and its corporate lawyers could have crushed ConnectU in court. But the settlement helps keep the ordeal out of the public eye and could help protect Mark Zuckerberg's ego. Parts of his diary have already been published as a result of the legal action.
A couple is accusing Google of diminishing the value of their property and causing them "mental" suffering" for including their recluse home in the Google Maps Street View project. The road leading up to their house is apparently labeled "private", something the Street View operator must've missed. We checked the Street View footage up to the house and didn't notice any clear "private" signs, but don't take our scientific analysis as fact.
They didn't like that Google invaded their "privacy". Some of the court papers are available online, and if you check them out, you'll notice mainly boring gibberish but also the address of the home. Suing Google has already done more damage to their "privacy" than the pictures on their own.
Aaron and Christine Boring want at least $25,000 and the 360 degree pictures destroyed, but something tells us the case doesn't stand a chance against Google's well paid, state-of-the-art, corporate lawyers, which come from the best lawyer factories in the nation.
If you like yourself some BitTorrent downloading action, we recommend you help Azureus fight BitTorrent throttling ISPs like Comcast, Adelphia, SusCom, and others by installing the Network Status Monitor plug-in for Azureus / Vuze. The plug-in monitors your network traffic for anything that might prohibit your computer from utilizing its broadband connection to the fullest.
Lately, some ISPs have been using BitTorrent throttling techniques to prevent BitTorrent programs from working properly. It is understandable that ISPs need to manage their networks in order to ensure that every customer gets a fair share of the bandwidth pie, but as individuals, traffic throttling techniques take away from the service we were promised when signing up.
If you choose to share the data collected via the Network Status Monitor, the Azureus team may analyze and compare it with the data collected from other users in order to develop ways of circumventing BitTorrent throttling. The plug-in only works on Windows machines for now, but Mac support is coming.
Due to another company trademarking "G-Mail" in Germany, similar to Google's "Gmail" in the US, the search engine giant lost an appeal to use "Gmail" in the European Union. G-Mail stands for "Giersch Mail" in Germany, where Daniel Giersch runs an electronic postal delivery service -- if that's not email, we couldn't say what it is.
As a result, Gmail is now known as Google Mail in Europe. Google's email service is also known as Google Mail in the UK, where another company trademarked "Gmail" shortly after Google launched the service.
And the moral of the story is: The next time you launch any product or service, make sure to trademark the name before. As for Google, the company "got caught slippin" -- as we say in the hip hop world -- so too bad, so sad.
Three little letters, about a year ago, had a death-grip on the music industry: DRM. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea? DRM limits the unauthorized copying and sharing of music. We can see that argument. It also limits what music can be played on certain devices. Should you get a new computer or device and need to transfer your licenses, all we can say is -- good luck with that. We speak from experience.
Recently record labels and at least a few online music sellers have moved away from offering DRM-laden music. And today, Napster announced it was making the move to DRM-free downloads. (The company's subscription service still includes DRM) Napster, the service that once offered DRM-free songs (illegally), and then legally sold DRM'd songs, has been reborn into the service it should have been all along -- legal music, DRM-free.
Moving to the MP3 format opens up Napster to a wider array of devices, including the ubiquitous iPod. We're not financial gurus, but we sense this can only mean good things for Napster, and for the music industry as a whole. Music that we can play on any device we might have, on any computer we might have? We might break our music boycott. We might even have the heart to upgrade the circa 2004 Zen Touch to something new. You know, now that we can actually own our music, and not just rent it for the life of the device.
Google is no stranger to lawsuits. Everyone from Viacom to the country of Thailand has taken legal action against the internet behemoth. Heck, we're betting at least half our readers have tried to file a suit against Google at one time or another.
But we've now found the incontrovertible best lawsuit ever filed against Google. And by best, we mean funniest. And kind of the saddest. This handwritten lawsuit claims that if you take the plaintiff's social security number and turn it upside down, and then scramble the numbers you get a code which spells Google. So obviously Google was trying to violate the plaintiff's civil liberties by adopting his social security number as their company name.
Seriously. That's what he's claiming. We're not kidding. Check out the suit yourself after the jump.
OK, so the names sound similar. But what exactly is Lulu alleging in its suit?
Trademark infringement
Unfair and deceptive trade practics
federal cyberpiracy
No, seriously. That's all in the first line of the press release. Lulu claims that the Hulu name was chosen because Fox and News Corp "have intentionally attempted to create confusion in the marketplace." Because there's a pretty good chance that people will confuse a site that lets you watch TV shows online with a site that lets you publish your own books.
OK, well, Lulu does claim that in addition to online vieo, Hulu plans to offer products and services that are similar to those provided by Lulu. But the way we figure it, that means Hulu will be selling Heroes mugs and T-shirts.
Google gets brought to court again in this classic case of trademark infringement for sponsored ads. This time American Airlines is in the high flying plaintiff's seat.
American Airlines have dropped a trademark case on Google's doorstep because Google allowed the purchasing and bidding on their trademarked name, which just happens to be two generic names butted together. What will the outcome be? Maybe just a little bad PR for AA.
Video sharing sites like Youtube and Veoh have become easy targets for lawsuits from content owners. But when Universal Music threatened to file a suit against Veoh, CEO Steve Mitgang he didn't want to wait for Universal to follow through on that threat. Instead, Veoh filed a preemptive suit against Universal.
Basically, Mitgang's position is that Veoh is protected by the DMCA's safe harbor provision. In other words, the company can't be held responsible for every users who uploads copyright infringing content to the site -- as long as Veoh agrees to take action if alerted to illegal material.
Veoh is asking the court to issue an injunction that would prevent Universal from suing Veoh. If this works, we could see a lot of other companies following suit. But as much as they'd like to, we can't exactly see Daily Motion, Metacafe, and others filing preemptive suits against every content owner in the world. Our guess is they'll need a reasonable basis for their suits (like threats from Universal Music) if they don't want to be laughed out of court.
The Associated Press reports that MySpace has found and deleted the profiles of 29,000 users who are registered sex offenders. That's four times the number MySpace officials had released two months ago. While that number might seem high, keep in mind MySpace hosts 180 million profiles.
The numbers were released in response to requests from attorneys general of several states.
Of course this is good news and bad. On the one hand, MySpace has deleted these accounts. On the other, users were able to create them in the first place. There's no explanation why the number jumped from 7,000 profiles in May to 29,000 this month.
ConnectU claims that Mark Zuckerberg worked breifly for ConnectU, but decided to start his own company soon after. That wouldn't normally be a problem -- business relationships end all the time -- but the company Zuckerberg founded, Facebook, stands accused of stealing source code, design and even the business plan of ConnectU.
Zuckerberg, armed with big pockets and tons of lawyers, hopes to quash the lawsuit once and for all on July 25th, the date of the next scheduled hearing. However, if unsuccessful, this could be the beginning of a lengthy and all-important legal battle for the social networking butterfly.
The statement was directed to a panel of judges mulling over the legality of a Spanish file-sharing case, and could be a harbinger of things to come in the EU. Kokott's declaration essentially asserts that although ISPs can be required to turn over identities in criminal matters, file-sharing is a civil issue and therefor doesn't enjoy the same legal privileges.
We can't deny some of us here at Download Squad love open source software. But there's not a damn fool here that will disagree with the statement: "Bill Gates is an extremely intelligent man." We won't disagree that he's done amazing things for technology as a whole. And yes, we even wish heartily we had the faith in ourselves to say if we had that much moolah, we'd be
Three little letters, about a year ago, had a death-grip on the music industry: DRM. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea? DRM limits the unauthorized copying and sharing of music. We can see that argument. It also limits what music can be played on certain devices. Should you get a new computer or device and need to transfer your licenses, all we can say is -- good luck with that. We speak from experience.
