Darknet

Google gives $2 million to Stanford law center

Great news! Google to give $2 million to Stanford's Center for Internet and Society.

Misuse of the DMCA

Enric Teller has posted several videos on his Techalley vlog site on misuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He interviews the EFF's Jason Schultz on DMCA take-down notices.

Sun's new mashup site

Sun Microsystems today launched a site called The Big Mashup: How the network is changing entertainment and news gathering in the Participation Age. Particpants include Andrew Baron, Douglas Rushkoff, DJ Spooky and others.

EFF accepts Barney's surrender

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation: The corporate owners of the popular children's television character Barney the Purple Dinosaur have agreed to withdraw their baseless legal threats against a website publisher who parodied the character and to compensate him for fees expended in defending himself.

Mash-up maps

Washington Post: Start-Ups Try to Plot A Complete Picture. 'Mash-Ups' Add Data to Online Maps

Zune, Creative Commons don't mix

Wired News: Zune, Creative Commons Don't Mix. Microsoft's efforts to loosen up access to closely held music owned by record labels has an unintended consequence: It punishes artists who want to share.

20 billion illegal music downloads

From today's San Jose Mercury News:

20 billion: Estimated number of songs that were illegally distributed, swapped or downloaded off the Internet in 2005, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

Son of Beatles producer mashes up the Beatles

Associated Press via San Jose Mercury News: Son of Beatles producer makes a loving mash-up. Excerpt:

It's the Beatles as they never even imagined themselves.

The Beatles' ``Love'' album, released this week, is a thorough reinterpretation of their work, with familiar sounds in unfamiliar places, primarily created by the son of the man who was in the control room for virtually all their recording sessions.

It's a mash-up, even though Giles Martin said he hates the word. John Lennon sings ``he's a real nowhere man'' in the background of the instrumental track to ``Blue Jay Way.'' The keyboard of ``Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite'' dissolves into the plodding guitar of ``I Want You (She's So Heavy).''

``Strawberry Fields Forever'' builds from Lennon's acoustic demo into a psychedelic swirl of sounds that incorporates bits of ``Hello Goodbye,'' ``Baby You're a Rich Man,'' ``Penny Lane'' and ``Piggies.''

The project was created for a collaboration with Cirque du Soleil and has the endorsement of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and the widows of Lennon and George Harrison, Martin said.

``I had fresh ears -- if you can have fresh ears to the Beatles -- and my job was to make things different,'' said Martin, who was born in 1969 as the band was breaking up.

The rules were simple: Beatles tracks only, no electronic distortion of what they recorded, and no newly recorded music. The single exception was a string arrangement, written by original Beatles producer George Martin, to accompany an acoustic version of Harrison's ``While My Guitar Gently Weeps.'' ...

As a producer, Martin said the term ``mash-up'' implies two things rammed together. While it can be good, it doesn't stand up to repeated listenings, which he believes is what sets ``Love'' apart.

Zune and the labels' idea of music sharing

Steve Levy in the Nov. 27 Newsweek: Zune Should Go Beyond 'Squirting.' How cool would it be to take a break at the gym and check out the contents of nearby music players?

The catch is that the squirt is fast-drying—in three days it goes away. Or, if the recipient plays it three times within that period, it evaporates after the third spin. This is because Microsoft cut a lousy deal with the record labels, which still regard innovative digital schemes as potential piracy threats, as opposed to potential sales boosters. My guess is that people will be turned off that the songs expire so quickly.

New copyright rules OK six exemptions

San Jose Mercury News:

New copyright rules OK six exemptions

Cell phone owners will be allowed to break software locks on their handsets to use them with competing carriers under new copyright rules announced Wednesday.

Other copyright exemptions approved by the Library of Congress will let film professors copy snippets from DVDs for educational compilations and let blind people use special software to read copy-protected electronic books.

All told, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington approved six exemptions, including one that lets researchers test CD copy-protection technologies for security flaws or vulnerabilities.

Updated feeds

I've just updated my blogs' feeds with an updated Feedburner feed -- this is the one for Darknet -- so if you encounter any problems subscribing, please drop me a line. If you don't know what RSS is, head here.

Drop that iPod in the name of the law

From Art Brodsky at Public Knowledge:

By way of our friends at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, I call to your attention the latest suit filed by the movie people against consumer-friendly technology.  This time, they sued a small New York company called "Load 'n Go" which sells  DVDs, then loads then onto the consumer's iPod and sends both back to the consumer.  In essence, they save the consumer the trouble of loading it on themselves.

The movie studios charge copyright infringement.  In essence, they are saying that it's illegal for a consumer to copy a DVD onto another device for personal use. This argument is simply wrong, and if allowed to stand, will further weaken yet again whatever rights consumers have left to use their own, legally purchased media, as they see fit.

For more information, see www.eff.org/deeplinks.

Net neutrality: why it matters

Doug Kaye has this over at Blogarithms: Net Neutrality - why it matters.

Tony Greenberg, CEO of Ramp^Rate has posted an excellent analysis of what will happen if we lose net neutrality. As Tony writes, it’s not at all about audio and video, but rather a knife-in-the-heart for independent VOiP and interactive entertainment. This is a big one, folks. Get involved. Write your representatives.

Universal Music sues MySpace for copyright infringement

From Saturday's NY Times: Universal Music Sues MySpace for Copyright Infringement.

[Attorney Anthony] Berman said Universal’s case was intended more to press MySpace into a lucrative licensing deal rather than into a real court fight. “It’s a way to get MySpace to the table,” he said. “It’s less about piracy. It’s a lot about control.”

Cue the crackdown

From the November issue of Wired, on fine magazine stands everywhere: Cue the crackdown.

It's called camming – sneaking a videocam into a theater to record a bootleg – and the Motion Picture Association of America says it costs the movie biz billions every year. Now the MPAA is cuing the crackdown: It's working with US tech firms on new tools for thwarting pirates and keeping their booty off street corners from Mumbai to Manhattan. In a few years, when you settle in with your popcorn to watch a flick, you'll be watched right back. Here's a sneak preview of anticamming strategies.

SEEK AND DESTROY
What it is » A combination optical scanner and narrow-beam spotlight, small enough to be hidden behind an exit sign or a speaker
How it works » Pans the audience looking for the faint glimmer of a camcorder's lens and blasts it with a beam of white light

HYPNO-BLOCKER
What it is » Patterns added while processing or projecting the movie, invisible to the eye
How it works » Produces "psychovisual" illusions – spinning concentric circles, moiré patterns – that become visible in recordings. Aghhh! Shut it off!

PULSE WEAPON
What it is » A speaker-shaped box mounted behind the screen
How it works » Periodically emits a pulse of infrared light, which doesn't disrupt the movie but ruins camera images

WATCHMEN
What it is » A squad of security guards equipped with night-vision goggles
How it works » Creeps everyone out by marching through theaters to look for videocams during screenings for the press or Hollywood insiders

SCOFFLAW TRACKER
What it is » Watermarks added to the movie in real time during a digital projection
How it works » Stormtroopers decrypt the embedded code to reveal the time and theater at which the copy was made (helpful if theater employees did the bootlegging)

SNEAK ATTACK
What it is » Extra frames – with text reading "Busted!" or something equally clever – inserted into the movie print
How it works » Flickers faster than the eye can register but shows up on a digital recording

The Internet of the future?

I don't care for these kind of didactic videos, but there you go. From savetheinternet.com, a YouTube video on net neutrality.

Landmark's misuse of the DMCA

The EFF on Landmark's misuse of the DMCA to threaten the Internet Archive. Thanks to Enric Teller for the pointer.

Watch a video, support Creative Commons

You can support Creative Commons by watching their videos, including the new Revverized clip — "Wanna Work Together?"

Kazaa to pay $10 million to music publishers

NY Times: Kazaa Said to Agree to Pay $10 Million to Music Publishers.

Creative Commons & Web 2.0

Lawrence Lessig on Creative Commons and Web 2.0. Nice stuff.