Senator Richard Lugar (R.-Ind.) recently revealed that so-called bloggers would “probably not” be considered journalists by the Free Flow of Information Act of 2005, which will include provisions detailing “shield law” protections for journalists.
Australian court: mod-chipping is legal
In a landmark ruling for the gaming industry, an Australian court has ruled that mod-chipping is legal. Specifically, the High Court ruled that it was legal to mod-chip Sony PlayStation game consoles so as to play games sold outside Australia.
What the article does not go into (inexplicably) is that the game (and some peripheral accessory) licensing is how the console makers generate all of their revenue. If they don’t have the ability to charge for people to play on their field (albeit physically sold off to someone else) then they are going to be far less willing to sell the console at a loss.
Game development is becoming increasingly consolidated (it’s media) so the threat of unlicensed developers is minimal; they still need the license for the other 95% of the market. The problem will be piracy. This ruling does not allow for piracy, but it sure will make it harder to stop. (or at the very least, this is how Sony CE will spin it) In a world where the significant legal purpose for an item is a shield for the people selling products like mod chips this ruling makes the enforcement happen at the end user stage where things are decentralized and harder to track. Thus, media companies like Sony do not want to live in such a world (Though, oddly enough, it is because of Sony’s legal fighting that such a world currently exists)
File-sharing is eroding the moral fiber of Canadian youth:
Fun with logical argumentation with Ars.
I’m spending today at the 20th annual Bar of georgia Technology Law Institute. Rather than listen mindlessly as people fumble over describing how P2P networking works I have decided I will do a live journal update for the conference. Considering the number of viewers I have, live does not need to be live; since the GA bar is providing WiFi without connectivity, it will come in chunks. I’ll add in formating and important links after the event (probably tomorrow). I guess this is the value of a wiki…
Here’s the Morning session:
EDIT: Actually, given the brevity of the afternoon session, and the fact that the first part was unremarkable, and the second part is available for download from the Tech law section’s web site, I’m not going to have a followup post.
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Computer program identifies the name of a song based on you humming a bit of it.
As a side note, Copyright law makes both the program developer and the program user an infringer. Just today’s reminder of why you should give your fair use rights some lovin’.
George Bush Doesn’t Like Black People | Ourmedia:
Given the vast pool of derivative works, Our Media has always been something I can get behind. But now I want to get behind it and do selfish things.
Technorati Tags: Bush, gold digger, kanye west, Katrina, parody, The Legendary K.O.
Sometimes I worry that I have chosen a profession which has no room for me. Then, I see something which reminds me just how little people know about trademarks.
Super heros should not spend their time with petty criminals. Dick Tracy should not be in modern times and dealing with modern problems. Comic makers should know better then to hop on a campaign that is already annoying people and sounding like an MPAA shill.
And it just keeps going. There have been about a week of strips on this and they just get more and more ridiculous every day. Someone is really going to believe that DVD piracy is done by people using mobile vans full of equipment which transmit the data via a vast array of satellites. Mike at HackingNetflix wonders if the industries paid for this, but I can’t imagine how shifting the blame away from teenagers and the ordinary citizen fits with their message.
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