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By: Jillian C. York
Date: 16 Mar 2009
YouTube will not reverse its decision to block music videos to UK users despite a plea from the Performing Rights Society to change its mind.
It is removing all premium music videos to UK users after failing to reach a new licensing agreement with the PRS.
Patrick Walker, YouTube's director of video partnerships said it remained committed to agreeing terms.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 15 Mar 2009
Google Chairman Eric Schmidt told a crowd of Washington journalists Thursday night that free speech was messy, disorganized, and fundamental to a Democracy that keeps the powerful honest. He pledged that his company stood with those journalists. "I'm here to tell you we stand with you," he said, but also said there "will never be a perfect way to combat censorship or privacy violations at home or abroad, but we're going to do our part. "
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 15 Mar 2009
The Swedish Pirate Party hopes to secure a seat in the forthcoming European Parliament elections this summer even before the activist group has earned its stripes at a national level.
The party was formed in Sweden in 2006 following the introduction of a controversial new law that forbade the downloading of copyrighted material from the internet. However, it doesn’t currently have a seat in the Riksdag (Swedish parliament).
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 15 Mar 2009
Defeat Globalism writes in with a Canadian court decision that has ordered a man suing over injuries from a car accident to answer questions about content on his private "friends only" Facebook page. "Lawyers for Janice Roman, the defendant in the lawsuit, believe information posted on John Leduc's private Facebook site — normally accessible only to his approved 'friends' — may be relevant to his claim an accident in Lindsay in 2004 lessened his enjoyment of life. As a result of the ruling by Justice David Brown of Ontario's Superior Court of Justice, Leduc must now submit to cross-examination by Roman's lawyers about what his Facebook page contains. Brown's Feb. 20 ruling also makes clear that lawyers must now explain to their clients 'in appropriate cases' that postings on Facebook or other networking sites — such as MySpace, LinkedIn and even blogs — may be relevant to allegations in a lawsuit, said Tariq Remtulla, a Toronto lawyer who has been following the issue."
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 14 Mar 2009
Farid Hashemi’s latest "status update" on his Facebook page says a lot about his state of mind.
“It’s better to be born as a dog in a democracy than to be a human in a dictatorship,” he writes.
Iranian authorities blocked the popular social networking site in 2006 as "illegal."
But in February, officials in Tehran took the surprising step of unblocking Facebook. Since then, the site's Iranian membership has been growing fast. Facebook is now the 10th most popular website in Iran.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 14 Mar 2009
In recent years many studies have shown that a large chunk of Internet users share copyrighted files on P2P networks, and this number is rapidly increasing every year. The results of a Canadian study published today show that 45% of all those surveyed use file-sharing networks to download movies and music. Also, this behavior is widely accepted since only 3% of the people who participated in the study said that file-sharers should be punished by law.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 14 Mar 2009
Eric Goldman writes: "Earlier this month, we discussed HB 450, the Utah Legislature's third attempt to regulate keyword advertising after the past two efforts failed miserably. The latest attempt barely passed the Utah House, aided in part by a 'yes' vote from Representative Jennifer Seelig, who also happens to be a lobbyist-employee of 1-800 Contacts, the principal advocate of HB 450. Nevertheless, HB 450 died in the Utah Senate without a vote when the Utah Legislature adjourned last night. Despite the seeming good news, it would be surprising if the Utah Legislature didn't try a fourth time to regulate keyword advertising in a future session."
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 13 Mar 2009
Countries are ratifying the only global cybercrime treaty slower than expected, but many are closer to implementing it, a senior Council of Europe official said. The Convention on Cybercrime, adopted in 2001, defines legal guidelines for countries seeking to establish effective laws against computer crime.
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 13 Mar 2009
After the recent unbanning of YouTube and other file sharing sites in Bangladesh Conversations With An Optimist comments that: “I hope this incident shouldn’t become just a flash in the pan. Hope fully we will press for answers. We need it to become a catalyst to enshrine our rights pertaining to freedoms of expression.”
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By: Rebekah Heacock
Date: 13 Mar 2009
BOSTON, Mass. — Georgia, Estonia, Radio Free Europe. The list of major recent international denial-of-service attacks speaks less to the potential future of cyber conflicts and more to the need of some nationalists to silence their critics, a network security specialist told attendees at the SOURCE Boston conference on Wednesday.
