On the surface, this seems like a trivial issue. Eminem's music publisher and copyright manager (Eight Mile Style and Martin Affiliated respectively) have sued Apple over rights to sell the rapper's music via iTunes. The suit highlights the critical differences in HOW publishers and distributors (in this instance Universal Music Group) are paid. The reality here is that Apple is the middle-man in a much larger legal issue.
To be succinct, if buying an electronic song is considered a sale, then the publisher makes the most money. The distributor recieves only a royalty fee. If, however, buying an electronic song is NOT a sale, but a licensing agreement, it then becomes a 50/50 split of the revenue. There is a serious implication here, namely, setting legal precedent as to exactly what constitutes an electronic media purchase.
The whole concept of "licensing agreement" is the industry's "big stick". It uses the DMCA to abrogate what were previously considered "Fair Use" rights under traditional copyright law. Without the ability to push this concept, major record labels may have to surrender a significant amount of control over the industry (as well as future profits) to publishers and artists. Gee, you would think the people that actually create content should have control. Right? TheRegister reports...
Eminem's music publisher has filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Apple over iTunes downloads, alleging the company is violating copyrights by selling the rapper's song online.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in US District Court in Detroit by Ferndale-based Eight Mile Style and Eminem's copyright manager, Martin Affiliated. The complaint alleges that although Apple has inked a contract with Universal Music Group to sell Eminem's music on iTunes, Eight Mile Style and Martin Affiliated have not authorized the downloads.
"Eight Mile and Martin have demanded that Apple cease and desist its reproduction and distribution and Apple has refused," the complaint states.
General Wesley Clark, speaking as a board member of a security software company Tiversa before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday, cited a study revealing the presence of hundreds of classified documents being spread via Limewire . Over at Betanews we noticed the following quote, which is the biggest clue that there's a hidden agenda here.
"The material, it was discovered, was copied from the computer of a single Pentagon contractor, who happened to be a LimeWire user. She didn't share those files intentionally; instead, her local file system was exposed through LimeWire."
The problem? This is NOT how Limewire behaves.
Limewire *DOES NOT* expose the local filesystem, except for one explicit folder, *UNLESS* the user overrides this behavior MANUALLY. Furthermore focusing on Limewire fails to take into account Limewire is but one of MANY clients that connect to the Gnutella network. Focusing on Limewire solely (being the most popular Gnutella client), and ignoring the FACTS regarding how Limewire does, and most importantly DOES NOT expose filesystems, makes it clear that this is nothing but "spin". They're either too stupid to have realized Limewire DOESN'T expose the entire filesystem without manual changes to the client preferences, thereby letting a government employee completely off the hook, or they do realize this and fail to mention it on purpose.
Is Tiversa interested in facts? Or interested in obtaining government contracts? Betanews reports...
In testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday, Gen. Wesley Clark - the former supreme commander of NATO forces and US presidential candidate, speaking as a board member of and advisor to security software company Tiversa - cited a study by his company revealing that in a period of two hours' search time on the P2P file-sharing system LimeWire, over 200 classified US Government documents were discovered.
"If you saw the scope of the risk," Gen. Clark testified, "I think you'd agree that it's just totally unacceptable. The American people would be outraged if they were aware of what's inadvertently shared by government agencies on P2P networks. They would demand solutions."
After years of beating it's drum over alleged anti-competetive practices by it's major rival, Intel, it looks like someone has finally agreed with AMD. As this story unfolds, expect the rhetoric regarding similar cases in the US and Japan to swell back into relavence. Betanews reports...
This morning in Brussels, spokespersons for the European Commission confirmed that Intel was served yesterday with a formal Statement of Objections, charging the CPU manufacturer with paying for exclusivity with cash, incentives, and discounts in order to compel OEMs not to purchase AMD CPUs.
At present, the EC has not made public the names of OEMs with whom Intel allegedly made deals. However, according to spokespersons, the Statement does specifically name AMD as the sole party which Intel allegedly sought to harm.
I ran across this blurb on Slashdot today, and I have to say I agree wholeheartedly with the writer. After seeing the phones companies like Nokia and Sony-Ericcson release in Europe, and *especially* the crazy hi tech phones available in Japan it seriously begs the question. Why are cellphones in the United States technically a generation or more behind ones available in countries like Japan? Slashdot reports...
knapper_tech writes "After seeing the iPhone introduction, I was totally confused by how much excitement it generated in the US. It offered no features I could see beyond my Casio W41CA's capabilities. I had a lot of apprehension towards the idea of a virtual keypad and the bare screen looked like a scratch magnet. Looks aren't enough. Finally, the price is ridiculous. The device is an order of magnitude more expensive than my now year-old Keitai even with a two-year contract. After returning to the US from Japan, I've come to realize the horrible truth behind iPhone's buzz."
We ran across an interesting analysis of AMD's Thermal Design Guidelines over at Investors Hub. It appears that AMD is speed binning their 65nm parts based on current leakage, indicative of there being issues with their current 65nm fabrication process. AMD seems to have also further enhanced sleep states by allowing C3 Sleep States in their desktop Brisbane parts, ostensibly to lower idle current draw.
On the surface it appears that AMD's still a little wet behind the ears with 65nm, something Intel's mastered for quite some time now. Investors Hub reports...
If you look at the IDD current of their C1 states, you get an idea of the leakage at various voltages. I looked at their current CZ (F3 stepping, 90nm) and their DD (G0 stepping, 65nm) parts at the max P-state (1.2-1.3V for 65W TDP parts and 1.3-1.35V for 89W TDP parts) and min P-state (1.1V for all products).
I pay special attention to their 3800+ part, which was their downbinned part for 90nm (therefore, highest leakage), and their higher bin parts, which presumably require binning for low leakage in order to fit in the power envelopes. Note that with the new price cuts, AMD's new 90nm downbin is a 4200+ part, which is not listed in this already outdated thermal guide. For 65nm, their downbinned part was the 3600+ part. Today, it is 4000+. Note that you can see the part name in the ID Tag.
As publishers who rely on advertising to survive it would be remiss of us to fail to remind our readers that advertising in and of itself isn't an "evil" concept. What is continually disturbing is the application of "adware" as a supposedly legitimate advertising methodology. In reality most "adware" is just mildly annoying and generally involves trading the same sort of personal information you often trade willingly in retail stores (if you've *ever* used a "Bonus Card" in a retail store to get special prices, you've submitted to exactly the same sort of information gathering done by "adware").
In advertising, you decide where to "draw the line" when it comes to your customers. In our case, for instance, we've avoided things like pop-ups, pop-unders, interstitials, and using mailing lists because we think such things are annoying and go too far.
Microsoft seems to be extending the definition of exactly what "too far" may be in a patent application filed June 5th. The patent is for garnering "contextual" data from your local machine, applications, software, and files. To say this is an order of magnitude greater intrusion than garnering data from your browsing habits is a bit of an understatement we think. Information Week Reports....
In two patent applications filed this month, Microsoft may be foreshadowing future Windows features, including updates to the taskbar and ad-supported versions.
The first patent application, filed on July 5, details advertising software that uses applications and data on a computer, rather than the Web, to provide context for and trigger advertising. "Web-based advertising is limited to targeting based on a user's interaction with a webpage or search application in communication with a portal or search engine," the patent application notes.
Overall, the software is like adware that figures out what ads to display based on files on the hard drive and what's being displayed on the screen at a given moment. The advertising software, which could be part of the operating system, a standalone app, or an application feature, would use information gleaned from documents, music, computer status messages, and e-mails as context for ads. However, the software could conceivably gather information on every file on a user's hard drive and send it to advertisers, and the application does little to assuage security and privacy concerns.
The Java Runtime environment is ubiquitous. Used by every browser, many software applications, and a plethora of mobile devices, it's a hard to avoid and subtly pervasive piece of technology. Now, Google's Security team reports that they have discovered vulnerabilities in Sun's Java Runtime Environment that threaten the security of all existing implementations of the platform. While we're confident Sun will issue an update for it's PC JVM environment, where does that leave embedded devices and mobile platforms? Wow. This is definitely a week of *ALL* encompasing problems! ZDNet Asia reports...
Google's Security team has discovered vulnerabilities in the Sun Java Runtime Environment that threatens the security of all platforms, browsers and even mobile devices.
"This is as bad as it gets," said Chris Gatford, a security expert from penetration testing firm Pure Hacking.
"It’s a pretty significant weakness, which will have a considerable impact if the exploit codes come to fruition quickly. It could affect a lot of organizations and users," Gatford told ZDNet Australia.
Australia's Computer Emergency Response Team (AusCERT) analyst, Robert Lowe, warned that anyone using the Java Runtime Environment or Java Development Kit is at risk.
If you thought that Sony was the only console manufacturer having a really bad day, guess again. After many months of public complaints and outcries, Microsoft has publically admitted that *ALL* (as in every single one ever sold) Xbox360's have a design defect that can lead to their failure. Though Robbie Bach, head of Microsoft's Xbox360 Division refused to elaborate on the issue, the general consensus is that it's one of botched thermal design management and inadequate dissipation of heat leading to component failure. All of the nearly 12 million units currently in the hands of consumers are affected. Though Microsoft has not issued a global recall, they have tripled the warranty coverage period, and are expected to have to dole out over $1 Billion to correct the situation. CRN Australia Reports...
(Editor's Footnote: We really had no idea just how much of a firestorm this would create, both for the gaming community or us personally. Microsoft now has the entire audio content of the conference call CRN Australia based their story on available, and you can listen and decide for yourself what is (and more importantly isn't) being said right here. Future politicians could learn something from this...)
Microsoft has admitted that every one of the 11.6 million Xbox 360 consoles sold in the past 19 months suffers from a design flaw that could cause the device to fail.
The firm will extend the warranty coverage from one to three years to compensate consumers, but does not plan to instate a recall or exchange programme.
Microsoft gaming chief Robbie Bach claimed in a conference call with financial analysts that the design issues surfaced recently.
Though it's not clear why he's left, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess why David Orton, former President and CEO of ATI Technologies, has called it quits. The most recent generation of ATI Chipset and GPU products hasn't exactly been a "poster child" for what a smooth and timely product launch should be. Analysts and hacks have all surmised that teething troubles and a general culture clash between the two giant semiconductor firms has caused more problems than it's solved for the x86 sector. This seems to be more evidence of the same. The Inquirer reports...
The former president and CEO of ATI Technologies is quitting AMD at the end of the month. According to a press release, Orton said he was leaving AMD with mixed feelings. What that means we're not quite sure.
They say the internet has become the great "equalizer" in our modern world, and to a great degree this is absolutely true. Still, it's a bit of a shock when bloggers at the Strategic Security Blog run across Google Earth satellite photos of a new series of Chinese nuclear submarine.
A commercial satellite image appears to have captured China's new nuclear ballistic missile submarine. The new class, known as the Jin-class or Type 094, is expected to replace the unsuccessful Xia-class (Type 092) of a single boat built in the early 1980s.
The new submarine was photographed by the commercial Quickbird satellite in late 2006 and the image is freely available on the Google Earth web site.
