Hurt Locker Producer Says That Criticizing His Plan To Sue Fans Means You’re A Moron And A Thief

from the reality-check dept
 
Robert Ring was the first of a bunch of you to send in this gem. You may recall the reports that the producers of the Oscar-winning movie Hurt Locker were supposedly gearing up to sue tens of thousands of fans for unauthorized file trading of the movie. Even if you’re [...]

Obama to ‘aggressively protect’ intellectual property

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama was young, a technology fan, and appeared to be an establishment outsider. For those reasons some techies hoped he might be sympathetic to copyright reform.

Those hopes are fading fast as President Obama appears to have lined up on the side of copyright owners. In a speech at the [...]

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.
They’re not much happier about a revised version that [...]

The Pirate Bay snapped up by software firm

Tue June 30, 2009
Global Gaming Factory X, a Swedish software company, has bought The Pirate Bay, the Bittorrent sharing site, and Peerialism, the company that developed the technology behind the site. From August, Global Gaming Factory will take over the running of the site.

“We [...]

Swedish court: Pirate Bay judge not biased

Was the judge in The Pirate Bay trial biased? After all, it turned out after the trial, although he didn’t disclose it at the time, that Judge Tomas Norstöm was a member of several pro-copyright organizations. Is that enough to earn TPB a retrial?
Absolutely not, a Swedish appeals court ruled yesterday, according to a Swedish [...]

Google slammed as China, U.S. quarrel over Internet

BEIJING (Reuters) – China on Thursday stepped up accusations that Google is spreading obscene content over the Internet, a day after U.S. officials urged Beijing to abandon plans for controversial filtering software on new computers.
The growing friction [...]

Cyber Security Czar Front-Runner No Friend of Privacy

Former Republican Congressman Tom Davis, reportedly President Barack Obama’s top candidate for cyber security czar, voted repeatedly to expand the government’s internet wiretapping powers, and helped author the now-troubled national identification law known as REAL ID.
Citing White House sources, Time magazine on Friday identified the the former head of the Government Reform Committee as the [...]

Lawmakers Bet on Internet Gambling Legislation

Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, and Peter King, R-N.Y. unveiled legislation Wednesday that would enable Americans to legally gamble online.

If running major financial institutions and the auto industry isn’t enough for the Obama administration, a new House bill would put [...]

RIAA contradicts its own earlier argument in push for radio royalty

TECHDIRT, REASON ONLINE: RIAA NOW CONDEMNS THE UNLEVEL PLAYING FIELD IT HELPED CREATE

Broadcast radio is the only medium still enjoying “special treatment,” in the form of an exemption from royalty payments to performers.
After all, satellite and Internet radio pay these royalties, so why not AM/FM? Aren’t they all “equivalent”?

This is a commonly-used argument by [...]

A small signal, but a battle royal

Delaware high school radio station draws the wrath of recording industry after boycotting proposed royalty fees
As radio stations go, Mount Pleasant High School’s WMPH is full of earnest endeavor, but hardly noticed on a radio dial crowded by its more powerful neighbors.
Not anymore.
This 100-watt flicker of a station has attracted the wrath [...]