Copyright War: news digest about copyright, DRM, patents etc.

10 Myths About Copyright

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 12:21:00 +0000

1) "If it doesn't have a copyright notice, it's not copyrighted."

This was true in the past, but today almost all major nations follow the Berne copyright convention. For example, in the USA, almost everything created privately and originally after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted and protected whether it has a notice or not. The default you should assume for other people's works is that they are copyrighted and may not be copied unless you know otherwise. There are some old works that lost protection without notice, but frankly you should not risk it unless you know for sure.

2) "If I don't charge for it, it's not a violation."

False. Whether you charge can affect the damages awarded in court, but that's main difference under the law. It's still a violation if you give it away -- and there can still be serious damages if you hurt the commercial value of the property. There is an exception for personal copying of music, which is not a violation, though courts seem to have said that doesn't include widescale anonymous personal copying as Napster. If the work has no commercial value, the violation is mostly technical and is unlikely to result in legal action. Fair use determinations (see below) do sometimes depend on the involvement of money.

3) "If it's posted publicly on some site it's in the public domain."

False. Nothing modern and creative is in the public domain anymore unless the owner explicitly puts it in the public domain. Explicitly, as in you have a note from the author/owner saying, "I grant this to the public domain." Those exact words or words very much like them.

4) "My posting was just fair use!"

The "fair use" exemption to (U.S.) copyright law was created to allow things such as commentary, parody, news reporting, research and education about copyrighted works without the permission of the author. That's vital so that copyright law doesn't block your freedom to express your own works - only the ability to appropriate other people's. Intent, and damage to the commercial value of the work are important considerations. Are you reproducing an article from the New York Times because you needed to in order to criticise the quality of the New York Times, or because you couldn't find time to write your own story, or didn't want your readers to have to register at the New York Times web site? The first is probably fair use, the others probably aren't.

5) "If you don't defend your copyright you lose it." -- "Somebody has that name copyrighted!"

False. Copyright is effectively never lost these days, unless explicitly given away. You also can't "copyright a name" or anything short like that, such as almost all titles. You may be thinking of trade marks, which apply to names, and can be weakened or lost if not defended.

You generally trademark terms by using them to refer to your brand of a generic type of product or service. Like an "Apple" computer. Apple Computer "owns" that word applied to computers, even though it is also an ordinary word. Apple Records owns it when applied to music. Neither owns the word on its own, only in context, and owning a mark doesn't mean complete control -- see a more detailed treatise on this law for details.

6) "If I make up my own stories, but base them on another work, my new work belongs to me."

False. U.S. Copyright law is quite explicit that the making of what are called "derivative works" -- works based or derived from another copyrighted work -- is the exclusive province of the owner of the original work. This is true even though the making of these new works is a highly creative process. If you write a story using settings or characters from somebody else's work, you need that author's permission.

There is a major exception -- criticism and parody. The fair use provision says that if you want to make fun of something like Star Trek, you don't need their permission to include Mr. Spock. This is not a loophole; you can't just take a non-parody and claim it is one on a technicality. The way "fair use" works is you get sued for copyright infringement, and you admit you did copy, but that your copying was a fair use. A subjective judgment on, among other things, your goals, is then made.

7) "They can't get me, defendants in court have powerful rights!"

Copyright law is mostly civil law. If you violate copyright you would usually get sued, not be charged with a crime. "Innocent until proven guilty" is a principle of criminal law, as is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt." Sorry, but in copyright suits, these don't apply the same way or at all. It's mostly which side and set of evidence the judge or jury accepts or believes more, though the rules vary based on the type of infringement. In civil cases you can even be made to testify against your own interests.

8) "Oh, so copyright violation isn't a crime or anything?"

Actually, in the 90s in the USA commercial copyright violation involving more than 10 copies and value over $2500 was made a felony. So watch out. (At least you get the protections of criminal law.) On the other hand, don't think you're going to get people thrown in jail for posting your E-mail. The courts have much better things to do. This is a fairly new, untested statute. In one case an operator of a pirate BBS that didn't charge was acquited because he didn't charge, but congress amended the law to cover that.

9) "It doesn't hurt anybody -- in fact it's free advertising."

It's up to the owner to decide if they want the free ads or not. If they want them, they will be sure to contact you. Don't rationalize whether it hurts the owner or not, ask them. Usually that's not too hard to do. Time past, ClariNet published the very funny Dave Barry column to a large and appreciative Usenet audience for a fee, but some person didn't ask, and forwarded it to a mailing list, got caught, and the newspaper chain that employs Dave Barry pulled the column from the net, pissing off everybody who enjoyed it. Even if you can't think of how the author or owner gets hurt, think about the fact that piracy on the net hurts everybody who wants a chance to use this wonderful new technology to do more than read other people's flamewars.

10) "They e-mailed me a copy, so I can post it."

To have a copy is not to have the copyright. All the E-mail you write is copyrighted. However, E-mail is not, unless previously agreed, secret. So you can certainly report on what E-mail you are sent, and reveal what it says. You can even quote parts of it to demonstrate. Frankly, somebody who sues over an ordinary message would almost surely get no damages, because the message has no commercial value, but if you want to stay strictly in the law, you should ask first. On the other hand, don't go nuts if somebody posts E-mail you sent them. If it was an ordinary non-secret personal letter of minimal commercial value with no copyright notice (like 99.9% of all E-mail), you probably won't get any damages if you sue them. Note as well that, the law aside, keeping private correspondence private is a courtesy one should usually honour.

11) "So I can't ever reproduce anything?"

Myth #11 (I didn't want to change the now-famous title of this article) is actually one sometimes generated in response to this list of 10 myths. No, copyright isn't an iron-clad lock on what can be published. Indeed, by many arguments, by providing reward to authors, it encourages them to not just allow, but fund the publication and distribution of works so that they reach far more people than they would if they were free or unprotected -- and unpromoted. However, it must be remembered that copyright has two main purposes, namely the protection of the author's right to obtain commercial benefit from valuable work, and more recently the protection of the author's general right to control how a work is used.

While copyright law makes it technically illegal to reproduce almost any new creative work (other than under fair use) without permission, if the work is unregistered and has no real commercial value, it gets very little protection. The author in this case can sue for an injunction against the publication, actual damages from a violation, and possibly court costs. Actual damages means actual money potentially lost by the author due to publication, plus any money gained by the defendant. But if a work has no commercial value, such as a typical E-mail message or conversational USENET posting, the actual damages will be zero. Only the most vindictive (and rich) author would sue when no damages are possible, and the courts don't look kindly on vindictive plaintiffs, unless the defendants are even more vindictive.

The author's right to control what is done with a work, however, has some validity, even if it has no commercial value. If you feel you need to violate a copyright "because you can get away with it because the work has no value" you should ask yourself why you're doing it. In general, respecting the rights of creators to control their creations is a principle many advocate adhering to.

Free Your Music with DRM Dumpster

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:10:00 +0000

Freeware Mac app DRM Dumpster automates the process of burning your DRMed iTunes Music Store purchases to CD, then rips them back to your computer as unprotected MP3s.

This has always been the unofficial method for stripping DRM from your music, but DRM Dumpster simplifies the process using a CD-RW, meaning that you can just insert one CD and DRM Dumpster will take care of your entire protected iTunes library. Handy.

Read more on http://www.burningthumb.com/drmdumpster.html

HP sues Acer over patent infringement

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:06:00 +0000

Litigation season is here! First it was Cisco dragging Apple to court. Oracle sued SAP over "corporate theft on a grand scale" last week. Now it's the US giant Hewlett-Packard taking Taiwanese major Acer to court over Acer's alleged infringement of five HP patents.

The lawsuit was filed today in a court located in the Eastern District of Texas. HP seeks to prevent Acer from selling some products in the United States, including desktops, notebooks, media centers and related products, due to the alleged use of HP-patented technology. HP contends that Acer infringed on patents ranging from DVD editing, power management, processing capabilities, clock switching, and other technologies from 1997 to 2003.

The patents relate to optical data storage, circuits and methods for lowering computer system power consumption, multiple processors in computer systems and an improved method for attaching devices to a digital serial bus.

Read more on ChannelsIndia.com

Anti-Plagiarism Service Sued for Copyright Violation

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:04:00 +0000

By David Johnston

In a strange twist of fate, the anti-plagiarism service TurnItIn has been sued by four high school students for violating copyright laws. The claim stems from TurnItIn’s policy of adding the text of student papers to its database when they are checked for plagiarism. However, the students noticed that requests that their papers not be added to TurnItIn’s database were ignored, violating their intellectual property rights.

They argue that TurnItIn should not be able to use student papers which it does not own in order to make money on its anti-plagiarism service. The suit specifies 6 papers that were copyrighted by the students before being handed in. The students are asking for $150,000 compensation per paper, though they claim to not want or expect the money.

Read more on RealTechNews

Netscape: no space left on device

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:36:00 +0000

Something wrong happened with Netscape.com server:

First of all, I can't sign in now. And the reason of this is on the screenshot above. Notice "no space left on device" error. This means that all netscape's harddrives are full now. Hey, what do you uploaded there, guys? :)

Sony reveals new DRM technology

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:41:00 +0000

Sony has announced that they have developed a new "block cipher algorithm" that is specifically designed to enable advanced copyright protection and authentication for distribution of digital media such as music, movies and images.

Sony says it plan to reveal more details about the technology, code named CLEFIA, at the Fast Software Encryption 2007 conference which begins on March 26 in Luxembourg. To date, Sony has revealed that the technology is "a 128-bit block encryption that supports key lengths of 128, 192 or 256 bits." They also say that CLEFIA is powerful enough to defend the digital media against "known cryptoanalytic attacks."

Read more on AfterDown.com

Change to patent tax law urged in light of EU demand

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:38:00 +0000

A patent expert has warned that if the Irish Government removes the proviso in its patent tax law whereby patents registered in Ireland are free of income tax if the research and development (R&D) was carried out in Ireland, as the EU has asked it to do, the floodgates would open and the country would be “in desperate trouble”.

Last week the European Commission formally asked Ireland to amend legislation where tax exemption of received patent royalties is granted only if the research leading to the patent was carried out in Ireland. The commission said the provision is incompatible with the freedom of establishment and the free movement of services guaranteed under European law.

It claims the law dissuades Irish companies and individuals from contracting out research to institutions established elsewhere in the EU or in the EEA (European Economic Area) and dissuades Irish undertakings and individuals from setting up research centres in other member states, thus infringing their freedom of establishment.

Read more on SiliconRepublic

Software sleuth hunts copyright abusers

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:35:00 +0000

By Michael Liedtke

Vance Ikezoye didn't set out to become one of the digital revolution's top copyright cops when he first began tinkering with the technology that launched Audible Magic Corp.

At first, all he was looking for was a better way to identify songs and advertisements broadcast on the radio.

But Ikezoye's ambitions have shifted with the media landscape, positioning Audible Magic to control what can and can't be watched on the Internet. Online video sites are adopting its filtering tools to prevent the kind of copyright trouble that provoked a legal battle between Viacom Inc. and Google Inc.'s YouTube.com.

"It's been an interesting ride," said Ikezoye, Audible Magic's 49-year-old chief executive.

"We are kind of in the middle of everything, where we are part mediator and part battering ram."

Read more on Canada.com

Torrents Not Guilty?

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 09:01:00 +0000

Sofia. The owner of the Internet site “arenabg.com”, Eliyan Geshev, was released from the arrest after the Regional Court of Sofia decided that there was no grounded assumption against him. No measures would be taken against Geshev. The court’s decision can be appealed in three days' term. If that happens the next sitting will be held on March 27 from 10 AM.

FOCUS News Agency has already reported that the owners of the Internet site "arena.bg" was arrested yesterday on the grounds of three accusations.
As soon as the decision was announced journalists were struck by the security guards while trying to interview Eliyan Geshev on his way out of the courtroom. The journalists intend to file a complaint.

Read more on Focus Information Agency

Viacom v Google: The $1bn battle for content

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 08:59:00 +0000

By Tim Luckhurst

When is copyright theft not illegal? In the struggle to answer this defining question of the internet age, one entertainment giant has declared war. Viacom, owner of the Paramount and Dreamworks film studios and television channels including MTV, Nickelodeon and the Comedy Channel, has launched a $1bn (£515m) copyright-infringement suit against Google.

The case, which accuses Google's YouTube video-sharing site of building "a lucrative business out of exploiting the devotion of fans to others' creative works", has the potential to redefine how content is used on the internet. "If it goes to court, this will be the biggest case since Napster [the music-sharing website shut down by litigation in 2002]," says Edgar Forbes, senior lecturer in media law and intellectual property at Bournemouth University.

Read more on The Independent

Patent battles could savage drugs giant

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 08:57:00 +0000

By Danny Fortson

Nearly a quarter of the turnover of AstraZeneca, the FTSE 100 drugs giant, could be wiped out by legal challenges to the protection on its best-selling drugs.

The company is fighting lawsuits brought in the US and Europe by makers of cheap generic drugs which are challenging the patents of drugs that represent at least $7.2bn (£3.7bn) in annual sales, according to SG Cowen, an American investment bank. That is equivalent to 27 per cent of the company's $26.4bn annual turnover.

AstraZeneca, like other drug giants, relies on patents that give it the exclusive right to make and sell the drugs it invents, often for 10 to 15 years. Generics companies make cheap copies of branded drugs once they lose patent protection. Increasingly, they are challenging the validity of these patents years before they expire, leading to a record number of patent lawsuits. Ken Cacciatore, one of the analysts who wrote the Cowen report, estimates that, in the US alone, 36 major patent challenges threaten more than $53bn in annual sales.

Read more on The Independent

Another brick in the copyright wall

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 08:02:00 +0000

By Steve Johnson

The news this week that Viacom is suing YouTube and its owner, Google, over alleged massive copyright infringement brings to mind some other lawsuits I'd like to see:

- FedEx sues Amazon for using boxes that are way bigger than the stuff inside. Tupperware, a leading proponent of accurate volume estimation, joins the suit.

- Users sue MySpace for being an inchoate mess where too many bands become so hot that you momentarily overlook how bad the music is. Also, your "friends" aren't really there for you when you need them.

- Microsoft sues iTunes because it "really, truly" had the idea for a hip online music store first and has the minutes from hundreds of hours of New Product Contemplation Committee meetings to prove it.

This is not to say the Viacom-GooTube lawsuit is a laughing matter. At stake could be, if the action is litigated to the hilt, nothing less than the future of copyright on the Web.

Read more on Chicago Tribune

Piracy Kills Adventure Games

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 08:01:00 +0000

The Longest Journey and Dreamfall are two successful adventure games that were developed by Funcom. Even though I could not bare to finish The Longest Journey, being on of the most buggiest and boring adventure games I’ve ever played, others have still loved it crazy and it got quite high reviews from the fans. It was followed by the anticipated part 2 Dreamfall game, and the company seemed to be doing quite well. Today however I read in the news that Funcom, the developer of the adventure game series have decided to abandon all “offline” games development, and will go for the MMO games instead. The main reason behind that decision they say is the high ratio of games piracy. They estimate that over 200,000 illegal downloads of Dreamfall were made before it was even released! They estimate also that for every copy they sell, 3 to 10 illegal copies are made.

Read more on BlogAllAlong

The EU’s ongoing joust with iTunes

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 07:59:00 +0000

By John Carroll

In what some articles have characterized as an EU that has backed down over iTunes, Meglena Kuneva, EU Commissioner for Consumer Protection, re-characterized her previous words that chastised Apple over its closed DRM model as merely a means by which to start the debate over ways "to develop this market and to have more consumers enjoying the really very important, very modern way of downloading and enjoying the music." She also dismissed comparisons of Apple to Microsoft, noting that Apple's share of the market is not very large. I presume she means Apple's computer market share is not very large. I wish Microsoft could point to their portable music player share (an area where Apple's share IS very large) as reason for the EC to call off their antitrust attack dogs.

Slight diversion aside, the cause of all this ruckus was Ms. Kuneva making a sharp point of the fact that we wouldn't accept CDs that didn't play on every device. That point was always a bit odd, however, as its like pointing out that doors in the middle ages rarely had locks as reason to oppose the proliferation of locks on doors. CDs weren't ever designed with the Internet in mind, where ripped music files can be sent around the world as easily as email.

Read more on ZDNet

Russian IT minister pledges piracy clampdown

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 06:34:00 +0000

Russia's IT minister said his country will step up its work to fight intellectual property violations, part of an effort to boost foreign technology investment in Russia and gain admittance to the World Trade Organization.

Last month the International Intellectual Property Alliance named Russia as one of the world's worst offenders for violating U.S. software and music copyrights, second only to China.

During a press conference Thursday at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany, Leonid Reiman, the Russian minister for IT and communications, acknowledged the problem and said his country is stepping up its efforts to tackle piracy.

"I can assure you this is something very important that we are paying a lot of attention to, and we will continue working to solve the issue," he said, answering a question from a reporter.

Read more on ComputerWorld

New software removes DRM protection in seconds

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 06:32:00 +0000

Digital Rights Management (DRM) simply doesn’t work, and it makes media play on external devices a huge hassle. I would certainly be in full support of a system that worked; a system that would not prohibit media play on particular, external devices, or expire after a given length of time. A new software, SoundTaxi V2, changes all that.

Ramka announced today the second version of their highly popular windows-based software for removing copy restrictions on downloaded media. SoundTaxi Version 2 allows users to play downloaded music on any device, without having DRM compatible hardware, and it’s substantially quicker than its predecessor.

Released first in 2005, SoundTaxi’s conversion method allows users to play DRM protected music and audio books while recording them simultaneously.

Read more on tech.blorge.com

Copyright Law Is a Battlefield

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 06:30:00 +0000

Viacom sues Google for letting copyright-protected material slip onto YouTube. Brewster Kahle sues the federal government over a public-domain policy he considers restrictive. The recording industry sues college students -- and, some critics say, just about everyone else in sight -- for downloading music illegally. Lawsuits are the lingua franca of intellectual-property debate, and that's not likely to change any time soon, says Larry Downes.

Mr. Downes, a technology consultant and adjunct professor at the University of California at Berkeley, draws parallels between the current information wars and the Industrial Revolution -- which spurred the rise of communism and the progressive movement, both of them "rejections of a legal system that no longer functioned, and which could not adapt to changing realities."

Read more on Chronicle

Best of MacOS X Hints

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 15:01:00 +0000

by Kent Del Castillo

This is a summary of the presentation done by Rob Griffiths at the MacworldEncore Conference & Expo entitled "The Best of Mac OS X Hints - Tiger Edition." This is for everyone who wants the hints without the 98M download of the hour-long presentation.

#1: Get TinkerTool

It has a whole mess of useful tweaks in it and it's free. Just get it, you won't be sorry:
http://www.bresink.com/osx/TinkerTool.html

#2: Use Go -> Go to Folder to jump to Finder folders

Shift-Command-G for quicker access, use Tab for auto-complete of folder names. Works in Open/Save dialogs but is case-sensitive there for some reason.

#3: Remap shortcut keys

Go to System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse and click the tab called "Keyboard Shortcuts." You have to use the exact name of the menu command you want to change. It's pretty simple, you'll figure it out from there.

You can also add commands that Apple left out (like Secure empty trash in Finder).

#4: App switching tricks

(more after the jump)

Command- ` will cycle backward, scroll wheel, arrow keys, mouse to pick an app. H will hide the highlighted app, Q will quit it. Home/End will jump to start/end of list. Command-Tab works in Expose mode.

#5: Dictionary tricks

Control-Command-D will give a dictionary popup when hovering over words in an app like TextEdit. If you assign the dictionary to a shortcut key like F7, it'll always come up with the popup.

You can nav thru the dictionary with double-clicks on other words. Also, check out the Preferences on the Dictionary app.

#6: Use Preview's powers

Open a whole folder of images by Command-Option drag a folder onto the Preview dock icon. Change the sort order by Control-clicking on a blank section of the drawer. Tools > Annotation will allow you to add annotations to PDF's. Adding a keyword to a pic will allow Spotlight to find it more easily.

#7: Open files in trash

If you drag something from the trash on to a dock icon, it'll open up.

#8: Take the PRO features out of my menus in unregistered Quicktime

On the option menu for Quicktime Player, click on "Show Package Contents," go into Contents > Resources and rename "ProMenuitem.tif" to something else and it'll disappear. You can change any of the images there, but be careful!

#9: Download from the internet without a browser

/System/Library/CoreServices contains "VerifiedDownloadAgent." Add it to your sidebar and you can drag/drop links into it and it'll download the file.

#10: Run widgets one time to see if you want to keep it

When asked "Do you want to install the widget..." , hold down Command-Option and the install button becomes a Run button. To install it, you'll have to run it again.

#11: Set login background

Go to Finder>Library>Desktop Pictures and replace "Aqua Blue.jpg" with your own image keeping the name the same.

#12: Set Login Window Info

Clicking on the login window with your mouse will give you more info. To make it stick to something like the time/date, you must type (case-sensitive) in Terminal:

defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow AdminHostInfo Time

and it'll stick.

#13: Spotlight hits in Finder

Command-Space searches bring up a drop-down menu. If you hover over something after a search in Spotlight, you'll see the path to it. To open a Finder window of that location, hold the Command key down and click it, and it'll open to that path.

#14: Advanced Spotlight searching and tips

The pipe characer | acts as an OR. Minus - is NOT, Space is AND. Example = cat|dog(-mouse) is cat or dog but not mouse.

You can remove Applications and System Preferences and Contacts from Spotlight which will also speed it up. Look in System Preferences > Spotlight to uncheck it from your searches.

Anything added to Spotlight's Privacy tab (in Sys Prefs) will not be indexed. If you add your mailboxes to it, Spotlight will speed up since it has less stuff to search.

When searching in Finder, you can add criteria much like an iTunes smart playlist. With it, you can view everything in a folder by using a "Size greater than 0" criteria.

#15: iPhoto selective import

Before importing, click return twice and you can preview all the images on your camera and drag/drop the images you want. Shift-Command and you can click as many as you want. You can not delete this way, it's a read-only thing. Might not work with every camera. Check the date on the photo too.

#16: iPhoto movie books

Create an iBook and then Share>Send to iDVD. It'll be in your Movies folder with all the transitions and stuff.

#17: Change the "Welcome to Darwin!" greeting in Terminal

Do the following in Terminal which will also make a backup:

cd /etc

sudo cp motd motd_ORIG

sudo pico motd

#18: Change iTunes' arrows

To change the behavior of the arrows to be a search within your iTunes instead of searching the iTunes store do the following.

In Terminal with iTunes exited, type the following line:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes invertStoreLinks -bool YES

To reverse, repeat the above with NO at the end.

#19: Force plain text Mail

To display all mail as plain text, do the following in Terminal with Mail not running:

defaults write com.apple.mail PreferPlainText -bool TRUE

To change it back, make it FALSE

#20: Better Save dialogs

Make the expanded triangle the default for every program by typing this in Terminal:

defaults write -g NSNavPanelExpandedStateForSaveMode -bool TRUE

#21: Make your screen saver run 24/7

It'll probably make your machine run slower, but if you want your RSS screensaver to run while you work, type the following in Finder:

/System/Library/Frameworks/Screensaver.framework/Resources/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS
/ScreenSaverEngine -background &

This will return the job number, like 1411. To end it, type "kill 1411" and it'll stop running.

#22: Easily combine PDFs

Launch Automator. Click on Finder > Get Selected Finder Items and add to the right. Add "Sort Finder Items" too. Click on PDF>Combine PDF Pages and click "Appending". Then add "Open Finder Items". Save it as a Plug-In called "Combine PDFs".

After all that, select your PDFs with Contro-Click, then in your menu, you'll see Automator>Combine PDFs. Click that and you'll see your combined PDFs.

Man's Best Friends Help Movie Industry Crackdown on Piracy

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:35:00 +0000

By Kristi Mattes

The Motion Picture Association of America loaned Malaysia two black Labradors, the country's latest weapon to fight music and movie piracy. Lucky and Flo began at Malaysia's biggest international airport sniffing out shipments of contraband discs.

The MPAA says its members, including Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and Universal, lost $1.2 billion to Asia-Pacific movie pirates in 2006.

Read more on News10.net

Sony exec: DRM should be ‘invisible’

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:34:00 +0000

By Matt Kapko

Digital rights management is an inevitable byproduct of the capabilies consumers now have to store and stream large amounts of information, but for it to function properly it must be virtually invisible to the consumer, Albhy Galuten, vice president of digital media technology at Sony Corp. of America, said in his opening keynote at the Digital Media Summit.

“We all hear the rumors about how DRM is going to be dead, it’s too complicated, it’s too confusing,” he said. “The goal is to have it invisible to the consumer.”

He squarely puts that responsibility on the industry. Media companies must allow consumers to enjoy the content they want on the device they prefer on their schedule, he said.

Read more on RCRWirelessNews

Video-on-Demand Patent Infringement Lawsuit Continues Against Various Cable Companies

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 06:32:00 +0000

DigitalMediaStocks.com, an investor and industry news portal for the digital media sector, presents an investor podcast with Andrew Huffman, in-house patent counsel for USA Video Interactive Corp. (OTCBB: USVO; TSX: US.V), to discuss the background and status of the Company’s Video-on-Demand patent infringement lawsuit filed against various cable companies including Time Warner, Charter Communications, and Comcast Cable. USA Video designs and markets technology for delivery of digital media and has held a pioneering patent for store-and-forward video since 1992.

There is a growing interest from Wall Street in the connection between patents as an asset, and market performance. Useful in the valuation of companies, patent portfolios are many times being utilized as a leading indicator on how dominant a company might or might not be in its specific market, making the protection of intellectual property rights a key priority.

Read more on NewswireToday

U.S. businesses laud 'season for patent reform'

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 06:33:00 +0000

By Susan Decker

Microsoft and Intel have urged lawmakers to overhaul the U.S. patent system for more than five years. They may get their wish in 2007.

A record $1.52 billion verdict against Microsoft last month, the Democrats' takeover of Congress and U.S. Supreme Court rulings are building momentum for the biggest changes in U.S. patent law since 1952. Proposals include legislation to make it easier for targets of infringement suits to challenge patents and limit damages if they lose.

"Things have happened that make this the season for patent reform," said Emery Simon, counsel for the Business Software Alliance, a Washington lobbying group whose members include Microsoft, Intel and Apple.

Read more on International Herald Tribune

id Software talks piracy (again) at GDC 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 06:30:00 +0000

The GDC conference is always an interesting one to follow, even if some people think otherwise. It is one of those shows that is run by developers, presumably for developers, and doesn't always come off cleanly to the public. We imagine that must be the case for why the CEO of id Software talked about piracy - again.

It seems like just last year that Hollenshead stood in a panel of industry members to discuss piracy. Oh, wait, that's because it was. At E3, Todd and others from the industry went on to say how rampant piracy costs the industry billions, and game developers would stop producing games. A cautionary note was sung about developers moving to consoles, where piracy is nowhere near as rampant.

Read more on bi-tech.net

Why Not Leech Off of YouTube, Video Pioneers Ask

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 06:28:00 +0000

By Tim Gideon

There was nary an empty seat at Monday evening's SXSW panel entitled "What Does the Future Hold for Video on the Internet."

It opened with the moderator, Eddie Codel, producer and co-founder of Geek TV, announcing: "We have beer, we hope you do, too [sadly, I did not]. Whenever someone says the word 'paradigm', everyone drinks." This prompted an audience member to yell "paradigm", after which the rules were immediately revised. The panel consisted of Codel, Micki Krimmel of Revver, Kent Nichols from the wildly popular Ask A Ninja, Kevin Rose of Digg fame, and Scott Watson—the odd-man-out, not-so-indie rep from Disney.

Read more on PC Magazine

Space piracy coming to the Mac (don’t tell the RIAA)

noreply@blogger.com (Сергей Романюк) — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 06:34:00 +0000

By Dan Moren

I’ve never really gotten into playing Massively Multiplayer online games. I like the idea in concept, but I’m always reluctant when it comes to monthly fees. That, and I’ve never found an MMO that really grabbed me. Star Wars: Galaxies, which probably had the best shot, is by all accounts a rather abysmal failure.

But I’ve long been intrigued by the concept of EVE Online, a spacefaring MMO that reminds me a bit of Ambrosia’s old Escape Velocity series. And now that EVE Online is coming to the Mac, maybe I’ll finally give it a shot.

Read more on MacUser