#sblt staff

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Special thanks to MBAOnline.com for creating this masterpiece.

The first PROTECT IP Act, or (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011), is also known as United States Senate Bill S.968. It was introduced on May 12, 2011 by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and 11 initial co-sponsors from both sides of the aisle. Its goal is to give the government and copyright holders additional tools to curb access to “rogue websites dedicated to infringing or counterfeit goods”, especially those registered outside the U.S.

The PROTECT IP Act focuses on websites that have “no significant use” other than copyright infringement, or enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. It defines infringement as distribution of illegal copies, counterfeit goods or anti-DRM technology, and infringement exists if “facts or circumstances suggest” a site is used for such activities. The bill says it does not alter existing substantive trademark or copyright law. It provides enhanced remedies against websites “dedicated to infringing acitivities” that are not registered in the U.S., and would give the United States Department of Justice the power to seek a court order against those websites. The bill requires the Attorney General to follow existing federal court procedures, including providing notice to the defendant. Once the court issues an order, it could then be served on financial transaction providers, Internet advertising services, Internet service providers, and information location tools to require them to stop financial transactions with the rogue site and stop linking to it. The term “information location tool” is borrowed from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is understood to refer to search engines, but could cover other sites that link to content.

At a technical level, nonauthoritative domain name servers would be ordered to take technically feasible and reasonable steps to prevent the domain name from resolving to the IP address of a website that have been found by the court to be “dedicated to infringing activities.” Although this would allow a website to remain accessible by numerical IP address, hyperlinks relying solely on the website’s domain name would not resolve. Also search engines—such as the already protesting Google—would be ordered to “(i) remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with the domain name set forth in the [court] order; or (ii) not serve a hypertext link to such Internet site.” Furthermore, trademark and copyright holders who have been harmed by the activities of a website dedicated to infringing activities would be able to apply for a court injunction against the domain name to compel financial transaction providers and Internet advertising services to stop processing transactions to and placing ads on the website, but would not be able to obtain the domain name remedies available to the Attorney General.

In opposition to the bill Google chairman Eric Schmidt has stated that the measures called for in the PROTECT IP Act are overly simple solutions to a complex problem, and that the precedent set by pruning DNS entries is bad from the viewpoint of free speech and would be a step toward less permissive Internet environments, such as China’s. As chairman of the company that owns the world’s largest search engine, Schmidt has declared “if there is a law that requires DNSs to do X and it’s passed by both Houses of Congress and signed by the President of the United States and we disagree with it then we would still fight it.”

The second bill brought before the House of Representatives is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as H.R.3261, was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011 by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors. Introduced by the House Judiciary Committee as building on similar legislation, the PRO-IP Act of 2008 and the Senate’s Protect IP Act of 2011, this bill “modernizes [United States] criminal and civil statutes to meet new IP enforcement challenges.”

The bill is divided into two Titles with the first focusing on combating “foreign rogue sites”, websites outside U.S. jurisdiction that enable or facilitate copyright infringement, and the second focusing on increased penalties to combat intellectual property theft.

The first half of this legislation addresses fighting rogue websites, and would make unauthorized streaming a felony. It would also do away with the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and make sites like YouTube that host user content responsible for ensuring that their users do not post infringing material. Infringing materials is basically anything from a video game walk through to using excerpts of a tv show in a home video.

The Stop Online Piracy Act was introduced by Representative Lamar Smith [R-TX] and was initially co-sponsored by Howard Berman [D-CA], Marsha Blackburn [R-TN], Mary Bono Mack [R-CA], Steve Chabot [R-OH], John Conyers [D-MI], Ted Deutch [D-FL], Elton Gallegly [R-CA], Bob Goodlatte [R-VA], Timothy Griffin [R-AR], Dennis A. Ross [R-FL], Adam Schiff [D-CA] and Lee Terry [R-NE]. As of November 15, 2011, there were 24 sponsors.

Several House leaders made statements concerning the Stop Online Piracy Act. IP Subcommittee Chairman Bob Goodlatte stated:

“Intellectual property is one of America’s chief job creators and competitive advantages in the global marketplace, yet American inventors, authors, and entrepreneurs have been forced to stand by and watch as their works are stolen by foreign infringers beyond the reach of current U.S. laws. This legislation will update the laws to ensure that the economic incentives our Framers enshrined in the Constitution over 220 years ago – to encourage new writings, research, products and services – remain effective in the 21st Century’s global marketplace, which will create more American jobs. The bill will also protect consumers from dangerous counterfeit products, such as fake drugs, automobile parts and infant formula.”

Ranking Member Conyers stated, “Millions of American jobs hang in the balance, and our efforts to protect America’s intellectual property are critical to our economy’s long-term success.” Chairman Lamar Smith added, “The Stop Online Piracy Act helps stop the flow of revenue to rogue websites and ensures that the profits from American innovations go to American innovators.”

While their claims about internet piracy may be valid … these 2 bills are much further reaching that stated above. Many corporations have joined to rally behind squashing this bill due to the pressure that it will put on their businesses. Some of these are as follows  Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, AOL, LinkedIn, 4chan and eBay, as well as human rights organizations such as Reporters Without Borders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, andHuman Rights Watch. The Wikimedia Foundation also opposes the bill.

Here is a very interesting infographic that explains the over reaching of the SOPA bill and how it may affect you the consumer.

Hundreds of sites have been joining American Censorship Day, taking place today, November 16, 2011 including the EFF, Boing Boing, Reddit, Creative Commons, Hype Machine. These very bills would affect all parties on the internet, even our little fledgling blog. It creates a very large grey area for which we must operate in and even makes us more responsible for our users. This could potentially be a very scary dark time for the internet and all those who operate with in it.

If you would like to read more about these bills below is a list of sites that have some very enlightening articles about these unprecedented events.

Google Search Results for SOPA, Techdirt, Boing Boing, cnet, mozilla.

We are very interested in hearing your thoughts on this issue. Sound off in the comments section and let us know how you feel about this.

Sources: Wikipedia, AmericanCensorship.org, Google

The simplicity of this app is what great UI and UX design are all about. Fire up the app and your tweeting in milliseconds, want to fire another one, just tap the bird and you are reset, ready to repeat. That’s it, no frills or bloat. @’ing a friend or #’ing a trend not a problem it’s all in the keyboard. When @’ing your pals or enemies, as soon as, you tap the @ and start typing there is an auto fill so you don’t have to type their entire name.

That folks is the entire app, pure genius and pure simplicity. Jason really nailed the “Apple way” with this app.

I did get the pleasure of chatting with Jason (@MrCippy on Twitter) and I can say that he is very responsive to questions or suggestions and is generally a nice guy. He was kind enough to share a few details with me about the app. Development began with the first beta of iOS 5 in June and a test bed of 20 testers gave feedback during the development process. I asked if there were any plans to share this simplicity with the Android community and at this moment there are none. Future development of this app in regards to the feature set is entirely dependant on the feedback of the community.

As of this posting iQuick Tweet has already climbed up to number 69 in the top social networking segment of the iTunes App Store. Not too shabby considering the app was dropped a day after the release of iOS 5.

I would highly recommend this app to any Twitter user running iOS 5, it simply pure genius, as for the $.99 cost of the app, this user feels that it is totally worth the cost in your time savings alone.

Steve has personally influenced me, without him I wouldn’t have the career I have, or the interest in technology that I have. Not to mention all the gadgets that I own. I am one of the lucky, the only computers that I have owned in my life have been macs, from the first Apple IIe my father purchased through the Macbook Pro I use today. My life has been entirely Apple, not because I’m a fan boy, but because I fell in love with the technology from the beginning, I liked the Apple way, the Jobs way, and I still do. It’s not for everyone but for me it works. Steve has been an inspiration, a hero and a role model for me since I was a young man. I am deeply saddened today writing this obituary on a blog that we started in part because of Steve and one of his quotes, it goes as follows:

Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Steve you were everything you said and then some, you were crazy enough to think that you could change the world and change the world you did, for that you are a hero to many of us and an inspiration to others.

Below are a few other selected quotes that really speak to who Steve was and what he believed in.

That’s been one of my mantras — focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”

“Picasso had a saying: ‘Good artists copy, great artists steal.’ We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas…I think part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, artists, zoologists and historians who also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world.”

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me … Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.

Steve leaves behind a legacy and a way of life that will forever be linked to his integral involvement in the shaping of the technology industry. We will see the fruits of his hard work and efforts for years to come and one day we may see the vision he had for all of us come to fruition.

Rest in Peace Steve, you will continue to be a driving force in this crazy world and others will take up your torch to make that vision a reality.

]]> http://www.sponsoredbythelettert.com/2011/09/friday-funny-09-15-2011-be-careful-what-youre-doing-when-the-google-street-views-van-goes-by/feed/ 0 http://www.sponsoredbythelettert.com/2011/09/twitter-client-smackdown-round-2-twitter-vs-twitteriffic/ http://www.sponsoredbythelettert.com/2011/09/twitter-client-smackdown-round-2-twitter-vs-twitteriffic/#comments Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:59:07 +0000 http://www.sponsoredbythelettert.com/?p=1256 Recap: Apple has announced that the “official” Twitter client (the client formerly known as Tweetie) will be baked right into iOS 5, we thought it might be a good time to look at some of the alternative Twitter clients in case iOS integration, you know, sucks.

Last go-round, we looked at Tweetbot from Tapbots, and it kicked Twitter’s birdy little butt.

The Twitter app's icon pales in comparison

The official Twitter client running on my iPhone 3Gs is perfectly serviceable. I like it more that the web client for these simple reasons (which are also the yardstick by which I measure other clients):

• No stupid pop-out sidebar with sponsored trending topics, sponsored who to follow suggestions, etc.
• An “In Reply To” button, so you can easily read back through a multi-tweet conversation.
• Easy access to Reply, Retweet, Favorite, and other frequently used functions

When you want to do something with a tweet you’ve read, slide the tweet aside and you’ve got Reply, Retweet, Favorite, Profile, Attachment, and Forward icons to do the usual assortment of thing you do with a tweet and its attached links and whatnots. To see a tweet’s place in a conversation, touch the tweet. It opens in its own screen with the author’s info above, the same set of replay/retweet options, and in “In Reply to” button, to put it in context, if you desire. Easy peasy, very simple and intuitive.

Twitteriffic, by the IconFactory, comes in both free [with in-app ads] and an über pricey $4.99 version. For an oranges to oranges comparison, we’re looking at the free version here.

Right out of the bucket, I have to say, the best thing about Twitteriffic is the app icon. It’s a nice bit of design that leads you to expect a similar quality level in the app itself – quality that is sadly lacking. Visually Twitteriffic is just, well, pleh. It has no design. After working with the nicely designed Tweetbot for a week, just opening Twitteriffic was a letdown.

Your timeline is a vast plain of plain gray, broken up by dividing lines and avatars. Your own tweets show up in an unappealing green. Mentions of you show up in manila folder beige. To do anything with a tweet, you touch it, and a big, chunky menu slides up from the bottom of the screen with your view Replies, Translate, Email and Favorite options.

Twitter and Twitteriffic Nose to Nose. Erm. Beak.

Click the little bendy arrow in the lower right corner of a tweet to get the same sort of chunky menu for your Reply, Direct Message, Retweet, and Retweet with Comments. [I do like the Retweet with Comments option, to be fair. I just wish the overall package was better thought out and executed.]

Click the arrow button with your Twitter handle at the top of the screen to look at your whole timeline, @mentions of you, direct messages, tweets you’ve favorite, as well as search features, follower lists, and trending topics.

Everything about Twitteriffic feels clumsy, from the ginormous ad at the top of your timeline, to the menus, to having to pay $4.99 to lose the ads and get multiple account functions [which are both included in the free app from Twitter].

Really, Twitteriffic takes something that should be effortless and fun, and makes it a clumsy chore. Nice icon, though.

Winner: the free Twitter client from Twitter.

Next up, Twitter vs. Echofon