Schools have warned they will have to turn off the internet if a move by the nation’s copyright collection society forces them to pay a fee every time a teacher instructs students to browse a web site. Teachers said students in rural areas would bear the brunt of cuts if the Copyright Agency was successful in adding internet browsing charges to the $31 million in photocopying fees it rakes in from schools. The agency calculates the total due by randomly sampling schools each year for materials they copy, and extrapolating the results
Federal Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran has halted the export of Australian livestock to Egypt, amid allegations of animal mistreatment. Channel 9’s 60 Minutes program has aired footage of cattle in an Egyptian abattoir, having their tendons slashed before slaughter. The 60 Minutes reporter believes the cattle are Australian, but Livecorp says that is unlikely
A Trading Standards officer in a town in the UK contacted the Mozilla Foundation to assure it that she’d caught the pirates who were copying Firefox without permission. When it was explained that the software was free, the officer lost it — I can’t believe that your company would allow people to make money from something that you allow people to have free access to. Is this really the case? If Mozilla permit the sale of copied versions of its software, it makes it virtually impossible for us, from a practical point of view, to enforce UK anti-piracy legislation, as it is difficult for us to give general advice to businesses over what is/is not permitted
— via Boing Boing
Judge Punch, a strict Catholic and loony fundie, spat the dummy at a recent custody hearing. He screamed abuse Rachel Knight and ordered that she is to have absolutely no contact with her son, not even in writing, because of her membership of a satirical religious group — Church of the SubGenius — with very liberal views on sexuality — via Boing Boing
The head of the US copyright office has accused Congress of making a mistake by extending the length of copyright in America, calling the term too long
, and saying that Congress made a big mistake
. The remarkable admission came at the tail end of an event held at the UNC Law School on 2 November 2005, when Mary-Beth Peters, the Register of Copyrights, and a panel of copyright scholars, lawyers and bureaucrats convened to deliberate copyright in public
Skype has come under scrutiny from the NSA and FBI since its PC-to-PC calls are encrypted using AES encryption. This is the same encryption used by the US Government for many things. So, why is it national security
when the Government encrypts its communications and assumed criminal activity
when private citizens follow suit? — via digg
US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld is unhappy with the existing propaganda systems in place and insists that the US must create a more effective, 24-hour propaganda machine
or risk losing the battle for the minds of Muslims
Citing the Prevention of Terrorism
act, British Police have arrested and interrogated three of the stars of the award-winning film The Road to Guantanamo
, together with the three ex-Guantanomo detainees on whose story the film is based — via Feòrag
American hard rocker and political activist Henry Rollins says a fellow passenger on his flight out of Auckland reported him to Australian anti-terrorism authorities for reading a scholarly work on the rise of militant Islam. He said the official told him that though her department did good work, it also received a lot of letters submitted by lunatics
. Rollins replied on his web site: Please tell your government and everyone in your office to go fuck themselves. Tell them twice. If your boss is looking for something to do, you can tell him I suggest he go fuck himself. Baghdad’s safer than my hometown and your PM is a sissy
— via Feòrag
A plague of identity theft is afflicting South Korea’s online gamers, with almost a quarter of a million cases reported. Many of the stolen identities are being used in gaming farms in China as part of a $1 billion a year black market in cash and items from online games. In the farms, ranks of low-paid workers work 14-hour shifts performing repetitive tasks in online games in order to generate gold and other valuable items. These items can then be sold to players overseas
Google has formally rejected the US Justice Department’s subpoena of data, arguing the demand violated the privacy of users’ searches and its own trade secrets. Responding to a motion by US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Google also said in a filing in US District Court for the Northern District of California the government demand to disclose web search data was impractical
Houston’s police chief is suggesting putting surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets and even private homes. Scott Henson with the American Civil Liberties Union calls Hurtt’s proposal to require surveillance cameras as part of some building permits — radical and extreme
Paul Dell builds web sites. So, he has had a URL stating as much: dellwebsites.com. Somehow, Dell, the giant computer vendor thinks that people would be confused by that is and is suing for 100,000 Euros in damages — via digg
A blind UC Berkeley student is suing Target, saying the retailer is violating the civil rights of those who cannot see because its web site is inaccessible to them — via digg
The French courts have ruled that using peer-to-peer networks (P2P), providing you are doing so for personal rather than commercial reasons, is legal. The decision comes just as the French Parliament meets to discuss whether internet users should pay a voluntary tax or surcharge of €5 a month to use P2P networks. The decision was actually made back in December but has only just been made public
The US Justice Department asked a judge to approve Patriot Act e-mail monitoring without any evidence of criminal behaviour and now e-mail surveillance has been approved
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts said Friday the Bush administration’s domestic spying is within the retarded monkey boy‘s inherent power under the Constitution
Senators have voted in favour of a bill removing control over the abortion drug RU486 from the federal health minister, a noted loonie fundie. Senators were given a rare conscience vote on the bill, with 45 voting in favour of the change and 28 voting against. The bill now heads to the House of Representatives and if passed will end the Health Minister’s power to ban RU486 and allow the Therapeutic Goods Administration to make a decision on the drug. It is the first conscience vote since 2002
The British Library is concerned about DRM’s effect on its ability to make materials available to the public. Libraries have a legal right to distribute materials under the Fair Use provisions of the copyright law, but DRM systems may block this. Furthermore, they point out that DRM systems don’t automatically switch themselves off when a work goes out of copyright. DRM systems may allow copyright holders to retain control over their material longer than they are legally entitled to. Worse yet, if the software no longer exists to unlock a DRM-protected file, its contents may be lost forever — exactly the thing libraries are intended to prevent
Hundreds of thousand of people could die in a nuclear attack, but hundreds of thousands of others could be saved. That’s because the Pentagon — after decades of searching — believes it has found a drug to treat radiation exposure. Why isn’t that drug available? Because bureaucratic red tape is blocking the availability of Neumune, a drug developed by San Diego biotech firm Hollis Eden to treat Acute Radiation Syndrome — via Boing Boing
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