Techdirt (Free subscription) | 6 hours ago
Remember Alan Ralsky? The "spam king" came to be well known online in 2002 after agreeing to a profile in the Detroit Free Press, where he bragged about all the spamming he did and the huge house it had bought him. The folks on Slashdot decided to do something about Ralsky, and started signing him up for all sorts of snail mail marketing offers, so his real life mailbox was overflowing with...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | yesterday
Well, you just knew this was going to happen eventually. Suddenly publishers are starting to freak out over "ebook piracy," claiming (totally inaccurately) that they've lost $600 million to it. Of course, as some are noting the real problem isn't "piracy" but the industry's response to it: The best way to fight piracy? Got e-book shoppers accustomed to buying from legitimate sources...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | 4 hours ago
BullJustin points us to a short NPR piece about four massive failures by the recording industry . If we skip over number 3 (Kevin Federline), the other three are pretty relevant to what we talk about here on a regular basis: the Sony BMG rootkit fiasco that opened up security holes on computers without letting anyone know, the RIAA's lawsuit strategy of suing fans and the record labels' ongoing efforts...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | 5 hours ago
Plenty of fiction authors base their characters on real life people. But, perhaps they need to be more careful. A jury has ruled in favor of someone who claimed libel against an author for supposedly writing a character "inspired by" a former friend. That former friend was not happy about the portrayal, in which she was a "sexually promiscuous alcoholic." This seems like a really...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | yesterday
For quite some time we've wondered why there's no independent invention defense to patent infringement. It's hard to come up with any justifiable reason for not only barring those who come up with an idea on their own from making use of such an invention, but also for potentially making them liable for millions of dollars in damages for just making use of something they came up with on their own. For...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | yesterday
I'd been meaning to write this up for about a week, but finally got it around to it, just in time to add some additional info. First up, though, comes the news that Microsoft's legal department demanded a blogger remove a blog post about flaws in Bing's Cashback offer (Microsoft's attempt to bribe users to search via Bing instead of Google). One of the methods for the cashback offer involved pixel...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | yesterday
Pickle Monger alerts us to a CNN story suggesting that a Facebook group "may have lead to the beating of a 12-year-old" boy . Really? Facebook could do that rather than a group of kids who are bullies? The "group" in question was apparently a group (potentially inspired by a South Park episode) for a national "kick a ginger" (redhead) day. There was actually some controversy...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | yesterday
Once again, we're left wondering how Hulu can survive , given that its ownership has too much interest in restricting what its customers want to do. Following braindead efforts to block specialized browsers , even though they access Hulu content just like regular browsers, combined with blocking anonymous proxies , even those used for perfectly legitimate reasons , Hulu is apparently now cracking down...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | yesterday
We've pointed this out over and over and over and over and over again, but whenever a government puts together a big database of info on people -- the data gets abused. The latest example, found via Michael Scott is the news that a police chief in Iowa has been suspended after he supposedly revealed data that he never should have had in the first place , supposedly handing out information on someone's...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | yesterday
It's been almost four years since we wondered what would happen when the social networking generation started running for office , since there would almost certainly be a digital record of activities that historically would have been buried and/or lost to history for most candidates. It seems that we're already starting to see what happens with some younger candidates. Earlier this year, we mentioned...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | yesterday
IMAX theaters have become an increasingly important part of the movie business's continuing success over the past few years, as theaters have realized that (1) you can't "pirate" the IMAX experience and (2) people are often willing to pay more for it. But, it appears that at least one theater began to wonder why it had to pay IMAX so much for such an offering, and decided to set out on its...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | yesterday
Looks like the courts got one right concerning a trademark claim involving famed movie dog Rin Tin Tin. It seems that some movie makers wanted to make a movie about Rin Tin Tin, which seemed reasonable enough. However, Rin Tin Tin Inc., a company that continues to breed "Rin Tin Tin dogs" for movies objected to the use of the name, saying that since they held the trademark on Rin Tin Tin,...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | yesterday
Despite some sweet talk from Hollywood about how important ACTA and its secret negotiations are to America (and, once again, no, the secrecy is not at all "normal," as some industry lawyers would have you believe), it looks like some Senators are finally beginning to question how ACTA is being handled. Senators Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown have sent a letter to US Trade Rep Ron Kirk asking...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | yesterday
Last week, we noted that an attempt to let hackers crack e-voting machines in Brazil failed, but Slashdot points out that someone did use some Van Eck phreaking to figure out who people voted for . While that's not quite the same as hacking the results of an election, it could lead to questions about privacy and how anonymous voting really is. Of course, to some extent, this has always been a risk...
Techdirt (Free subscription) | yesterday
Reader Kasey Krehbiel alerts us to some news coverage of the FCC's recently released list of seven "critical gaps" in reaching universal broadband (pdf) and is rightfully surprised to note that a lack of competition in the marketplace is not on the list . Such an absence makes you wonder if the FCC is really paying attention. Most of the other "gaps" would quickly disappear if there...
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