Free Republic

In the end, this new copyright law is going to suffer the same fate that many other well intentioned laws have suffered in China; most people will probably never even hear about it. I was just in an Internet cafe yesterday. To my right someone was giggling as they watched Meet the Fockers and to my left someone else was spellbound by an old episode of Prison Break. What did I think? I guess I was happy that they could find some enjoyment in the midst of the harsh reality that probably confronts them every day in this developing country.

Piracy is a bad thing. But sometimes companies can turn it to their advantage “MERCHANT and pirate were for a long period one and the same person,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche. “Even today mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement of piratical morality.” Companies, of course, would strongly disagree with this suggestion. Piracy is generally bad for business. It can undermine sales of legitimate products, deprive a company of its valuable intellectual property and tarnish its brand. Commercial piracy may not be as horrific as the seaborne version off the Horn of Africa (see article). But stealing other people’s R&D,...

After a frustrating few months of searching for a solution to the audio problems he encountered while ripping on-screen video with his Dell laptop, a ripten editor discovered that others were experiencing the same issue—and that the problem was not confined to Dell laptops. Apparently, the lack of a sound card Stereo Mix recording option is to blame—and numerous forum threads have suggested that the RIAA has put pressure on laptop manufacturers like Dell, Gateway and Pac Bell to remove it.After posting this information on ripten, a Dell representative chimed in to say that the lack of a sound card...

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

The navy of Liechtenstein probably could manage this task. Anyhow, the article: "The Swedish navy says it’s prepared to send ships to the Horn of Africa to fight piracy there. This comes after the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution allowing UN member countries to enter Somalia’s territorial waters to help stop the illegal capture of shipping in the area. In its response to a government query on the issue, the Swedish military says it can send two corvettes and a support ship to the region in September or October for a three month tour. Last year 25 ships...

YouTube law fight 'threatens net' YouTube is owned by search giant Google A one billion dollar lawsuit against YouTube threatens internet freedom, according to its owner Google. Google's claim follows Viacom's move to sue the video sharing service for its inability to keep copyrighted material off its site. Viacom says it has identified 150,000 unauthorised clips on YouTube. In court documents Google's lawyers say the action "threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information" over the web. The search giant's legal team also maintained that YouTube had been faithful to the requirements of the 1998 Digital...

Mind Your Business: You Will Lose All The Rights to Your Own Art April 10, 2008 By Mark Simon Printable Version Mark Simon. As you know, I usually handle the subjects in my articles with a sense of humor. That is not the case this month. I find nothing funny about the new Orphan Works legislation that is before Congress. In fact, it PISSES ME OFF! As an artist, you have to read this article or you could lose everything you've ever created! An Orphaned Work is any creative work of art where the artist or copyright owner has released...

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) -- Somali pirates freed a Spanish fishing boat and its 26-member crew after a ransom of $1.2 million was paid, a Somali official said. The Playa de Bakio was the latest vessel to be targeted by pirates off the coast of Somalia. Suspected pirates armed with rocket-propelled grenades had seized control of the tuna-fishing boat from Spain's Basque region last Sunday about 200 nautical miles off the coast of Somalia, a region where piracy has escalated recently. The pirates released the ship Saturday, authorities said. The crew was freed after Spanish authorities paid the ransom, Abdi Khalif...

THE crew of a Spanish fishing boat seized by pirates off Somalia have been freed... The Playa de Bakio trawler has been taken to "safer waters", escorted by a Spanish warship, and the government is making plans to repatriate the 13 Spaniards and 13 Africans, she said. Speaking at a press conference, she did not indicate the circumstances in which the crew were released, or whether a ransom had been paid. Spanish news media said earlier a ransom of 1 million euros...had been demanded, and negotiations were taking place at a London hotel. The 76-metre trawler and its crew were...

MOSCOW: Russia has threatened to sue China for copying its Sukhoi Su-27SK fighters and its pirate production for export to Pakistan and other Third World countries at much cheaper prices, a leading Russian daily reported on Tuesday. "Russia has officially notified China that the production of J11 (fighters), a copy of Russian Su-27SK, violates inter-governmental agreements. Moscow has vowed to launch legal procedures for the protection of its intellectual property," Nezavisimaya Gazeta said. Under the 1996 agreement, China had the right to assemble 200 Su-27SK fighters under the local brand J11. However, after receiving 95 kits and 180 AL31F engines,...

Somali forces rescued a hijacked ship carrying food to this desperately poor African nation Tuesday, as a top security official accused U.S. troops stationed off the lawless coast of failing to combat growing piracy. Seven pirates were arrested and three were wounded in the raid on the Dubai-flagged al-Khaleej, said Abdullahi Said Samatar... "It is sad that the American forces off the coast of Somalia are here for fun and are not combatting the pirates," ... A spokesman for the transitional government, Abdi Hagi Gobdon, welcomed French and U.S. efforts to combat piracy and guard the country's coastline. The transitional...

Oil prices have spiked to a record of $117.40 a barrel after a Japanese oil tanker was attacked in the Middle East, off the east coast of Yemen.

ON April 11, French commandos went in with guns blazing and captured a gang of pirates who days earlier had hijacked a luxury cruise ship, the Ponant, and held the crew for ransom. This was the French solution to a crime wave that has threatened international shipping off Somalia; those of us who have been on the business end of a pirate’s gun can only applaud their action. The British government on the other hand, to the incredulity of many in the maritime industry, has taken a curiously pathetic approach to piracy. While the French were flying six of the...

via translation - The boat tuna freezer basque Bakio Beach this Sunday has been assaulted by pirates while fishing seems to be "off the coast of Somalia, has informed the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of the Basque Government, which has ensured that the pirates have taken control of the boat. Apparently, according to this source, the pirates had attacked the ship with rocket-propelled grenades Spanish, although there have been no injuries among the crew of fishing. A total of 26 people make up the crew of Bakio Beach: 13 of African descent and 13 Spanish origin -5 them...

Six Somali men involved in capturing a French yacht and holding its 30 crew hostage have said they were part of a maritime militia group with a written code of conduct... The men were captured in the Somali desert by French troops on Friday after holding the yacht and its crew off Somalia for a week and fleeing with part of the ransom, which was recovered. They were flown to France this week to face trial. The yacht's captain told investigators the ransom paid was $2 million (1 million pounds). But the half-dozen men are just part of a larger...

via translation - France calls for "international force" against maritime piracy TOKYO - France calls for the creation of an "international force" under a UN mandate to combat acts of piracy at sea, such as the diversion of Ponant by Somalis, said Saturday french Prime Minister Francois Fillon you! a visit to Japan. "We are going to ask that under UN mandate an international force, to which France is naturally ready to participate, to work towards the safety and security of maritime transport in the region, as in the Malacca Strait," said M . Fillon in a speech before the...

PARIS (Reuters) - French commandos seized six pirates in Somalia on Friday during a daring helicopter raid launched shortly after the bandits had released the 30-strong crew of a luxury yacht hijacked last week. French officials said the owners of the yacht paid a ransom to obtain the freedom of the crew and as soon as it was clear that they were all safe, the commandos went into action aboard helicopters to track down the pirates. A district commissioner in Somalia told Reuters that five local people had died in the attack, but the French military denied killing anyone in...

The mayor of a small coastal village in northern Somalia dismissed media reports that the 288 feet French luxury yacht Le Ponant hijacked by pirates on Friday Apr. 4 in the Gulf of Aden has anchored near the village of Eyl, 500ikm north of the Somali capital Mogadishu. Abdullahi Said O'Yusuf, the mayor of Eyl, told Africa’s Radio Garowe last night that the hijacked French yacht had passed Eyl and headed south towards coastal waters off the region of Mudug, in central Somalia. Initial reports were that the French yacht and its 32-member crew had docked near the coastal...

The Le Ponant pleasure yacht was seized Friday in international waters opposite Somalia without passengers on route from the Seychelles to Aden Port and the Mediterranean after its first pleasure trip of the summer season in the Indian Ocean. The 32-man crew was taken hostage. Our shipping correspondent reports that the French Le Commandant Rouen warship was diverted from NATO’s Afghanistan operation to join the Yemeni coast guard in the hunt for and rescue of the captured craft. The Le Ponant caters to 64 high-profile luxury tourists, one of three owned by Le Compagnie Des Iles du Ponant, a...

 A Boston judge has just followed up on the previous NY judge ruling that just making files available isn't enough to constitute copyright infringement. According to the EFF, it's the most "extensive analysis yet of the recording industry's 'making available' argument", but doesn't actually make things better for people who are being sued by the RIAA. The same judge ruled that even though the "offer to distribute" won't be enough to decide a case, it is enough to permit a lawsuit to move forward.   On the other hand, another NY judge has ruled in the opposite manner, that making an "offer...

Pirates seized control of a French cruise ship Friday off the coast of Somalia, France's Foreign Ministry said. A ministry official said details about the attack were scarce, and it was not clear how many crew members were on board the ship or if there were any passengers. The ship is in the high seas in the Gulf of Aden, off the coast of Somalia in the Indian Ocean. The official declined to identify the vessel or its owner. The ministry has set up a crisis center to deal with the situation, said the official, who asked not to be...

Just spent my weekend dealing with new computers for the kids that have Vista installed. I found this short video that I think that all of you who have experienced Vista will appreciate. http://blip.tv/file/340692/

Last year, a German tourist traveling through China spotted a set of nested salt and pepper shakers: The slender cylinder of pepper rested perfectly in the center of the doughnut-shaped salt holder. It was a sleek design. It was also, he recognized, an almost exact copy of the successful Two-in-One salt-and-pepper set made by Geislingen (Germany)-based WMF, and he sent it to the company. As a result, the maker of the imitation—Shantou Lian Plastic Products of Guangdong, China—is one of 13 winners of the Plagiarius Award, a dubious honor bestowed on makers and distributors of the "best" (which is to...

Excerpt... After a decade fighting to stop illegal file-sharing, the music industry will give fans today what they have always wanted: an unlimited supply of free and legal songs. With CD sales in free fall and legal downloads yet to fill the gap, the music industry has reluctantly embraced the file-sharing technology that threatened to destroy it. Qtrax, a digital service announced today, promises a catalogue of more than 25 million songs that users can download to keep, free and with no limit on the number of tracks....

While Disney artists bring their imaginations to life through animation, Disney executives are living a lifestyle that animators can’t even begin to imagine. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Disney chief executive Bob Iger received a 7% pay increase in 2007 for a total financial compensation of $27.7 million. According to the company’s proxy statement, the breakdown is as follows: $2 million salary, which remained the same as 2006; a $13.7 million bonus, which was a decrease from his $15 million bonus in ‘06; stock awards totaling $7.9 million, and $740,000 for personal air travel, security and a car...

The piracy rate for Windows Vista is less than half that of Windows XP, according to Microsoft. The vendor made the claim as it revealed plans to further curtail piracy when it launches the first service pack for Vista. Redmond attributes tougher anti-piracy measures in Vista, which it intends to further improve, for its apparent progress against counterfeiting. Piracy rates are hard to measure precisely, as Microsoft notes. Microsoft figures on piracy reduction are mainly based on internal metrics, like WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) validation failures. Since WGA has been known to falsely flag up legitimate installs as invalid, this...

SEATTLE (AP) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) is pulling back from a system that disables programs on users' computers if it suspects the software is pirated, opting instead for a gentler approach based on nagging alerts. Microsoft said late Monday it will roll out the new version of Windows Genuine Advantage with the first "service pack" for Windows Vista, due in the first quarter of 2008. When computer users activate a copy of Windows Vista or try to download certain software from Microsoft's Web site, the Windows Genuine Advantage system scans their PCs for signs of pirated software. Today, if the...

Pirates from two small skiffs seized the crew of a Japanese vessel off anarchic Somalia's coast. American forces fired on the skiffs and destroyed them. Now the navies of the U.S. and 19 other countries are after bigger prey. The U.S.-led coalition working to secure sea lanes beset by pirates believe skiffs like the ones used in the attack on the Japanese ship must have come from elusive "mother ships." "The small boats which are used for piracy could not travel" from shore as far into the ocean as ships have been attacked, said Commodore Khan Hasham of Pakistan, one...

How many copyright violations does an average user commit in a single day? John Tehranian, a law professor at the University of Utah, calculates in a new paper that he rings up $12.45 million in liability (PDF) over the course of an average day. The gap between what the law allows and what social norms permit is so great now that "we are, technically speaking, a nation of infringers." Tehranian's paper points out just how pervasive copyright has become in our lives. Simply checking one's e-mail and including the full text in response could be a violation of copyright. So...

Japanese ship hijacked in Africa Pirates have hijacked a Japanese ship off the East African coast - the latest in a series of similar incidents near the war-torn country of Somalia. The vessel, thought to be a tanker with a crew of Burmese, Philippine and South Korean sailors, was seized in the Gulf of Aden early on Sunday. Officials say they are trying to find out what the pirates' demands are. The area is notorious for piracy - of 16 reported hijackings worldwide this year, 11 were off the Somali coast. Lawless waters The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) said they...

Analysis: China illegally uses Canadian engine for combat helicopter HONG KONG, Oct. 5 ANDREI CHANG Column: Military Might China has officially released the photo of a mysterious Z-10 combat helicopter that was indigenously developed over a 15-year period. An official brochure on the helicopter shows that the Z-10 uses a PT6C-67C engine imported from Pratt &Whitney Canada. Although some Western military observers had suspected that China might be attempting to use the PT6C-67C for its Z-10, this official announcement still comes as a surprise. As a military embargo against Beijing has been in place since the 1989 Tiananmen incident, this...

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) - The case against Jammie Thomas is expected to go to jurors today. Six major record companies accuse Thomas, 30, of sharing 1,702 songs online in violation of the companies' copyrights. The record companies claim they found the songs on a Kazaa file-sharing account they later linked to her. After two days of testimony from 11 witnesses, the defense rested without calling anyone to the stand, and closing arguments in the civil trial are scheduled for this morning. U.S. District Judge Michael Davis said he would decide then whether the record companies would have to prove the...

A DANISH cargo ship and its crew that were hijacked by Somali pirates in June have been released after 83 days in captivity after a ransom was paid, the Danish Foreign Ministry said overnight. The MV Danica White was carrying building materials from Dubai to Kenya when it was seized off Somalia in the world's most dangerous waterway. "We have talked to the crew and they are feeling OK at this point," the Foreign Ministry's head of citizen services Lars Thuesen said. "It's been a terrible experience for the hostages, being held for more than 80 days not knowing what...

So apparently Microsoft's just dropped the price of Windows Vista to just $66 in China. This compared to the $199 we American saps pay for Vista Home Basic. One key reason for the lower cost: Rampant software piracy. Who's going to pay $200 for an OS, when they can grab a copy on the street for $1? Now I don't know about you guys, but I'm thinking we need to seriously ramp up our software piracy problem in this country. And I'm not just talking about burning warez discs downloaded over your new FiOS connection. We need to take this...

Jhannet Sejas and her boyfriend were celebrating her 19th birthday by taking in a matinee showing of the hit movie "Transformers" at the theater at Ballston Common mall. Sejas was enjoying the movie so much that she decided to film a short clip of the sci-fi adventure's climax to get her little brother hyped to go see it. Minutes later, two Arlington County police officers were pointing their flashlights at the young couple in the darkened theater and ordering them out. They confiscated the digital camera as evidence and charged Sejas, a Marymount University sophomore and Annandale resident, with a...

(SHANGHAI)--China could not wait for the official release date of the seventh book in the worldwide Harry Potter publishing franchise, a little more than a week ago. It came out here with an identical title a full 10 days before the official worldwide English language release - in a wholly unauthorized version. Chinese writers and their fans are not having it with the idea that the seventh installment is the last word in the best-selling series, either. No one can say with any certainty what the full tally is, but there are easily a dozen fake Harry Potters on the...

Just in time for the theatrical release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, a judge has held that an Internet-based service may not offer its users an invisibility cloak. The court ordered TorrentSpy to preserve server log data, and make it available to the Motion Picture Association of America as part of the ongoing litigation between them. TorrentSpy objected to the initial request for the preservation and production of the server logs on a number of grounds. Its lawyers claimed that preserving the data would be an undue burden requiring great technical resources and significant funds....

A moviegoer caught secretly recording the sci-fi blockbuster "Transformers" has been charged with unauthorized use of a video camera in a theater in the first arrest under a new New York City law that stiffened penalties for pirating films. A criminal complaint accuses Kalidou Diallo of slipping a video recorder, video player and remote control into a sneak preview of the film at a Bronx theater Monday night. "This is the first time someone has been arrested and charged with the new illegal camcording law," City Hall spokesman Jason Post said Thursday. In May, Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed legislation that...

Recently a unique trial has been concluded in the USA: two Russian film companies – Mosfilm and Lenfilm won a case against Joseph Berov, an owner of the biggest bookshop in New York. Besides books he was distributing illegal CDs and videos with Soviet popular films recorded. He was found guilty and now has to pay 2.7 million US dollars as a pecuniary compensation. However, the Russian film companies provided the jury court with their own figures, they claim Berov has sold about a million bootlegged cassettes with Soviet films for five years, thus, their losses as of copyright holders...

TEHRAN, Iran, (AP) -Iran officially confirmed Sunday that it is holding an Iranian-American peace activist, the fourth dual citizen the country has detained in recent months. Mohammad Ali Hosseini, the spokesman for Iran's foreign ministry, confirmed at his weekly news briefing that Iranian-American Ali Shakeri had been detained. On Friday, the semi-official ISNA news agency had first reported that Shakeri of Lake Forest, Calif., was being held and investigated by the security department of the Tehran prosecutor's office. At the briefing, Hosseini also reiterated that Iran has no information about a former FBI agent, Robert Levinson, who the United States...

With Captain Jack back on the silver screen, real-life 21st-century pirates operating off Somalia and elsewhere, and National Review preparing to set sail to Alaska, Americans aren’t crazy to wonder: Are cruise ships in any real danger of being attacked by pirates? ... Of course, our own Navy and Marine Corps have a colorful history of fighting and defeating pirates, particularly the Barbary Corsairs in the early 19th century. Regular shipboard and special warfare sailors also have engaged pirates in little-publicized actions around the world in the 21st century. On Saturday, USS Carter Hall, an amphibious-landing ship operating off Somalia,...

The Norfolk-based amphibious ship Carter Hall fired on pirates off the coast of Somalia as they overtook a Danish cargo ship, a Navy official said Wednesday. The Carter Hall fired several warning shots over the Danish vessel Danica White on Saturday and then destroyed three skiffs used by the pirates, said the Navy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the matter. The hijackers took the ship from international seas and slipped into Somali territorial waters, where the United States does not have jurisdiction, The Associated Press reported. The Carter Hall is...

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) -- A Danish cargo ship with five crew was hijacked off Somalia's coast, the owner said Saturday, citing a report by the French navy. The Danica White was on its way to the Kenyan port of Mombasa from Dubai when it was seized by pirates Saturday or late Friday, Jorgen Folmer, a spokesman for Danish shipping company H. Folmer & Co. said. He said a French naval vessel in the area had confirmed the ship was hijacked but was unable to intervene because it could not enter Somali waters. "They cannot do anything right now,"

China pirates less softwareInTech News, 17 May 2007 The software piracy rate in China is down for the third consecutive year. That’s the good news. The bad news is about 82% of the software the Chinese use is illegal. The Wall Street Journal reported piracy has been declining for three years, according to new estimates from an industry group, creating hundreds of millions of dollars in new business in the world's second largest personal-computer market by unit sales. Software piracy is still high by international standards: The study, conducted by research firm International Data Corp. for the Business Software Alliance,...

Gonzales proposes new crime: "Attempted" copyright infringement Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is pressing the U.S. Congress to enact a sweeping intellectual property bill that would increase criminal penalties for copyright infringement, including "attempts" to commit piracy. "To meet the global challenges of IP crime, our criminal laws must be kept updated," Gonzales said during a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington on Monday. The Bush administration is throwing its support behind a proposal called the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007, which is likely to receive the enthusiastic support of the movie and music industries and would...

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and law enforcement from 10 other countries conducted over 90 searches worldwide as part of "Operation Site Down," designed to disrupt and dismantle many of the leading criminal organizations that illegally distribute and trade in copyrighted software, movies, music, and games on the Internet. Operation Site Down is the culmination of three separate undercover investigations conducted by the FBI. In the past 24 hours, more than 70 searches were executed in the United States, and more than 20 overseas. Four individuals were arrested in the United States, and searches and/or arrests occurred in the following...

BEIJING (Reuters) - China has made great strides in protecting patents and copyrights and a U.S. complaints over commercial piracy would "seriously harm" cooperation, Vice Premier Wu Yi said on Tuesday.Earlier this month, the United States launched two cases at the WTO claiming that Beijing was not doing enough to punish illegal copiers of films and music and that Chinese restrictions on entertainment imports violated trade rules.

China has expressed "great regret and strong dissatisfaction" at a US decision to bring a WTO case against it over complaints of widespread copyright piracy. The decision to take China before the World Trade Organisation comes amid US charges that levels of copyright piracy in the country remain "unacceptably high". Susan Schwab, the US Trade Representative, said the first stages of the case would begin on Tuesday.

Article can ot be posted as per publisher’s copyright complaint.Click here to read article

Oil prices fell. The stock market rose. Video images of smiling British soldiers with Iranian President Ahmadinejad were everywhere. So were pictures of the 15 freed hostages embracing family members back home. The relief over the return of the Brits was so tremendous; you could almost hear birds singing. Maybe it's because military action won't be needed or maybe it's just because the ordeal won't drag on and on, but the world is breathing easier now. A lot of folks are happy. The problem, as I see it, is that Ahmadinejad seems to be the happiest. And why shouldn't he...