ian andrew bell

http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/09/12/riaa/ index.php?redirect63353388000

Consumers strike back, sue RIAA By Liane Cassavoy, PC World.com September 12, 2003 9:35 am ET

After taking its antipiracy campaign to court, the music industry is finding itself on the receiving end of a lawsuit that challenges its purported amnesty program as a fraudulent business practice.

The Recording Industry Association of America Inc. announced its Clean Slate program Monday, when it filed suit against 261 people for copyright infringement as a result of excessive use of peer-to-peer services. The Clean Slate program purports to offer amnesty to repentant file-swappers who promise to stop using peer-to-peer services to illegally download copyrighted works and to destroy any copies of downloaded audio files.

To qualify for the amnesty program, applicants must fill out a sworn affidavit that requires a full name, address, telephone number and e-mail address, have it notarized, and send it to the RIAA. In turn, the RIAA agrees not to “support or assist in any copyright infringement suits based on past conduct,” according to the organization.

But the offer is neither clean nor a sweep, says Ira Rothken, the Marin County attorney who filed the consumer Read More

Apple sued by The Beatles over iPod, ITMS The legendary agreement goes to the roots of Apple’s incarnation. The Beatles allowed Apple to use the Trademarked name of their record label as long as they didn’t have anything to do with Music. Over the years The Beatles have sued, as Apple has challenged those terms, repeatedly. Apple loses every time. Anyone who understood computing realized that Apple Computer has been on a collision course with this agreement since 1984.

Apple originally licensed the name from Apple Records, agreeing not to include sound on their computers and to stay away from the music industry. Look in the system folder on your Mac, you’ll see (and hear) a sound effect called “Sosumi”. This has been included on every Apple computer since sound was first introduced. Wanna know where that name comes from? So, sue me.

-Ian.

—– http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/09/11/applemusic/ index.php?redirect63293387000

By Jim Dalrymple jdalrymple [at] maccentral [dot] com September 11, 2003 6:00 pm ET

Apple Computer Inc. is being sued by Apple Corps. The parent company for music legends, The Beatles, has begun Read More

The RIAA, not content to sue 12-year-old girls and strike fear into the hearts of audiophiles worldwide, is now attempting to scare the bejeezus out of Senators. And nothing scares Senators (especially Republicans) like the spectre of… you guessed it, folks… KIDDIE PORN!!

The RIAA attacked the Peer-To-Peer networks as supposed havens for Kiddie Porn, including a slickly-produced video showing how easy it is to find naked Britney Spears and Pokemon characters on Kazaa.

Clearly they’re increasingly nervous about the state of the playing field with regard to their own case against music pirates, and are attempting to delevel the playing field by making a full-court press against all of the illicit sins of Peer-To-Peer technology.

Kiddie Porn is the greatest thing ever invented for politicians — it’s an issue that no rational person can side against, and therefore allows blowhard politicians to stand atop the mount and pound desks and tables and get all red in the face without fear of retribution. Let’s see one of those lazy pricks take such a strong stand against Tobacco, Poor Education, or Child Poverty.

The reality is that there are a lot more starving, nicotine-addicted kids with no education out there than there are victims of grainy secret photo sessions.

-Ian.

PS - The RIAA is REALLY pissing me off.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cidR8&ncidR8&e=2&u=/ap/ 20030910/ap_on_hi_te/digital_tv FCC Moves to Make TVs, Cable Compatible 1 hour, 25 minutes ago By DAVID HO, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Regulators adopted rules Wednesday to make cable television and new television sets more compatible, with the goal of promoting the rollout of digital and high-definition televisions.

The Federal Communications Commission ( news -web sites ) voted 5-0 to approve the new technical and labeling standards, which seek to allow digital cable signals to flow seamlessly into TV sets without the need for a set-top box. Companies want high-definition sets with this “plug-and-play” technology available next year.

To watch cable on a plug-and-play TV, consumers would insert into the set a security card provided by their cable service.

“This is a great result for consumers,” FCC ( news -web sites ) Chairman Michael Powell said at the commission’s monthly meeting. “Consumers who want digital television sets will have an easier time connecting them to their cable service and having them work with high-definition and other digital programming.”

The cable and electronics industries agreed in December to make their equipment work together. The plan needed federal approval.

Read More

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0909/p09s01-coop.html

Control of creativity? Fashion’s secret Film and music industries might heed the wisdom

By David Bollier and Laurie Racine

AMHERST, MASS., AND DURHAM, N.C. - Why do fashion, film, and music - the sultans of cool in our culture, the shapers of our consciousness - take such radically different approaches to the control ofcreativity?

The music and film industries continue to battle over the need to expand copyright protection, and to limit sharing and reuse of prior work. The fashion industry, driven by similar market interests, employs a modus operandi that accepts rather than rejects derivation and appropriation as creative tools.

The contrast is particularly fascinating, given the dependence of each of these industries on our shared cultural heritage, which we call the “commons.” The music and film industries’ resources are being sapped in ongoing battles about the scope of legal protection that their CDs and DVDs should enjoy and whether prior works may be freely reused. These industries are unusually possessive: Their attorneys have gone after consumers who played DVDs on non-Windows software (”piracy”), Girl Scouts who sang copyrighted songs around the campfire (”no performance license”), and kids Read More

The future of Digital Music is not pay-per-use… the future is choice and convenience. Great news that Apple is making headway with iTunes but the reality is they just do not have the catalog that’s being made available by enthusiasts on free file sharing networks. The so-called amnesty program doesn’t indemnify downloaders against future suits and it’s fairly obvious that it’s nothing but an ill-conceived PR stunt.

Give people choice and freedom and they’ll pay. Try to sue your own frickin’ customers into oblivion and we’ll see you in bankruptcy.

-Ian.

—— http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/washpost/20030909/ tc_washpost/a47297_2003sep9&e=1 RIAA vs. the People Tue Sep 9,11:06 AM ET

By Cynthia L. Webb, washingtonpost.com Staff Writer

The Recording Industry Association of America ( news -web sites )made good on its promise to prosecute Americans who engage in the illegal downloading and trading of pirated music, filing 261 copyright violation suits yesterday.

“Legal actions have been taken on a sporadic basis against operators of pirate servers or sites, but ordinary computer users have never before been at serious risk of liability for widespread behavior. The RIAA said that’s the point it’s Read More

Thank you, Recording Industry Association of America, for protecting us from the vast hordes of ruthless villains singularly bent on the destruction of our economic system. And the first perpetrator on the hit parade? A 12-Year-Old girl who lives in the Projects.

Thank god she’s off the streets. I feel safer now.

-Ian.

——- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cidR8&ncidR8&e=1&u=/ap/ 20030909/ap_on_en_mu/downloading_music

Girl, 12, Settles Piracy Suit for $2,000

36 minutes ago By TED BRIDIS, AP Technology Writer

WASHINGTON - A 12-year-old girl in New York who was among the first to be sued by the record industry for sharing music over the Internet is off the hook after her mother agreed Tuesday to pay $2,000 to settle the lawsuit, apologizing and admitting that her daughter’s actions violated U.S. copyright laws.

The hurried settlement involving Brianna LaHara, an honors student, was the first announced one day after the Recording Industry Association of America ( news -web sites ) filed 261 such lawsuits across the country. Lawyers for the RIAA said Brianna’s mother, Sylvia Torres, contacted them early Tuesday to negotiate.

“We understand now that file-sharing the music Read More

> From: Declan McCullagh
> Date: Thu Aug 21, 2003 9:33:17 PM US/Pacific
> To: politech [at] politechbot [dot] com
> Subject: FC: Vonage forbids dirty talk with your wife, from IP list
> Reply-To: declan [at] well [dot] com
>
>
>
>> Date: Thu, 21 Aug 2003 11:16:50 -0700
>> From: Brad Templeton
>> Subject: Vonage forbids dirty talk with your wife
>> To: Dave Farber
>> Cc: jeff [at] pulver [dot] com
>> Organization: http://www.templetons.com/brad
>>
>>
>> I’ve been a reasonably satisified Vonage Voice-over-IP customer,
>> though
>> I think the focus too much on being just like a regular telco for
>> my tastes.
>>
>> However, in looking at changing my service, I actually went and read
>> their most recent terms of service. Here’s what I found…
>>
>>
>> 1.3.1 Prohibited Uses:
>> You agree to use the Service and Device only for lawful purposes.
>> This means that you agree not to use them for transmitting or
>> Read More

http://www.bryanboyer.com/indyjunior/

What is it?

IndyJunior is a fully customizable map which you can use to easily display your geographic location. Joshua Davis did it first, but we do it with an XML data file and a whole host of configurable options. Feed IndyJunior some latitude and longitude coordinates and you’ll be plotting your course like an Indiana Jones movie in no time.

In a world where being thousands of miles away from home is no longer considered odd, I thought it might be nice to be able to track those changes graphically. Where have you been, where are you now, where are you going to be next week? IndyJunior should make answering these questions a little more easy and fun.

How can I use it?

IndyJunior is a Flash application which you can download and use without knowing anything about flash. The app is provided ready to include in your web page without ever needing to own or use Flash MX.

The download includes a configuration page which will help you get the look you want and then all you have to do is copy/paste the code Read More

Begin forwarded message:

> From: bitbitch
> Date: Wed Sep 3, 2003 4:50:45 PM US/Pacific
> To: FoRK
> Subject: Male birth control that actually works (and no, this isn’t a
> spam ad)
>
> Fanfucking -tastic. As for the argument that men don’t like having
> their junk touched, to this I say, ‘Too damn bad.’ If RISUG is for
> real, I think the number of men being forced to choose between a
> little shot in the nuts versus no sex will explode like Viagra. I
> just hope its true, and it happens.
>
>
>
>
>
> About Time.
>
> http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/schulman081303.asp
>
>
> * The Sperminator *
>
> */ A new injection for men could shake up the world of contraceptives
> /*
> *
>
> <Read More