[SA_Dave]

The news seems more positive than negative atm. Good riddance UCITA!

While there needs to be a balance between private sector goals and public policy needs, that's hardly a topic of discussion on the Internet's frontline. Currently, America's media giants are planning the equivalent of a 19th-century land grab in cyberspace to ensure they will profit mightily in the 21st century. Metering data transmissions and monitoring content is how they will get there. And the tools and political climate to achieve this are here.

There needs to be a policy of transparency, not only in government, but in standards (hardware and software) as well. And encryption is your friend!

Lovelace, known among the security community as "Simple Nomad," said the key to the technique is to forge the source of the IP address to look like the intended recipient of the information, while the destination IP addresses points to another third-party server on the Internet.

Untraceable public proxying? Where's our Science Officer?

The cost, typically $5 to $10 a month, would be waived, discounted or buried in the students' activities fees.

If they wanted to buy songs to burn onto CDs or transfer to portable MP3 players, students would pay $1 or less per track.

Nobody will PAY! Higher education isn't meant to subsidise the RIAA's lawyers.

The group estimates that piracy cost the nation $1.9 billion in 2002, up from $1.8 billion in 2001. As a result, BSA contends that piracy was related to the loss of 105,000 jobs over the course of last year.

"Piracy" is down, but losses are up? And what about the $3 billion GNU/Linux revenue for IBM and HP? I sense RIAA logic at work.

Closing the windows. Studios are moving to open major movies and release anticipated home videos in all major markets worldwide in the same month, rather than spreading rollouts up to a year.

Absolute genius! They've had the technology to do secure digital distribution direct to cinema chains worldwide for years now.

The pirate CD market is now so big, $4.6bn (£2.86bn), it is "of greater value than the legitimate music market of every country in the world, except the USA and Japan". In some countries it is hard to find legitimately produced CDs. Ninety percent of CDs in China, for instance, are pirate copies. Counterfeiters have forced the price of a fake CD down to about $4, which only makes CDs in the music shops look even pricier. Embarrassingly major record labels and distributors have been fined twice by the US Federal Trade Commission for price fixing their products. However, pirates are not solely responsible for the crisis in the music industry. After all, it is actually producing CD titles.

No surprise there!

Patents: An Expensive Tax on the CIO
Lawrence Rosen

SOFTWARE PATENTS cost you money.

Patents are bad.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/patent...ot-enough.html
http://lpf.ai.mit.edu/Patents/agains...e-patents.html

"It wouldn't surprise me if, in 50 years, there was no longer a need for 'hello' and 'goodbye' in general or certainly in electronic communication," said Mr Green, a lexicographer and author of a dictionary of slang.

Hello?

http://www.elecom.co.jp/news/200307/groomy-mouse/

Crazy Japanese inventions!

Spindler: Regarding such legal principles as liability and warranty, the GPL clauses have absolutely no legal validity. Under the license, developers and distributors of open software are not liable for any problems with their products. The GPL avoids any wording that could imply liability. Such a license is simply unenforceable under German, or even European Union law for that matter.

I seem to recall almost identical wording in almost every MS EULA. Funny he doesn't mention that!

Spindler: This is also unresolved. If, for instance, a company uses open source code to develop a product of its own, there is legal uncertainty as to what extent the GPL covers the new product.

It's pretty clear. link1 link2

If you consider the employee as the author, he is obliged under the GPL to offer the source code for free.

Not necessarily free and only if it's distributed. See above.

There is some uncertainty in the open source community as to how much companies can charge for commercial services linked to a free product.

As much as they like! The market will determine if it's an acceptable price or not. link

Spindler: First of all, the GPL must be written in German and take into account both German and EU law. This isn't the case today. Second of all, and most importantly, the liability clause has to be replaced or adapted. This is definitely in the interest of users, open source developers and competition.

He doesn't understand English. That explains everything! link
Personally, I think that the professor is averse to research and loves receiving a weekly memo (and/or cheque) from Redmond.

Thanks Jack!