Copyright Music Groups Agree on Web Licenses Music & MP39/28/2000; 7:40:43 PM 'The legal issues surrounding online music distribution may have taken a small step toward clarity Tuesday when a number of copyright organizations convened to hammer out a deal for Web-related content.'Five copyright societies met in Santiago, Chile, and signed a number of separate bilateral agreements in an attempt to simplify the licensing issues surrounding the public performance of music used online.'With Congress recently signaling interest in the digital music distribution debate, I wonder how that is affecting these deliberations? Congress amounts to a giant gorilla who's actions will be very difficult to predict.
Winners of the Foil the Filters Contest Censorship9/28/2000; 7:35:03 PM This page is funny enough to be catagorized in Humor/Amusing, but the more you think about it, the less funny it gets. This is only a sample:
We hope this contest will help illustrate how unreliable censorware is and provide further examples for those interested in exposing it. And of these examples, these are our favorites....Grand PrizeJoe J. reports being prevented from accessing his own high school’s Web site from his own high school’s library. Carroll High School adopted filtering software which blocked "all questionable material." This included the word "high."...The Twilight Zone Award For blocking which humans don't even understandWinnerScott, a high school student in Australia, couldn’t get past his school’s censorware to complete a report on the Fibonacci sequence (the mathematical sequence in which each number in the series is the sum of the previous two). He suspects the word was blocked because the mathematical sequence is relevant to "the pattern of rabbit-breeding," but we don’t buy it.And this has to be considered the final word on censorware:
The Inspiration Award For reminding us what its all aboutWinnerAttributed to EPIC’s Marc Rotenberg, and though we aren’t sure if it it’s a real case or not, it says it all and we couldn’t pass it up. Thanks, Marc."Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of sXXXch, or the right of the people peaceably to XXXemble, and to peXXXion the government for a redress of grievances."
Amazon.com Apologizes, Microsoft Changes Outlook Express
Misc.
9/28/2000; 7:25:29 PM Two follow-ups on stories run previously: Amazon.com has apologized for the variable-pricing experiments and has issued full refunds to those who paid more then the minimum.
Microsoft has re-written the promotional ad stuck on the end of the e-mail message they offer to send out for you, but some are still concerned that the e-mail is going out at all, as it still may look like spam.
Carnivore Review Team Exposed!
Surveillance and Privacy from Government9/27/2000; 9:18:49 PM Wow, is this ever a screw-up on the part of the Justice Department!'Now it turns out that an embarrassing oversight by the Justice Department has revealed confidential information about the team of researchers hired to conduct the review. 'On Tuesday, the Justice Department placed the 51-page PDF file online, with project information such as names, phone numbers, and government security clearances erased with thick black bars....'Cryptome.org, operated by online archivist John Young, placed the unaltered version of the document online on Wednesday.'You may recall a similar event occurred with the New York Times attempting to obscure data in a PDF. It's actually kind of funny, because what they are doing is just what they do with physical documents: Black out the sensitive parts. It's just that with PDFs, just because you put a big black box over something doesn't mean it's gone. It's a lot like this white text: -->If you highlight this, you can see it.<-- highlight this and you can still see it, because the data is still there. 
'The previously hidden information reveals that the members of the review team at the IIT Research Institute, affiliated with the Illinois Institute of Technology, enjoy a close relationship with the federal government in general, and the Clinton administration in particular.... It also shows that all the reviewers listed either worked on large-scale government projects or currently hold active security clearances. Those clearances include a top secret rating from the National Security Agency, a top secret rating from the Department of Defense and other ratings from the Treasury Department.'This almost ruins the whole review. Its whole purpose is to make us feel better, and I don't think it can do that anymore.
Are digital signatures a threat? Misc.9/27/2000; 4:03:50 PM 'Digital signatures provide an Internet user with a unique identity document protected by encryption keys which serves to assure a third party that a document, a message or a transaction comes from who it says it does. The technology may help to soothe consumer fears about the dangers posed by computer hackers and the risks of using credit cards online or sending messages securely. 'Although digital signatures may appear to solve many consumer worries, Brands believes that they raise equally pressing questions over liberties. Brands warned that digital signatures could lead to a future where the online movements of citizens can be traced by governments.'So, are digital signitures a threat? In a nutshell, no. The threat outlined in this article is simply the unique identifier threat, which is a more general problem that could not be solved by simply, say, banning digital signitures, because digital signitures are just a small part of that problem.This article is a puff piece; I just wanted to go on record as saying that.
Microsoft Spamming?
Spam & E-Mail
9/27/2000; 2:52:58 PM 'judges1617 writes [on Slashdot]: ''Microsoft is now testing a beta version of their MSN Explorer that sends e-mails to everyone in your Outlook Address, informing them that your e-mail address has changed and invites them to to try MSN. Even the people who use MSN are complaining, but M$ refuses to acknowledge it is doing anything wrong. Read the whole story here'' The best part of this article is the MS reps argument about why this isn't spam "The e-mail you received was an invitation from MSN Explorer, sent on behalf of an existing user who changed their e-mail address and wants you to try MSN Explorer." I guess we can add "Spamming" as another "Business" where Microsoft can use its monopoly status to its advantage.'
This is really borderline unethical, sending out e-mails claiming to be from some person but actually written by Microsoft. That's close to lying about who sent the message.
Congressman: I Want My MP3 Music & MP39/27/2000; 9:12:10 AM 'A bill introduced in the House could dramatically alter the landscape that led to massive copyright violations against MP3.com, and open the door for competitors to stream into the digital locker space unimpeded by licensing agreements. 'Representative Rich Boucher (D-Virginia) -- along with three Republicans -- introduced legislation Monday that would make it legal to create a database of sound recordings for the sole purpose of transmitting those recordings to individuals who had previously purchased music.'Wired links the words "database of sound recordings" to the text of the proposed bill, which is kind of odd, but at least they're trying.I think this is an excellent reminder that laws aren't the final say in whether something is right or wrong, because the law is easily changed by the right people. For some reason this has been a particularly big issue in the digital music debate.
LinkBack reset again LinkBack9/27/2000; 8:49:24 AM LinkBack was reset again, due to a large number of issues, including the computer it is running on only having 64 megabytes of ram, which I was being rather wasteful of. A new slimmer LinkBack is now running, which will hopefully stay stable, except for the lousy network connection @Home gives me, which I can't do much about.To make up for that, I'd like to extend a Manila-only offer to LinkBack participants (I think that's all anybody's using anyhow). If you'd like to have a "Sites Recently Linking To Me" box on your sit (that you can call whatever you like), please let me know. What I can do is create two messages on your site. One will contain the details listing (like this) and one will just have a list of links, seperated by BR tags. (If you'd rather have a bulletted list that can be arranged.) I'm not quite ready to do this, but please let me know if you'd be interested. If nobody's interested I'll just leave the hack in that lets it work for me and not make it systematic so it will work for anybody.
Non-Profit Research Team To to Review Carnivore Surveillance and Privacy from Government9/26/2000; 9:07:39 PM Having failed to convince any University computer departments to review Carnivore, the Justice Department has found a non-profit organization brave enough to tread where academics fear to.'IITRI's review team, including unspecified faculty members from the Chicago-Kent College of Law, was to start work immediately and wind up by December, when a report was to be made available for public comment. The review itself is technical, not legal.'IITRI is apparently associated with the Illinois Institute of Technology, so apparently there will be some technical people involved in the review, despite TheStandard's lack of info on the topic.