I'm having a lot of fun in Morocco. In a taxi in Casablanca I saw an anti-piracy billboard, but didn't have time to take a picture. Maybe I'll see it again on the way out and can snap it. Fes is just as urbanized, but much older and more conservative, so it's not surprising I haven't seen any such signs here. There aren't really any pirated discs for sale on the street here like there were in Casa, despite having a truly laberinthine medina that would be ideal for shady goings-on. Perhaps when it hits, it will hit with a vengeance. Or maybe everyone's just content with satellite content.


Happy New Year!
Ari

Federal judge: Making files available for download = distribution

--Ari

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, it's critical that DMCA abuses like this are quashed. On the other, I don't think the methods are good. This doesn't deserve to be an exemption to the DMCA, as it isn't a part of the DMCA at all. Perhaps a clarification, but not an exemption.

BitTorrent Inc. Acquires µTorrent
"The slim µTorrent client, which is only 173 KB in size, has the small footprint required to run on a greater range of devices. And -- this is the interesting part -- the content distributors on these devices are in desperate need of exactly the kind of bandwidth efficiency BitTorrent can provide."

CoolNumber$.com

--Ari

http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2006/12/how_to_search_a_large_area.php
"Lots of eyeballs makes any bug look shallow." - ESR

Ari

Listening Post

Next holiday season could see a new approach from Sony in the MP3 player space -- one that could resemble Apple's iTunes/iPod combo or Microsoft's similarly-unified Zune approach. Glasgow said that Sony "still ha[s]n't come back to the [digital audio] market hard," but that "we [CE manufacturers] all want to use this approach," and also "you'll find us doing something in that direction" in the future.

'Revenge of the Nerds,' Part V: Can Computer Models Help Select Better Movie Scripts? - Knowledge@Wharton

The use of statistical analysis and computer models, Eliashberg says, can help managers in the movie industry understand why ratings on a given film will vary from country to country. Even more radically, they can lead to the better evaluation of scripts. And using these sorts of techniques, he insists, won't dim the magic of the silver screen: Movie making can be both grounded in science and enlivened by art.
We'll see if the movie industry is any more receptive to this than the music industry was.

Listening Post

Edgarbronfman On the last day of the recent Reuters Media and Marketing Summit in New York, Warner Music Group CEO admitted that he was "fairly certain" that one or more of his seven children had downloaded music without the permission of the copyright owner, which Reuters referred to as stealing. Despite the alleged infringers' proximity to the major label head and his direct awareness of it without the use of ISP subpoenas, somehow no lawsuits were deemed necessary, although Bronfman said that his kids had "suffered the consequences": "I explained to them what I believe is right, that the principle is that stealing music is stealing music. Frankly, right is right and wrong is wrong, particularly when a parent is talking to a child. A bright line around moral responsibility is very important. I can assure you they no longer do that."

Wired News: Azureus' HD Vids Trump YouTube

The file sharing company Azureus on Monday launched a new distribution platform for downloading high-quality video, which the company hopes will become the next YouTube -- but for high definition, DVD-quality video on the internet.

Wired News: Bram Cohen on BitTorrent's Future

Cohen's San Francisco company is forming distribution partnerships with several major film and television studios, including 20th Century Fox, MTV Networks, G4, Palm Pictures and Paramount Pictures. In May 2006, BitTorrent teamed up with Warner Bros. to distribute films and televisions shows online.

Listening Post

I admit I was blown away by the fact that their system recognized the live version of "Implement Yeah" by Suede, first because I think Elastica actually recorded it, and second because the song was written as some sort of parody of The Fall. But what are Luna, Galaxie 500, and Cocteau Twins doing in there? There's no way any of those bands have ever recorded anything that sounds remotely like "U.S. 80's-90's."  Just because their system recognizes that lots of people have both The Fall and Galaxie 500 in their collections doesn't make the two musically related.

Wired News: MPAA Kills Anti-Pretexting Bill

The bill won approval in three committees and sailed through the state Senate with a 30-0 vote. Then, according to Lenny Goldberg, a lobbyist for the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, the measure encountered unexpected, last-minute resistance from the Motion Picture Association of America. "The MPAA has a tremendous amount of clout and they told legislators, 'We need to pose as someone other than who we are to stop illegal downloading,'" Goldberg said.

Gaming symposium discusses taxation in virtual worlds

One of the panels, "Tax and Finance," looked into the economics of virtual economies with the participants discussing the likelihood of the taxman showing up in cyberspace.

Open source projects threatened by e-learning patent

The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) has joined the effort to overturn a broad e-learning patent held by education and course management software company Blackboard. The patent, which was awarded in January of this year, covers "Internet-based education support system and methods" and could potentially threaten open source course management platforms like Moodle and Sakai. Specifically, the patent describes an Internet system in which different access rights to various course management resources can be granted to different users.
Yet another reason to dislike Blackboard.

News Corp in talks to launch MySpace China

News Corp is in talks to bring MySpace to China soon, according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal.
Good luck filtering that for legal content, guys.

Epson goes after third-party ink cartridges and wins

Epson has won a series of victories in its quest to cut down on the importation and manufacture of aftermarket inkjet cartridges for its products.
At least they're using patent law, not the DMCA.

BitTorrent movie service adds Paramount, Fox, handful of cable channels

BitTorrent is cleaning up its act and making some significant content deals with major Hollywood studios. Following the Warner Bros. deal struck this spring, the bandwidth-hungry service just added 20th Century Fox, Lionsgate Entertainment, and Paramount Pictures to its plate.

--Ari