http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog Technology, Culture, Policy Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:43:11 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en And now, we might get some proof: Panel to Study Military Eavesdropping (pdf) The two former intelligence officers, Adrienne Kinne, an Army reservist, and David Murfee Faulk, a Navy linguist, spoke Thursday to ABC News. They also were interviewed for a book on the National Security Agency by James Bamford, a ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7259 Who knows. But the status quo remains: First Royalty Rates Set for Digital Music (pdf) The ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board — a panel of three judges appointed by the Librarian of Congress — applied strictly to mechanical royalties, which are paid to the songwriters and publishers of music, ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7257 And one of the joys of that is that, on occasion, the morning news gets a little scrambled. Today, Kim Carrigan, from our local Fox affiliate, reported that the Nobel prize in chemistry had been awarded to someone who had discovered that Coca-Cola killed sperm. Of course, it ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7252 Wired, in Six New Directors Who Are Making Music Video Cool Again and the LATimes blog entry, Could music videos possibly be cool again?, make an interesting (and entertaining case) in favor of the proposition. BTW, I agree with the LATimes blog entry that Toe Jam should not be missed. http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7250 But it took more than the distribution costs savings to make the sale --- but 3-D movies? Really? Hollywood studios agree to digital rollout (pdf) Five Hollywood studios have agreed to help pay for a $1 billion-plus rollout of digital technology on about 20,000 movie screens in North America, a ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7248 It doesn't mean that someone's not watching you. The technology that makes it possible to communicate makes it possible to monitor the communication, too. It all depends on how you decide to employ it: Huge System for Web Surveillance Discovered in China (pdf) A group of Canadian human-rights activists ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7238 Digital music retailers await copyright board decision (pdf) For five years, Apples iTunes Music Store has been the Internets most successful music store. But as music publishers have sought a higher share of its proceeds, Apple has threatened to shutter iTunes. The Copyright Royalty Board in Washington, D.C. is expected to rule ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7236 Studios Sue to Bar a DVD Copying Program - pdf Six major movie studios sued RealNetworks, the Seattle-based digital media company, on Tuesday over its new $30 software program that allows people to make digital copies of their DVDs. See earlier Real Ready To Start A Fight http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7231 Apparently, even a court decision can't clean up certain smells: Chip Maker Rambus Wins Battles, but Faces Bigger War A wave of recent court victories was supposed to be a turning point for Rambus. In August, a federal appeals court in Washington upheld a ruling throwing out a decision by the ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7229 Laptop searches go too far (pdf) Should U.S. citizens returning from abroad be forced to surrender their laptop computers to the prying eyes of customs agents, even when there is no reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed? Two federal appeals courts say yes. If the Supreme Court doesn't rule ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7227 I mean, pledges are nice and all, but how would you know the firm is complying? Sounds like an interesting engineering systems design problem: AT& T, Verizon to Refrain From Tracking Users Online -- pdf AT&T and Verizon, two of the nation's leading Internet service providers, pledged yesterday to refrain ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7225 Link By Link - Who Owns the Law? Arguments May Ensue (pdf) [I]n the real world, judicial decisions and laws and regulations can be exceedingly hard to find without paying for them, either in book form or online. And that doesn’t even include quasi-official material like the numeric codes doctors are ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7223 While we all are following the crisis in the financial markets, along comes a fast-tracked intellectual property law enforcement bill: HR 4279: Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008. From Declan McCullagh's writeup: The bill was stripped of a controversial measure that would have given federal prosecutors ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7221 Apples iPhone is closed. Googles G1 is open. Which is better? Watching Google and Apple carve out space in the mobile business, one can hardly avoid thinking that history is repeating itself. In the 1970s and 80s, Apple created the first great personal computers. But because Apple closed its platform, it ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7219 Something I know I need to think about -- after I get home: Royalties Deal in Online Music (pdf) The agreement, revealed Wednesday, is designed to settle how the industry calculates royalty rates for limited downloads and music that is streamed online, including when it is provided by subscription and advertising-supported ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7213 Expanded Powers to Search Travelers at Border Detailed (pdf) In July, the Department of Homeland Security disclosed policies that showed that federal agents may copy books, documents, and the data on laptops and other electronic devices without suspecting a traveler of wrongdoing. But what DHS did not disclose was that since ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7207 Just Click Send We suspect that most Senate Republicans know how to use a computer and all of the other devices of the electronic age. Which means there is no excuse — except a desire to slow the public’s right to know — for their ongoing efforts to block electronic filing ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7205 Red Roof Inns Teams Up With Country Music Artists THE latest recordings by a couple of popular country music acts will never hit the Billboard charts but, to paraphrase the title of a song from the movie “Nashville,” it don’t worry them. That’s because the recordings — by the singer Phil Vassar ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7203 TimesPeople FAQ - The New York Times What is TimesPeople? TimesPeople is a social network for Times readers. But it's not a social network like Facebook or MySpace — you won't have Times friends, and it won't get you Times dates. Instead, you'll assemble a network of Times readers. Then you'll be ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7201 The College Issue - The Tell-All Campus Tour On Unigo, the information is all free — “free,” of course, understood as a synonym for “accompanied by advertisements” — and with the exception of brief editorial overviews of each of the 267 colleges featured at start-up, all of it is voluntarily provided ... http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/?p=7199