P2P Consortium: P2P Consortium

Source: MyWay

Your smart phone applications are watching you - much more closely than you might like.

Lookout Inc., a mobile-phone security firm, scanned nearly 300,000 free applications for Apple Inc.'s iPhone and phones built around Google Inc.'s Android software. It found that many of them secretly pull sensitive data off users' phones and ship them off to third parties without notification.

That's a major concern that has been bubbling up in privacy and security circles.

The data can include full details about users' contacts, their pictures, text messages and Internet and search histories. The third parties can include advertisers and companies that analyze data on users.

The information is used by companies to target ads and learn more about their users. The danger, though, is that the data become vulnerable to hacking and use in identity theft if the third party isn't careful about securing the information.

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Steve Gibson has a plan to save the media world’s financial crisis — and it’s not the iPad.

Borrowing a page from patent trolls, the CEO of fledgling Las Vegas-based Righthaven has begun buying out the copyrights to newspaper content for the sole purpose of suing blogs and websites that re-post those articles without permission. And he says he’s making money.

“We believe it’s the best solution out there,” Gibson says. “Media companies’ assets are very much their copyrights. These companies need to understand and appreciate that those assets have value more than merely the present advertising revenues.”

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Every three years, under an act signed into law in the 90s, the Librarian of Congress must revisit the DMCA and make corrections or carve out exemptions depending on need and comment.

Today the Librarian announced major exemptions to the bill, ones that take much (but not all) of the bite out of what is generally regarded as one of the two most controversial communications and copyright bills in American history, along with the Sonny Bono copyright term extension act that became law just a few months earlier.

These are major changes and they come during a period when judges are finally getting a handle on the more draconian aspects of the legislation and instituting their own exemptions under general first amendment constitutional provisions.

Today's exemptions allow users to:

- crack expired dongles if the encryption blocks access to licensed content (recently allowed by the courts)

- crack electronic book restrictions when they prevent the text from being read aloud by audio reading software

- crack DVD restrictions to add outside clips under certain circumstances

- break protections on video games for investigative purposes

- jailbreak their phones

There is a long way to go before the DMCA is legitimized but the journey's no longer quite as far.

- js.

Source: Techdirt

Regular Techdirt commenter Max Davis (who I believe may be involved in this lawsuit) passed along the news that all the big US mobile operators have been sued -- including AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile -- under the claim that their MMS platforms are really illegal file sharing networks, and that these operators are no different than Limewire or Gnuttella. Yes, seriously -- the email Max sent repeatedly refers to MMS and Limewire as if they were the same....

...Basically, this company, Luvdarts, made MMS content, and it got distributed via MMS. Since recipients of MMS can forward the MMS data they receive, such content got forwarded around. Since the mobile operators receive revenue for MMS data, Luvdarts is effectively claiming that they are profiting off the infringement of Luvdarts content. This makes no sense. It's like saying that any email provider is infringing on the copyrights of email writers by letting recipients forward emails. You know those chain emails that get passed around? Imagine if one of the authors of those then sued all the big email providers. It would get laughed out of court. Hopefully, this lawsuit gets laughed out of court too.

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Source: BetaNews

The Internet is about to face one of its most serious issues in its history: experts have warned that the Internet is running out of addresses, and may run out by 2011. At issue is slow adoption of a new system intended to vastly increase the available pool, further complicating matters.

Currently, the web uses IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4). 32-bit numbers are used, meaning about 4 billion addresses are available. About 94 percent of them have already been allocated. There is a new system, however, called IPv6. That uses 128-bit numbers, and the number of available addresses skyrocket.

Use of these addresses have increased dramatically over the past several years, thanks to the explosion of an array of Internet connected items. It is becoming even more imperative that IPv6 be adopted as fast as possible, but adoption has been slow.

What could happen as a result is a "black market" for IPs as these addresses dwindle, Google Internet evangelist Vint Cerf warned in June. This would drive up the cost of building out networks and establishing an Internet presence, and give power to those who hold open IP addresses, taking away from the decentralized nature of the Internet.

"Without IPv6, the Internet's expansion and innovation could be limited," American Registry for Internet Numbers president and CEO John Curran has said. "Delaying IPv6 deployment may strain the work of Internet operators, application developers, and end users everywhere."

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Artists lose out as fans stop burning CDs

Musicians, actors and other artists have seen their revenues from blank CDs and DVDs plummet as file sharers adapt their habits and embrace a range of technologies.




Income generated from a copy fee built in to the price of record able CDs and DVDs – and shared among artists and copyright holders – has almost halved over the last two years. In 2007, sales of blank discs generated 200 million kronor ($28 million) for artists, compared to just 113 million kronor in 2009.

Copyswede, the umbrella organization for copyright groups that administers the fee, believes the plunge in revenue can be attributed to a shift in the ways music and films are now consumed.

“Were seeing a technology shift whereby the discs in themselves are no longer of interest. File sharers and others have started using different technologies. Things can instead be stored on people’s computer hard drives or their telephones,” Copyswede’s managing director Mattias Åkerlind told news agency TT.

Copyswede distributes the funds generated from fees that are included in the prices of recordable hard drives, mp3 players, and blank discs. But as its members revenues shrink, the organization is pushing for legislation that will extend the fees to other technologies.

“We don't currently receive any revenue from hard drives or telephones despite legislation decreeing that fees should apply to any products that are particularly suitable for piracy. The pattern we think were seeing is one of piracy moving to external hard drives and USB flash drives while telephones are being used for storage,” said Åkerlind.

Copyswede’s proposed fee would add around 100 kronor to the cost of a mobile phone with 32 gigabytes of memory. But negotiations have stalled of late, with the organization enjoying scant support from electronics retailers opposed to price hikes on goods like telephones and hard disks.

“We’ll probably have to ask the legislator for help and we’ve already approached the justice ministry about this matter. We’re hoping for a reaction by autumn,” said Åkerlind.

Original @ Thelocal.se

Source: The Badger Herald

By: Jake Begun

Every day tens, if not dozens, of albums are sold in record stores across America. And yet the average American musician represented by a major record label is forced to scrape by on only millions. Their only fault: Being born talented and with a marketable face. They are forced to criss-cross these United States in search of sustenance, peddling their wares hoping to provide for their backup dancers, many of which have never known the feel of a gold Jacuzzi filled with Dom Perignon or the simple pleasures of a personal jet. No one should have to settle for mere multi-platinum status. Won’t you help?

In recent years, the benevolent and wise executives at the Recording Industry Association of America have taken it upon themselves to combat the deterioration of the American entertainment industry’s luxury by taking the fight to the very doorstep of those who would stand in the way of such progress (read: your dorm room).

A recent provision of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which among other things provides for greater access to federal education loans, protection against illegitimate diplomas and the support of underrepresented groups in American institutions of higher education, now enables the federal government to strip funding to universities who fail to take a proactive stance against illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing.

The use of university networks in the exchange of music and video files is no new phenomenon however. The University of Wisconsin had in recent years refused to forward the RIAA’s pre-lawsuit settlement notices to its students, opting instead to remind the students of university policy against such illicit activities. A number of cases were brought against students found to engage in this dastardly trade, yet time and again universities stood in the way of justice and protected their students, leading to a lapse in individual lawsuits by the RIAA.

This latest measure, however, strikes at the heart of those who would harbor or aid such criminals. Let’s see how these scofflaws and ne’er-do-wells enjoy their precious music when their universities cease to be financially anchored. No universities, no students, no piracy. How’s that for logic and reason? Those RIAA executives are truly a bunch of Kants.


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