Debt collectors may join antipiracy fight | Media Maverick - CNET News
A group calling itself the Copyright Enforcement Group (CEG), which according to its Web site specializes in media rights enforcement, appears to advocate the use of debt collectors even before the courts have rendered a judgment against accused copyright violators. CNET has obtained a copy of CEG's "service contract," which specifies the terms the group offers to client copyright owners. "In the event that the opposing parties fail to pay in full, the client grants power of attorney to and instructs the debt collection agencies and [legal office] to proceed with the further recovery and enforcement of claims for payment by means of debt collection procedures and legal proceedings."
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Indeed on Monday - Intellectual Property Day - the U.S. Chamber of Commerce published what seem to be contradictory findings in their study entitled "The Impact of Innovation and the Role of IP Rights on U.S. Productivity, Competitiveness, Jobs, Wages and Exports." According to the report, "During 2000-07, IP-intensive industries spent almost 13 times more on R&D per employee than in non-IP-intensive industries. Industry spending on R&D in the United States accounts for approximately 72 percent of total R&D spending, totaling nearly $1.2 trillion, an average of $145 billion annually."
Intellectual Property and Innovation: Who's Got It Right? - Read
Wikileaks
White House wants new copyright law crackdown | Privacy Inc. - CNET News
(Credit: Whitehouse.gov)
Judge Chin suggested that he might approve a new, "opt-in" settlement. But switching to an opt-in rule would undermine the very thing that made the deal so appealing to Google in the first place: the freedom to incorporate works whose copyright status was unclear. Take that away, and it's not clear that Google Book Search can exist at all.
Google Should Stand up for Fair Use in Books Fight | Freedom to Tinker
Facebook's High Pressure Tactics: Opt-in or Else
According to a FAQ from Facebook's Help Center : "If you don't want to connect to any Pages, the corresponding sections on your Profile will be empty. Connecting to Pages will now be the main way to express yourself on your profile, and you can always edit your profile to remove specific suggested Pages that you don't want to connect to." But even for those who actually do consider the implications of everything about themselves being made public, they'll soon encounter another issue. Something that Li didn't explain in the cheery blog post was what would happen if you refused to link to these new Pages: your profile information will be removed and your profile page will be left empty.
Catholic Church in China: heading underground--again? | USCatholic.org
In 2007 Pope Benedict seemed confident that the two churches in China—a Catholic church loyal to Beijing and its underground shadow, loyal to Rome—were on their way to becoming one Christian community again in responding to the profound spiritual need in China. He urged neither side to engage in any activity that could be interpreted as a provocation that might undermine the improving relationship between Beijing and Rome. It was a position not popular among the members of the underground church—many had sacrificed everything during the dark ages before Deng—but Pope Benedict apparently felt a calculated risk was worth taking toward rapprochement. Both things seem to have come to pass.
Speak Up, Stop Discrimination, Human Rights Day 2010
Danilo Lambada fights for the rights of gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals in Mozambique. Javascript is not enabled. View accessible HTML version. Human Rights Day 2010 on 10 December recognizes the work of human rights defenders worldwide who act to end discrimination. Acting alone or in groups within their communities, every day human rights defenders work to end discrimination by campaigning for equitable and effective laws, reporting and investigating human rights violations and supporting victims. While some human rights defenders are internationally renowned, many remain anonymous and undertake their work often at great personal risk to themselves and their families.
Religion Scholar RESIGNS After Endorsing Evolution
Waltke could not be reached for comment on the situation. He did issue a joint statement with the head of BioLogos in which he stood behind the substance of what he said in the video, but also said that he wished he could have provided more context, particularly his view that it is possible to believe in evolution and also believe in "in the inerrancy of Scripture." The Reformed Theological Seminary's Interim President, Michael Milton, told Inside Higher Ed that the situation caused the school "heartache," but Waltke ultimately disobeyed the institution's mandate on evolution: No Darwinian talk allowed.
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And people increasingly know they've been betrayed. This past weekend, journalist Dan Gillmor publicly deleted his Facebook account . Heidi Moore at Slate's Big Money temporarily deactivated her account as a "conscientious objection." And look at the big-name tech journalists weighing in on all the shock and outrage on Facebook critic Calacanis' "Wall" (click to enlarge): Facebook has been through embarrassing privacy snafus before, like the intrusive "Beacon" advertising system, which the company eventually abandoned.
Facebook's Great Betrayal - Facebook - Gawker
Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over
Perhaps the new privacy controls will prove sufficient. Perhaps Facebook's pushing our culture away from privacy will end up being a good thing. The way the company is going about it makes me very uncomfortable, though, and some of the changes are clearly bad.
The software bugs are another matter entirely. Supposedly, medical device manufacturers, and software correctness people, have all been thoroughly indoctrinated in the history of Therac-25 , a radiation machine from the mid-80's whose poor software engineering (and user interface design) directly led to several deaths. This article seems to indicate that those lessons were never properly absorbed. What's perhaps even more disturbing is that nobody seems to have been deeply bothered when the radiation planning software crashed on them! Did it save their work?
Software in dangerous places | Freedom to Tinker
