Rights and Freedom
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Debt collectors may join antipiracy fight | Media Maverick - CNET News
First it was the lawyers. Then it was the politicians. Now debt collectors may be coming after people accused of film piracy, even before they have their day in court. 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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Companies that rely on fair use generated $4.7 trillion in revenues and $2.2 billion in value added - roughly 16.2 percent of U.S. GDP in 2007. This is among the findings of a report released yesterday by the Computer and Communications Industry Assocation.
Intellectual Property and Innovation: Who's Got It Right? - Read
Wikileaks
White House wants new copyright law crackdown | Privacy Inc. - CNET News
The White House today proposed sweeping revisions to U.S. copyright law, including making "illegal streaming" of audio or video a federal felony and allowing FBI agents to wiretap suspected infringers. In a 20-page white paper ( PDF ), the Obama administration called on the U.S. Congress to fix "deficiencies that could hinder enforcement" of intellectual property laws.
On Tuesday Judge Denny Chen rejected a proposed settlement in the Google Book Search case. My write-up for Ars Technica is here.
Google Should Stand up for Fair Use in Books Fight | Freedom to Tinker
Facebook's High Pressure Tactics: Opt-in or Else
Facebook users who choose not to link their user accounts to Facebook's public Pages are ending up with blank profiles containing no information at all. If you haven't experienced this problem, it's probably thanks to the somewhat high-pressure tactics Facebook is using to get you to accept these changes. The next time you visit your Profile page (if you haven't done so already), you'll be introduced to the new " Connected Profiles " option, one of the many potentially concerning privacy-related changes announced at Facebook's f8 developer conference last week. With this option, the text in your Facebook profile section where you list your hometown, education, work and interests, is now being linked to the respective pages on Facebook.
Catholic Church in China: heading underground--again? | USCatholic.org
Years ago a connection of mine who has spent a lot of time in China—someone who has devoted a great deal of his life to attempting to understand the complex, conflicted mindset of the Beijing leadership as it emerged from decades of Maoism—sat down with a prominent party official during a business dinner. This was in the early years just after Deng Xiaoping had begun to unleash what would become a global manufacturing and creative juggernaut out of the middle kingdom. The official told my source, Mao was dead, communism in China was dead and there was now a vast spiritual void opening up in the collective psyche of the Chinese people—a void that the party had once filled with the heroic imagination of a people on the march into a bright, shining future, a collective light to the world. Now he worried it would only be filled by a deep emptiness or worse that the people of China would seek to fill that emptiness with materialism and consumption.
Speak Up, Stop Discrimination, Human Rights Day 2010
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
A prominent Old Testament scholar has resigned from a professorial position after he was recorded on video endorsing evolution. Until several days ago, Bruce K. Waltke was a professor at Florida's Reformed Theological Seminary. But after the school found out about his video blog (the video has since been removed at Waltke's request) on the website of the BioLogos Foundation, which promotes harmony between science and theology, he lost his job. But the fact that his seminary did dismiss him is viewed as a sign of just how difficult it may be for scholars at some institutions to raise issues involving science that are not 100% consistent with a literal interpretation of the Bible.
Facebook's privacy pullback isn't just outrageous; it's a landmark turning point for the social network. Facebook has blundered before, but the latest changes are far more calculated. The company has, in short, turned evil.
Facebook's Great Betrayal - Facebook - Gawker
Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over
"When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was 'why would I want to put any information on the Internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?' "And then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way and all these different services that have people sharing all this information. People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.Software increasingly manages the world around us, in subtle ways that are often hard to see. Software helps fly our airplanes (in some cases, particularly military fighter aircraft, software is the only thing keeping them in the air). Software manages our cars (fuel/air mixture, among other things).