“In an interview in 2007 or 2008 (I believe, not sure about the date) the Swedish lawyer for the MPAA, Monique Wadsted, got a question about her views on the people advocating file sharing,” Sunde explains.
“It’s just a few people, very loud. They’re a cult. They call themselves Kopimists,” Wadsted responded.
http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-lawyer-inspired-file-sharing-religion-catholic-bishop-unhappy-120107/
CNN did cover the issue – but only once. None of the media networks contacted by The Register had any comment on the report at the time of publication.
Media Matters points out that most TV network owners have declared themselves supporters of the SOPA legislation. Comcast/NBCUniversal (owners of MSNBC and NBC News), Viacom (CBS), News Corporation (Fox News), and Time Warner (CNN) have all signed up to support the SOPA legislation, as has the Walt Disney Corporation, which owns ABC.
“I don’t think there’s been a top-down edict on this, but the data is interesting,” Eric Boehlert, senior fellow at Media Matters, told The Register. “People are smart when it comes to their careers, and may feel that raising the story isn’t a good way to get along with their parent companies.”
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/07/mainstream_media_silent_on_sopa/
If global confidence in the US Dollar would diminish, the American government may be forced to confiscate the gold
Dutch language article:
http://nieuwsuur.nl/onderwerp/328458-nederlandse-goudreserves-vooral-in-buitenland.html
The Sony Picture’s website was defaced and clearly unauthorised comments were posted on the media giant’s Facebook page. The digital graffiti was scribbled by a hacker who uses the Twitter handle s3rver_exe. Both acts of vandalism were rapidly purged, while the YouTube video illustrating the hack was quickly pulled.
Ironically, the six major movie studios have a great technology lab in Silicon Valley with projects in streaming rights, Video On Demand, Ultraviolet, etc. But lacking the support from the studio CEOs or boards, the lab languishes in the backwaters of the studios’ strategy. Instead of leading with new technology, the studios lead with litigation, legislation and lobbying. (Imagine if the $110 million/year spent on lobbying went to disruptive innovation.)
What the music and movie industry should be doing in Washington is promoting legislation to adapt copyright law to new technology — and then leading the transition to the new platforms.
Much more:
http://steveblank.com/2012/01/04/why-the-movie-industry-cant-innovate-and-the-result-is-sopa/
Indeed, the act — and its counterpart in the Senate, the PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA) — would inappropriately shut down websites, disrupt the free flow of legitimate information and limit Americans from fully exercising their First Amendment rights.
That is why, consistent with ONA’s desire and mission to keep the Internet open and vibrant, we join with others to oppose SOPA and PIPA. Furthermore, we encourage our members to contact their representatives in Congress and ask that they, too, oppose these bills.
Here’s our thinking:
http://journalists.org/2012/01/05/ona-on-sopa/
Edited (shortened) 45 sec version:
Full 2:12 min removed version which included full quote below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHQhMEIH16U
“… are now able to be shared digitally. There is a growing concern on the part of the companies and individuals who create that content, that they’re not getting compensated in a fair way, and so they want to impose a new set of requirements on those companies who provide access to the internet, like the browsers, the search engines, etc. And some of these new requirements, according to the experts on the internet, would very probably have the effect of really shutting down the vibrancy of the internet. As in all things, some compromise must be possible. The content creators and owners have a point and a legitimate complaint… But, in our country, in our world today, there is hardly anything more important — whether you want to solve global warming, as I do, whether you want to reinvigorate democracy as many of us do, whatever problem you want to fix — there is hardly anything more important to getting the right things done than to save and protect the vibrancy and freedom of the internet. The internet is bringing life back to democracy. We saw it in Egypt. We’re seeing it in Russia now. We’ve seen it in so many places…. If you look at the reform movements around the world, and in the US, more than likely they’re based on internet forms of organization. And anything that would threaten the vibrancy and freedom of the internet, I’m against!“
See also:
http://tinyurl.com/7877to6
Well, check this out. Al Gore has come out strongly against SOPA and PIPA, angrily denouncing the bill and its supporters. It’s a quick 2-minute video taken at a CareerBuilder event, and it’s in response to an audience question. The actual question isn’t heard in the video, but he’s clearly talking about SOPA/PIPA and appears to be well-informed on the issue.
A quick transcript:
“… are now able to be shared digitally. There is a growing concern on the part of the companies and individuals who create that content, that they’re not getting compensated in a fair way, and so they want to impose a new set of requirements on those companies who provide access to the internet, like the browsers, the search engines, etc. And some of these new requirements, according to the experts on the internet, would very probably have the effect of really shutting down the vibrancy of the internet. As in all things, some compromise must be possible. The content creators and owners have a point and a legitimate complaint… But, in our country, in our world today, there is hardly anything more important — whether you want to solve global warming, as I do, whether you want to reinvigorate democracy as many of us do, whatever problem you want to fix — there is hardly anything more important to getting the right things done than to save and protect the vibrancy and freedom of the internet. The internet is bringing life back to democracy. We saw it in Egypt. We’re seeing it in Russia now. We’ve seen it in so many places…. If you look at the reform movements around the world, and in the US, more than likely they’re based on internet forms of organization. And anything that would threaten the vibrancy and freedom of the internet, I’m against!“
More:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120105/18151717292/al-gore-comes-out-against-sopapipa.shtmlSee also:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-57354080-281/al-gore-slams-sopa-in-now-deleted-youtube-video/
Symantec can confirm that a segment of its source code has been accessed. Symantec’s own network was not breached, but rather that of a third party entity
http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/19200-Symantec-Confirms-Norton-AV-Source-Code-Exposed.html
A U.S. District judge in Alexandria, Virginia, rejected a request by Birgitta Jonsdottir, Jacob Appelbaum and Rop Gonggrijp to block prosecutors from obtaining the data while a federal appeals court considers their challenge to the government’s request for the data.
Judge Liam O’Grady wrote in his ruling that he was rejecting the request because the defendants were not likely to win their appeal, according to the court document (.pdf).
The U.S. Justice Department served Twitter with a subpoena in December 2010 as part of a Grand Jury investigation looking at possible criminal charges against WikiLeaks.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/wikileaks-twitter-bid/
See also:
http://vrritti.com/?s=jonsdottir
http://vrritti.com/?s=appelbaum
http://vrritti.com/?s=gonggrijp
Reference to female political colleague as potential love interest did the trick. Government will now decide whether something is funny or not
Dutch language news article:
http://www.ad.nl/ad/nl/1012/Binnenland/article/detail/3109659/2012/01/07/Premier-Rutte-blokkeert-twitteraccount.dhtml
Last November, Apollo 13 Commander Jim Lovell sold the page from the Lunar Module System Activation Checklist that contains the calculations that saved his near-fatal mission. It got $388,375 at Heritage Auctions. Now NASA has stopped the sale.
The reason it’s called a Transformer is because it has a spiffy keyboard dock that basically transforms it into a laptop. It has a full keyboard, touchpad, USB and SD card ports, and it adds an extra 50-60% to the battery life, theoretically bringing it up to 15 or 16 hours.
http://gizmodo.com/5873393/asus-transformer-prime-review-the-android-tablet-youve-been-waiting-for
Conservative MP for Wiltshire, Claire Perry has repeatedly demanded that broadband ISPs in the UK be “required” to restrict universal access to adult content by default
