Harvard Prof To Argue P2P Is Fair Use
One of the biggest legal fights between the music industry and a file sharer is slated for this summer, and the outcome will determine more than just whether defense counsel is a genius or out of his flippin’ mind.
Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson made headlines by taking the case of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharer Joel Tenenbaum, in a fight for his financial life against habitual copyright law abuser the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA—now with five former attorneys heading up your Department of Justice).
Clinton Says Internet Can Help Free U.S. Reporters in North Korea
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is calling for an online campaign to help with the release of two American women journalists being held in North Korea.
Clinton made the remarks at a graduation ceremony at Barnard College, a women’s university in New York City.
"We have two young women journalists right now imprisoned in North Korea and you can get busy on the Internet and let the North Koreans know that we find that absolutely unacceptable," Clinton told the graduation ceremony.
FTC Issues Restraining Order Against Yahoo, MSN
On behalf of the Federal Trade Commission, a federal court issued a restraining order against Yahoo, MSN, AllTheWeb, and Altavista to prevent the search engines from allowing mortgage finance scammers to use a government URL in sponsored search results, thus representing themselves as the operator of the site.
Yahoo’s Jerry Yang Gives His Own Speech
Google CEO Eric Schimdt was not the only web company figure to deliver a commencement address yesterday. Yahoo Co-founder Jerry Yang spoke at the University of Hawaii at Hilo.
Yang’s speech had a different tone that Schmidt’s. Whereas Schmidt discussed everything from cheesesteak to the meaning of life, Yang jumped in with a tone suggesting that things aren’t as bad as they seem.
Google CEO Shares the Meaning of Life
Eric Schmidt gave a commencement address at the University of Pennsylvania yesterday. The full video is below, but I have pulled out some of the good quotes from it (there were quite a few).
He begins with congratulations and talks about how great Penn is, and how there are 250 alumni who work at Google. He says it’s the most desirable place for Google to hire interns because the "quality of graduates is the best in the world."
Google Developing Algorithm To Catch Quitters
Unhappy Googlers may soon be supplied with about as many muffin baskets, pats on the back, and intriguing projects as they can handle. Apparently Google’s developing an algorithm to identify which employees are most likely to quit, and it’s acting on the info in an attempt to keep top workers around.
Facebook Links User Accounts with Gmail
Yesterday, Facebook went live as an OpenID relying party. This makes Facebook the largest one to date.
"This is the first iteration of the implementation," a Facebook spokesperson tells Murdok. "To start, new users can now register for Facebook with their Gmail accounts, and existing users can link their Facebook accounts with any OpenID provider to connect with friends and eliminate the need for multiple sign-ins."
Associated Blogosphere Seeds Begin To Sprout
I’ve been trying to coin phrases since I started this gig in 2005—fraugs (fraud blogs), googlings (Google nuts), spitter (Twitter spammer) etc.—and not a one has stuck except “hamsterbating,” which I didn’t actually create but was credited for in an online dictionary.
Gmail for Mobile Getting New Features
About a month ago, Google announced a new version of Gmail for mobile for iPhone and Anrdroid devices. Now, they have introduced "the Iterative Web App," an initiative, in which they will release features for this new version periodically.
Do We Need a New ‘Youth Payment Service’?
UPDATE: BillMyParents wanted to clarify the partnerships the company has forged: "The company did launch with partnerships with Artix Entertainment, Habbo, Outspark and RockYou! to integrate the BillMyParents payment system into their online games, virtual and social networks."