Category: Intellectual Property
DOUBLE WORLD RECORD: World's largest Pokemon collection AND world's most insane woman
Here’s a lady who calls herself Pikabellechu. She claims to be the Pokemon Princess, although we’re not sure Nintendo’s lawyers would agree with that.
She says she’s in possession of over 8000 Pokemon toys, which she claims is a world record on the Guinness World Records site, although the record does not appear to have been ratified by a Guinness World Records official…
eBay Nutcase of the Week: Woman selling her own name. Winning bidder gets to call her MRS STUPID
We’d better not be too scathing of this lady’s plans, as this one’s for charity. If you’re rude about charity you go to the same part of Hell as Gary Glitter.
37-year-old Eileen De Bont, from St Asaph, Denbighshire, is putting her name up on eBay as a Children in Need stunt. The winning bidder gets to choose her name, so if David Beckham wants a bit of positive PR, he could put in a massive bid and have the poor lady renamed to VICTORIA IS LOVELY for the next year.
The kind-hearted MILF told The Telegraph “It’s all very silly but I’m deadly serious about changing it. I’ll even call myself Scunthorpe Travelodge if it’s the winning bid, so watch out Paris Hilton…
EA gets more DRM lawsuits over its use of SecuROM
Electronic Arts, the company responsible for the Spore DRM fiasco earlier this year, has been hit by two new lawsuits over the hated SecuROM ‘copy protection’ system that installs itself if you so much as look at an EA product, and can only be uninstalled by chucking your PC into a black hole.
Both suits have been filed in Northern California, one references the free ‘Spore Creature Creator’ demo/software toy, and the other names The Sims 2: Bon Voyage as the culprit. These follow another class-action suit earlier this year. In the suits EA are branded as “immoral, unethical, oppressive [and] unscrupulous”. Crikey.
Killjoy company Paraben launching anti-porn network download analyser
If you spend your lunch break positioning your monitor so no one else can see it and happily browsing through Raven Riley’s charming online photography albums while you deep-throat a Gregg’s sausage roll – YOUR TIME IS UP, SICKO.
Network safety specialist Paraben has revealed the latest development in its world of computerised forensics, a file-scanner that, no doubt thanks to everyone at Paraben spending ages analysing all kinds of porn themselves, can identify porn photos on users’ computers and instantly grass the offender up to the boss. If you’re a fan of beach volleyball you’d better start being more careful…
CONFIRMED: MGM to offer full-length films on YouTube
As we reported last Thursday, full-length movies are going to be hitting YouTube in the near future, and we now know that they’re going to come from 84-year-old film studio MGM. The studio has suffered financial trouble in recent years.
It’ll initially be uploading ancient episodes of American Gladiators, but following that, it’ll be putting up classics like Bulletproof Monk and The Magnificent Seven. There’ll also be officially-sanctioned clips from newer films like Legally Blonde. Unfortunately, as part of the deal, they’ll also be taking down thousands of user-uploaded clips from the James Bond and Rocky movies…
DRM on Sacred 2: Fallen Angel encourages sharing
Now this is what I like to see. DRM that rewards customers who’ve bought games, not punishes them. The DRM system on a new PC game – Sacred 2: Fallen Angel – allows any purchaser of a full physical or digital copy the right to pass the game around as many people as they like. The recipients will get 24 hours worth of full gameplay before they have the option to either uninstall or buy the game.
It’s fantastic because it lets people who’ve paid for the game share their love of it, but still helps people buy it. Users who upgrade from a shared copy won’t need to do any more installing, just put in an activation code. A round of applause for publishers ASCARON, please.
Related posts: EA sued over Spore DRM | Buy Audiosurf for £1.60
BUT STILL THEY COME: Trials of ID cards starting next year at two UK airports
The government’s amazing idea of making us all pay loads of money for a laminated bit of plastic with our name on it continues to unfold, with officials announcing the date for a trial run of the national ID card system.
Around 200,000 staff at Manchester and London City airports and associated suppliers will be issued with the ever-so-slightly controversial cards from Autumn of 2009, according to the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, with the plan being to roll this out to all UK airport staff – and maybe even us lot – 18 months or so later…
eBay Nutcase of the Week: Anyone paying $100 for one of yesterday's Barack Obama-themed newspapers
Yesterday’s American newspapers, all of which carried various combinations of the words “Obama” and “wins” and “change” on their covers, are selling on eBay for vast sums today thanks to the whole incredible level of excitement surrounding the election of America’s first ever president.
Copies of the New York Times, pictured left, which led with the simple headline “Obama,” are currently fetching around $100 each on eBay, despite the NYT hurriedly printing an extra 75,000 copies to meet demand on the day as desperate punters tried to grab themselves a piece of history…
The BBC's TV detector vans are simply a form of psychological warfare
The UK’s Information Commissioner, who’s been a very busy man/department recently, declined a freedom of information request to reveal how many TV license detector vans the BBC operates – because it might stop people believing they exist.
The shadowy fleet of TV-detecting vans is supposed to be able to pick up tell-tale signs that a TV’s being used inside a house, but the ICO ruled that revealing how many vans the BBC actually operates – and the technology they use – might undermine the level of threat they pose. And lead to us not bothering to pay our licence fees any more…
eBay Nutcase of the Week: Man launches "ObamaAuctions.com" to help fund Barack's push
Your old Nokia 3310 could help Barack Obama become president of the United States of America. We bet you never thought that would happen when taking out the contract in 2001, did you?
That’s the idea behind the alarmingly short-sighted ObamaAuctions.com, a site where users can sell their stuff and pledge a proportion of the funds to the Obama campaign. You could, if you want, buy this anti-cellulite cream – and relax in the knowledge that 75% of the cash raised will go to support Barack’s bid to move into a very nice house in Washington for at least the next four years…
