Category: Intellectual Property
Kangaroo slaughtered by Competition Commission – joint BBC, ITV and C4 online TV service axed
Project Kangaroo, the planned online telly service that would’ve combined BBC, ITV and Channel 4 content on one handy site for your viewing pleasure, has been binned.
The EVIL denier of free TV is the Competition Commission which has, incredibly, decided that it would be unfair of the Beeb, ITV and C4 to team up as this might damage rival commercial companies that operating in the same “space” – despite the fact that the rival commercial companies routinely allow their users…
Google Street View car in SENSELESS animal slaughter shock – pictures included
For the love of GOD, won’t someone stop them?
Google’s roaming fleet of privacy-invading world-mapping cars caused a bit of a stir yesterday, when one of the people who spends their every waking hour combing Street View for photos of hookers, drugs deals going down, shootings and sunbathing ladies found this – the moment the Street View car flattened a deer.
You’d think the driver would’ve said something and told his bosses not to upload the pictures, but no. Although the photo has since been removed from the service, to…
Ireland gets 'three-strikes' policy for music downloads
Meanwhile, over the Irish Sea, the four major music labels have just come to an agreement with Eircom (Ireland’s equivalent of BT) to cut off persistent downloaders after two warnings – the famous “three strikes” approach to music piracy.
Ireland joins France in being the only countries in the world to implement the system, which alienates ISP customers, especially as people get accused of things they’ve not done on a regular basis. The labels say that they’re going to take “all necessary steps” to get other ISPs to follow suit, though I anticipate there’ll be a considerable amount of resistance, especially when they see customers deserting Eircom in their droves.
(via Irish Times)
Related posts: MEPs vote in favour of new telecoms law, could lead to universal “three strikes” | Digital Britain
Digital Britain report: a summary
So, the Government has just released its Digital Britain green paper. It discusses a number of
different things that the government wants to do for the future of Britain’s digital industry, ranging from telecoms, through radio, television, broadband and, as we discussed this morning, intellectual property.
It’s an interesting read. There’s some positive aspects, and some negative ones. Some bits of the report are very ambitious, but others show no ambition at all. I’ll go through each sector in order over the break.
UK Government to tax every British broadband connection £20 for copyright enforcement
A £20 charge could be levied on every broadband connection in Britain, to pay for an agency that will provide data about serial copyright-breakers to music and film companies, if plans due to be announced today by the Government in its ‘Digital Britain’ green paper come to fruition.
Today, Lord Carter of Barnes will propose the creation of a quango which will be paid for by a levy on ISPs, who’ll almost certainly pass the cost on to their subscribers. Also in the white paper is a proposition that every house has a right to 2Mb/s broadband.
eBay Nutcase of the Week: Jon Ward auctions date with himself for… £46
Spurred on by the sorry tale of that American slapper who auctioned her alleged virginity for several million dollars, long-term Potters Bar singleton Jon Ward decided to sell an all-expenses-paid night out with himself “in London” on eBay.
The listing’s ended, but you can read Jon’s excellent self-oriented sales speak here.
The result? A lady called “sexysarah2009” bought an evening with Jon…
GDrive rumours solidify – code spotted in Google Apps
The rumours around Google’s GDrive, which we reported on the other day, look to be gaining steam. First, there was a mysterious menu option appearing in Picasa for Mac, and now code’s been added to Google Apps that references a ‘webdrive’. There’s even a little icon for it.
I’ll reiterate my comment from the other post – this isn’t likely to be ‘unlimited’ storage. People have too much crap for Google to allow that, and most of that crap is dubiously-acquired intellectual property like movies, games and music. Google’s had problems with that with YouTube, so I find it unlikely that they won’t put restrictions on the service.
More likely, we’ll see a limited storage, limited file upload service that doesn’t do very much more than what you can already do with Google Docs and Google Mail. When will we see it? My money’s on ‘fairly soon’.
(via Google Operating System)
Related posts: Rumours of Google planning an incredible unlimited cloud storage service | Google adds tube map to Google Maps
That 'friend' of yours who never buys music is safe – UK will not disconnect web access of music pirates
Hooray! The tedious and long-running saga of the UK possibly adopting the ‘three strikes’ system for disconnecting the internet access of music pirates has been dumped, with David Lammy, the Intellectual Property Minister, today saying there are “no plans” to introduce such a scheme.
Last year, everyone thought the French Technique of ordering ISPs to disconnect the harder-core of music pirates was the way to go, with the UK apparently considering adopting the idea.
However, Lammy has just told The Times that the government..
eBay Nutcase of the Week: eBay itself, for removing kids WWII board game that "incited racial hatred"
Poor old Paul Ramsier found himself accused of inciting racial hatred – by trying to sell an old World War II-themed board game on everyone’s favourite online junk shop.
Paul’s descent into the world of inadvertent racial hatred started when he realised his old Escape from Colditz board game was worth quite a bit nowadays, so he listed it up on eBay. The auction hit the lofty heights of £20, before eBay yanked the sale…
Sony boss surrenders pay bonus, as company braces for job cuts amid sales slump
Sir Howard Stringer, the Sony boss whose company reforms were doing a great job until the global financial crisis stopped everyone buying second BRAVIAS for the bedroom on their credit cards, will be turning down his bonus this year as Sony reveals its first annual loss in 14 years.
“The massive economic upheaval being experienced across the globe is sparing no one in the consumer electronics world,” Stringer said, as he revealed a forecast loss of $1.7bn for the year – and said Sony would look to making more job cuts on top of the already-announced 16,000 staff its planning…
