An anonymous reader sends in word of the well-known artist Todd Goldman, who has been accused of stealing images and ideas from an Internet comic artist/author and others, and profiting from them. Goldman has now threatened to sue the Web page that pointed out the apparent theft to the world.

kamikaze-Tech writes "The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington DC today issued Vonage a permanent stay of a previous court's injunction that would have barred it from signing up new customers. Vonage sought the stay following an April 6th decision by the US District Court in Alexandria, VA enjoining the company from using certain VoIP technology to add new customers."

TorrentFreak has a short post up talking with a former physical data pirate, who sold his wares in flea markets and made buckets of money in the 90s. By the end of the last decade, his money flow had dried up, and he places the blame squarely on the shoulders of P2P file sharing. "Tony is very clear about why his rags to riches story has gone back to rags again. 'File-sharing, P2P - call it what you like. When you asked a customer why he wasn't buying anything, 9 times out of 10 it was BitTorrent this, LimeWire that ...' P2P is a very powerful machine and although Tony could see that his operation was feeling its effects, he admits that he sat back and did nothing about it and consequently, his business has paid the ultimate price. Other industries affected by P2P should take note: Don't be a Tony. Overhaul your business model. Quickly." One would imagine overseas media sellers will have similar issues, as P2P networks become more common outside of the Western world.

Crouch and hold writes "Are closed DRM schemes like FairPlay more secure than interoperable ones? Based on the number of cracks, it doesn't look like it. 'When it comes to DRM, what history actually teaches us is that one approach is no more secure than the other in practice, as they relate to the keeping of secrets. Windows Media DRM has had fewer security breaches than Apple's FairPlay, yet WM DRM is licensed out the wazoo: there are more than a dozen companies with WM DRM licenses.'"

pilsner.urquell writes to let us know about a wide-ranging interview with Google's founders from Davos, Switzerland. Larry Page and Sergey Brin admitted that allowing China to censor its search engine did harm to the company in its Western markets. Quoting the Guardian article: "Asked whether he regretted the decision, Mr. Brin admitted yesterday: 'On a business level, that decision to censor... was a net negative.'" The reporter concludes that Google is unlikely to revise its Chinese censorship policy any time soon.

02bunced writes "The BBC is reporting that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has started his own blog, the launch of which was announced on Iranian State TV. This is perhaps slightly ironic, given that the Iranian Government actively censors blogs on the Internet."

idobi writes to mention a C|Net article covering the dismissal of the Google page ranking case. Despite the loss, KinderStart also saw the ruling as a victory. The judge left the door open for a refiling, and the company is seeking to bring the suit to class-action status. Assistant professor of law at Marquette University Law School Eric Goldman comments in the article: "Frankly, there are very few novel or surprising aspects of this ruling. For example, the judge rejected the claim that Google was a state actor, but this ruling is entirely consistent with the dozen or so precedents involving private Internet companies ... The other rulings seemed very sensible and fairly predictable from the complaint. It's pretty clear that the judge thinks that some of KinderStart's claims have no chance even with repleading, but the judge apparently has decided to give KinderStart that chance rather than just shutting the door."

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft kills off support for Windows 98 and Windows ME today, and ZDNet is reporting that the move will boost demand for Linux on the desktop. Unlike two years ago — when support for Win98 was extended because Linux was seen as a serious competitor — this time it seems there is no turning back."

SirClicksalot writes "CNN is reporting that Vic Gundotra, a 15-year veteran general manager at Microsoft, has left the company to join Google. Gundotra worked at Microsoft as general manager for platform evangelism to get software developers to use Microsoft's software and online offerings. The function he will perform at Google is not yet known, but he will need to wait one year before starting his new job because of a non-compete clause in his contract."

An anonymous reader writes "SCO has announced their plans to release a new version of Caldera Linux by the end of the year. From the announcement: 'To provide extensive reliability and performance features, the Linux Kernel 2.5 codebase has been merged with recently developed additions to SCO's world leading UNIX core operating system. Already contained code owned by SCO is still included benefiting the stability and overall experience opposed to recent Linux kernel releases.' The question is, is anyone listening?"