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Sony

LittleBigPlanet Creations Raising Copyright Questions 66

Posted by Soulskill from the darth-sackboy-the-hedgehog dept.
Joystiq's Law of the Game column uses the recently released LittleBigPlanet to address the question of intellectual property rights for user-created content within and for games. At this point, Sony's ToS claims a great deal of control over users' work, unlike Second Life's, which is much more permissive. GiantBomb has a related story pointing out creations within LittleBigPlanet that are copies of other games, and how they could lead to legal troubles for Sony if they aren't quick about taking them down.
Mars

Mars Lander Faces Slow Death 212

Posted by Soulskill from the this-lander-will-self-destruct-in-five-months dept.
Riding with Robots writes "It's the beginning of the end for the Phoenix Mars Lander. As winter approaches in the Martian arctic, NASA says it's in a 'race against time and the elements' in its efforts to prolong the robotic spacecraft's life. Starting today, mission managers will begin to gradually shut the lander's systems down, hoping to conserve dwindling solar power and thereby extend the remaining systems' useful life. 'Originally scheduled to last 90 days, Phoenix has completed a fifth month of exploration in the Martian arctic. As expected, with the Martian northern hemisphere shifting from summer to fall, the lander is generating less power due to shorter days and fewer hours of sunlight reaching its solar panels. At the same time, the spacecraft requires more power to run several survival heaters that allow it to operate even as temperatures decline.'"
The Courts

Judge Tells RIAA To Stop 'Bankrupting' Litigants 332

Posted by CmdrTaco from the also-bake-them-cookies dept.
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The Boston judge who has consolidated all of the RIAA's Massachusetts cases into a single case over which she has been presiding for the past 5 years delivered something of a rebuke to the RIAA's lawyers, we have learned. At a conference this past June, the transcript of which (PDF) has just been released, Judge Nancy Gertner said to them that they 'have an ethical obligation to fully understand that they are fighting people without lawyers ... to understand that the formalities of this are basically bankrupting people, and it's terribly critical that you stop it ...' She also acknowledged that 'there is a huge imbalance in these cases. The record companies are represented by large law firms with substantial resources,' while it is futile for self-represented defendants to resist. The judge did not seem to acknowledge any responsibility on her part, however, for having created the 'imbalance,' and also stated that the law is 'overwhelmingly on the side of the record companies,' even though she seems to recognize that for the past 5 years she has been hearing only one side of the legal story."
User Journal

Captain Copyright Expires 114

Posted by kdawson from the don't-let-the-door-hit-you dept.
The Canadian superhero Captain Copyright has finally expired, not due to pirates or to the passage of 50 years after the death of the author, but because "the current climate around copyright issues will not allow a project like this one to be successful." The cartoon was intended to provide an education in copyright law for children, but it became a focus for criticism when even the Canadian Library Association condemned it for lacking balance because it ignored issues like Fair Dealing (Canada's version of Fair Use). Personally, I was hoping we'd see them get sued by DC & Marvel, who claim to own the trademark on the word "superhero", and vanish in a puff of logic.
Businesses

Journal Journal: How The RIAA Is Like 17th Century French Button-Makers 150

Journal by Alien54
Requiring permission to innovate? Feeling entitled to search others' property? Getting the power to act like law enforcement in order to fine or arrest those who are taking part in activities that challenge your business model? Don't these all sound quite familiar? Centuries from now (hopefully much, much sooner), the actions of the RIAA, MPAA and others that match these of the weavers and button-makers of 17th century France will
Programming

Submission + - Lisp and Ruby, sitting in a tree...

Submitted by
sdelmont
sdelmont writes: "The developers of Rubinius, an experimental Ruby interpreter inspired by SmallTalk, have been discussing the possibility of adding a Lisp dialect to their VM. Pat Eyler collected some ideas and opinions from the people involved and it makes for some interesting reading. For many, Ruby already is an acceptable Lisp, and the language itself started as a perlification of Lisp (even Matz says so) so it is perhaps fitting and might help explain why the whole idea feels right. Now, if someone added support for VB and gave it the respect it deserves, the world would be a better place."
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Does Income Inequality Matter?

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Alarmed by Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein's record-setting $53M bonus, Charles Wheelan (aka The Naked Economist) argues that income inequality matters. Wheelan notes that the Gini Coefficient (a measure of income inequality) for the U.S. has been moving away from countries like Japan and Sweden and closer to that of Brazil, where the murder rate is 5X that of NYC and crime is materially impacting GDP."
Privacy

Submission + - Germany Searches Credit Cards for Child Porn Pay

Submitted by
narramissic
narramissic writes: "According to an article on ITworld, police in the German state of Sachsen-Anhalt have teamed with credit card companies to sift through the transactions of over 22 million customers looking for those who may have purchased child pornography online. To date they have identified 322 suspects. From the article:
German data privacy laws allow police to ask financial institutions to provide data about individuals but only if the investigators meet certain conditions, including a concrete suspicion of illegal behavior and narrowly defined search criteria, according to Johann Bizer, deputy director of the Independent Center for Privacy Protection in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.
In the case under investigation, police were aware of a child pornography Web site outside of Germany that was attracting users inside the country. And they asked the credit-card companies to conduct a database search narrowed to three criteria: a specific amount of money, a specific time period and a specific receiver account.
"
Space

Submission + - NASA Will Go Metric on the Moon

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Space.com is reporting that NASA has decided to use the metric system for its new lunar missions. NASA hopes that metrication will allow easier international participation and safer missions. The loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter was blamed on an error converting between English units and metric units. 'When we made the announcement at the meeting, the reps for the other space agencies all gave a little cheer,' said a NASA official.
Announcements

Submission + - Help choose the best tech writing of 2007

Submitted by handle
handle writes: You can help choose 'The Best of Technology Writing 2007' for an upcoming anthology to be published by The University of Michigan Press and University of Michigan Library. Visit http://www.digitalculture.com/ to nominate your favorite articles, essays and blog posts. The 2006 edition has been published, and you can read it online free (as in beer).
Announcements

Submission + - Dracula's Castle for sale in Romania: price $77m

Submitted by galaad2
galaad2 writes: Want to own the real castle that was the source of all the vampire stories? Want to have your very own vampire castle? Here's your chance!

The Transylvanian castle of Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, is on sale for £40 million [timesonline.co.uk] (around 77 million dollars).

Bran Castle [telegraph.co.uk], near the historic city of Brasov, in central Romania, is one of the country's most popular tourist destinations because of its association with 15th-century Prince Vlad Tepes III, also known as the Impaler for his favoured method of executing opponents.

The local town council has preemption rights, they have 30 days to review the offer, and then the property will be put on the market.

Extra info: wikipedia article about Bran Castle
Programming

Second Life Open Sources Client 208

Posted by Hemos from the i-call-upon-the-community dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Just noticed that Second Life released their client under the GPL today, and that they're up to 2.4 million users. Article says that 15% of users contribute scripted objects."
The Internet

Submission + - Twilight for Pegasus and Mercury

Submitted by Daemon Duck
Daemon Duck writes: One of the web's oldest and most respected email clients is flickering out of existence. Pegasus mail and it's companion SMTP server, Mercury32, have been discontinued due to lack of funding for the ongoing development. On the website, the author David Harris states that if some funding becomes available he would consider opening the source code or continuing the development. The announcement can be read here.

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