10 Jun 2004
Look Inside A PC-killing WIPO Treaty

WIPO - think NAFTA on steroids. Hopefully this latest bit of lunacy can be stopped, but when this many lawyers are involved, who knows?

The Broadcast Treaty is a proposal from a WIPO Subcommittee that's supposedly about stopping 'signal theft.' But along the way, this proposal has turned into a huge, convoluted hairball that threatens to make the PC illegal, trash the public domain, break copyleft and put a Broadcast Flag on the Internet. The treaty negotiation process is unbelievably convoluted and hard-to-follow, and they've just wrapped up the latest round in Geneva. But for the first time, a really large group of "civil society" orgs were accredited to attend. Me and another EFF staffer and the Coordinator of the Union for the Public Domain created a heavily editorialized impressionistic transcript of the meeting (EFF mirror, UPD mirror), trying to untie the knots in the negotiation. This is the first time that a really exhaustive peek inside a WIPO treaty negotiation has ever been published -- get it while it's legal!

(link) [Slashdot]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Ray Charles, RIP

One of the finest musicians ever. Not a bad actor, either - I still laugh over his bit part as the blind music store owner with the gun in The Blues Brothers.

Ray Charles, the Grammy-winning crooner who blended gospel and blues in such crowd-pleasers as "What'd I Say" and heartfelt ballads like "Georgia on My Mind," died Thursday, a spokesman said. He was 73. Charles died at his Beverly Hills home surrounded by family and friends, said spokesman Jerry Digney.

(link) [CNN]

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

SCO revenue takes a tumble

I think it's almost "game over" for SCO's little scheme. Building a business around suing your customer base can only last so long, after all. But I gotta wonder how much cash the management of SCO managed to extract from the company during the run-up. If they manage to walk away from this debacle scot-free, you can rest assured we'll see more of these shenanigans in the future.

The company's Unix licensing program costs a lot more than it brings in.

(link) [CNET News.com]

00:00 /Copywrongs | 0 comments | permanent link

Army to destroy deadly nerve gas

The article says that "Residents near the Newport Chemical Depot are ready to see the VX go." You bet we are: Newport is about 45 miles west of here, and it's been a real spooky presence ever since 9/11. One drop of that stuff could ruin your whole day ... I never understood the rationale for state production and maintanence of chemical or biological weapons, especially after the advent of nukes, but they would seem to make the perfect terror weapon for those groups without the nuclear wherewithal to make a bomb. Scary stuff.

In a cavernous, pipe-filled structure known simply as the Utility Building, Army contractors are getting ready to destroy a Cold War-era concoction so lethal it could kill untold millions.

[link] [CNN]

00:00 /Home | 0 comments | permanent link

Lawmakers fight Accenture 'corporate expat' deal

About time somebody in Congress said "Enough!"

"The United States government should not be doing business with those who want all the benefits of citizenship without any of the responsibilities that come along with it," DeLauro (D-Conn) said in a statement. Accenture did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A House committee passes a measure aimed at blocking a major homeland security contract awarded to Bermuda-based Accenture.

(link) [CNET News.com]

00:00 /Politics | 0 comments | permanent link

Mosque row sparks Nigeria clashes

Don't ya just love "religions of peace"?

"Your steeple's bigger than my steeple! So now we're going to kill you for it!"

At least seven people are killed and three mosques burnt in clashes between Christians and Muslims.

(link) [BBC News | World | UK Edition]

00:00 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

IE flaws used to spread pop-up toolbar

One more reason I've gone to Mozilla. Anybody still running IE deserves whatever they get ...

An adware purveyor has apparently used two previously unknown security flaws in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to install a toolbar on victims' computers that triggers pop-up ads, researchers said this week.

(link) [CNET News.com]

00:00 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link