… or so it seems for British lawyer firm Davenport Lyons, which has been sending letters on behalf of German gay porn makers to obtain payment from people who download their films through P2P and Torrent sites. But not only are individuals being accused of copyright infringement, stock photography sites Read more
Mathias Klang at Wrote tagged me with the six word memoir meme, so I will try to rise to the challenge. I’ve always liked the line in Half a Person by The Smiths that says “16, clumsy and shy, I went to London and I”, but it exceeds the limit. Read more
A Federal jury in Los Angeles has convicted Lori Drew of three misdemeanour counts of computer fraud, specifically accessing a computer without authorisation. This is not unusual in itself, but the novelty of the decision is that Ms Drew’s conduct was to create a fictional MySpace account to bully neighbour Read more
(via Pangloss) The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) has published a report about the prevalence of cybercrime against virtual world inhabitants. The report states that: “2007 was the year of online gaming fraud – with malicious programs that specifically target online games and virtual worlds increasing by 145% Read more
(via ORG-Discussion list and various other sources) A teenager in Florida has committed suicide while webcasting the event on video website Justin.tv. Reportedly, as many as 1,500 people were witnesing the event at one time, and some even encouraged the teenager with messages like this one: “Do it, do the Read more
Monty Python releases its own YouTube channel to get back at all the people who have been ripping them off for three years. If you cannot beat them, join them… ’tis but a flesh wound.
20081104_Chicago_IL_ElectionNight1032, originally uploaded by Barack Obama. I have been looking at the amazing pictures on Flickr taken at the Obama household on the night of the U.S. election, and I have to say that I am utterly surprised by the fact that the photographs are all shared under a Creative Read more
(via Patently-O) Halliburton (yes, THAT Halliburton) has made a patent application for patent trolling. Enjoy USPTO application 20080270152, which protects a method for “Patent Acquisition and Assertion by a (Non-Inventor) First Party Against a Second Party”. The abstract reads: “Methods for a first party to acquire and assert a patent Read more
Everybody knows that The Matrix runs on UNIX, but what if it ran on Windows XP? “Looks like you are trying to bend a spoon with your mind. Have you tried realising the truth that there is no spoon?”
Yesterday was the official “bash virtual worlds” day in the UK press. With the launch of the latest World of Warcraft expansion (Wrath of the Lich King), news sources went overboard in the coverage of thousands of costumed geeks queuing outside Oxford Street’s HMV; at some point the game’s launch Read more