(An auction house in City of Heroes) (via Ashley Theunissen) The UK’s Fraud Advisory Panel has issued a recommendation asking for regulation of the fledgling economies in virtual worlds. According to this group, virtual costumers are increasingly involved in commercial transactions in virtual environments. These virtual online communities “… are Read more…
(via Rebecca Henderson) A cloud of shame has now descended upon the UK’s legal community. The Honourable Mr Justice Openshaw, a High Court judge hearing the Internet terrorism trial in London, has admitted that he did not understand what a web site was. According to Yahoo News, he told the Read more…
Faceless is an unusual film for many reasons. The plot, apparently, talks of a world where everybody’s faceless due to calendar reform (huh?), but one day a woman wakes up and finds she has a face (Terry Gilliam meets Kafka). What makes the film truly unique is that it is Read more…
The U.S. Ninth Circuit has decided an appeal on the Perfect 10 v Google case, and has sent it back to the district court. For those unfamiliar with the case, Perfect 10 is an adult content provider who sued Google over Google Image thumbnails, claiming that the tiny images displayed Read more…
The mainstream press has been reporting on what could very well be the world’s first cyberwar. A diplomatic conflict between Estonia and Russia over a bronze statute has resulted in what seems to be a series of coordinated attacks against Estonian institutions. Denial-of-service attacks have brought down websites belonging to Read more…
(via Machine-Envy and PanGloss) It’s amazing what a little hacktivism and playing around with search engines can do. If AACS starts issuing more cease-and-desist letter to take down the much-commented HD-DVD key from websites, they may have to remove this one. And then Think Geek has a set of notes Read more…
PayPal has sent an email to all its UK subscribers announcing that it will now be considered a bank. The message reads: “Currently, PayPal (Europe) Ltd. is the service provider for PayPal in the EU. PayPal (Europe) Ltd. is a UK company regulated and authorised by the Financial Services Authority Read more…
Last week we reported on the case brought by Spain’s collecting agency SGAE against a bowling bar in Alicante, which lost on its claim that it only played “copyleft” music. Almost immediately, another case has come out, this one in favour of the claimant bar. As I reported last week, Read more…
Fortune Magazine has published an interview with Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, where he has made the comment that Linux infringes 235 of its software patents, and it will be looking for licences from developers and corporate users. As your friendly neighbourhood Prophet of Doom, I have been announcing the advent of Read more…
This is a bizarre take on copyright law. DRM manufacturers Media Rights Technologies (MRT) and BlueBeat.com have issued cease and desist letters against Apple, Microsoft, Real and Adobe for not including their technological protection measures in products like Windows, iPod and Flash Player. I could try to explain the convoluted Read more…