35% of all internet traffic is Torrent traffic. As Kazaa and other P2P sites diminish because of legal attacks, BitTorrent increases. The problem for copyright owners is that Torrent technology is very much capable of non-infringing uses, as the recent lecture by Cory Doctorow proves. Nevertheless, the first case against Read more
So, music downloads are now officially uncool. Yes, once Tesco starts offering “legal” music downloads; you know that the whole thing is now as cool as buying broccoli. Who is next? Asda? M&S?
A very interesting link that arrives courtesy of Bob Rietjens. A German court has given users the right to return items purchased from eBay within two weeks of purchase, provided that it has been bought from a commercial supplier. This seems consisten with the Distance Selling Directive, but this only Read more
You may recall the letter from BELETS Consultants. I replied, and received another one that shows this to be a more complex 419 scam, perhaps the most complex 419 that I have seen before. The scam is actually rather elegant. They first send an email making enquiries about a possible Read more
The Register reports that graphics company Tektronix is trying to enforce a 1987 patent (Patent 4,734,690) . This patent is for a “graphics display terminal performs a pan operation with respect to a view motion center to effectuate spherical panning, thereby providing perspective and non-perspective views“. In plain English, this Read more
A jury in Virginia has finally decided the first ever spam prosecution, which has resulted in 9 years jail sentence for Jeremy Jaynes, and $7,500 USD fine for Jessica DeGroot. 9 years? They mean business in Virginia!
This other variation of the Nigeria 419 scam looks quite good, until you realise that it has two main problems: it doesn’t have a return physical address, and it comes from Tony Gray, but it is signed by Rob Lenox. It also comes from an Italian ISP. From: BELETS CONSULTANTS Read more
I just received an email that is an interesting variation of your average Nigerian 419 scam email. I have received many of these scams in my time, and I am even saving some of the most original ones. This one is even less plausible than the Iraqi version of the Read more
There is a new study about the effect of music downloads on actual sales. This seems to corroborate that the actual effect of music downloads on sales is much less stronger thant the music industry would like to make us think. The summary of the study states that: “Each album Read more