Creating your own compilations from a CD; extracting your favourite track to listen to it on your computer; transferring it onto an mp3 player; lending a CD to a friend; reading a DVD with free software or duplicating it to be able to enjoy it at home and in your country house – common practices, [...]

But BellSouth’s Louisiana operation "angrily" yanked the offer because it’s upset by the New Orleans project to launch the first free wireless network to be owned and run by a major US city.   "Around the country, large telephone companies have aggressively lobbied against localities launching their own Internet networks, arguing that they amount to [...]

The report (click for PDF), released Monday by a pair of free-expression advocates at New York University Law School’s Brennan Center for Justice, argues that so-called "fair use" rights are under attack. It suggests six major steps for change, including reducing penalties for infringement and making a greater number of pro bono lawyers available to [...]

As an apparent deadline for the addition of copyright filtering technology came and went yesterday without such a change apparently being made, Kazaa owner Sharman Networks was forced to stop distributing its software to local users.   Anyone accessing the Kazaa website was told: “To comply with the orders of the Federal Court… use of [...]

An Internet Explorer bug has put Google users at risk of a phishing attack, according to a security researcher in Israel.   Matan Gillon published an article detailing a method for exploiting an unpatched Internet Explorer flaw. The flaw could allow hackers entrance into computers running Google’s desktop search tool.   Google has since patched [...]

The proposed class action suit claims that in Microsoft’s bid to gain share in the $25 billion global video game market, the company was so intent on releasing the Xbox 360 before competing next-generation machines from Sony and Nintendo that it sold a "defectively designed" product.   Robert Byers, who brought the suit, said the [...]

It appears that publishing Free Software giving access to culture is about to become a counterfeiting criminal offence. Will SACEM sue France Télécom R&D research labs for having published Maay and Solipsis (P2P pieces of software used to exchange data)[2]?   Up to this point, the rather technical debate surrounding the issues addressed by DADVSI [...]

Australian federal court justice Murray Wilcox had given Kazaa until today to comply with an order to come up with a keyword filtering system based on a 3,000-word library supplied by the members of the Big Four Organized Music family.   Sharman was reportedly on the verge of handing off, in effect, to Audible Magic, [...]

Dedicated fans queued overnight or in the early hours of the morning in the light of limited stocks.   Hundreds of Xbox 360s have appeared on the online auction site eBay, selling for more than double the retail price.   The limited stock has led retailers and gamers to criticise Microsoft for not supplying enough [...]

If a new "John Doe" motion in the Big Four Organized Music cartel sue ‘em all campaign succeeds, it could mean the end the cartel’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) practice of trying to sue people en masse in p2p file sharing cases.   " ‘John Doe’ Brings Motion in New York to Sever [...]

Accessing the Sony Communication Network allows users to download current episodes of TV shows, music videos and trailers, and other video programming by downloading from Sony’s website onto a Memory Stick. Video downloads cost between $1-3 each.   Which seemingly quite cheap for a full TV episode, that’s where the ‘rental’ part comes in. These [...]

The specifics of the project are relatively straightforward. The BBC–home of TV properties like Eastenders, The Office, and BBC World–is to market-test technology that could evolve into a something it calls MyBBCPlayer. This new service will allow viewers (U.K.-only, to start with) to download BBC content legally. This will comprise the most recent seven days [...]

A new briefing released yesterday by Postini, the messaging security company, based in San Carlos, Calif., indicates that the recently discovered "Sober" virus is the largest viral attack on the Internet ever recorded, twice as big as any other virus on record.   "We typically quarantine about 50 million virus-infected e-mails in a month. This [...]

Three of the lawsuits have been filed in U.S. District Court in White Plains. One names a Suffern woman, Enid Biernesser, as a defendant, accusing her of illegally downloading copyrighted songs online.    Another lawsuit names Joseph Tocco Jr. of Yonkers, charging him with the same copyright infringements. Biernesser did not return calls seeking comment. [...]

The moment Sony’s (SNE) handheld game console, PlayStation Portable, went on sale in the U.S. on March 24, Auri Rahimzadeh got one. For months, he’d heard all about the latest gizmo from the Japanese electronics giant. Slightly bulkier than a checkbook and costing around $200, the PSP was the ultimate in mobile entertainment — a [...]

Skype’s software lets computer users talk to each other for free and make cut-price calls to mobiles and landlines.   The new version adds video and a bunch of extra features in what is becoming an increasingly competitive area.   Internet portals such as MSN, Yahoo and AOL have offered video with their instant messaging [...]

What a short, strange trip it was. After the Grateful Dead angered some of its biggest fans by asking a nonprofit Web site to halt the free downloading of its concert recordings, the psychedelic jam band changed its mind Wednesday.   Internet Archive, a site that catalogues content on Web sites, reposted recordings of Grateful [...]

What’s the newest security threat lurking on your PC? It’s not the spam sitting in your inbox luring you to fake Web sites.   Or the keystroke-logging malware recording your passwords. It’s holes in the software designed to protect you from all that. It’s true: Hackers, bored with attacking Microsoft (MSFT), are going after Symantec [...]