Russian President Vladimir Putin is not f*cking around.
The president signed a new law on Monday that will prohibit cursing in music, books, movies and at entertainment events throughout the country as of July 1. Existing books, CDs and hard copies of movies that contain curse words provide a warning label about the obscene language. Anyone who breaks the law is subject to a fine.
via Russia Bans Cursing in Movies, Books, Music and Media | Mashable
Broadband providers aren’t “common carriers,” court says, and that makes all the difference in a decision certain to shake up the fixed broadband and wireless industries.
Read more: Appeals court strikes down FCCs Net neutrality rules | Politics and Law | CNET News
Full Post
Eight years after a group of authors and publishers sued Google for scanning more than 20 million library books without the permission of rights holders, a federal judge has ruled that the web giant’s sweeping book project stayed within the bounds of U.S. copyright law.
On Thursday morning, U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin dismissed a lawsuit from the Author Guild, ruling that Google’s book scans constituted fair use under the law. Though Google scanned those 20 million books in full and built a web service, Google Books, that lets anyone search the digital texts, users can only view “snippets” of a book if the right holder hasn’t given approval.
“In my view, Google Books provides significant public benefits,” the ruling reads. “It advances the progress of the arts and sciences, while maintaining respectful consideration for the rights of authors and other creative individuals, and without adversely impacting the rights of copyright holders.”
In a statement sent to WIRED, a Google spokesperson said the company was “absolutely delighted” with the ruling. “As we have long said, Google Books is in compliance with copyright law and acts like a card catalog for the digital age giving users the ability to find books to buy or borrow.”
Michael Boni, a partner with Boni & Zack, the law firm representing the Authors Guild, did not immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment. Nor did the Author’s Guild. But the Guild has told other news outlets it will appeal the decision.
“We disagree with and are disappointed by the court’s decision today. This case presents a fundamental challenge to copyright that merits review by a higher court,” reads a statement sent to GigaOm. “Google made unauthorized digital editions of nearly all of the world’s valuable copyright-protected literature and profits from displaying those works. In our view, such mass digitization and exploitation far exceeds the bounds of the fair use defense.”
The ruling comes two years after Judge Chin rejected a $125 million settlement between Google, the Author’s Guild, and the Association of American Publishers, which was also part of the original lawsuit against the web giant. After complaints over the settlement from outside organizations such as the Internet Archive and Google rivals such as Microsoft, Chin ruled the deal would give Google a de facto monopoly over so-called “orphan books,” scanned texts whose rights holders had not come forward to claim their share of the revenues Google would make from its book scanning endeavor.
A year after this ruling, the publishers agreed to another settlement with Google, and this one was not subject to approval from the court. But Chin allowed the case to continue as a class action, but an appeals court reversed this decision and told Chin to rule on the copyright issue.
Though Google limits how much book text you can view online — and though it doesn’t display ads on pages describing books it does not have rights to, the company, as the court explained, can still use its service to draw people to its websites and make money in other ways. But this commercial gain doesn’t necessarily mean copy infringement. Google Books, the judge ruled, doesn’t “negatively impact the market for books.”
On the contrary, Chin said, Google Books feeds the market for books. “A reasonable factfinder could only find that Google Books enhances the sales of books to the benefit of copyright holders,” the ruling reads. “Google Books provides a way for authors’ works to become noticed, much like traditional in-store book displays.”
via 8 Years Later, Google’s Book Scanning Crusade Ruled ‘Fair Use’ | Wired Business | Wired.com.
Net neutrality is a dead man walking. The execution date isn’t set, but it could be days, or months (at best). And since net neutrality is the principle forbidding huge telecommunications companies from treating users, websites, or apps differently — say, by letting some work better than others over their pipes — the dead man walking isn’t some abstract or far-removed principle just for wonks: It affects the internet as we all know it.
Once upon a time, companies like AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and others declared a war on the internet’s foundational principle: that its networks should be “neutral” and users don’t need anyone’s permission to invent, create, communicate, broadcast, or share online. The neutral and level playing field provided by permissionless innovation has empowered all of us with the freedom to express ourselves and innovate online without having to seek the permission of a remote telecom executive.
But today, that freedom won’t survive much longer if a federal court — the second most powerful court in the nation behind the Supreme Court, the DC Circuit — is set to strike down the nation’s net neutrality law, a rule adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 2010. Some will claim the new solution “splits the baby” in a way that somehow doesn’t kill net neutrality and so we should be grateful. But make no mistake: Despite eight years of public and political activism by multitudes fighting for freedom on the internet, a court decision may soon take it away.
Read the full story: We’re About to Lose Net Neutrality — And the Internet as We Know It | Wired Opinion | Wired.com.
As Web companies and government agencies analyze ever more information about our lives, it’s tempting to respond by passing new privacy laws or creating mechanisms that pay us for our data. Instead, we need a civic solution, because democracy is at risk.
Snip: “When all citizens demand their rights but are unaware of their responsibilities, the political questions that have defined democratic life over centuries—How should we live together? What is in the public interest, and how do I balance my own interest with it?—are subsumed into legal, economic, or administrative domains. “The political” and “the public” no longer register as domains at all; laws, markets, and technologies displace debate and contestation as preferred, less messy solutions.
But a democracy without engaged citizens doesn’t sound much like a democracy—and might not survive as one.”
A lengthy but thought provoking read on the right to privacy and democracy. Read: Evgeny Morozov on Why Our Privacy Problem is a Democracy Problem in Disguise | MIT Technology Review.
New French Law Bars Online Booksellers to Offer Discounts With Free Shipping | GoodReader
The French parliament has passed a law that makes it illegal for online stores to deliver books for free while also offering a 5 percent discount on the price of the book. The move is being seen as a means of protecting the interests of independent booksellers as much as it is to limit Amazon’s monopoly in the segment. As Christian Kert, the conservative MP who tabled the bill puts it, the bill is aimed at ensuring “that the price of a book sold online is higher than one sold by an independent bookshop.” The government stated they look forward to “restricting predatory behaviour” with the new bill.
11 Lessons That ‘Jane Eyre’ Can Teach Every 21st Century Woman About How To Live Well | HuffPost Books
The novel was very shocking for its time. One reviewer said that the book “might be written by a woman but not by a lady.” People were scandalized that Eyre returned to Rochester. However, the first edition still sold out in six weeks. Every time I encounter a woman who hasn’t read this book, I advise reading it immediately. Women can learn so much from this great Victorian heroine. [T]here’s much to be learned from the way she chooses to live.
10 Alpha Males In Literature | Jill Shalvis (romance author) | HuffPost Books
What qualifies me to make such a list? Because I write alphas, I read alphas, heck I even married an alpha (Hi, Alpha Man!). I believe an alpha has to be lovable as well as strong.
Australian textbook delivery, care of drones | CNET
A textbook rental start-up will deliver its packages to Sydney customers by drone starting next spring. From ordering to delivery, the entire process could take as little as two minutes.
Reading Made Awesome: The Features of Ebook Apps You Should Be Using | LifeHacker
Reading books on tablets or phones is awesome. There, I said it and I’m not taking it back. While the biggest advantage of reading on a mobile device is convenience and a huge portable library, there are a ton of features that make the experience awesome.
11 Young Adult Books Sure to Make You Cry | Mashable
Book-lovers and high schoolers are celebrating Teen Read Week, but even if you’re way past adolescence, you can enjoy a tear-jerking YA novel at any age. Young adult literature sometimes receives a bad rap as a depressing genre, but a hallmark of YA books is actually a hopeful ending. That doesn’t mean some of the more emotional titles won’t leave you in a puddle of your own tears.
After spending months trying to infiltrate an underground website that made buying and selling drugs as easy as shopping online for a book or TV, half a dozen FBI agents shuffled into the science fiction section of a San Francisco library and grabbed a young man working on a laptop.
Authorities said Wednesday the man was Ross William Ulbricht, and they accused him of being “Dread Pirate Roberts,” the once-anonymous mastermind behind the online drug marketplace known as Silk Road. Ulbricht, 29, collected tens of millions of dollars in commissions, investigators said, and twice ordered people killed in a bid to protect his empire.
Read the full story: Alleged online drug kingpin arrested at SF library | SFGate.
An Oregon middle school educator tries to paint his mocking students as hackers in order to bring an action against them under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Read: Principal sues students over parody Facebook, Twitter accounts | CNET News.
Cellphones, tablets and other wireless devices that have been reported lost or stolen can no longer be activated — and therefore used — on most wireless networks in Canada, following the launch of a new national “blacklist” of such devices Monday.
Read the full story: Stolen phones blacklist launches in Canada | Technology & Science | CBC News.
A Virginia court weighed in on the topic this week, and found that actions on Facebook – even if they only involve one click of a mouse – are indeed protected by the [US] First Amendment.
Read: A Facebook ‘Like’ Is Protected as Free Speech | News & Opinion | PCMag.com.
infophile 