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Peter Walker guardian.co.uk, Sunday 3 July 2011 "Britons could face charges for breaking US copyrights even if they have no link to America and servers are based elsewhere" "British website owners could face extradition to the US on piracy charges even if their operation has no connection to America and does something which is most probably legal in the UK, the official leading US web anti-piracy efforts has told the Guardian. The US's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) is targeting overseas websites it believes are breaking US copyrights whether or not their servers are based in America or there is another direct US link, said Erik Barnett, the agency's assistant deputy director. As long as a website's address ends in .com or .net, if it is implicated in the spread of pirated US-made films, TV or other media it is a legitimate target to be closed down or targeted for prosecution, Barnett said."

See also: USA wollen Urheberrechtsverstöße weltweit verfolgen Florian Rötzer 05.07.2011 http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/35/35055/1.html

"New world report shows more than 1 billion people with disabilities face substantial barriers in their daily lives Governments should step up efforts to enable access to mainstream services and to invest in specialized programmes to unlock the vast potential of people with disabilities News release 9 June 2011 | New York - WHO and the World Bank today revealed new global estimates that more than one billion people experience some form of disability. They urged governments to step up efforts to enable access to mainstream services and to invest in specialized programmes to unlock the vast potential of people with disabilities. World report on disability provides global estimates The first-ever World report on disability provides the first global estimates of persons with disabilities in 40 years and an overview of the status of disability in the world. New research shows that almost one-fifth of the estimated global total of persons living with disabilities, or between 110-190 million, encounter significant difficulties. The report stresses that few countries have adequate mechanisms in place to respond to the needs of people with disabilities. Barriers include stigma and discrimination, lack of adequate health care and rehabilitation services; and inaccessible transport, buildings and information and communication technologies. As a result, people with disabilities experience poorer health, lower educational achievements, fewer economic opportunities and higher rates of poverty than people without disabilities. "Disability is part of the human condition," says WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. "Almost every one of us will be permanently or temporarily disabled at some point in life. We must do more to break the barriers which segregate people with disabilities, in many cases forcing them to the margins of society.""

Direct link to the report download page: http://www.who.int/entity/disabilities/world_report/2011/en/index.html

Cory Doctorow. Make. June 2011. "Consider the iPad for a moment. It's true that Apple's iTunes Store has inspired hundreds of thousands of apps, but every one of those apps is contingent on Apple's approval. If you want to make something for the iPad, you pay $99 to join the Developer Program, make it, then send it to Apple and pray. If Apple smiles on you, you can send your hack to the world. If Apple frowns on you, you cannot. What's more, Apple uses code signing to restrict which apps can run on the iPad (and iPhone): if your app isn't blessed by Apple, iPads will refuse to run it. Not that it's technically challenging to defeat this code signing, but doing so is illegal, thanks to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it a crime to circumvent a copyright-protection technology. So the only app store - or free repository - that can legally exist for Apple's devices is the one that Apple runs for itself. Some people say the iPad is a new kind of device: an appliance instead of a computer. But because Apple chose to add a thin veneer of DRM to the iPad, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act applies here, something that's not true of any "appliance" you've ever seen. It's as if Apple built a toaster that you can only use Apple's bread in (or face a lawsuit), or a dishwasher that will only load Apple's plates. Apple fans will tell you that this doesn't matter. Hackers can simply hack their iPads or shell out $99 to get the developer license. But without a means of distributing (and receiving) hacks from all parties, we're back in the forbidden-knowledge Dark Ages - the poverty-stricken era in which a mere handful of ideas was counted as a fortune."

We discussed this article in the forum of lascuolachefunziona.it. Someone objected that the iPad was a great tool and gave far more liberty to developers than traditional print publishers. I retorted that it was precisely because the iPad was such a great tool that its proprietariness about content for it was irritating. Then Elena Favaron made an illuminating comparison: "There are also people who make coffee machines that work only with dedicated coffee capsules, and there are folks who even buy them..."

Excellent video--what state couldn't use this? The Did You Know? (Shift Happens) videos have been seen by at least 40 million people online and perhaps that many again during face-to-face conferences, workshops, etc. This week saw the release of the latest version, this one focused on the state of Iowa.

"July 31, 2011 By David Glenn Cambridge, Mass. This past April in Switzerland, Lawrence Lessig gave an impassioned lecture denouncing publishers' paywalls, which charge fees to read scholarly research, thus blocking most people from access. It was a familiar theme for Mr. Lessig, a professor at Harvard Law School who is one of the world's most outspoken critics of intellectual-property laws. But in this speech he gave special attention to JSTOR, a not-for-profit journal archive. He cited a tweet from a scholar who called JSTOR "morally offensive" for charging $20 for a six-page 1932 article from the California Historical Society Quarterly. The JSTOR archive is not usually cast as a leading villain by open-access advocates. But Mr. Lessig surely knew in April something that his Swiss audience did not: Aaron Swartz-a friend and former Harvard colleague of Mr. Lessig's-was under investigation for misappropriating more than 4.8 million scholarly papers and other files from JSTOR. On July 19, exactly three months after Mr. Lessig's speech, federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging that Mr. Swartz had abused computer networks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and disrupted JSTOR's servers. If convicted on all counts, Mr. Swartz faces up to 35 years in prison."

"Collection: C. Szwedzicki: The North American Indian Works Work Record ID: 219 Reproduction Record ID: 219 Work Class: depictions Work Type: print Title: Retreat of Reno's Commnand Title Type: constructed title Title: Sioux Indian painting Title Type: collective title Measurements: 11.40 x 19.05 in (28.96 x 48.39 cm) on sheet 15.30 x 19.50 in (38.86 x 49.53 cm) Measurement Type: dimensions Material: paper (fiber product) Material Type: support Inscription: Image Top Center: Custer Battle Field / June 25 and 26 1876 / Crazy Horse Inscription: Above Image Right: 8 [Plate Number] Creator: Bad Heart Bull, Amos, 1869-1913 Creator Dates: 1869-1913 Creator Nationality: Oglala Lakota Creator Name Variant: Bad Heart Buffalo (Tatanka Cante Sice) Creator Type: personal name Creator Role: painter Date: 1938 Location: Little Bighorn Battlefield (Mont.) Repository: Archives and Rare Books Library, University Libraries, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio Repository Type: current repository ID Number: 8 ID Number Type: plate number ID Number: ARB RB Oversize E98.A7 S568 1938 Vol. 2 ID Number Type: call number Style Period: Plains Indian Style Period: Indian art--North America Culture: Native American Culture: Oglala Lakota Subject: Belts (Clothing) Subject: Breechcloths Subject: Face painting Subject: Feathers Subject: Fringe Subject: Leggings Subject: Moccasins Subject: Beadwork Subject: Body painting Subject: Shirts, Men's Subject: Breastplates Subject: Hair pipes Subject: Bridles Subject: Horseback riding Subject: Horses Subject: Chokers Subject: Arrows Subject: Metalwork Subject: Picture-writing Subject: Saddle blankets Subject: Indian warfare Subject: Rifles Subject: Military uniforms Subject: Sabers Subject: Bow lances Subject: Crazy Horse (Tashunca-Uitco), ca. 1842-1877 Subject: Fixed-stone-head clubs Subject: Hats Subject: Saddles Subject: Saddlebags Subject: War shirts Subject: Reno, Marcus A. (Marcus Albert), 1835-1889 Subject: Indians of North America--Wars Subj

by Mike Masnick Wed, Jun 1st 2011 " ...the bill tries to also define what constitutes a potential felony crime in these circumstances: the offense consists of 10 or more public performances by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copyrighted works So yeah. If you embed a YouTube video that turns out to be infringing, and more than 10 people view it because of your link... you could be facing five years in jail. This is, of course, ridiculous, and suggests (yet again) politicians who are regulating a technology they simply do not understand. Should it really be a criminal act to embed a YouTube video, even if you don't know it was infringing...? This could create a massive chilling effect to the very useful service YouTube provides in letting people embed videos."

Not "News" per se (June 1st) but source of ongoing other discussions, e.g. in gaming sites