Media & Culture @ HM

"Computer scientists and policy experts say that ... innocuous bits of self-revelation can increasingly be collected and reassembled by computers to help create a picture of a person's identity, sometimes down to the Social Security number."

"A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt a sharp blow to the efforts of the Federal Communications Commission to set the rules of the road for the Internet, ruling that the agency lacks the authority to require broadband providers to give equal treatment to all Internet traffic flowing over their networks. "

Madonna and her 13-year-old daughter, Lourdes, are introducing a line at Macy's that recalls the leather-and-lace days of the 1980s.

In the last 60 years paying for advertising time has become the prevailing issue for anybody seeking elected office in the United Stares.

This article was issued October 27, 2010. This article was written by a frequent writer, David Kravets. It was edited by Kevin Poulsen and contributions to the article were made by Kim Zetter and Ryan Singel. This article is discussing the "loophole" that was found in order to avoid copyright infringement lawsuits. All that was needed was the small payment of $105. After paying this, if any information found on the cite that was not from the author, such as comment or a blog, the writer of the article cannot be sued. This way, the owners of the article would not be responsible for any information that they themselves do not post. This may seem quite silly, but keeping in mind the danger of being sued for copyright infringement for $150,000, this is a very necessary $150. According to the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act), a website will receive complete immunity from the threat of being sued by something that was posted by a viewer. The author does not clearly show any bias towards the issue. However interpreting the language that he uses, we can infer that he agrees and supports this act. Therefore websites cannot be held responsible for what their viewers post.

Date Issued: September 23, 2010. With Eric Pffaner's indifferent views on this article and issue, he presents an informative position, giving quotes from different opinions. The Spanish Court supported Google's YouTube instead of Telecinco, in an argument about copyright issues. In Spain, users of YouTube are now allowed to upload any clips as long as they are approved by the owners or members in these videos. The judge in Madrid still understood the serious content on copyrighted material and the complications they cause. Many individuals are opposed to this regulation because it is thought of to be "free entertainment." Even in Germany a new rule of YouTube was to pay compensation to the musicians when their songs were uploaded without their permission. Content ID, owned by Google, notifies the media owners when their content is uploaded onto YouTube without their authorization, so the holders could ask the site to take the clips down. Ever since a video of an autistic boy was bullied by his classmates, aired on different video-sharing services, there have been much more supervision and strict management over these websites. Defending itself, YouTube has said it was an "Internet service provider," rather than a television broadcaster, because these hosting services are considered more liable than others. Also, because YouTube is a very public, wide-ranged, website, the sale of advertisements have increased because many individuals visit the popular site.

An article from BNO News has recently reported that LimeWire has been shut down by a U.S. court on claims that the site was used for infringement. LimeWire is notorious for allowing its users to download music without paying for the file, which begs the question, is this legal? The Recording Industry Association of American, which represents several important record labels such as Sony, EMI, Universal, and Warner filed a lawsuit against LimeWire in 2006 stating that the company was allowing downloading of illegal music, violating the terms of the music's copyright. Since these record labels own the copyrights to the majority of the music that was being distributed, they were losing money and business because they were not getting paid for the use of their music. Lime Group, the company that owns LimeWire, continues to function otherwise, it is just this subsidiary that has been ceased to conduct business. Although the future seems bleak for LimeWire, its CEO remains optimistic.

On October 27, 2010 a very popular music sharing application called Limewire was shut down due to copyright infringement. BNO news reported the story to wireupdate.com and the a few record labels like SOny, EMI, Universal and Warner filed a lawsuit against Limewire in 2006 so this is nothing new for the file sharing company. The Lime Group CEO and owner of Limewire George Searle said "challenging time, we are excited about the future." So he seems to have a good outlook on the future eeven though his company is going through this touch time.

The popular band black eyed peas is facing dual lawsuits for two of their popular songs that were released in their new album the E.N.D. This article explains the details of who an why those singer/songwriters are suing and point out a pattern that both the peas and there recording groups, universal records and universal music group, have engaged in "a pattern and practice of intentional copyright infringement with respect to the unlawful copying of songs of unknown or lesser-known artists." This article portrays the ongoing pattern of copyright lawsuits that have arisen due to advancements in the digital music business, and is just one example of many high profile lawsuits with millions of dollars involved. (The two songs that they are accused of stealing combined for a total of 10.7 digital units sold).

This article by Noam Cohen describes the controversy over the use of public photos on flickr. Flickr is a website used to share images with family and friends, which is now being used by company's and site's selling images without the approval of their owners. One example was Virgin Mobile's use of a picture of Alison Chang, a 15 year old, in one of their campaigns without her knowledge. The picture was under the protection of a creative commons that allowed it to be used for commercial use, making this issue more about privacy than about copyright. Virgin Mobile responded that they were "promoting creative freedom and didn't do anything wrong."

This article discusses the chance of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 coming back to create tumult in the musical business. This could be caused due to provisions that allow authors or their heirs to terminate copyright grants.The Copyright Act includes two sets of rules which are If an artist or author sold a copyright before 1978, they or their heirs can take it back 56 years later. If the artist or author sold the copyright during or after 1978, they can terminate that grant after 35 years.

In July of 2010, Paul Ceglia sued the owner and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, saying that he was the rightful owner of 85% of Facebook. His said that he loaned Zuckerberg $1000 so that he could start the company Facebook. The reason that this is going to court is that there is debate over what website the money that Zuckerberg recieved was used to build. During that time, Zuckerberg also built a website about job advertising. Ceglia claims that his money went to both sites, while Zuckerberg says that it only went to the advertising website. This lawsuit shows that copyright laws extend far beyond direct copying of other peoples ideas and property. This is a case that emphasizes how difficult it can be determining the winner in cases like these.

Intel Core i5 ad

NPR. Date Broadcasted: Februrary 6th, 2011. Genre: News. The crime shows such as CSI have now influenced many courtroom as many people who watch these type of shows would expect more scientific evidence on a case which might be only found on a TV show. Without the use of high tech ways to retrieve evidence, Courtrooms are afraid that jurors might be more tempted to let the person being held on trial to go as they might see it as a lack of evidence or as unconvincing as say one from a CSI.

It's some kind of milestone: Three of the Top 10 hits on last week's pop music chart have choruses that can't be played uncensored on the radio and won't have their original lyrics quoted in this family newspaper. All three use variations on a familiar, emphatic, percussive four-letter word.

Zoom from the edge of the universe to the quantum foam of spacetime and learn the scale of things along the way!

As we expect more from technology, do we expect less from each other? Sherry Turkle studies how our devices and online personas are redefining human connection and communication -- and asks us to think deeply about the new kinds of connection we want to have.

Hey guys, here's an interesting pic