Thursday, April 07, 2005

Linking? Nein! (Alan Wexelblat). Under the depressing headline "GERMAN CT. RULES COPYRIGHT TRUMPS FREEDOM OF THE PRESS" Michael Geist notes a report by heise online on its first-round court defeat. As I mentioned at the beginning of March, the site heise.de was sued over an article that contained a link to a site. The targeted site provided information and (two clicks later) downloads for software that allows consumers to copy DVDs. The Munich court found that heise had deliberately violated German copyright law by providing assistance - essentially contributory copyright infringement. In a small glimmer of hope, the court did find that it was not permissible to block publication of the article entirely, which the music industry had wanted. heise has not yet stated whether it will appeal. [Copyfight] 10:53:16 PM    comment []

'60 Minutes II' Wins a Peabody Award, Raising Eyebrows. The Peabody Awards cited a program that was later accused of basing a report on fake documents, "60 Minutes II," and a fake news program, "The Daily Show." By DAVID CARR. [NYT > Business] "The Daily Show," which combines elements of entertainment and news, was honored for its presidential election coverage, as it had been four years earlier. 10:40:35 PM    comment []

Congratulations, EFF Pioneer Award Winners! (Donna Wentworth). EFF (hyperlinks, mine): "This year's winners, nominated by the public and selected by a panel of independent judges, are entrepreneur and EFF co-founder Mitch Kapor, Princeton University computer science professor Edward Felten, and human rights activist Patrick Ball." [Copyfight] Woo hoo! Great selections. Special shout out from here to Patrick, who has toiled in those fields uniquely for Internet ages and is much, much deserving. WTG, committee. 10:35:25 PM    comment []

According to Scott Young, a new version of Manila is in the works. [Scripting News] 7:35:51 PM    comment []

Enough obits! Happy Birthday! A Birthday: Ravi Shankar. Ravi Shankar celebrates his 85th birthday today. We celebrate, as well, by bringing you a couple of his compositions in our 9PM hour. Stay tuned! [WNYC New York Public Radio] 7:13:50 AM    comment []

Diary of Captain Cook Available Online. This writeup is dedicated to my friend KB, who rarely e-mails me without tossing around a few "Arrrs" and "Avasts". The National Library of Australia has digitized the Endeavour Journal and made it available online at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.ms-ms1-t-cd . It's a ship's diary from Captain James Cook. The diary is presented in twenty thumbnails of scanned pages at a time. Click on a thumbnail and get a scan of the page -- there are over 700 pages available. You can zoom in, but some of the pages are easier to read than others. There has been no attempt to "clean up" the pages -- they're as they are with every smudge and scratch out. I couldn't see any transcripts (if I missed 'em, someone please point 'em out) so expect to do some squinting when you visit this site. [ResearchBuzz] 7:07:54 AM    comment []

What If Every Kid Had a Computer?. The MIT Media Lab's plan for a $100 laptop could unleash a worldwide wave of innovation. By Joseph Jacobson from Wired magazine. [Wired News] More on this $100 computer from earlier, here at A blog doesn't need a clever name. 7:07:50 AM    comment []

Changes Are Weighed on Stem Cells. The director of the National Institutes of Health said that loosening President Bush's restrictions on federal financing for research would benefit science. By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG. [NYT > Science] 7:05:48 AM    comment []

Second Life Teaches Life Lessons. Players use the online game for all kinds of non-game purposes, from counseling abused kids to teaching business students to be entrepreneurs. By Daniel Terdiman. [Wired News] 7:02:00 AM    comment []