Monday, May 15, 2006

Small Help for Dysfunctional Patent System. MercuryNews.com | 05/15/2006 | Supreme Court backs eBay on injunction issue. Justices, in a unanimous opinion, said that judges have flexibility before they impose court orders barring continued use of a technology after juries find a patent violation. They must consider several factors, the court said. This is a hugely important decision that will work in favor of innovation. The patent system is a mess. This decision will help save companies from being shut down or pay unfairly under undue pressure. Silicon Valley should be cheering today. [Backfence.com: Dan Gillmor's Blog] 7:55:09 PM    comment []

Two Benton Headlines: THE PREVENTION OF FRAUDULENT ACCESS TO PHONE RECORDS ACT [SOURCE: Rep Edward Markey (D-MA)] Last week, Rep Ed Markey wrote House Speaker Dennis Hastert asking what has happened to a previously-scheduled vote on a bill, The Prevention of Fraudulent Access to Phone Records Act, Rep Markey co-sponsored. The bill, which passed with unanimous support from the House Commerce Committee, addresses the privacy of American consumers' phone records. Rep Markey asks about rumors that the House Intelligence Committee sought to amend the bill with exempts for "intelligence gathering activities." He wonders if there is a connection between the bill's sudden disappearance and last week's USAToday story about NSA's collection of phone records. http://markey.house.gov/docs/telecomm/Letter%20to%20Hastert.pdf FCC RELEASES NEW TELEPHONE SUBSCRIBERSHIP REPORT [SOURCE: Federal Communications Commission press release] On Friday, the Federal Communications Commission released its latest report on telephone subscribership levels in the United States. The report presents subscribership statistics based on the Current Population Survey (CPS) conducted by the Census Bureau in November 2005. The report also shows subscribership levels by state, income level, race, age, household size, and employment status. In November 2005: The telephone subscribership penetration rate in the U.S. was 92.9%. The telephone penetration rate was 79.4% for households with annual incomes below $5,000, while the rate for households with incomes between $100,000 and $149,999 was 97.7%. Among the states, the penetration rates ranged from a low of 86.8% in Georgia to a high of 97.0% in Utah. Households headed by whites had a penetration rate of 93.9%, while those headed by blacks had a rate of 86.7% and those headed by Hispanics had a rate of 89.2%. Penetration rates ranged from 86.1% for households headed by a person under 25 to 95.2% for households headed by a person between 65 and 69. Households with one person had a penetration rate of 90.0%, compared to a rate of 94.1% for households with four to five persons. The penetration rate for unemployed adults was 89.7%, while the rate for employed adults was 94.2%. http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-265353A1.doc Full report: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-265356A1.pdf 5:33:35 PM    comment []

What are independent bookstores really good for? Not much. By Tyler Cohen, in Slate. The Publishers Lunch take on it: As Indies Struggle, Independence Thrives Online Slate features a characteristically pointed piece by George Mason University professor Tyler Cowen that uses Laura Miller's book RELUCTANT CAPITALISTS: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption as a lens for asking "what are independent bookstores really good for?" Cowen maintains: "Our attachment to independent bookshops is, in part, affectation--a self-conscious desire to belong a particular community (or to seem to). Patronizing indies helps us think we are more literary or more offbeat than is often the case." His larger case is two-fold: Chain stores often provide more choice in terms of books available, and better prices, and the real "independent spirit" in bookselling is found on the Internet, where the chains have lost. "Amazon reader reviews, blogs such as Bookslut, and eBay -- the world's largest book auction market -- all are flourishing and are doing so outside the reach of the major corporate booksellers. Print-on-demand technologies and self-publishing are booming. Along with Google and other search engines, they will allow niche titles to persist in our memories for a long time to come. This is the flip side of the same computerization that elevated Wal-Mart and Borders: Information technology brings more voices into book evaluation and supply." 2:32:57 PM    comment []

"Any attack on Iran will be good for the government" Nobel laureate and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi discusses the plight of women in Iran, Bush's similarity to Ahmadinejad and why direct negotiations are the only solution. By Michelle Goldberg, in Salon. In 2000, some of those involved in the murders were finally brought to trial. "The stakes could not be higher," writes Ebadi. "It was the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic that the state had acknowledged that it had murdered its critics, and the first time a trial would be convened to hold the perpetrators accountable." The victims' lawyers were given 10 days to review massive stacks of government files on the case. Recalling an afternoon bent over the dossier, Ebadi writes, "I had reached a page more detailed, and more narrative, than any previous section, and I slowed down to focus. It was the transcript of a conversation between a government minister and a member of the death squad. When my eyes fell on the sentence that would haunt me for years to come, I thought I had misread. I blinked once, but it stared back at me from the page: 'The next person to be killed is Shirin Ebadi.' Me." As she recounts, she didn't have time to process the shock, because she needed to keep working. "Only after dinner, after my daughters went to bed, did I tell my husband. So, something interesting happened to me at work today, I began." . . . In February, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requested $85 million for a plan to promote democracy in Iran, partly by funding reformists and dissidents. Has this increased the suspicion and harassment of reformists in Iran? I think that this is not in favor of democracy in Iran. The people who live in Iran will never dare accept any foreign money, because this would be the first proof of treason. In January, you co-wrote an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times saying that America was undermining Iran's "fledgling democratic movement" by demonizing the country. As the conflict between our governments heats up, what effect has it had on your country's reformists? It's very well known that any time a country is under threat from outside, the government uses it as an excuse and starts talking about the necessity of preserving national security, and therefore individual liberties suffer. A recent article in Time magazine suggested that the administration might ratchet up the conflict in order to get Americans to rally around the president again. How worried are Iranians about the possibility of an American attack? Some people are worried. People are very critical toward the government, but I think that if there is an attack against Iran, people will forget about their criticism, and they will rally with the government. Any attack on Iran will be good for the government and will actually damage the democratic movement in Iran. . . . Do you see similarities between the fundamentalists in America and those in Iran? Once in a while I have the impression that what Mr. Bush says is very much like what Mr. Ahmadinejad says. For example, when Mr. Bush says he has a mission from God to settle the problems in the Middle East. Mr. Bush sometimes wants to bring democracy through the use of force, like the government of Iran wants to push people by force into paradise. . . . Why do you think fundamentalism has been on the rise in so many countries? It is fanaticism -- that's the source. I'll tell you an old Iranian tale. God was sitting in seventh heaven, and truth was like a mirror in the hands of God. This mirror fell from seventh heaven to earth, and it was shattered into little pieces, and every piece went into a house. All people got a little piece. So everybody has a piece of the truth. Therefore, you have as much truth and rights as I do. If you talk in this way, and prune this idea, then there won't be any problems among people. 12:32:40 PM    comment []

Four from BNA News: UK HIGH COURT RULES SPAMMING VIOLATES COMPUTER MISUSE ACT People who bombard innocent victims with a blizzard of unsolicited spam e-mails are breaking the law and could face up to five years in jail, London's High Court has ruled. In a test case that puts spammers in the same league as people who spread computer viruses, two judges said that these cyber-spammers could be prosecuted under the 1990 Computer Misuse Act. AUSTRALIA PROPOSES NEW COPYRIGHT EXCEPTIONS Australia's Attorney General has proposed a series of new exceptions to that country's copyright law. While declining to establish a general fair use provision, new exceptions for time shifting, format shifting, schools, libraries, people with disabilities, and parody are all planned for future reforms. http://tinyurl.com/gclx9 [Australia AG] http://tinyurl.com/of658 [SMH] US ANTITRUST OFFICIALS REBUKE MICROSOFT FOR NON-COMPLIANCE SEARCH SITES TIED TO VIRUSES, SPYWARE New research by McAfee unit SiteAdvisor links the epidemic of spyware, viruses, and other 9:32:11 AM    comment []