New capabilities are strengthening the ZeuS botnet, used to steal financial credentials and execute unauthorized transactions in online financial systems.

The favourite new drug of clubbers and schoolchildren hit the headlines last week when two young men died after taking it. Sold under a range of street names – meph, miaow miaow, MC, drone and bubbles – and easily available on the web, mephedrone is not illegal. But should it be? Here, four people from different sides of the debate – a user, a mother, a dealer and a doctor – have their say on 'the poor man's cocaine'

The user: Jack Starks

The first time I encountered mephedrone, meow meow, plant food or whatever you want to call it, was about a year ago at a friend's house in south London. We were back from a night out at the student union and all wanting to continue the party when my friend's flatmate, Brandon, got back from work and, with a sly smile, disappeared into his bedroom, to return with a huge box. He dumped the biggest pile of powder I had ever seen on the table. "This, my friends, is mephedrone," he said with relish. "And this is the future."

Like many students, I've never been one to say no to a new experience. We all end up running into drugs at some point, so I decided to see what all the fuss was about. I've always enjoyed a spliff and, on occasion, a little more, so I assumed this was just another casual substance I would be bumping into.

Nicknamed by users as "poor man's cocaine", mephedrone has swept through our nation's youth like a strong dose of salts, permeating every aspect of the party and night club scene. In less than six months, it has come from obscurity; everyone knows someone who's on it. Paradoxically, it was given a chance to become popular because of an EU restriction that prevented the importation of two substances necessary to the production of MDMA (ecstasy to the layman) that made it impossible to make or purchase any MDMA in Britain from late 2008. Mephedrone filled the gap in the market, and at half the cost of MDMA; it was everywhere.

You can snort it, drop it in "bombs" (rolling papers filled with it), and I've even come across people who eat it. The effect is euphoric, in some ways similar to ecstasy but much shorter-lived; you need to take a lot more of it a lot more often. The first time I took it, I could feel my heart pounding; everything seemed as if it was about to explode into life and I was up till the early hours in a wild rampage of excitement. But there any comparison ends. With mephedrone, the romance period is very short: after taking it just a couple of times, your tolerance increases dramatically, to the point that you're doing three or four times more than you were in the beginning to get high. Your appetite for the stuff also increases.

Brandon was well ahead of the curve. He was importing it from China at about a £1 a gram and selling it to students at £15. By mid-October, when our student loans had still failed to appear and finance was getting tight, we hit on the idea of doing the same. We could simply make a trip down to a seedy office in Victoria where we could buy it in bulk at wholesale price and then sell it on to our friends at a profit. Doing this you could turn £100 into £400 in a weekend and have a bit left on the side for yourself.

It became a crash course in drug dealing for beginners, and we weren't the only ones at it. Hundreds of students had spotted the gap in the market. You couldn't set foot in a club or house-party without someone walking past offering you "drone".

Whether or not this was legal is a good question, because although mephedrone isn't covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act, it is illegal to sell it for human consumption. Companies get round this by putting stickers on their product saying just that. When selling it, we would always tell people that it was not to be used to get high – it was almost a running joke. A very dangerous joke indeed.

When on it, you get very edgy (hence the comparison to cocaine) and you constantly crave more. It is possibly the most addictive substance I have ever come across. What makes it far more dangerous is that it is the first of a new breed of designer drugs, made purely to evade the laws surrounding controlled substances.

No one has considered what this will do to people in the short or the long term, and no one cares. Mephedrone might be called "plant food", but it is a plant decomposer, so what it does to your insides I dread to think. I once accidentally left a spoon in a bag of the stuff and came back three days later to find it had stripped off the outer coating and my mephedrone scattered with tiny silver bits of spoon. We still snorted it.

My stance was changed dramatically by my experience of prolonged use. After three or so months of using it at least a couple of times a week, I found myself in the darkest depression. I stopped taking it and suddenly found myself looking round at my friends with their eyes rolling in their heads and realised how much rubbish we had all been talking to each other. Good, straight-edge kids who barely used to drink have become crazed drug fiends, sitting in their house snorting plant food five days a week.

One friend of mine took it once and now has to use an inhaler, because he has permanently damaged his lungs. Another has almost ceased to be a friend, and is now a socially apathetic zombie, chasing mephedrone around London with his girlfriend, no longer able to interact without it, constantly asking if he can borrow 20 quid.

We've always been happy to get wasted on a night out, but I've never seen anything creep into so many everyday lives like this. I am horrified by the effect this drug has had on the people around me, and would urge anyone thinking about taking some tonight to change their plans.

Jack Starks is a student in his early 20s who lives in south London

The mother: Sophie Radice

For all those parents who have read with sadness about the deaths of an 18-year-old and a 19-year-old in Scunthorpe, but allowed themselves to be even slightly reassured that their own teenagers can't have come across mephedrone because they are so much younger, not yet clubbing and living very different lives, think again.

I first heard about mephedrone six months ago, at first from another north London mother whose son had ordered this "plant food" off the internet and who had roused her suspicions when he couldn't explain why he had suddenly developed an interest in gardening.

Then from my own daughter, aged 14 at the time, whose friends had discovered this legal high. She described them as "talking rubbish as if it is the most interesting thing in the world, and that they dribble and lick their lips and gurn and grind their teeth".

She said that people shook, bit holes in their lips and cheeks, were unable to feel their legs, were frightened because their heart was beating too fast and that their skin looked grey.

This might seem like any teenage group that has discovered harder drugs. It is rather like a description of my own group of friends at that age. What is different is that, in those six months, those friends who thought they were just experimenting seemed to need to take greater amounts of mephedrone on more and more occasions. Mephedrone is often sold in five gram bags and, as it is so "more-ish", it seems to be easy – even common – for a user to go through a whole bag.

Surely that kind of ever-decreasing, short-lived high is what makes dealers extremely rich and leads to the kind of desperate endless addiction of the crack-user?

Should all of this mean that we should immediately ban it? Well, I have always had a liberal view about drugs, believing that the criminalisation of drugs just creates an underground. I look at how making ketamine (a horse tranquilliser) a class C drug didn't stop its use among the young.

On an intellectual level, I agree with Professor David Nutt's measured suggestion of creating a "holding" class of D drug category. Within this category, sales would be limited to over-18s; the product would be quality-controlled, at doses limited as far as possible to safe levels; and it would come with health education messages. I also agree with Nutt that what we should look into is why teenagers are so drawn to taking drugs and why binge-drinking is so prevalent in this age group.

On a much more visceral, instinctive level, this "let's wait and see how harmful this drug is" D category doesn't comfort me at all. For this younger age group, the legality of mephedrone is a real attraction. While they can get hold of "weed" to smoke (mostly through older siblings, and even parents), because they are not yet going to clubs but to each other's houses or private parties they are rarely able to get their hands on harder drugs.

They can buy mephedrone off the internet or from headshops (shops selling drug paraphernalia) or stalls. Teenagers of this age seem to think that its legality means that it is safer than other drugs, which might also contribute to the wild abandon with which it is taken.

Health warnings wouldn't do a thing (my daughter says that, perversely, the deaths in Scunthorpe have made her friends even more determined to take the drug) and surely an over-18s rule on the net would be just like those porn sites that ask you to click a button to say that you are over 18 and that's all the proof you need. Prosecution of those selling to under-18s would be almost impossible in cases of website dealing.

For this age group, making mephedrone a class B drug would at least put up some sort of substantial hurdle and make it much harder for them to get hold of.

Just making it so much more difficult to track down may cause enough of a pause for some sort of easing-off from the enthusiastic consumption of what seems to be a particularly addictive drug.

Oh, and while we are waiting for a decision on this, look out for a fishy smell in your teenager's sweat, nose bleeds, restlessness, headaches, insomnia and a traces of yellowy powder on the surfaces in their room.

Sophie Radice is a journalist and mother of two who first came across the drug last year

The dealer: Mark

I have no background in narcotics. My worst offence is a puff on a joint in college, which I found unpleasant. I am at heart "anti" substance abuse, though I am in favour of free choice.

I own and run three normal, legitimate businesses, all of which, thanks to the recession, have had their troubles. Have you ever laid off a loyal member of staff? It's the worst feeling in the world. I was looking for a lifeline.

I first heard of mephedrone in September. A friend heard about a new chemical that was originally a kind of plant food. It was legal and its effects mimicked cocaine and MDMA. I started searching for information on Google and within an hour I knew this would be a winning business.

From the start, I wanted to run this completely legitimately. No shady cash deals, pay tax, give excellent service with a quality product at the right price. Was I comfortable with the concept? No. Did I want to lose my home to the bank? No. Decision made.

In the first weeks, I bought my stock inside the UK, but very quickly I began buying direct from a manufacturer in China. I registered a company and contacted a web designer.

This is where the problems started. Even before the press discovered mephedrone, it was not possible to find good professional help. Undaunted, I built my own website. No banks would touch the credit card side of the business. I fudged round this and I was up and running. I launched the website and within an hour had five sales. My first week I turned over £8,000; the second, £10,000.

Then, last November, mephedrone hit the headlines. Its use was blamed for the death of a 14-year-old girl, although this turned out not to be the case. I thought it was the end. How wrong I was. That week, sales doubled. When mephedrone is in the news, demand rockets. Last week came the death of two boys. (I cannot comment on this tragedy, except to say I do not believe mephedrone was the cause.) One of my websites, which usually gets around 1,200 hits a day, received more than 20,000. The media have made mephedrone what it is.

Before you leap to judgment, do you drink alcohol? It is deadly, with 8,000 deaths directly attributed to it in the UK in 2008. There is a huge trade in illegal drugs in the UK. But people do not have to be criminals. They don't have to buy bags of drain cleaner from dodgy blokes in pub car parks.

The process of importing has become difficult lately, as UK Customs has begun withholding shipments. I have had 40kg seized. No explanation has been given and Customs has made no contact. This is surely illegal.

Mephedrone looks likely to be banned. This is the most dangerous thing that can happen. It is essentially a very safe substance. There is no addiction and to date I know of no deaths directly attributed to it. There are suppliers online such as me who treat this as a genuine business and supply a quality product pure to the customer.

The day mephedrone is banned, I will shut up shop. The taxman will lose hundreds of thousands of pounds and the criminals will step in. Prohibition has always failed. And the genie is really out of the bottle this time. Millions have used mephedrone in the UK. If they are stopped from getting it legally, they will either buy illegally or, even worse, try something new.

No British government would have the courage to exercise the level of common sense needed to keep it legal, what with an election looming and swarms of horrified Daily Mail readers to impress. This government has already sacked the moderate, sensible and knowledgeable Dr David Nutt. Mephedrone will be banned – and be dammed.

Mark is a businessman and owner of several websites that sell mephedrone

The doctor: James Bell

I first heard about mephedrone last July. The young man sitting opposite me told me that it had just arrived on the nightclub scene. He had tried it at once. He was well-educated and from a prosperous and stable family (who knew nothing about his drug use). He was in my clinic to withdraw from another "legal high", GBL. After using GBL for a few months, he had been dismayed to discover that he had become dependent. His lament "I didn't know it was addictive" could have been uttered by most doctors and policy-makers.

We are all playing catch-up as new compounds are recognised, banned – and new drugs appear, the risks of which slowly become apparent. Legal highs are mostly compounds closely related to known (and banned) psychoactive drugs. Mephedrone is chemically very similar to ecstasy. The slight variation in structure makes it legal, but also means that mephedrone has different pharmacological effects and toxicity.

This makes difficulty for the advisory council on the misuse of drugs, which advises the government on whether a drug should be banned, as it has little information to go on. It takes experience to find out about the harms of particular drugs. It was only in the late 1990s, after years in which cannabis was regarded as a fairly harmless drug, that studies demonstrated it caused the development of psychosis in some vulnerable adolescents. News that two people died after using mephedrone suggests it may be dangerous, but we don't know enough. Mephedrone can cause cardiovascular problems, but I suspect that the post-mortem findings will identify other contributing drugs.

GBL, which was classified in December 2009, is a case study in legal highs. Many users overdose inadvertently and a small proportion progress to dependence. On trying to stop, users can experience severe withdrawal symptoms. Throughout 2009, most GPs and drug services knew nothing of GBL, and were unable to offer treatment. It was to catch up with this need that a "party drugs" clinic was established in south London . Attendees have reported that, since being banned, GBL is still readily available for same-day delivery, from internet sites outside the UK.

Mephedrone and GBL both enhance confidence and sociability and reduce sexual inhibitions. However, it is easy to lose the plot. The first dose of mephedrone produces intense euphoria, but repeated dosing produces decreasing pleasure and increasing paranoia and irritability – yet some people keep chasing the initial high until exhausted. This binge pattern of use maximises risks and minimises benefits of drug use.

A pre-election environment is a bad time to initiate a discussion about drugs policy, as there is a risk that any debate will degenerate into which party is going to ban more drugs, more rapidly. "Legal highs" are an easy target for moral outrage, precisely because they are legal and something can be done about that. More difficult is trying to address Britain's prodigious demand for drugs, legal and illegal. A non-partisan debate about reducing the harm would be valuable.

Dr James Bell is an addictions consultant at the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust

• Drugs
• Drugs policy

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Letter accuses leading Catholics of 'grave errors', but campaigners say it is not enough

Pope Benedict XVI yesterday rebuked Irish bishops for the negligent way they have handled sexual abuse cases in the Catholic church and issued an unprecedented public apology to the victims of paeodophile priests.

"You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry," Benedict wrote in a pastoral letter released yesterday, which will be read at Catholic masses in Ireland. The letter also announced the setting up of a Vatican investigation team. "Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen," he added. He accused bishops in Ireland of "grave errors of judgment" in their handling of thousands of "sinful and criminal" cases of abuse spread over decades.

Split into sections, the letter addresses victims, Irish bishops, abusive priests and parents. "There has never been a letter like this," said the pope's spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi.

The letter does not admit any responsibility on the part of the Vatican in relation to the scandals, nor does it specify punishments for Irish bishops who covered up for paedophile priests, moving them from parish to parish.

Following revelations that he swore abuse victims to secrecy in 1975, Cardinal Seán Brady, the head of the Irish Catholic church, has said he will seek guidance through prayer before deciding on his future. Benedict has yet to accept the resignations offered by three Irish bishops. Following the release of the letter, Brady said that all Irish Catholics should reflect upon it. "I welcome this letter," he said. "I am deeply grateful to the holy father for his profound kindness and concern."

It is evident from the pastoral letter that Benedict is deeply dismayed by what he refers to as "sinful and criminal acts and the way the church authorities in Ireland dealt with them".

Lombardi said yesterday there were no pointers to be found on Brady's future in the letter, which did not have an administrative or disciplinary function. "This is a pastoral letter... That is not touched on here," he said.

The letter comes as a new tide of sex abuse allegations threatens to engulf the Catholic church. Benedict himself has come under pressure over the explosion of abuse revelations in his home country, Germany, following a wave of cases in the US. Maeve Lewis, the Irish director for the campaign group against child abuse, One in Four, said she was "deeply disappointed" by the letter. "It falls short of what victims want, since it only tackles failures in the Irish church and not the failures that go right to the top of the Vatican, such as the 2001 ruling on secrecy," she said. "The church is still in denial."

Reports on abuse commissioned in Ireland have singled out a letter written by the current pope, then Cardinal Ratzinger, in 2001 instructing bishops to report all abuse cases to his office at the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for confidential handling. Vatican officials have said the measure was designed to prevent cases being covered up at local level, but Irish bishops reportedly understood the letter to mean they should not report cases to the police. In yesterday's letter, Benedict urged Ireland's bishops to "continue to co-operate with civil authorities".

"That could be interpreted as an instruction on mandatory reporting of abuse to the police, and this is welcome, although it is not clearly stated," said Lewis. "But where the pope goes on to deal with the proper application of canon law in these cases, it suggests he has no idea that civil law supersedes canon law, that bishops should abide by civil law like any citizen."

The letter announces that a Vatican investigation, or apostolic visitation, will be carried out at a "certain diocese" in Ireland, as well as in seminaries and religious congregations. Such investigations are carried out when the Vatican believes a local church is unable to put its own house in order.

"A lot of people will be quaking in their boots in Ireland as they wait to see which diocese the pope means," said one church insider in Ireland.

But Benedict also sympathised with Irish bishops, telling them: "I recognise how difficult it was to grasp the extent and complexity of the problem, to obtain reliable information and to make the right decisions in the light of conflicting expert advice."

Rather than blaming abuse on an oppressive, conservative environment within the Irish Catholic church, Benedict singles out the creeping influence of liberal, secular society for weakening resolve against it. "In particular, there was a well-intentioned but misguided tendency to avoid penal approaches to canonically irregular situations," he writes.

Lewis added: "We are astounded that the pope links the problem to secularisation. It shows a misunderstanding of the dynamics of sexual violence and suggests there is little hope the church will ever know how to respond."

• Pope Benedict XVI
• Ireland
• Catholicism

Tom Kingtonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Activist Cindy Sheehan Refers to Obama as "War Criminal" During Demonstration Outside White House

Rose Martin has been questioned by police some 50 times in eight years, stemming from her involvement in crimes ranging from robbery to murder. Of course, she's not actually involved, but the NYPD's computers continue to think otherwise. More »

Rose Martin has been questioned by police some 50 times in eight years, stemming from her involvement in crimes ranging from robbery to murder. Of course, she's not actually involved, but the NYPD's computers continue to think otherwise. More »

We know you’re busy. Even with every social media, web, and RSS tool at your disposal, you can occasionally miss out on some of the week’s most insightful content.

Never fear. We’ve taken a moment to round up the best Mashable resources from this past week and present them here for your weekend enjoyment.

From in-depth how-tos, to app lists, to valuable business guides, browse below for a veritable smorgasbord of value you may have passed over.

Social Media

• The Ultimate March Madness Social Media Guide

  Everything you need to keep up with “The Big Dance” on the social web is in here. Check it out, and secretly adjust your brackets as needed.

• How Musicians Are Using Social Media to Connect with Fans

  Music sharing and distribution on the web is nothing new. But some artists, bands, and labels are going the extra social mile to get their music heard. Here’s how they’re doing it.

• 6 Ways Law Enforcement Uses Social Media to Fight Crime

  Dick Tracy’s gadgets have nothing on today’s socially-savvy police departments. Find out how they’re using social networks to catch criminals, prevent crime, and keep the public informed.

• Why User Competency Matters in Social Design

  When building a website or social platform, never forget to ask yourself, “What is the user good at?” It’s often key to success or failure.

• 4 Easy Ways to Engage Your Facebook Fans

  Is you Facebook Fan Page lacking a little engagement “oomph?” Has your fan growth leveled off? Try these four dead-simple ways to get folks sharing your brand again.

For more social media news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s social media channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Mobile

• 9 Killer Tips for Location-Based Marketing

  If your business is thinking about jumping into the location game, now is the time to do it. This post has everything you need to get started.

• 12 iPhone Apps for Surviving Conference Season

  If you’re currently at SXSW, or headed to any number of big conferences this year, keep your iPhone close, and these handy apps even closer.

• 5 Things You Need to Know About Location-Based Social Media

  Location-based social media is still relatively young, but the future is bright for users, marketers, and businesses alike. Here are 5 important lessons to take away from the current LBS landscape.

For more mobile news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s mobile channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Business

• 14 Essential iPhone Apps for Small Business Users

  The iPhone probably wasn’t originally made for business, but it can crunch a mean spreadsheet and more with these indispensable apps.

• 10 Essential Social Media Tips for B2B Marketers

  The B2B potential of social media is often overlooked. If you sell to fellow business owners and you’re looking for an in on the social media action, don’t miss this post.

• 4 Ways to Effectively Use Social Media as a Catalyst

  Social media is not the beginning or end of a marketing effort. It should be woven into every aspect of your business plan. Take in these four tips on how to make that happen.

• The Small Business Guide to Google Apps

  Is your business ready to make the leap into the cloud? Smart integration of Google Apps for Business can really benefit your team and workflow. See how in this post.

For more business news and resources, you can follow Mashable’s business channel on Twitter and become a fan on Facebook.

Tags: business, features, Features Week In Review, List, Lists, Mobile 2.0, social media

The Pope has said he is "truly sorry" to the Irish Catholics who suffered years of "sinful and criminal" sexual abuse at the hands of clergy.

The German spy service has admitted that it employed about 200 former Nazi criminals for at least 15 years after the end of the Second World War.

Fugitives and felons use Facebook (and MySpace and YouTube) for virtual confessionals or unwitting trails to their whereabouts.

By Scott M. Fulton, III, Betanews

The key issue at the heart of Viacom's case against Google and YouTube, filed in March 2007, concerns whether an Internet service that probably knows that files are traded or shown illicitly or without license there, deserves the "safe harbor" provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that protect ISPs from liability for their customers' actions. In a summary judgment motion filed yesterday with US District Court in New York and unsealed this morning, Viacom is bidding to have the judge wrap up the case -- an obvious signal that it believes its case is already strong enough.

As US law stands now, a service such as Grokster or the original Napster (not the Best Buy division that today uses that name) is liable when it intentionally establishes its service for the express purpose of trading in illicit files. It's especially liable when it finds some way to advertise itself for that purpose. An Internet Service Provider such as Comcast or Cox is not liable when its service is used for accessing one of these sites, when it doesn't advertise or offer these services explicitly, and when a customer can access them without direct intervention from the ISP. And a video site such as Veoh is not liable when any measure it might take to stop customers from sharing illicit files may also conceivably infringe upon the free speech rights of other customers who may not be trading such files.

Google, the current owner of YouTube, has been arguing the Veoh case in its own defense. But Viacom's argument -- which courts have been wrestling with for over two-and-a-half years and which we now know today -- is that YouTube is a different, special case. It's more like Grokster, it argues, in that it was founded on the principle of gathering an audience around illicit files.

"Defendants are liable under Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster Ltd., because they operated YouTube with the unlawful objective of profiting from (to use their phrase) 'truckloads' of infringing videos that flooded the site," reads the opening passage of YouTube's founders single-mindedly focused on geometrically increasing the number of YouTube users to maximize its commercial value. They recognized they could achieve that goal only if they cast a blind eye to and did not block the huge number of unauthorized copyrighted works posted on the site. The founders' deliberate decision to build a business based on piracy enabled them to sell their start-up business to Google after 16 months for $1.8 billion. The Supreme Court in Grokster found no legal or societal justification for such intentional copyright infringement."

FOR MORE:

• Viacom and YouTube: Timeline of pertinent events by Tim Conneally

In a talking points document released today (PDF available here), Viacom cites various e-mails from various YouTube and Google executives, including YouTube founders Chad Hurley (CEO) and Steve Chen (CTO). Assuming these excerpts were not taken out of context, which is possible, they indicate that YouTube's founders were clearly building up a high-audience business with illicit files at their core, with the intention of selling out to somebody as soon as possible.

One excerpt has Chen suggesting that YouTube, apparently during its startup phase, "...concentrate all our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively as we can through whatever tactics, however evil." Another suggestion, by an unnamed YouTube exec in response to an non-excerpted suggestion -- apparently asking, where should be get all this content -- reads, "Steal it! . . . We have to keep in mind that we need to attract traffic. How much traffic will we get from personal videos?"

And one excerpt attributed to Chen suggests that the whole legal process of handling DMCA takedown notices is so long and dragged on, that by the time YouTube should ever comply with one, it would be too late anyway: "But we should just keep that stuff on the site. I really don't see what will happen. What? Someone from CNN sees it? He happens to be someone with power? He happens to want to take it down right away. He get in touch with cnn legal. 2 weeks later, we get a cease & desist letter. We take the video down."

Viacom's argument that Google knows what kind of trafficking goes on via YouTube is substantiated by evidence in the form of e-mails, evidently sent prior to its acquisition of YouTube, from executives objecting to elements of what they perceived to be its business model. One message from Google's then-VP of Content Partnerships David Eun (now with AOL) to CEO Eric Schmidt cautioned, "I think we should beat YouTube . . . but not at all costs. [They are] a video Grokster." And in another excerpt, an unnamed Google executive asks, "Is changing policy [to] profit from illegal downloads how we want to conduct business? Is this Googley?"

Evidence cited in Viacom's motion for summary judgment tells the story of how Google Video failed to be competitive against YouTube, even though its engineers persisted with efforts to filter out illicit content. One memo cited says Google Video may have been throwing out 90% of its uploads, for containing suspected copyrighted material or for being generally indecent.

"But Google's good intentions and compliance with the law were not paying off," Viacom argues. "YouTube was way ahead of Google Video in the race to build up a user base. Google executives understood that YouTube's success was largely due to what they euphemistically labeled its 'liberal copyright policy' of freely allowing infringing material. Losing the user race to YouTube because of the latter's copyright infringement, Google Video executives engaged in a 'heated debate' in 2006 'about whether we should relax enforcement of our copyright policies in an effort to stimulate traffic growth.' A top senior executive, Peter Chane, Google Video's Business Product Manager, argued point blank that Google Video should 'beat YouTube' by 'calling quits on our copyright compliance standards.' Chane specifically advocated switching Google Video to YouTube's 'reactive DMCA only' policy because 'YouTube gets content when it's hot ([Saturday Night Live's] Lazy Sunday, Stephen Colbert, Lakers wins at the buzzer)' and it '[takes us too long to acquire content directly from the [legitimate] rights holder.'"

It is that statement which Viacom appears to present as a smoking gun: a suggestion from a Google Video executive that it should acquire its competitor solely because its allegedly illegitimate business model is more successful than its own, legally compliant one.

In Google's memorandum in support of summary judgment in its favor, filed after Viacom, its attorneys do not take the tack or rebutting Viacom's scorching citations -- which, if substantiated, could theoretically become the basis for future criminal complaints. Instead, Google reiterates the argument that it's a service provider which, like Veoh, is entitled to safe harbor since it looks the other way, and does not actively seek infringing uploads.

Citing the Veoh finding, Google's attorneys argue, "What matters is that Veoh 'established a system whereby software automatically processes user-submitted content and recasts it in a format that is readily accessible to its users...Inasmuch as this is a means of facilitating user access to material on its Web site,' Veoh did not lose the safe harbor 'through the automated creation of these files.' YouTube is indistinguishable from Veoh in these respects."

YouTube, Google argues, did not have direct knowledge of the circumstances whereby the specific content Viacom claimed was infringed upon (much of it from Paramount) was shared with YouTube users. Since Viacom's arguments must, at some point, focus themselves upon the specific infringing of the content in question, the DMCA protects YouTube on that count as well, Google continues. But all that may be moot, Google points on, by virtue of the fact that under current US law, the alleged infringers must have directly profited from their actions. YouTube gains revenue through advertising.

Writes Google, "A service provider loses safe harbor eligibility only if the plaintiff can show both that the service provider had the right and ability to control the alleged infringements and received a financial benefit directly attributable to those infringements...As with knowledge, the DMCA's control inquiry is specific, not general. The analysis focuses on the service provider's legal and practical control over the particular infringing activity at issue. The statute's text makes that clear: The question is whether the service provider has the right and ability to control "the infringing activity" alleged by the plaintiff and to which a financial benefit is directly attributable."

A number of declarations in support of both motions were filed today. One supporting Google was particularly interesting, because it goes to specifically that last paragraph: It's from the owner of a marketing firm who promoted the works of recording artists who appear on MTV, a Viacom property. He claimed that some of the very works Viacom claimed were infringed upon through unauthorized uploading to YouTube, actually were authorized by none other than MTV itself, as part of the promotion of the artists under his contract.

If Google's interpretation of the law is affirmed, and if this gentleman's claims are proven, then this whole case could become history faster than a judge can even say "summary judgment."

Copyright Betanews, Inc. 2010

There have been plenty of efforts to try to curb "cyberbullying," often through laws that try to make it illegal to be a jerk. Unfortunately, the concept of cyberbullying is so vague that this creates tremendous problems and unintended consequences. And, on the whole, it seemed unlikely that any such law could withstand First Amendment scrutiny. However, it appears that the First Amendment isn't always the First Amendment we thought it was.

A California appeals court has ruled that cyberbullying threats are not protected free speech. Now, you can understand why people might like this conceptually. No one likes a bully. But making it against the law to bully is incredibly risky, and almost certainly leads to a very different kind of bullying.

In this particular case, a kid set up a website about himself, and his fellow students posted comments mocking him. It was cruel, though you would think that the simple response would be to take down those comments. Instead, the family went to the police -- who said that the comments "did not meet the criteria for criminal prosecution and were protected speech." The family followed by suing six students and their parents for hate crimes, defamation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Now, there's no doubt at all that the comments were over the line and incredibly mean. However, it looks like there was a perfectly reasonable process outside of the courts to handle this. Apparently, the father of one kid who made some of the worst comments made his son apologize, grounded him and took away his internet access. It seems that wasn't enough. Those who were sued filed an anti-SLAPP motion under California's anti-SLAPP law (one of the strongest in the country), but the judges said that the text was not protected free speech and thus did not fall under the anti-SLAPP provisions. One of the kids, while admitting his own conduct was over the line, said he was just joking around, and trying to top others in responding to the website. The judges, clearly, did not find the joking to be funny. Indeed, it was not funny, but that doesn't mean you should lose your free speech rights.

One judge dissented and argued strongly that not only was this a mistake, but it would have serious First Amendment consequences: I share with the majority the view that R.R.'s post, like many that preceded and followed it, was vulgar, nasty, offensive, and disgusting. But, as Justice Harlan wrote in Cohen v. California... although --the immediate consequence of [free speech rights] may often appear to be only verbal tumult, discord, and even offensive utterance[,] . . . [w]e cannot lose sight of the fact that, in what otherwise might seem a trifling and annoying instance of individual distasteful abuse of a privilege, these fundamental societal values [of freedom of speech] are truly implicated.

In concluding that the post was not in connection with an issue of public interest, the majority fails to follow relevant precedent and ignores the substantial evidence that D.C. was a person in the public eye. The majority also creates a broad and groundless exception to the protections of the anti-SLAPP statute, holding that for purposes of the statute, jokes do not constitute communications in connection with issues of public interest.... That is not the law. It also notes that while the "threats" in questions did seem incredibly distasteful, in context with all the other comments, it seems obvious that they were not real threats: Reading the sequence of posts from beginning to end, no reasonable person would foresee that any of it would be taken as a serious threat of violence. No reasonable person would believe that (at least) four people were sincerely threatening to take D.C.'s life. Taken together, all of the posts amount to nothing but a lot of adolescent sex-obsessed hyperbolic derision, sarcasm, and repulsive foolishness In fact, the judge notes that the kid who set up the website didn't seem bothered by the comments, and was apparently more traumatized by his father filing this lawsuit. Maybe the kid should sue his father?

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With a possibile vote to finalize passage of health care reform approaching, Fox News has thrown everything but the kitchen sink to rally opposition, with guest host Laura Ingraham proclaiming, "Let's kill the bill." For example, Fox News personalities have portrayed the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office as unreliable, falsely claimed that a 2006 earthquake did not occur and attacked an 11-year-old and his family that support reform.

Fox News sets up oppo shop for the weekend

Ingraham on hosting for Fox News: "Let's kill the bill!" Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham posted the following message on her Twitter account: "I'll be hosting the O'Reilly Factor on Friday, 8pm eastern. Let's kill the bill!"

From Ingraham's March 19 post on her Twitter account:

Beck encourages viewers to hold candlelight vigil against health care reform. Glenn Beck asserted: "It is time that you have a candlelight vigil. You peacefully assemble in front of your Congressman's local doors. You go to his office locally, not to Washington. You gather your friends and you stand there, you sleep there. You make sure the press covers a peaceful assembly of people saying, 'We will remember your name 'til the end of time, sir.'" [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 3/15/10]

The Fox Nation highlights "call to arms" in opposition to health care reform. On March 18, The Fox Nation published a headline, "Alert: Jon Voight's Call to Arms - Come to D.C. Sat. to Oppose Obamacare."

Fox & Friends channels GOP on "facts that people need to know" about health care reform. Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy announced: "So the Republicans have put out some facts that people need to know about this." Fox News then displayed images under the heading, "GOP: What you need to know. Facts on the Dem health bill." Doocy continued: "For instance, they say, what they're not talking about is the fact that there's going to be a new Medicare tax on capital gains." [Fox News' Fox & Friends, 3/19/10]

Cavuto promotes weekend coverage tilted toward conservatives. Your World host Neal Cavuto has promoted his upcoming "Health Care Showdown: What's really up Doc?" coverage, which will air on Saturday, March 20. Cavuto will host conservative radio host Mark Levin, Rep. Jason Altimire (D-PA), Dom Imus, and Mike Huckabee. Cavuto also promoted Friday's Your World guests, including Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), conservative radio host and columnist Jeri Thompson, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), and Republican candidate for California governor Carly Fiorina.

Fox hosts Gene Simmons to bash health care and promote his insurance company. During Fox News' America Live, host Megyn Kelly hosted K.I.S.S. front man Gene Simmons to discuss health care. During his appearance, Simmons called health care reform "horrific" and promoted his life insurance company.

Fox News' weeklong assault: Distortions and falsehoods abound

Fox falsely attributes doctor survey to New England Journal of Medicine. Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Brian Kilmeade, Sean Hannity and Marc Siegel all pushed the false claim that a New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) survey found that 46 percent of primary care physicians would consider leaving their profession if health care reform legislation passes. In fact, NEJM says they didn't publish or conduct the 3-month-old email "survey," which was actually conducted by The Medicus Firm and published in an employment newsletter.  

Fox News erases 2006 Hawaii earthquake to attack Obama. Responding to President Obama's statement during a Fox News interview that Hawaii "went through an earthquake" and could benefit from a health care reform provision that would help Louisiana cope with Medicaid shortfalls resulting from Hurricane Katrina, Doocy asked, "What Hawaiian earthquake?" In fact, as Fox News itself reported at the time, President Bush declared a "major disaster" after Hawaii was hit by a magnitude 6.7 earthquake in October 2006. [Fox News' Fox & Friends, 3/18/10]

Beck attacks family of 11-year-old who spoke about his mother's death at health care event. Following 11-year-old Marcelas Owens' appearance at a health care reform event to speak about his mother, who reportedly died after losing her health insurance, Beck asked, "Where was grandma" when Marcelas' mother was sick and attacked her work with the organization Washington Community Action Network, saying the group was "all about economic, racial, gender, and social justice for all," which he called, "pesky phrases." [Fox News' Glenn Beck, 3/15/10]

Fox calls CBO score untrustworthy. After the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the health care reform reconciliation package would reduce the deficit by $130 billion over 10 years, Fox News -- led by Beck, Hannity, Doocy, Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer and The Fox Nation -- attempted to portray the nonpartisan CBO as untrustworthy and unreliable. By contrast, after the CBO gave a "favorable" score to the GOP health care plan, Fox praised the office as "nonpartisan" and advanced false GOP claims about the CBO's findings.

Fox News suggests Dems were bought off to support health care reform. Dick Morris suggested that Obama "illegal[ly]" nominated Rep. Jim Matheson's (D-UT) brother Scott "to a judgeship with an implicit quid pro quo." Rep. Matheson's office and the White House have called the smear "ridiculous" and "absurd," former Bush-appointed judge Michael McConnell definitely debunked the smear and conservatives have stated that Scott Matheson is "plenty qualified for the job." Likewise, following Rep. Dennis Kucinich's (D-OH) appearance on Fox & Friends to discuss his decision to support the bill, Fox News displayed a graphic stating: "What was Kucinich promised? Congressman changed vote from no to yes."

Fox anchors falsely attack House rule as undemocratic. Fox News anchors, during their self-described daytime "news hours," repeatedly forwarded the false suggestion that by using a legislative procedure known as the "self-executing rule" to finalize health care reform in the House, Democrats would be passing health care reform "without actually voting for it." In fact, passing legislation by using the procedure would require a majority vote. Fox News contributor Newt Gingrich criticized the rule as "incredible" and "passing bills without voting on them," despite the fact that the Republican Party "set new records" for its use of the self-executing rule in the years following Gingrich's ascension as Speaker.  

Grasping at straws: Fox News regurgitates tired health care falsehoods

Fox repeatedly inaccurately reported on abortion funding. Doocy, Hemmer, Kilmeade, Bill O'Reilly, Carl Cameron, Dana Perino and Greta Van Sustren pushed the debunked claim that the Senate health care reform bill contains language that would allow federal funding for abortion beyond what is currently allowed under federal law. In fact, the Senate bill -- which will be considered by the House -- prohibits health insurers from using federal subsidies to pay for abortion services restricted by current federal law.

Hemmer perpetuates debunked health care myth: "Could people be going to jail for not owning health insurance?" Hemmer revived the debunked myth that not buying health insurance "could lead to prison" and asked: "Could people be going to jail for not owning health insurance?" In fact, the penalty for failure to purchase insurance is a tax, not jail time, and willful failure to pay taxes of any sort can result in civil or criminal penalties.

Perino misleads on Medicare tax impact on small businesses. Guest hosting on Fox & Friends, Perino trumpeted the myth that a Medicare investment tax on those making more than $200,000 would affect most small business owners. In fact, fewer than 1.3 percent of small business owners would be affected by the tax.

Five years ago, when most BitTorrent sites had only a handful of visitors, ShareConnector was serving eDonkey links to millions of file-sharers every month. This popularity didn’t go unnoticed by the local authorities, who were tipped off by BREIN and started a criminal investigation into the operator of the site, as well as the people behind the site Releases4U.

What followed was more than 5 years of legal battles in both civil and criminal court cases. In the criminal case the operator of ShareConnector came out as the winner in 2007 and was released from all charges.

The court ruled that the authorities failed to provide any evidence to prove ShareConnector was involved in copyright infringement nor enough to prove that it was criminal in nature. In addition, the judge ruled that the initial arrests were unlawful as the evidence provided by BREIN was insufficient.

After this decision ShareConnector came back online. However, this comeback was short lived as local anti-piracy outfit BREIN initiated a civil lawsuit, trying to prevent the operator from keeping the site up and running. This lawsuit was won by BREIN but the ShareConnector operator decided to appeal the ruling.

This week a court announced the verdict of the appeal and it came out negative once again. Although the court ruled that the operator of ShareConnector wasn’t guilty of copyright infringement, it said the site must remain closed for good. The judge ruled that sites that offer hash links (like .torrent links) are facilitating copyright infringement, an unlawful behavior.

The outcome of the case is disappointing to aDI, the operator of the site, who further said that it didn’t surprise him. He had hoped, however, that the ruling in the appeal would be in line with recent cases in Spain where P2P indexing sites were deemed legal.

“The results are just what I expected, so nothing surprising here considering all the similar recent cases with just about the same conclusion we see here. The trend has been set by those ignorant old judges that fail to see the logic, contradicting the rulings from Spain,” said aDi in a response to the verdict.

“Unfortunately this is not Spain, the Dutch legal system is dysfunctional, lacking logic and professionalism. Why does it take more than five years and so many criminal trials to prove a simple fact? How come all the pathetic private organizations whose main interest is money and not the artists, get away with lies and deceptions spreading their propaganda in the media?,” he added.

What remains for the ShareConnector operator is the appeal of the criminal case that will be heard in April. In 2007 he was released from all charges, but after two years the Department of Justice filed the appeal. The charges in this case are membership of a criminal organization and (assisting in) the distribution of copyrighted material. The additional charges of copyright infringement were dropped last week.

In the upcoming trial Dr. Johan Pouwelse will appear as an expert witness on behalf of the defendant. Since downloading copyrighted films and music is not illegal in The Netherlands, he is expected to testify that there are various ways for eDonkey users to disable the upload feature. Whatever the outcome of the criminal trial, ShareConnector will never return.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement has leaked again. Michael Geist has analysis below: New ACTA leaks have emerged this week that fill in the blanks about the remainder of the still-secret treaty. While earlier leaks provided extensive detail on the Internet and civil enforcement chapters, these latest leaks shed new light into the criminal enforcement section, the chapter on ACTA institutional issues, and international cooperation. The international cooperation chapter includes extensive provisions on capacity building and technical assistance. This is noteworthy since it (1) confirms the vision that developing countries will ultimately be pressured to join ACTA and (2) represents a counter to the developing country focus at WIPO. While WIPO has typically provided this assistance, the emergence of the development agenda has promoted a more balanced approach to technical assistance in developing countries. ACTA seeks to return technical assistance to an enforcement oriented approach. Translation for non-wonks: Historically, developing countries have asked the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization for "technical assistance" with their copyright laws. This has usually amounted to "Create copyright laws that will make it easier for rich countries to get richer," but in the past several of years, WIPO has found itself with a large cadre of public interest activists and now, WIPO is working on a treaty on its "Development Agenda" to figure out a copyright system that serves humanitarian goals, too (for example, by making it legal for archivists and educators to work together to translated and adapt works that have different copyright rules in different countries). We've all known that ACTA is a way of writing copyright treaties without having to let poor countries and human rights advocates into the room. We've suspected that poor countries -- who aren't invited to the negotiations -- will be strong-armed into signing onto the treate afterwards. This leak confirms our worst fears: ACTA throws out the pretence of justice, fairness, and humanitarianism present at the UN, for pure, naked, crony-capitalism. It's an instrument for allowing entrenched corporations from rich countries change the laws of other countries to their benefit -- and to the detriment of the people of those countries. It's a hijacking of the world's legislative systems by private interests, abetted by the US Trade Rep. New ACTA Leaks: Criminal Enforcement, Institutional Issues, and International Cooperation (Thanks, Michael!) Previously:Biggest-ever ACTA leak: secret copyright treaty dirty laundry ... ACTA leak: Now we know who is against transparency - USA, Korea ... EU Parliament votes 663-13 against ACTA's enforcement measures ... Danish activists demand to know why their governments block ACTA ......