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No really. I prefer GNOME, so clearly pretty isn’t the biggest factor here. When I first
started using Ubuntu, I would drag the top GNOME panel to the bottom and have it sit
under what is normally the bottom panel. It looked ugly as sin, but this is how, as (back in
2005) a recent Windows refugee, I was used to working and so this is how I chose to organise my
space.
Most importantly, it wasn’t hard for me to do this. My most recent installs, almost 4 years
later, primarily on laptops rather than desktops tended to be left as is — a panel at the
top and a panel at the bottom. I find this seems to suit laptops better, and
I’ve become accustomed to it. However, had I not been able to move the panel from the
start, I might even have ended up on Kubuntu. Well, if it were not for the silly single-click
thing that fires stuff off even when you don’t want it to, like when you bump the mouse
accidentally. Ok, truth be told, I probably would have stuck with Ubuntu, because, well, all the
functionality was still there. Just in a different place to where I was expecting
As with most computer users, I’ve never owned a Mac. When I was little, my school had a
some (iirc) Mac II’s but I am pretty certain that the number of times that I, at 28, have
used a Mac since would barely exceed the number of digits on my hands, and OS X is nothing like
the first Macs I used. I think the last time I used a Mac was in 2005; for about 20 minutes.
But now with the sneaky Lucid UI changes, I might as well be using OS X as far as my learned
behaviours are concerned. And lets just hope that my laptop trackpad doesn’t jump at an
inopportune time — like it does sometimes when I go to open the system menu and instead hit
the firefox icon right next to it instead — as trackpads are prone to.
I work 100% from a laptop and use the trackpad 90% of the time. The chance this ridiculous UI
change will not bite me hard is pretty slim. The only plus I’ve come across so far
is that it made it easier to close out of the awkwardly oversized evolution setup wizard that
launched on my eeepc701.
However, putting even that glaring risk aside, the one thing that I am absolutely hating
the most about these sneaky UI changes is the abolishment of informative
tooltips. This is a loss of functionality.
My battery icon, my wifi connection icon, my xchat icon — they now tell me nothing
when I merely nudge them, I now have to smack them over the head with the cursor. I cannot tell
at quick glance if I have enough charge for something, on the wrong wifi network, or whether I
can ignore that xchat message I missed the notification for. I have to exert time, energy, and
most importantly brain focus to get what used to be a simple matter of an effortless
enlightenment. I now have to go through what is sometimes several clicks. Extra clicks are bad.
Clicks add obscurity. Extra clicks are effort.
This bleeps me right off. I can learn to move a mouse in a different direction (though I’m
not at all believing that new windows migrants will cope), but I really do not have the
capacity to circumvent the application to read the bytes from the disk myself to find out what my
battery level is without clicking through some dialogs. The software is supposed to do that
for me.
Alas, my software no longer does this for me, and ergo, my software no longer works for me.
To get this information, I now have to do stuff for my software. I
should not be working for my software.
Hollywood has a sad history of lost props and costumes. On one hand, you can't blame them. Who can
predict what is going to become iconic? Why not reuse that pretty white dress from The Seven
Year Itch? But then there are unforgivable examples. The Wizard of Oz was
pretty iconic by the time MGM decided to do a garage sale of props, and pieces of history (such as
the Lion's suit) flew out the door for pennies. Even when plucky individuals like Debbie Reynolds
have tried to set up some kind of museum or preservation group, no one is interested in funding it.
Movie history, like so much "real" history, is unappreciated by those with the money to study it.
So, The LA
Times' story about the lost set of Cecil B. DeMille's 1928 The Ten Commandments
isn't at all surprising, but Peter Brosnan's quest to find it is pretty fascinating.
DeMille filmed his original Ten Commandments in the scorching Guadalupe-Nipomo dunes of
Santa Barbara, California. As old film buffs know, it was a popular location to film anything that
needed a desert sequence until the mid 1940s, when films began shooting on location. There are a
few remnants of Gudalupe's glory days kicking around the town, but none so weird and creepy as
DeMille's Art Deco Commandments set, which is buried somewhere under the dunes. Pieces of
it have popped up from time to time and decorated the town, but the majority of it is still lying
in the trench DeMille bulldozed it into.
Brosnan has been trying to find it for nearly thirty years, but has had no luck securing enough
funding. He had hoped to film a documentary about DeMille's lost city, but unable to truly dig it
up, he's decided to change the focus to that of Gudalupe's glittery history in the hopes of helping
a struggling town find its economic footing.
The PC giant files suit against six LCD makers for forming a 'cartel' that Dell claimed
artificially inflated prices costing the company millions of dollars.
pcause writes "Silicon Alley Insider has the most damning evidence released in the Viacom/YouTube
suit. It seems clear from these snippets that YouTube knew it was pirating content, and did it to
grow fast and sell for a lot of money. It also seems clear that Google knew the site contained
pirated content and bought it and continued the pirating."
pcause writes "Silicon Alley Insider has the most damning evidence released in the Viacom/YouTube
suit. It seems clear from these snippets that YouTube knew it was pirating content, and did it to
grow fast and sell for a lot of money. It also seems clear that Google knew the site contained
pirated content and bought it and continued the pirating."
Rolls-Royce Phantom - Click above for high-res image gallery
Having been introduced in 2003, the Rolls-Royce
Phantom has been on the market for seven years now. That's a pretty long life-cycle for a car
these days. According to the ever-churning rumor mill, that's only the tip of the proverbial
iceberg, as Rolls may be planning on keeping the Phantom the way it is for another six years or
so.
According to the reports, the Phantom is set to receive a major overhaul in 2016. What that will
entail is far from being known at this point. And considering
Maybach may reportedly fall by the wayside, its only major competition is the Bentley Mulsanne, which is brand spankin' new.
Once the Phantom sedan is replaced, though, it would be reasonable to expect the Coupe and DHC
convertible to follow suit. In the meantime, expect another few dozen special editions for the
Persian Gulf crowd.
This week, documents from Viacom's billion dollar lawsuit against YouTube for copyright
infringement were published, and the three-year-long-and-counting lawsuit has again been brought
to the public's attention. In case you haven't been following the case, here's a quick timeline
of the major events that led up to the lawsuit, and those that occurred since the original
complaint was filed:
May 24, 2005- Viacom subpoenas YouTube for information about a user who uploaded
clips from Paramount Pictures' "Twin Towers."
June 2005- Viacom's board of directors approves a plan to spin off assets, which
become known as the new Viacom, Inc. That new company is given control of Paramount, while the
core company reforms as CBS Corp.
January 2006- 20th Century Fox sues YouTube to have content from Fox TV shows
such as The Simpsons and 24 removed from YouTube.
June 2006- YouTube and NBC partner to create NBC channel on
YouTube for Internet exclusives, clips, and trailers.
July 2006- Viacom and NBC Universal back journalist Robert Tur in his suit
against YouTube for illegally posting his videos of the 1992 L.A. riots. The legal brief said,
"YouTube incorrectly contends that the DMCA permits it to avoid any responsibility for the
content on its commercial website and completely shift the burden to content owners to discover
and notify it of infringements."
March 2007- Viacom General Counsel Michael Fricklas in a Washington Post op-ed says that YouTube was not just a passive content
host, and that it is fully aware of what it does. "If the public knows what's there, then
YouTube's management surely does. YouTube's own terms of use give it clear rights, notably the
right to take anything down."
May 2007- British Premier League files class action suit against YouTube for
copyright infringement, says Google "knowingly misappropriated and exploited this valuable
property," when it allowed users to post footage from its football games.
June 2007- YouTube introduces Content ID to help content owners identify if
their content is being used, gives them the option to remove unauthorized content, or monetize
it.
August 2007- Google asks Comedy Central personalities Jon Stewart and Stephen
Colbert to testify against Viacom in copyright hearings.
Comedy Central is a Viacom property.
March 2008- Viacom President and CEO Phillippe Dauman says "We've already
achieved a number of things with this lawsuit. It took a long time, but because of our actions,
YouTube has moved in the right direction. They're where they should have been all along."
June 2008- New York District Court rules that Google has to turn over user IDs
and IP addresses to Viacom. Angry users upload nearly 5,000 "Viacom Sucks" videos to
YouTube. Google is later allowed to make this data anonymous.
July 2008- Movie studio Lionsgate partners with YouTube for a branded channel
with ad-supported official content from the studio.
April 2009- Content owners discus "TV Anywhere" plan to tie Web-based video
content into cable subscription fees. Viacom CEO Dauman says, "People are used to paying for
video subscriptions," sees it as a good idea.
June 2009- "TV Everywhere" network scheme launches.
July 2009- Some claims from the Premier League's 2007 suit against YouTube are
dismissed, but claims for "statutory damages for works not registered in the US" are allowed.
September 2009- Google gives individual copyright holders access to the Insight
metrics of YouTube videos that contain their intellectual property according to Content ID.
October 2009- Viacom presents "smoking gun" evidence for its case: internal
e-mails from YouTube staff that show "actual knowledge" that copyright infringement was taking
place on the video sharing site.
November 2009- Google announces YouTube Direct, a
system where media outlets can directly communicate with users and arrange rebroadcasting rights
on a one-to-one basis.
March 2010- Some of Viacom's "smoking gun" documents go public, company claims
"YouTube was intentionally built on infringement."
There used to be two
independent movie rental places in my neighborhood, with one just a few blocks further away
offering a seemingly endless array of movies - blockbusters, esoteric indies, extreme horror,
sexploitation and grindhouse, triple X features, and even dubiously dubbed impossible to get films
like the infamous Skidoo,
Preminger's LSD freakout featuring a stoned Groucho Marx as God.
Since rents have skyrocketed and Netflix has appeared on the scene, these brick and mortar stores
have been wiped out like the T-Rex, and if I don't like my Netflix offerings at home or if I need
to find a movie for research, well, my choices are Blockbuster (which does have some surprising
DVDs to rent) or the rental place that's squeezed into the corner of a pizza joint.
For what it's worth, I love Netflix. Love it. I love rating films and seeing what it comes up with,
and I love getting those little envelopes in the mail. I love seeing what my friends have rated. My
queue is topped out, and I have started bookmarking movies I need to Netflix. Streaming to my Xbox
is great, and new films are being added at an alarmingly awesome rate.
At the risk of sounding like a younger female Richard
Corliss, I do miss browsing my local video store - a good one, mind you. I could examine each
shelf for ages, looking for the perfect movie to suit my mood that night, or getting something on a
whim because its cover catches my eye or because it's an employee pick I'd never heard of, in the
same way I visit my favorite book store and peruse the books they have handpicked to display in the
shelves at the front.
After showing off the project earlier this month with a promising trailer (above), Dylan "Steaky"
Loney has released The Great Class Dash, his new Team
Fortress 2 mod that turns the online first-person shooter into a Canabalt-styled
single-player 2.5D sidescrolling platformer.
This first public release has players automatically running through four different stages:
Canada, Egypt, Volcano, and Swamp. To make it through each level, players need to cycle through
different classes while running, as each of the nine classes has a unique ability that allows
players to pass through different obstacles.
The Scout, for example, can double jump over large gaps. The Heavy breaks through walls, the
Sniper ("a notorious hunter") scares away animals in your path, the Pyro's suit protects him from
steam and clouds of mostquitoes, the Spy can sneak past enemy sentry guns, and so on.
Senator Chuck Schumer signals
commitment to inclusion of LGBT provisions in comprehensive immigration reform: "I
support [UAFA] and I am working on introducing a comprehensive package that would address this
issue along with a host of immigration issues . . . At this time, I believe that the only way to
pass meaningful and effective immigration reform is through a comprehensive bill, not through
piecemeal legislation."
Janet Jackson announces release date of new single, called
"Nothing".
Nice
knowing you, Bluefin tuna:
"Global talks on the conservation of endangered species have rejected calls to ban international
trade in bluefin tuna, raising new fears for the future of dwindling stocks. Countries at the
meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in Qatar voted
down a proposal from Monaco to grant the fish stronger protection. The plan drew little support,
with developing countries joining Japan in opposing a measure they feared would hit fishing
economies."
Chicago Mayor Daley appoints
new chair to gay advisory council: "Elizabeth Kelly will serve a three-year term as
chairperson of the Advisory Council on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues. Kelly is a
professor of women's and gender studies at DePaul University. She was a founding member of
DePaul's interdisciplinary program in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender studies."
Gay
Facebook founder Chris Hughes starts
Jumo.com, a social platform for global volunteerism: "Think of the site as philanthropy,
volunteerism and social networking all rolled into one. It's a platform that will connect people
and organizations around the world, and Hughes is arguably the most well-known tech entrepreneur
to enter the still evolving global space." Site.
Vman modeling search winners
announced (site possibly nsfw).
Siem
Reap, Cambodia's gay
haven: "Homosexual acts are not outlawed in Cambodia, as they are in a few Southeast Asian
countries, but outward displays of affection and untraditional lifestyles are rare. Yet in Siem
Reap, a small town that gets about a million tourists a year, gay visitors and locals are carving
out a little haven. In the last few years, a small flurry of gay-friendly bars, restaurants and
hotels has opened up in the city’s center and beyond, with wink-wink names like the Golden
Banana and Cockatoo."
Atlanta Eagle lawsuit grows: "Thirty-one Atlanta
police officers have been added to a federal lawsuit that complains patrons of a gay nightclub
were ordered to lie on the Atlanta Eagle Bar floor, on spilled beer and broken glass, while
enduring insults about their homosexuality. The suit, originally filed in November, was expanded
Wednesday to include six more bar employees and contractors, bringing the total to 28 people who
say they were victimized during the highly publicized raid on Sept. 10."
Re-Walk ReWalkâ„¢ is a wearable, motorized quasi robotic suit. Partially
concealable under clothing, ReWalk provides user-initiated mobility – leveragingÂ
advanced motion sensors, sophisticated robotic control algorithms, on-board computers, real-time
software, actuation motors, tailored rechargeable batteries and composite materials. (Pics)
 ReWalk™ works with users – not just for them.
Users walk with the assistance of crutches, controlling suit [...]
“There are transsexual women and transgender women and suddenly it becomes poisonous and
something else because there are some people in this world that believe being gay is a choice.
It’s not a choice, we’re born this way."
"I got cast because I work as a personal trainer. I run my own independent contracting business,
and I run it out of a gay gym in Silver Lake. There's a woman at my gym named Dallas, and she's
also kind of an aspiring actress of sorts, and she had been called in to play one of the guards.
She called me up from the casting and said they were desperate for bodybuilders, and she told
them, 'There's this person at my gym who's not a pro bodybuilder, but she has a really cut
physique,' and she suggested I'd be perfect for it. So I went down and auditioned -- but I'm not
hormones or anything like that -- so they ended up casting me as an inmate in the prison scene.
They were blocking the scene, and the woman who was blocking for Gaga disappeared, and Gaga came
out, and she just kind of instantly called me over, and it just happened like that. She called me
over and asked me to portray her girlfriend and said, 'OK, you're going to be my prison
girlfriend, and you're going to come to me, and I'd like you to touch me inappropriately.'
[Laughs] We just kind of went from there."
"Songwriter and producer Rob Fusari says in a $30 million lawsuit that he helped develop
'guidette' Stefani Germanotta into the superstar she is today -- and even came up with her
world-famous stage name -- but she is now reneging on a business deal that made him 20 percent
owner of her company. Fusari's lawyer, Robert Meloni, who filed suit yesterday in Manhattan
Supreme Court, said: 'He discovered her. It was his songs and productions and connections that
got her her first deal.' ... Fusari said he played the Queen song 'Radio Ga Ga' whenever she
arrived at his studio, and 'one day when Fusari addressed a cellphone text to Germanotta under
the moniker 'Radio Ga Ga' his cellphone's spell check converted 'Radio' to 'Lady.' Germanotta
loved it and 'Lady Gaga' was born.'"
Fusari also says he hooked her up with Interscope records. The two co-wrote her tracks
"Paparazzi" and Beautiful, Dirty Rich".
"'The New Jersey Supreme Court ordered equality for same-sex couples when it decided our
marriage lawsuit in 2006, and the legislature has failed to meet that crystal-clear obligation,'
said Lambda Legal Deputy Legal Director Hayley Gorenberg. 'Civil unions are a failed legislative
experiment in providing equality—marriage equality is the only solution.'"
The plaintiffs are those in the original Lewis v. Harris lawsuit:
"Lambda Legal filed Lewis v. Harris in June 2002 on behalf of seven same-sex couples
seeking the right to marry. The New Jersey Supreme Court issued its ruling on October 25, 2006,
unanimously agreeing that it is unconstitutional to give same-sex couples lesser rights than
different-sex couples, but leaving the remedy to reach equality up to the legislature. In January
2007 the New Jersey Legislature hastily enacted a civil union law. In December 2008 the Civil
Union Review Commission, appointed by the legislature, issued its report documenting how civil
unions fall short of the court-mandated equality for same-sex couples...In January 2010,
following a hard-fought campaign led by Garden State Equality, the New Jersey Senate voted on and
failed to pass a marriage equality law."
[In a
GameSetWatch-exclusive set of blog posts covering the week of GDC
2010, Magical Wasteland blogger and Game
Developer magazine columnist Matthew Burns concludes his journey through the San Francisco-based
show. Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and
Part
6.]
For me, the 2010 Game Developers Conference was a little like standing in the center of a
three-way collision between art, technology and business– three trains
barreling into each other with the full weight of their cross-cultural inertia behind them, the
impact releasing tremendous energy and particles of a new, unknown type.
The trend-spotters registered, of course, the noise around social media (most of it seemed little
more than just that: noise) and the still-echoing boom of free-to-play with real money
transactions.
Three-dimensional displays requiring glasses continued to confound me as to their worth, even
though a man in a business suit I randomly encountered at the Intel booth told me he thought in
no uncertain terms it was the future. Strange “virtual reality” peripherals,
exhibited at shows like this year after year and to no subsequent momentum, persisted in their
search for relevance.
Many of sessions had to do with going or being independent in a world dominated by increasingly
monolithic publishers. There was also tangible worry about layoffs, accompanied by an
unsubstantiated hope that casual games or serious games might magically pick up the slack in
available openings. Cell phones were an accepted, legitimate platform that nobody thought once to
deride. Game developers are still mostly white males.
I must remind myself, however, that the eighteen-thousand strong attendance was only a fraction
of the total developer community. For everyone who was there, many more stayed at home for
monetary reasons, or because were stuck at work, unable to come because all hands were needed on
deck for an upcoming milestone.
Some companies are willing to accept only a limited number of “slots,” ensuring that
only the most important or most desirous were able to get one. I’d even heard tales of
studios discouraging their employees from going at all because they were afraid networking at the
show could lead to their finding better jobs elsewhere.
Back home in a familiar bed, recovering from the flu I picked up, I have trouble falling sleep
even though I’m exhausted. There’s simply too much for me to be spun up about from
the last six days. I drift in between wakefulness and dreams of a type I’ve never had
before, feverishly plotting my next steps towards the realization of ideas both new and old. Like
a student in a martial arts class, I’m beaten up, but oddly invigorated by it.
“Video games.” Someone started saying the phrase to punctuate the end of
conversations: conversations about Bayonetta’s addiction to lollipops, forum-organized
Activision “boycotts,” or Sonic the Hedgehog fans. Video games. The usage spreads,
because what else can you say about this wide-ranging, incomparable, baffling land, with its
sublime peaks and dispiriting trenches, its rich veins and its unexplored territory?
For every promising, flag-waving triumph of there are ten facepalm moments, but we stick with it
regardless. We know that despite every disappointment, that there is something special to be
found here.
Even Senator Yee in his amicus brief wrote that “the interactive nature of video games is
vastly different than passively listening to music, watching a movie, or reading a book.”
In this case the video game advocates and their would-be censors agree: games are a medium apart,
something uniquely powerful (and perhaps, due to that very power, dangerous).
The natural instinct is to try to take its reins, and steer it like a beast in the direction we
want it to go: to wrestle it into a career, or into money, or into the approval of others. We
want to take what we see in video games and make it about us; or try to sum it all up in a few
easy words or split it into overly simplistic categories. Agendas are advanced, ulterior motives
lurk, and everyone holds in his or her mind some kind of ideal state.
But the whole of the thing– this gigantic ball of ideas and expectations and
initiative called the game industry– is much too big, too disparate and too
absurd to understand in any rational way, except as a inexorable force of nature. So to believe
one could somehow control it is nothing more than fantasy.
[Special thanks to Simon Carless and Darius Kazemi for making this series possible.]
C’est une des expériences débiles, qu’a tentée une
émission de TV nippone. Alors comme c’est vendredi, et que le week-end approche,
personne ne vous en voudra de regarder cet extrait de l’émission
“Tobidase! Kagaku-kun“.
L’équipe de joyeux lurons est allez au Central Research Institute of
Electric Power Industry (CRIEPI) pour utiliser leur machine à éclairs. La
décharge de 12 millions de volts fait exploser des parpaings, alors qu’en sera-t-il
du néon ? La réponse dans la vidéo qui suit l’article
Michael Scott
points us to a very interesting analysis of how to different appeals courts have very different interpretations of our federal anti-hacking law. The Computer
Fraud and Abuse Act was passed by Congress to create criminal sanctions for malicious computer
hacking. The problem, of course, is that whenever you have politicians passing laws about
technology, they may be a bit vague. So, the way hacking was defined was effectively to say that
the perpetrator accessed info "without authorization" or (more troubling) that the activity
"exceeds authorized access." Now, it's pretty obvious what's meant by this. If you're
breaking into parts of a computer system where you don't belong for nefarious purposes, you're
probably violating this law.
But that's not how all courts are interpreting it. The article notes that the Seventh Circuit, in
International Airport Centers, LLC v. Citrin, found that an employee violated this law by deleting
information on his laptop (which would have presented evidence of a breach of contract by the guy),
after he had resigned. Obviously, that's a totally different situation than what the CFAA was
intended to cover, but the court found that once he quit, he was no longer authorized to use the
laptop, and doing so was effectively hacking. That seems like an extreme stretch of the law. But at
least some other courts are following suit: For example, in a case in the U. S. District Court
for the Eastern District of Missouri, the district court relied upon the Citrin decision and held
that, even if employees were authorized to access their employer's computer records, they cannot
use such authorization (and, hence, their access can become "unauthorized"), if they use the
information for their own interests.... The court concluded that the employer sufficiently alleged
that the employees "acted without authorization when they obtained [the employer's] information for
their personal use and in contravention of their fiduciary duty to their employer." Yes, you
read that right. If you use your employer's computer simply to access the company's data for your
personal use, you may be guilty of computer hacking. That's quite clearly not what the law was
intended to cover.
Thankfully, the Ninth Circuit (which all too often comes out with weird decisions) seems to have
gotten this one right: In declining to adopt the Seventh Circuit's interpretation of "without
authorization," the court held that a "person uses a computer 'without authorization'... [only] [1]
when the person has not received permission to use the computer for any purpose (such as when a
hacker accesses someone's computer without any permission), or [2] when the employer has rescinded
to access the computer and the defendant uses the computer anyway."... The Ninth Circuit declined
to hold that the "defendant's authorization to obtain information stored in a company computer is
'exceeded' if the defendant breaches a state law duty of loyalty to an employer" because no such
language was found in the CFAA.... The Ninth Circuit noted that because the CFAA was "primarily a
criminal statute," and because there was ambiguity as to the meaning of the phrase "without
authorization," it would construe any ambiguity against the government.... Obviously, I agree
that this is the proper interpretation of the law -- and stretching the definition of criminal
hacking "without authorization" to things like accessing personal information on an employer's
computer is dangerous. Of course, with the split rulings, it's likely that eventually this will get
to the Supreme Court to sort out, and hopefully they get it right. Or, in the meantime, Congress
could clarify the law -- but chances are they'd just make it worse.
With the release of court filings in the three-year old copyright infringement suit between
Viacom and YouTube, we’ve seen the video share site argue that it is
not liable for infringing videos uploaded to its site, as it claims protection under the safe
harbor provision of the Digital Milennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
But in Viacom’s filing for a partial summary judgment, it makes the case that the
site’s founders — and later executives of acquirer Google — turned a blind eye
to copyrighted material in an effort to drastically grow the site’s user base. And since
YouTube’s founders were aware of infringement and chose to do nothing about it, Viacom
argues that the company is liable under the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision,
which found that a site operating with the intent of infringing should not be protected by the
DMCA.
Using internal emails that were passed between YouTube founders Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and
Jawed Karim, Viacom paints the picture of YouTube as a young company whose leaders were willing
to grow its user base at any cost. For instance, the filing states that Chen urged his associates
in one email to “concentrate all of our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively
as we can through whatever tactics, however evil.” The comment notably contrasts with
future purchaser Google’s “don’t be evil” mantra — but more
importantly, that attitude set the stage for a number of decisions that the YouTube founders made
to grow at the expense of rights holders that it was infringing on.
YouTube didn’t always ignore the sensitive copyright issue. At one point during the summer
of 2005, for instance, the site’s founders removed “some of the most obvious
infringing video from YouTube to give the impression of copyright compliance,” the
Viacom filing claims. However, they also chose to leave a good deal of infringing content up,
believing that enabling users to search for less high-profile content was worth the risk.
According to the filing, Chen wrote in an email, “That way, the perception is that we are
concerned about this type of material and we’re actively monitoring it. [But the] actual
removal of this content will be in varying degrees. That way . . . you can find truckloads of . .
. copyrighted content . . . [if] you [are] actively searching for it.”
And at one point, YouTube founder Jawed Karim even uploaded infringing content to the site
himself, which drew some criticism from Chen. In an email, Chen acknowledged, “We’re
going to have a tough time defending the fact that we’re not liable for the copyrighted
material on the site because we didn’t put it up when one of the co-founders is blatantly
stealing content from other sites and trying to get everyone to see it.”
But for the most part, Viacom argues that the founders mainly did nothing about the copyright
issue, even though internally they knew it was driving a large portion of their traffic. In an
email exchange between the founders, Chen estimated that 80 percent of the site’s traffic
was driven by pirated videos, and opposed taking them down proactively because, “if you
remove the potential copyright infringements . . . site traffic and virality will drop to maybe
20% of what it is.”
While Viacom tries to make the case that YouTube’s founders knew the extent of the
infringement taking place and chose to do nothing about it, it argues that Google was also well
aware of the site’s infringement issues at purchase. As part of Google’s due
diligence into YouTube, financial advisor Credit Suisse analyzed the site’s content and
estimated that more than 60 percent of video views appeared on premium content, but YouTube only
had a license for about 10 percent of those videos, according to Viacom.
Furthermore, Viacom claims that Google not only acquired YouTube despite those problems, but it
chose initially to take the same approach as YouTube’s founders by ignoring copyright
issues. Rather than screen videos prior to putting them on the site, as Google had done with its
own video site, Google Video, it allowed YouTube to continue operating without any pre-emptive
enforcement policies in place.
All this, Viacom argues, suggests that YouTube and Google should not be protected by the DMCA.
Like Grokster, the company argues, “Google and YouTube were not just innocent and unwitting
accomplices to infringement perpetrated by YouTube users. Defendants operated YouTube with the
unlawful objective of using infringing material to explosively build their user base and become
the dominant video website on the Internet.”
Ah, the patent wars. As you're probably aware, TiVo spent years fighting a big legal battle with
EchoStar/Dish Networks over some patents on DVR technology. TiVo won big, and then immediately
turned its patent lawyers on some other companies including
Verizon. In Verizon's response to TiVo's lawsuit, it went nuclear back, accusing TiVo of violating Verizon's patents on DVR
technology -- including a patent that the world's biggest patent hoarding firm, Intellectual
Ventures, gave Verizon for the purpose of being used against TiVo.
So is it any surprise to hear via Broadband Reports that Verizon is now suing Cablevision, claiming patent infringement on its set top box/DVR
offerings as well? Cablevision and Verizon have had a really nasty battle going for
years on Long Island, with all sorts of dirty tricks being played by both sides. But
patent infringement? Given the odd timing of this lawsuit coming so quickly on the heels of the
counterclaims against TiVo, you have to wonder if Verizon "woke up" to the fact that it could use
these patents against Cablevision, only after provoked by TiVo.
6,367,078: Electronic program-guide system with sideways-surfing
capability
7,561,214: Two-dimensional navigation of multiplexed channels in a digital video
distribution system
6,055,077: Multimedia distribution system using fiber optic lines
5,864,415: Fiber optic network with wavelength-division-multiplexed transmission
to customer premises
6,381,748: Apparatus and methods for network access using a set-top box and
television
The three in bold are found in both lawsuits. Now, to be fair, before looking at the details,
I was guessing that Verizon would also be using the patent it got from IV, but that patent
(5,410,344) appears to be the one patent that Verizon is asserting against TiVo, but
not against Cablevision. I have no idea if this is because nothing Cablevision
does is covered by that patent, or if Verizon has limitations on what it can do with the IV patent.
Still, given the overlap here, the timing, and the fact that many of these patents are pretty old,
you really have to wonder if the lawsuit from TiVo and the scouring of patents for a countersuit
also gave Verizon the idea to sue its arch-nemesis in the Long Island market over the same
issues.
When we were driving out of town I said, "I hate the corpses of empires, they stink as nothing
else. They stink so badly that I cannot believe that even in life they were healthy." "I do not
think you can convince mankind," said my husband, "that there is not a certain magnificence about
a great empire in being." "Of course there is," I admitted, "but the hideousness outweighs the
beauty. You are not, I hope, going to tell me that they impose law on lawless people. Empires
live by the violation of law." (Rebecca West, from Black Lamb and Grey Falcon)
Strange week this week. All Marvel and Vertigo. And lots of sex. Weird. And yes, I'm aware the
fourth issue of Daytripper came out last week. I didn't get it, for some reason. I
should have it this weekend. Dang. Let's move on!
Everyone reading this should know what I'm going to rant about. When Thor transports the Avengers
and the agents of Atlas to Norway, he says, "But I know of one place on Midgard I can bring us
all to!" Sorry, Thor - it's TAKE!!!!! Seriously, poor "take." No one loves it. So sad.
I love how Parker casually makes Hank Pym a dick even when he's not really trying. When the
old-school Avengers find out that Bruce Banner is the Hulk (because Venus sang to him and calmed
him down, turning him back to Banner), Pym says, "That's Dr. Bruce Banner! He's maybe the top
physicist in the world -- well, besides me ..." Ha! And Parker makes Tony Stark a bit of a wuss,
too - Marvel Boy telepathically informs Pym about what's happening, and Stark says, "He could
have put the knowledge in me ... I would have gotten it." If that's not enough, in the next
panel, Stark looks down at himself and says to no one in particular, "I built this suit ..."
Whenever a writer is clever enough to drop stuff like that into his fairly standard superhero
team-up (which this is), I appreciate it, because it just humanizes them and makes it easier to
deal with the wackiness of a team from the 1960s (or a decade ago, according to Pym) joining up
with a team from the present thanks to some time anomaly. They all fight the Hulk, Bob figures
out what's up, and everything is set up for the final showdown. It's good, clean fun!
In the back-up story, Cornell and Kirk bring us Venus, love advice columnist. It's pretty
hilarious (see the panel of awesome below), as she answers questions from Hercules, Deadpool
(which is particularly hilarious), I assume Jocasta, the Hulk, Norman Osborn (more hilarity!),
Kitty Pryde, and Clint Barton. It's very dependent on knowing Marvel continuity (unsurprisingly),
and the only one I didn't get was the letter from Miss Dean. Help me out, more knowledgeable
readers! It's a fun little tale.
Sex in this comic? Hoo-boy, you bet. It stars Venus in both stories, for crying
out loud! In the first, Venus has to sing to calm Bruce down, and two superheroes get caught in
the sound wave. Macking commences! And in the second, well, Deadpool's letter is the highlight,
and I won't spoil it.
It's been two months since the last issue of Fables. Strange. Anyway, I always dig the
short stories of this series because they seem to contain standalone stories, but Willingham
always makes sure that things get tied into the main story later. In other words, I doubt we've
seen the last of the some of these characters. The story itself is not great but not bad, as
Ambrose needs to figure out a way to deal with the serious transgression from last issue in a way
that doesn't rip his kingdom apart. He does it, of course, but there's still some restlessness
among the subjects, and that can't be good. I do like the only witness for the defense - at
first, I thought it was absolutely idiotic, but once John started expanding on his story, it made
better sense. And hey - those people who wish to read political intent into writers' books can
kind of have a field day here, as Willingham tackles the death penalty and the idea of
culture leading to what some would call crime. I honestly don't care when writers inject their
political beliefs into comics (if, indeed, that's what Willingham is doing here), because this
issue, while not superb, does show how much difficulty Ambrose is going to have moving forward.
That's what makes this such a neat series.
Sex in this comic? Definitely. Off-panel and after the issue ends, but oh yeah,
someone's getting lucky!
One panel of awesome:
Won't someone think of the ... squirrel children!
Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #1 (of
2) (Hercules main story/"Greek Tragedy") by Greg
Pak (writer, "Hercules"), Fred van Lente (writer,
"Hercules"), Paul Tobin (writer, "Tragedy"), Ariel Olivetti (artist, "Hercules"),
Reilly Brown (penciler, "Tragedy"), Jason Paz (inker, "Tragedy"), Wil Quintana (colorist,
"Tragedy"), Simon Bowland (letterer, "Hercules"), and Joe Sabino (letterer, "Tragedy"). $3.99, 30
pgs, FC, Marvel.
There are a few writers that I simply will not read. I've read their stuff, disliked it enough to
know it's kind of a pattern with them and not an anomaly, and won't try it again. There are some
writers who I dislike so much that even if they hook up with a fantastic artist, it's not enough
to get me to buy it. However, if I like the writer, usually I can take lousy art, because I'm
much more interested in the writing in comics than the art. If the art doesn't make my eyes bleed
and tells the story serviceably, I can deal with it. Very rarely will the art on a book I want to
read by a writer I like keep me from buying it. Let me tell you, I had one of those moments on
Wednesday, when I looked at this book and Ariel Olivetti's art.
I can't really put my finger on why I don't like Olivetti's art. I didn't always dislike it. A
decade ago, when he was still drawing using heavy lines rather than whatever the hell he's doing
now, it wasn't great art but it had a kind of mad energy to it. Then he started doing more and
more delicate line work, it appears he's given up on inking, and I don't know what's going on
with the coloring (an Irene Y. Lee is credited with "production" on this book; does she do the
coloring or does Olivetti?). It's that faux-"realistic" look that, to me, is ridiculously static
and, at times, downright creepy. It's kind of the same thing that Salvador Larocca has done in
the past five years or so, with color washes that drains everything heavy from the page but makes
the art far too ephemeral. It's not a good look. Olivetti is fine telling a story, but the art
just repels me. But I bought this anyway, because I knew that Pak and Van Lente wouldn't let me
down. And, heck, they didn't. Well, except for one brief exchange. I'll 'splain.
The premise of the book is that Amadues Cho and a bunch of heroes congregate at the Parthenon to
honor Hercules. Amadeus is peeved at Athena and wants her to show up, but instead the heroes do.
So they all tell stories about how groovy Hercules was. Thor talks about the time he and Herc had
to outdrink a bunch of giants, while Namor tells them of the time Herc beat on him to get him out
of a funk. (I wonder why Namor is wearing his new, "I'm so cool" outfit in his flashback when
he's wearing his old-school, "I'm so cool I can look UNcool" underpants in the
original comic. I mean, will people reading this comic be that confused that he ... changed
his clothes?!?!?!?) These are not bad stories, and Thor's is quite funny. Then the babes show up,
talking about how hot Herc was (it's true - they all say it!). Snowbird says that they all "lay"
with him, then continues: "I know there are others in the crowd who
should join us ... don't be shy." At which Northstar says, "Is that the
time? Gotta go!" while Namor looks on, a question mark above his head. Ha ha, Jean-Paul had sex
with Herc and he's embarrassed about it! Now, this bugged me. First of all, Herc is a god. And
he's, you know, Greek. I always assumed he was kind of pansexual, so the idea of him having sex
with men isn't that strange. Second, Northstar is (wait for it) gay. And everyone knows he's gay!
Who cares if he had sex with Herc? It felt, to me, that Van Lente and Pak were saying that a gay
man would be embarrassed that he had sex with a man, while the women aren't. This would have,
actually, been a perfect opportunity for another Marvel hero to come out of the closet - the joke
would have been funnier if Snowbird had said that and someone like Warren or Logan had shrugged
and said, "Hey, it weren't no big thing." But it's weird that Northstar is embarrassed about it.
This weird feeling continues on the next page, when Alflyse starts talking about her time with
Herc (see the panel of awesome below). Wolverine and Fandral looked shocked. After she's done
talking, Namor too looks shocked (and Thor looks like he's fondly remembering his own experiences
with the Elven Tickler, which isn't too surprising, given that he's, you know, Thor). Logan is
older than a century, and he knows how to get with the ladies. Fandral is a freakin' god. Namor,
I suppose, is the most stuck-up of them, so him I can forgive. But the idea in mainstream comics,
it seems, is that men like the sex as long as it's not too weird, while the women kind of
tolerate the sex but certainly don't do anything wacky. Pak and Van Lente are subverting the
second assumption, but reinforcing the first. Are you telling me Logan never got really weird
with any of the seriously crazy women he hooked up with? Are you saying Fandral never did
anything bizarre to mix things up after a thousand years of the missionary position? I've seen
this attitude before in Marvel and DC comics, and it's a bit strange. If someone who looks like
Alflyse starts talking about how much she enjoyed Herc's mastery of the Elven Tickler, I wouldn't
looked shocked, I'd be breaking out the instruction manual to figure it out!
And then Athena shows up and tells Amadeus that he's the new leader of the Olympus group, which
leads into next issue. And the back-up story has Venus and Namora going around telling people
that Herc is dead. It's a clever idea by Tobin - apparently Herc invested money in stuff and then
forgot about it, so he has all sorts of weird holdings all over the world, some of which have
done very well for him (he was an early investor in Stark Industries, for instance). It's a nice
little story that features a hydra. Which is never a bad thing to see.
Sex in this comic? See above. Plus, Venus get naked in a totally non-sexual
situation (one of Herc's holdings was a nudist colony), and all the people who lived in homes
that Herc owned happened to be women. I wonder why?
Morrison unveils a few more secrets in this issue, as Joe is shown something that makes his
journey through the strange world of more import than it already was, and a new adventurer joins
the team. And of course, because it's a Grant Morrison comic, the very odd bad guys (well, I'm
just going to assume they're bad guys; they could be kindly monks for all I know) are revealed at
the end. There are typical Morrisonisms sprinkled throughout the dialogue, and it all moves along
at a nice clip. Murphy remains the absolutely stunning star of the comic, though. The chase at
the beginning of the issue is terrifically exciting, and when Joe and Jack arrive in Draka's
town, Murphy gives us a full-page drawing that is simply gorgeous. When Joe collapses near the
end of the issue, Murphy looks downward through his house, almost giving us vertigo. The book
itself continues to get better, writing-wise, but Murphy's art is so staggering you almost don't
need to read the text. That's so rare with a Morrison comic that it's almost unbelievable. But
there it is!
Sex in this comic? It's about a boy in a fantasy land. Let's hope not!
One panel of awesome:
So portentous!!!!!
Marvel Boy: The Uranian #3 (of 3)
("Man of Two Worlds") by Jeff Parker (writer), Felix Ruiz (artist/letterer), and Val
Staples (colorist). $3.99, 22 pgs + 18 pgs of 3 back-up stories, FC, Marvel.
This isn't a bad comic, and it looks great, but it does feel more like Parker is filling in the
gaps of the characters from Agents of Atlas (or, I guess, Atlas) than telling a
standalone story. He fleshed out some crucial points about Bob's past, namely his connection to
Uranus and what his overlords really want (and if I call them "overlords," they can't be too
benign, can they?), but this feels a bit trifling, as if it could have been told in a flashback
in the regular series over the course of an issue or possibly two. Three issues is a bit much. I
mean, we get to see a giant 1950s Marvel monster (see below), some nice parts about Bob's life,
and a groovy mad scientist, but it still feels a bit too slight. Oh well. The art is fantastic,
Parker's writing is fine as ever (even if the book itself is slight), and we get to see a bunch
of reprints drawn by Bill Everett. If you're a fan of Jimmy Woo's team or Parker's writing, it's
a fun book. For four bucks a pop, though, it's a bit steep.
Sex in this comic? Bob gets busy in a rocket with Violet. There's nothing better
than zero-gravity sex! (Or, you know, so I'm told. By my astronaut friends. Of which I have
many.)
Bendis writes at the end of this book that it's over, because it's way too much work for Maleev
to do it, motion-comic style. Why they specifically had to do it motion-comic style isn't
addressed, but apparently putting together a motion comic takes a lot more time and effort by the
artist, and it was killing Maleev. KILLING HIM!!!!!! So they pulled the plug. Oh well.
I'm not that put out by it, because I was probably going to drop the book anyway after the first
arc. I will defend the Bendis/Maleev Daredevil to anyone who tries to put it down
(which, to be honest, isn't many people), but this just never got good. It had a nifty hook but
Bendis simply didn't do anything with it, and in the end, he had to bring in the Avengers to bail
Jessica out. This issue is just a big ol' dumb superhero fight with a few clever Bendisisms, but
mostly, it's dumb. And Jessica is a total bitch. She's not a bitch in a charming, fucked-up way
that Jessica Jones was in Alias, she's a bitch in a "Gosh, I really hope that Skrull
kills her" way. She keeps calling the Asian girl "dumb" because she claims that her Skrull
boyfriend is Spider-Man. Now, the way Maleev draws her, it seems like she's blind. Second, the
Skrull is, you know, a shape-shifter, so even if she's not blind, he could look like Spider-Man.
Jessica points out that Spider-Man "famously" lives in New York, but she's only been dating him
three weeks, meaning he could be on vacation or something. So, um, Jessica? Shut the fuck up. As
Abigail points out, your track record so far in this comic isn't great in the intelligence
department, so if the girl from Madripoor believes she was dating Spider-Man, you're the last
person in the world to call her dumb. And then, later, the Skrull tells her that the queen chose
her form because "of all the people in the world ... we discovered that no one on this entire
planet cares enough about you to notice you at all." Really, Skrull? Okay, from the way Jessica
behaves in this comic, I see Skrull dude's point, but that's a bit extreme, isn't it? I mean, she
has plenty of friends, after all. It's one of those things that sounds cool the first time you
read it but then, once you think about it for more than a second, makes absolutely no sense. And
then Wolverine tries to stab a shape-shifter to death. You'd think he'd know better.
So I would have ditched the book anyway, but now I don't have to. If you've been thinking about
getting the trade, I'd skip it. Spend it on something, you know, good.
Sex in this comic? Not a bit. Jessica finds the Skrull in a strip club, though.
One panel of "awesome":
Really?
Vengeance of the Moon Knight #6
("Shock and Awe Chapter 6") by Gregg Hurwitz
(writer), Jerome Opeña (penciler), Jay Leisten (inker), Paul Mounts (colorist), and
Joe Caramagna (letterer). $2.99, 23 pgs, FC,
Marvel.
And now, Moon Knight And Me: A Love Story.
I have never made my love of Moon Knight a secret. I dig him. I love the whole multiple
personalities thing, I love the whole weird network of operatives, I love the Doug Moench/Bill
Sienkiewicz run with a love that is probably a little unhealthy, I love the Doug Moench/Kevin
Nowlan run that followed it, I love the "Fist of Khonshu" series that followed that only lasted
six issues and wasn't very good, I liked the 1990s series that also wasn't very good but lasted
longer than any Moon Knight series ever, I loved the James Fry issues in the latter part of that
run that were really bizarre eye candy, I loved the Stephen Platt issues that ended the run ...
okay, that's a lie. I hated those issues. They're AWFUL. I loved the late 1990s mini-series that
brought the character back from limbo, with Mark Texeira and then Tommy Lee Edwards on art. I
loved the new series that launched a few years ago, which made our hero truly insane for, really,
the first time (as much as Moench explored the idea of multiple personalities, you never got the
sense that Moonie was all that crazy). And I loved the first few issues of this series, which
returned Moon Knight to New York and brought back Bushman (okay, that wasn't too great an idea)
and featured out of this world art by Opeña. I bought the first Moon Knight Essential
volume because I didn't have the early appearances of the character. I'm going to buy the new
hardcover of the Moench/Sienkiewicz collaborations before the first series launched even though I
own some of them, because I love the character so much. I think that the first series is wildly
underrated, as it was one of the first (if not the first) series to be released through the
Direct Market, bypassing newstands and therefore allowing Moench and Sienkiewicz to tell more
mature stories than mainstream comics before it. I think the character has a ton of potential
that has been tapped a bit, but not enough. But that's just me.
So why am I explaining this? Well, as much as I dug what Hurwitz did in these first few issues
(even though I didn't agree with bringing Bushman back and turning him into Bane), I thought this
was a terrible way to end this arc and it makes me wonder if I will even buy the next arc. It
makes me sad, but that's the way it is. In the first issue, it seemed as if Hurwitz was poking
fun at the silliness of superheroes, but doing it subtly. I can deal with Moon Knight as satire,
because it's an interesting take, especially as he's a bit, you know, out there. But as we got
further into the arc, Hurwitz stopped doing that and this became much more of a straight-forward
superhero comic. And I'm just not that interested in that anymore. I mean, Hurwitz brought
Bushman back. So what? What happens to him? He ends up in an insane asylum. So what? Bushman's
death was interesting because it pushed Moon Knight even further over the brink and set the stage
for the previous series, which was excellent. Now he's back, and he's just another boring
villain. Even in the mediocre 1990s series, he ruled a country, which added a bit of tension to
his dealings with our hero. Now, he's dull. And we get another joke about Crawley getting hit on
the head and changing his personality, back to what it was. This wasn't funny when it happened to
Guy Gardner twenty years ago, and it's still not funny. I realize that I'm too close to the
situation and I should be able to laugh at head injuries just like those uptight [insert ethnic
group here] should be able to laugh at jokes at their expense, but it's not the fact that Crawley
sustained a head injury and it changed his personality. It's that this book isn't a comedy, so
tonally it was all wrong, and it's also that nobody seems to care. That's what bugged me when it
happened to Guy - wouldn't someone think, "Hey, maybe we should check him out?" even if they
liked his new personality more? Shouldn't Moon Knight have suggested that Crawley ought to get an
MRI? It's too fraught with potential pitfalls to make it really funny, and Hurwitz didn't do(...)
Bullet est un moteur 3D très en vogue depuis qu’il est utilisé par le projet
Blender. Celui-ci permet d’animer de façon réaliste des scènes 3D.
D’un point de vue mécanique, il peut faire bouger des solides (ouf!), gérer
les collisions, lier des solides avec des liaisons mécaniques simples et même
déformer des solides... Bullet a aussi des modèles de frictions.
Du point de vue des solides gérés, il y a les entités
géométriques simples : sphère, cube, cône, etc. Mais aussi des solides
plus complexes qui sont réalisés sous forme de maillage surfacique en triangles
(coque extérieure). Ceci laisse une grande liberté pour générer des
solides.
Pour compiler et installer la dernière version de Bullet :
#! /bin/bash
wget http://bullet.googlecode.com/files/bullet-2.76.tgz
tar xvzf bullet-2.76.tgz
cd bullet-2.76/
ccmake . -G «Â Unix Makefiles »
# Dans ccmake configurer comme suit :
# USE_MULTITHREADED_BENCHMARK = OFF
# INSTALL_LIBS = ON
# INSTALL_EXTRA_LIBS = ON
make
sudo make install
Normalement tout se passe bien.
Ensuite, il faut renseigner pkg-config pour qu’il connaisse le chemin vers Bullet.
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Documents in
Viacom's 3-year-old, $1 billion suit against YouTube, unsealed on Thursday by U.S. District Court
Judge Louis Stanton, paint a fascinating picture of the intertwined relationship between the video
site and the conglomerate that owns MTV, BET and Comedy Central.
With the release of court filings in the three-year old copyright infringement suit between
Viacom and YouTube, we’ve seen the video share site argue that it is
not liable for infringing videos uploaded to its site, as it claims protection under the safe
harbor provision of the Digital Milennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
But in Viacom’s filing for a partial summary judgment, it makes the case that the
site’s founders — and later executives of acquirer Google — turned a blind eye
to copyrighted material in an effort to drastically grow the site’s user base. And since
YouTube’s founders were aware of infringement and chose to do nothing about it, Viacom
argues that the company is liable under the Supreme Court’s Grokster decision,
which found that a site operating with the intent of infringing should not be protected by the
DMCA.
Using internal emails that were passed between YouTube founders Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and
Jawed Karim, Viacom paints the picture of YouTube as a young company whose leaders were willing
to grow its user base at any cost. For instance, the filing states that Chen urged his associates
in one email to “concentrate all of our efforts in building up our numbers as aggressively
as we can through whatever tactics, however evil.” The comment notably contrasts with
future purchaser Google’s “don’t be evil” mantra — but more
importantly, that attitude set the stage for a number of decisions that the YouTube founders made
to grow at the expense of rights holders that it was infringing on.
YouTube didn’t always ignore the sensitive copyright issue. At one point during the summer
of 2005, for instance, the site’s founders removed “some of the most obvious
infringing video from YouTube to give the impression of copyright compliance,” the
Viacom filing claims. However, they also chose to leave a good deal of infringing content up,
believing that enabling users to search for less high-profile content was worth the risk.
According to the filing, Chen wrote in an email, “That way, the perception is that we are
concerned about this type of material and we’re actively monitoring it. [But the] actual
removal of this content will be in varying degrees. That way . . . you can find truckloads of . .
. copyrighted content . . . [if] you [are] actively searching for it.”
And at one point, YouTube founder Jawed Karim even uploaded infringing content to the site
himself, which drew some criticism from Chen. In an email, Chen acknowledged, “We’re
going to have a tough time defending the fact that we’re not liable for the copyrighted
material on the site because we didn’t put it up when one of the co-founders is blatantly
stealing content from other sites and trying to get everyone to see it.”
But for the most part, Viacom argues that the founders mainly did nothing about the copyright
issue, even though internally they knew it was driving a large portion of their traffic. In an
email exchange between the founders, Chen estimated that 80 percent of the site’s traffic
was driven by pirated videos, and opposed taking them down proactively because, “if you
remove the potential copyright infringements . . . site traffic and virality will drop to maybe
20% of what it is.”
While Viacom tries to make the case that YouTube’s founders knew the extent of the
infringement taking place and chose to do nothing about it, it argues that Google was also well
aware of the site’s infringement issues at purchase. As part of Google’s due
diligence into YouTube, financial advisor Credit Suisse analyzed the site’s content and
estimated that more than 60 percent of video views appeared on premium content, but YouTube only
had a license for about 10 percent of those videos, according to Viacom.
Furthermore, Viacom claims that Google not only acquired YouTube despite those problems, but it
chose initially to take the same approach as YouTube’s founders by ignoring copyright
issues. Rather than screen videos prior to putting them on the site, as Google had done with its
own video site, Google Video, it allowed YouTube to continue operating without any pre-emptive
enforcement policies in place.
All this, Viacom argues, suggests that YouTube and Google should not be protected by the DMCA.
Like Grokster, the company argues, “Google and YouTube were not just innocent and unwitting
accomplices to infringement perpetrated by YouTube users. Defendants operated YouTube with the
unlawful objective of using infringing material to explosively build their user base and become
the dominant video website on the Internet.”
Los Angeles - Google (NASD:Â GOOG) and Viacom (NYSE:Â VIA) have submitted motions for summary judgment in the $1
billion copyright infringement suit Viacom filed three years ago against YouTube. Both companies'
filings included potentially damaging details on the other's actions, with YouTube employees
accused of uploading copyrighted clips, and Viacom taking pains to mask its own uploading of clips
to the site.
The Viacom-YouTube copyright battle heated up Thursday. Viacom told a federal judge that
Google-owned YouTube turns a blind eye to wanton copyright infringement on the video-sharing site.
Google says Viacom uploaded many of the videos that are subject of its suit.
Court filings in the three-year old copyright
infringement suit between Viacom and YouTube have finally been made public, which should make
some interesting reading and take over the rest of my afternoon. But in the meantime, YouTube
Chief Counsel Zahavah Levine has written a pretty damning post on
the YouTube blog, condemning Viacom for having its employees pose as normal users to upload
promotional content to the video-sharing site.
Asking for a summary judgment in the case, YouTube argues that it should be protected by safe
harbor provisions in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which state that Internet hosts
should not be found liable for content that is uploaded to their sites, so long as they respond
to takedown notices issued by copyright owners within a reasonable period of time. In the blog
post, Levine writes that the DMCA “recognizes that content owners, not service providers
like YouTube, are in the best position to know whether a specific video is authorized to be on an
Internet hosting service.”
Viacom might believe otherwise, arguing that YouTube should have done a better job of keeping
copyrighted material off the site. But Levine argues that even if YouTube were tasked with doing
so, Viacom’s actions would have made policing its content impossible. YouTube accuses
Viacom of
uploading its own content, and doing so in a way that made it difficult for YouTube to
distinguish between its employees and common users. If true, the accusation is pretty damning.
Levine writes:
“Viacom continuously and secretly uploaded its content to YouTube, even while publicly
complaining about its presence there. It hired no fewer than 18 different marketing agencies to
upload its content to the site. It deliberately “roughed up” the videos to make them
look stolen or leaked. It opened YouTube accounts using phony email addresses. It even sent
employees to Kinko’s to upload clips from computers that couldn’t be traced to Viacom.
And in an effort to promote its own shows, as a matter of company policy Viacom routinely left up
clips from shows that had been uploaded to YouTube by ordinary users.
The results were so effective, Levin writes, that Viacom couldn’t tell if a piece of
content was uploaded by its employees or not, which resulted in Viacom demanding that some clips
be taken down — and then later asking for them to be reinstated. “Given
Viacom’s own actions,” Levine writes, “there is no way YouTube could ever have
known which Viacom content was and was not authorized to be on the site.”
The International Trade Commission complaint says Cablevision's set-top boxes infringe five Verizon
patents pertaining to video downloading and social networking features.
Quelle belle surprise que ce live d'Amandine Bourgeois. On le savait, la chanteuse a du talent,
mais son premier album n'est pas à la hauteur de ce dernier, la dessert, et le public ne
suit pas. Visionnez sa reprise de "Because The Night" à ...
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There used to be two
independent movie rental places in my neighborhood, with one just a few blocks further away
offering a seemingly endless array of movies - blockbusters, esoteric indies, extreme horror,
sexploitation and grindhouse, triple X features, and even dubiously dubbed impossible to get films
like the infamous 
[In a
GameSetWatch-exclusive set of blog posts covering the week of 
Avengers vs. Atlas #3 (of 4) ("Hulk
Smash!"/"Hey, Venus!") by 
Fables #93 ("The Little Murder Part
Two of Two") by 
Hercules: Fall of an Avenger #1 (of
2) (Hercules main story/"Greek Tragedy") by 
Joe the Barbarian #3 (of
ВосемБ) ("The Dying Boy") by 
Marvel Boy: The Uranian #3 (of 3)
("Man of Two Worlds") by Jeff Parker (writer), Felix Ruiz (artist/letterer), and Val
Staples (colorist). $3.99, 22 pgs + 18 pgs of 3 back-up stories, FC, Marvel.
Spider-Woman #7 by 
Vengeance of the Moon Knight #6
("Shock and Awe Chapter 6") by 
Billet original de 
Recommandations
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
