I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The rumors of a fourth OOXML complaint turned out to be true. Denmark has become the fourth nation to protest the ISO's acceptance of OOXML, and Groklaw has a translation of their complaint. They now join India, Brazil, and South Africa. There are going to be plenty of questions about deadlines, because people have been given two different deadlines for appeals, and the final DIS of OOXML was late in being distributed and not widely available. In fact, that seems to be one of Denmark's complaints, along with missing XML schemas, contradictory wording, lack of interoperability, and troubles with the maintenance of DIS29500. In other words, we should expect a lot of wrangling over untested rules from here on out, and Microsoft knows how to deal with that."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Wired has an interview with MediaDefender in which they try to explain why they attacked Revision3, which uses BitTorrent to host its own content. Somehow it eluded MediaDefender that they had injected fake content into Revision3's tracker, so when Revision3 changed configuration to forbid this injection, MediaDefender's systems saw it as a pirate tracker with lots of illegal content (which MediaDefender had put there) and attacked. In other words, everything they did was intentional except for the choice of target. Given that they have 9 Gbps of bandwidth dedicated to denial-of-service attacks against torrent trackers, all anyone needs to do is to trick them into attacking a hospital or government facility. MediaDefender has never been very competent, after all."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "India is now the third country to appeal the ISO's approval of OOXML, with their appeal arriving just before the deadline last night. According to PC World, this makes OOXML the first BRM process under ISO/JTC 1 to be appealed, which leaves us in uncharted territory. Although there was substantial confusion in the comments on yesterday's story, Brazil is really appealing, not merely disapproving, of OOXML, having sent a letter that begins with 'The Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas (ABNT), as a P member of ISO/IEC/JTC1/SC34, would like to present, to ISO/IEC/JTC1 and ISO/IEC/JTC1/SC34, this appeal for reconsideration of the ISO/IEC DIS 29500 final result.' Groklaw speculates that this may have something to do with Microsoft hedging their bets by supporting ODF 1.1 in Office 2007, though we probably won't see any more countries appeal now that the deadline has passed."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "You can't make stuff like this up. The EU is actually testing a prototype system of cameras in airplanes to monitor passengers' facial expressions in order to detect both terrorism and 'air rage.' The Security of Aircraft in the Future European Environment (SAFEE) project used an Airbus A380 fuselage with six wide-angle cameras to watch for people running or loitering near the cockpit door, as well as a camera in the back of every seat to watch for facecrime like sweating too much, or acting nervous. But that's okay, because the system won't alert anyone until it sees a 'combination of signs,' instead of just one stray expression, or they might accidentally catch a lot of people who are afraid of flying or of being watched."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Brazil is now appealing the ISO's decision to standardize OOXML, following South Africa's lead. Interestingly, part of the reason this took so long was that Microsoft supporters at the meetings kept asking for delays because they 'weren't prepared' to discuss the issues raised. And the ISO as a whole is moving rather slowly, after that delay in releasing the DIS. But at least the ISO is also rewriting the directives in a special working group so this doesn't happen again. Of course, they'd have to be strict about making sure the directives are followed for it to help."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A TJX employee was fired for an online post mentioning that TJX hasn't beefed up security after the recent, massive data breach that saw 94 million credit card numbers copied by criminals and money from their accounts stolen. The employee mentioned that, at first, their usernames were the same as their passwords. After they required stronger passwords, some managers complained, so they 'compromised' by allowing blank passwords. The whistleblower said he discussed his concerns with management, but that it was like talking to a brick wall. In spite of the weak internal security, TJX now has a firm that scours the internet to find bad things posted about them, which is how they found the message and fired him for it. Too bad they don't appear to have hired anyone to beef up operational security or to convince people to use strong passwords."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The MPAA won judgments totaling $4M against two sites which merely link to infringing content. They're not arguing that it's an infringement of their distribution right, like the RIAA has with their 'making available' argument. Instead, they got the sites for 'contributory copyright infringement', just like RIAA v. LimeWire. To translate all that legalese into English, search engines which primarily index copyright-infringing material and the people who run them may not be safe in the US. That applies even if the sites in question do not host any infringing materials, participate in, or encourage the infringement done by their users. And, even honoring DMCA notices in order to take advantage of the DMCA Safe Harbor provisions hasn't prevented the **AA from suing."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "A Brooklyn man has been found guilty of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement by a federal jury in Virginia. He now faces up to five years in prison, a quarter-million-dollar fine, and three years of parole, not to mention the 'full restitution' he has to make to the RIAA. The charges against him stem from his role as 'Dextro,' the administrator of one of the Apocalypse Production Crew's file servers — APC being one of the release groups that specialize in pre-release music. While he's the 15th member of APC to be charged under the US DOJ's Operation Fastlink, he's the first to be convicted. He will be sentenced on August 8th. For those wondering when infringement became a criminal matter, you can thank the NET Act, which was signed into law in 1997 by Bill Clinton."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Why is a 5th Circuit product liability case getting interest from lawyers all over the country? Because it might put an end to forum shopping by 'non practicing entities' (patent trolls) who prefer to file in the Eastern District of Texas, no matter how little relevance that forum has to their case. Thanks to the rules involving 28 U.S.C. 1404(a) motions and patent cases, people who get sued in Marshall, Texas usually can't get the case transferred elsewhere, even though that forum is seen as unreasonably favorable for patent plaintiffs. But, if the panel of judges in In Re: Volkswagen rules the way some anticipate, that could all change, and there are no less than six amici curiae who have filed briefs arguing both sides of it."

jasonmanley writes "I currently use DesktopBSD. The other day I gave some thought to donating money to the project, but then I got to thinking — to whom would I donate the money? DesktopBSD benefits from FreeBSD and KDE among other projects. What about software with a smaller focus, such as OpenSSH? In fact, there are heaps of other projects' software embedded in FOSS packages, and I would like to know who the community thinks should get the donations."

FiReaNGeL writes "Astronomers have seen the aftermath of spectacular stellar explosions known as supernovae before, but no one had witnessed a star dying in real time — until now. While looking at another object in the spiral galaxy NGC 2770, using NASA's orbiting Swift telescope, scientists detected an extremely luminous blast of X-rays released by a supernova explosion. They alerted 8 other telescopes to turn their eyes on this first-of-its-kind event. 'We were looking at another, older supernova in the galaxy, when the one now known as SN 2008D went off. We would have missed it if it weren't for Swift's real-time capabilities, wide field of view, and numerous instruments.'" Bad Astronomy has an excellent, well-illustrated story about the discovery as well. I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property contributes a link to the BBC's coverage, and adds a nugget gleaned from Ars Technica: "SN 2007uy's collapse caused an X-ray burst of about 10^39 joules, most likely due to the 'shock break out' when the energy of the core's collapse finally reached the neutron star's surface."

theodp writes "Responding to questions about why some users of Windows Vista Media Center were prevented from recording the NBC Universal TV shows 'American Gladiator' and 'Medium,' Microsoft has acknowledged that Windows Media Centers will block users from recording TV shows at the request of a broadcaster. 'Microsoft included technologies in Windows based on rules set forth by the (Federal Communications Commission),' wrote a Microsoft spokeswoman, apparently referring to an FCC proposal that the courts struck down in 2005. 'Microsoft has put the requirements of broadcasters above what consumers want,' said the EFF's Danny O'Brien. 'They've imposed restrictions way beyond what the law requires. Customers need to know who Microsoft is listening to and how that affects their equipment. Right now, the only way customers know what Microsoft has agreed to is when the technology they've bought suddenly stops working. Microsoft needs to come clean and tell its customers what deals it has made.'"

A group of U.S. Senators are asking the FBI to explain a recent controversial National Security Letter sent to the Internet Archive. The Internet Archive was able to defeat the request with help from the EFF and the ACLU this past April. "The Internet Archive's case is only the third known legal challenge to NSLs, despite the fact that the the FBI issues tens of thousands a year -- more than 100,000 such letters were issued in 2004 and 2005 combined. But despite the lack of legal challenges from recipients at ISPs, telephone companies and credit bureaus, successive scathing reports from the Justice Department's Inspector General have found illegal letters and a willy-nilly culture within the bureau towards tracking their usage."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Why would UMG, one of the four major RIAA members, consider an infringement award 'grossly excessive'? Naturally, because they were the ones ordered to pay it. While they had no trouble with Jammie Thomas being ordered to pay $222k, some 13,214 times the actual costs, they thought that being ordered to pay ten times the actual damages in Bridgeport v. Justin Combs was just too much. Then again, maybe that's why they didn't complain back when the increased statutory damages section was cut from the PRO-IP Act? Now if they could just cut the rest of the act."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "NBC activated the 'broadcast flag' on a number of shows this week, ranging from American Gladiator to Medium, which prevented compliant programs like Windows Media Center from recording them. The matter is being 'looked into,' but that doesn't tell us whether it was an accident or a ploy to see how outraged viewers would be at being stripped of the time-shifting rights they've enjoyed ever since Sony v. Universal. Just in case it's the latter, it wouldn't hurt to let them know what you think."

Hackajar writes "Valleywag has an interesting post detailing YouTube's new way to deal with copyrighted music videos, removing embed tags and linking it to the official content on site. What's significant here is the lack of video removal by YouTube staff. From the post, "Uploads of music videos from the band by non-official sources now carry a link reading "Contains content from [insert studio here]"". They use a Modest Mouse music video from a third party to illustrate the new change."

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has declared that copyright infringement 'substantially interferes with the interest of the public in the quality of life and community peace, lawful commerce in the county, property values, and is detrimental to the public health, safety, and welfare of the county's citizens, its businesses and its visitors.' You might laugh, but that means they can close up a property for up to one year for violations of the anti-infringement ordinance [PDF] and the owner can be fined $1,000 for each infringing work produced on site. Not to mention the penalties in the PRO-IP Act, which just sailed through the House."

eldavojohn writes "Although we don't know what they were after due to the settlement, a gag order was just released that kept Internet Archive member Brewster Kahle quiet. The FBI had issued a national security letter to them under the Patriot Act. Kahle fought it. Hard. The EFF came to the aid of his lawyers and what resulted was one of the only three times an NSL has been challenged: all three have been rescinded. The FBI agreed to open some of the court files now for it to be public. The ACLU added, 'That makes you wonder about the the hundreds of thousands of NSLs that haven't been challenged.'"

SeeSp0tRun writes to remind us of Blizzard's lawsuit against MDY Industries over the Glider cheat. It seems that Blizzard is pushing it even further. They're trying out the legal theory that a software creator retains complete control over how a program is used, meaning that anyone who uses it in a different way could be found guilty of copyright infringement, at $750 a pop. The EFF and Public Knowledge are among the organizations trying to assure that the court doesn't set a really bad precedent here.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "In a follow-up to the previous story, CoreCodec has apologized for the incorrect DMCA Takedown notice that took the CoreAVC project offline. There's also a public statement by co-founder Dan Marlin saying in part, 'I'd like to publicly apologize to Alan [CoreAVC project lead] for the disconnect between him and us as well as the disruption to the project as there was no ill will intended and we were already working on a resolution with him before this went public.' They've also created a new policy for sending out DMCA Takedown notices, so that they won't misuse them in the future."