It’s no secret that copyright holders are trying to take down as much pirated content as they can, but targeting open source software is not something we see every day. Paramount Pictures recently sent a DMCA takedown to Google, listing a copy of the popular operating system Ubuntu. An honest mistake, perhaps, but a worrying one.
Source: Paramount Wipes “Infringing” Ubuntu Torrent From Google – TorrentFreak
Brainwashing children should not be allowed…
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/catechesisbooks/bible-basics-a-baby-believer-counting-primer
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/catechesisbooks/bible-basics-a-baby-believer-counting-primer
According to last year’s lawsuit against the city, Albuquerque forecasts how many vehicles it will not only seize, but sell at auction. The city’s 2016 budget estimates it will have 1,200 vehicle seizure hearings, release 350 vehicles under agreements with the property owners, immobilize 600 vehicles, and to sell 625 vehicles at auction.In fact, the Albuquerque city council approved a $2.5 million bond to build a bigger parking lot for cars seized under the DWI program. The revenue to pay for the bond will come from the DWI program.
Swedish Internet service provider Bahnhof is launching a direct attack against Spridningskollen, the group that’s spearheading the copyright trolling efforts in Sweden. Bahnhof accuses the anti-piracy outfit of trademark infringement and demands the shutdown of its website.
Source: Swedish ISP Attacks Copyright Trolls, Over Trademark Infringement – TorrentFreak
Warner Bros. is vigorously trying to prevent pirated content from showing up in search results, but in doing so the movie studio has shot itself in the foot. Recently, Warner asked Google to take down several of its own pages, claiming that they are copyright-infringing.
Source: Warner Bros. Flags Its Own Website as a Piracy Portal – TorrentFreak
After years of being left alone by entertainment industry companies, regular file-sharers in Sweden are now in the cross-hairs of copyright trolls. Using data gathered by anti-piracy outfit Excipio, lawyers are about to send users of The Pirate Bay and similar sites demands for hard cash – or else.
Source: Attention Swedish Pirate Bay Users, Copyright Trolls Have Arrived – TorrentFreak
On August 30, 2016, the Patent Office issued U.S. Patent No. 9,430,468, titled; “Online peer review and method.” The owner of this patent is none other than Elsevier, the giant academic publisher. When it first applied for the patent, Elsevier sought very broad claims that could have covered a wide range of online peer review. Fortunately, by the time the patent actually issued, its claims had been narrowed significantly. So, as a practical matter, the patent will be difficult to enforce. But we still think the patent is stupid, invalid, and an indictment of the system.
Source: Stupid Patent of the Month: Elsevier Patents Online Peer Review | Electronic Frontier Foundation
Google Fiber’s reported struggles cause AT&T to take a victory lap.
Source: AT&T lectures Google Fiber about challenges of broadband investment | Ars Technica
A Dubai real estate mogul and former business partner of Donald Trump was sentenced to prison for collaborating on a deal that would swindle the Egyptian people out of millions of dollars — but then he turned to ISDS and got his prison sentence wiped away.
In El Salvador, a court found that a factory had poisoned a village — including dozens of children — with lead, failing for years to take government-ordered steps to prevent the toxic metal from seeping out. But the factory owners’ lawyers used ISDS to help the company dodge a criminal conviction and the responsibility for cleaning up the area and providing needed medical care.
Two financiers convicted of embezzling more than $300 million from an Indonesian bank used an ISDS finding to fend off Interpol, shield their assets, and effectively nullify their punishment.
Source: ‘Trade Deals’ & Corporate Sovereignty: How Convicted Executives Escape Punishment | Techdirt
This week marks the 20th anniversary of “welfare reform,” the 1996 law passed by Congress and administered by President Bill Clinton that strictly limited the amount of federal cash assistance that the poorest Americans can receive — transforming the Aid for Families with Dependent Children program into the more restrictive Temporary Aid for Needy Families.One of the main impacts of the law was to help double the number of American households living in extreme poverty in America – defined as living on less than $2 a day.
Source: 20 Years Later, Poverty Is Up, But Architects of “Welfare Reform” Have No Regrets
