Politechan

The constant source of litigation, aka Google’s Book Scanning Project, may be reaching a peace treaty of sorts over in Europe.  Under the terms of a proposed settlement with the EU and Google, Google will allow two non-Americans onto the review board that administers this program, and promises not to scan any books that are [...]

The neverending saga of Internet radio and royalty fees has reached a (yet another) milestone as the recording industry and radio stations reached a compromise agreement on royalties. 
The new per-song rates start at 0.08 of a cent per listener for each song played and rise to 0.14 of a cent in 2015, when the agreement [...]

The secret blogger behind the UK police blog Night Jack has had a legal setback in his quest to remain anonymous.  The UK High Court has refused to preserve the anonymity of  the policeman who has blogged about his work and government ministers.  The BBC is reporting that because the blogging touched on political issues, [...]

 
When you get big, you get targeted.  More or less.  And with a dominant market share in search, it was only a matter of time a matter of a new pro-anti-trust administration before Google moved into the crosshairs of the trust-busters.  TheHill (which you should read regularly) is talking not only about the moves in [...]

The ink hasn’t even dried on Barney Frank’s new Internet gambling bill and other members are jumping up and down trying to tax any company who actually dares to take a bet.  A new bill by Rep. Jim McDermott, the Internet Gambling Regulation and Tax Enforcement Act, HR 2268, “will allow the United States Government to [...]

Barney Frank’s internet gambling bill has been filed in the hopper on the House floor and you can now see the full text of HR 2267 once the GPO finishes adding it to the Library of Congress database.  The bill has 15 Co-sponsors but there has yet to be a similar bill introduced on the Senate [...]

Well, we’ll know tomorrow when we see the register of what was introduced today, but the on again off again online gambling bill is finally about to make an appearance after many months of promises.  
 
The new bill would exempt operators that are licensed and regulated from the ban enacted in 2006, Frank said.
The Massachusetts [...]

Pirate Bay supporters are screaming holy murder after it was discovered the judge in the case was a member of the Swedish Copyright Association, the same group that also counts as members the entertainment industry’s attorneys.  Regardless of the political feelings on this case one way or another, there may very well be a retrial [...]

Congressman Towns (D-NY) and Congressman Issa (R-CA) have fired off a series of letters attacking peer-to-peer file sharing and the Justice Department’s lack of an effort to combat it.  Rather than fight the always losing battle of complaining about music and movies, this time they seem more concerned about ‘classified materials’ being exchanged by file [...]

The New York Times will break this tomorrow, but it seems the NSA has been ‘overcollecting’ while trying to listen into calls from suspected terrorists that go through the  United States in some way / shape / form.  Apparently it was reported by the NSA to the Congress, but the Congress was none too happy [...]