Free Culture reviews

Grok Headline matches for Free Culture reviews

Free Culture!

Free Culture! 10/28/2003 11:07 PM

I helped put together the new Creative Commons CD featuring all sorts of great licensed music, and it's all available for download.

Now that the pool of CC-licensed music has grown, we had a great deal of choices and as a result there are all sorts of songs in the mix. I've been listening to these songs for months and it's hard to pick favorites, they've all got some strengths. Don't miss the bonus remixes too, the creativity there was amazing.

Free Culture

Free Culture 04/09/2004 04:11 PM

The Free Culture debate

The Free Culture debate 02/11/2004 09:39 AM
James DeLong responds to my post about the Free Culture Movement (FCM) and property rights.  He steps back from his earlier statements and acknowledges that, yes, there are elements of the movement, such as Creative Commons, that work within the property rights system.  For that I give him credit. 

I don't agree with his stark division of the FCM into "BSD Licence" activities that respect property rights and "GPL" activities that seek to overthrow them, but I won't be ungrateful.  It's a much more nuanced and accurate view that what he started with.  If we can spend our energy debating the substance of the issues -- which sets of rules better promote economic efficiency, freedom, and innovation -- we may make some progress.

To my mind, the genius of people like Larry Lessig and Yochai Benkler is that, unlike the prior "copyleft" generation represented by GPL creator Richard Stallman, they are able to engage on their opponents' own turf as well as from the outside.  What set me off about DeLong's original post was the unwillingness to accept that fact, by labeling the whole movement as opposed to property rights.

DeLong takes umbrage at my use of the term "copyright maximalists."  First of all, I didn't apply that label to him -- I was thinking more of Jack Valenti. As DeLong makes clear in his followup post, he appreciates that property rights have limits:


Unfortunately, many of the business and political interests in the digital content debates fail to acknowledge this point.  The movie industry, for example, has voiciferously promoted its conception of its intellectual property rights as morally sacrosanct, now and forever.  One key rhetorical move they make in doing so is to label anyone who questions their viewpoint as a communist and/or a pirate.  (I'm not sure which is the greater insult.)  You either support the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act... or you're in the dustbin of history with Lenin and Trotsky.  In a political battle, demonizing the opposition can be very effective. 

I'm sure this wasn't what motivated DeLong's original post.  But to a reader, his sweeping generalization had that ring. 

De Long succinctly (if inadvertantly) shows the core problem:


I see a similar problem on the other side: property rights defenders reflexively attacking alternative production models and technology-necessitated limitations on rights.  Does that describe all opponents of the FCM?  Of course not.  But the thoughtful ones such as DeLong are letting themselves become intellectual cover for the extremists.

That's why this meta-debate matters.  In the confines of the academy, we all trust each other's intellectual honesty and can have a nice conversation.  DeLong points to Polk Wagner, who has done excellent work attacking the point of view that I support.  I see Polk once a month at a Philly-area gathering of cyberlaw afficionados.  We find common ground on some substantive points and disagree on others, but I always respect his perspective.  In my forthcoming spectrum paper, I engage with other brilliant scholars like Howard Shelanski and Stuart Benjamin who have written in the area.  That's the nature of intellectual debate -- different sides advance claims and challenge one another. 

The cold reality is that the Free Culture battle isn't just being fought in the halls of academe.  The scholarly discussion is part of a larger debate taking place in Congress, the courts, corporate board rooms, and the realm of public opinion.  We simply can't ignore the consequences of labeling opponents with too broad brush. 

Free Culture at ILAW

Free Culture at ILAW 05/14/2004 03:12 PM

Chairman and co-founder of Creative Commons, Larry Lessig, spent most of this week speaking at the ILAW conference at Harvard. There are some great notes and transcripts on Furdlog and Copyfight of Lessig's "Free Culture" talk. There are a lot of great questions from the moderator and audience, and a lot of great ideas being debated.

Free Culture in 100 words

Free Culture in 100 words 04/09/2004 04:11 PM
Since no one has the time to read books anymore, I used the text version of Lessig's new book, Free Culture, and Word's AutoSummary feature (like I did with the Matrix thread) to produce a ~100 word summary of the 368 page book: FREE CULTURE"PROPERTY"The copyright warriors are right: A copyright is a kind of property. First, about copyright. That copyright is their property. America copied English copyright law. Actually,...

Free Culture formats

Free Culture formats 04/09/2004 04:06 PM
The free Free Culture was released as a pdf under a Creative Commons attribution-noncommercial license. Some complained about the format. Others, relying upon the freedom granted, created derivative works in other formats. So far, 36 hours after the book was released, I know of 9 versions available, including: MS-re ader, Rocke t e-Book, zippe d, iSilo , Mobip ocket, EasyR ead, PostScri pt, Pl ain Text, html. Most of these are from Blackmask, but thanks to Firas, Mike and Josh as well.

Free Culture spoken

Free Culture spoken 04/09/2004 04:06 PM
This has amazed even me. AKMA asked whether a free audio version of Free Culture can be built. Joi seconded the idea, and one day later, ten chapters are claimed. Doug Kaye of ITConversations has already recorded chapter one -- Creators. Noncommercial derivative works, and maybe even a competition in versions (I want to record a chapter!). Very cool.

Free Culture class

Free Culture class 04/09/2004 04:06 PM
Lawrence Solum (who has entered an elite status after Vint Cerf gave a paper praising his Layer s Principle paper) is running a blog-class this week on Free Culture. Follow along (as I will be) and learn.

Free Culture live

Free Culture live 09/10/2004 04:26 PM

Colin Mutchler, featured in our second Creative Commons movie "Reticulum Rex", is giving a live performance of his audio/visual work called "Free Culture" September 15th in Brooklyn, NY.

"Sourced by Larry Lessig and his new book of the same name, Free Culture is multimedia performance by Brooklyn based artist Colin Mutchler that mixes music, image, video and spoken word to speak his personal journey, both physically and digitally, through the last four years. "

Free Culture On Tour

Free Culture On Tour 03/19/2005 03:27 AM

Free Culture may be visiting a college, youth media group, or festival near you. Brooklyn-based artist Colin Mutchler, in partnership with FreeCulture.org, has launched a five-week tour which kicked off last week at South by Southwest.

The Free Culture show mixes music, images, and spoken word to demonstrate the complex and entertaining cross section between cultural property and freedom. Check it out!

A Wikipedia of Free Culture?

A Wikipedia of Free Culture? 07/02/2004 03:32 AM

Q: How to plan a wiki?
A: Hash out ideas on a wiki.

So we set up a wiki and we're holding a barn raising there. You're invited.

Our objective is to plan a "Get Content" wiki, a scalable catalog of "some rights reserved" and "no rights reserved" works.

A truly international catalog of CC and PD works. A Wikipedia of Free Culture, democratically maintained and curated.

Can this work? We have a hunch that it can, but we've doubtless missed many solutions and innumerable problems.

What we have thought of is of course on the wiki, where you should go without further adieu and add your ideas.

Note for anyone excited about the idea: we're planning at this stage. The wiki we're using for the planning may not be the one we use to implement the "Get Content" wiki (do help us figure that one out) -- so you may wish to curb your enthusiasm for raw cataloging just right now.

Now dive in!

Wiki for Free Culture

Wiki for Free Culture 07/12/2004 08:59 AM
Creative Commons is experimenting with using a wiki to discuss using a wiki to maintain a Wikipedia of sorts for Free Culture. Drop by and give us your thoughts....

free culture source material

free culture source material 06/12/2004 04:34 AM
TheBots have released an archive of George Bush Audio.

Free Culture Phase 2 Conference

Free Culture Phase 2 Conference 06/17/2005 05:02 PM

A little late on the blogging (due to travel), but still worth reporting on:

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to attend the Free Culture Phase 2 conference. The conference was organized by Malkia Lydia and Colin Mutchler (father of Creative Commons' theme song My Life and Free Culture Tour), and sponsored by American University. It brought together a small number of diverse younger and older activists, including Freeculture.org, Downhill Battle, Listen Up, Third World Majority, Eyebeam, and many more. The diverse group struggled to understand what free culture truly means in the context of global economics, access to technology, and traditional knowledge. The group also shared ideas, art, and experiences using new media as a tool for social justice. Though it wasn't clearly defined what Phase 2 might be, it was understood to me that the root of what everyone was doing came from a common passion for citizen self-determination and empowerment.

Woody Guthrie free culture

Woody Guthrie free culture 04/09/2004 03:54 PM

Joel Blain recently wrote in with an interesting observation:

"I've been reading a bio on Woody Guthrie. It's pretty interesting. The book reprints one of the "Copyright Warnings" he included on his recordings in the ealry 40's

"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."

It just made me think of Creative Commons. I dunno if you've seen or heard it before, but I thought I'd pass it along."

Nice find, thanks Joel!

Free Culture and Property Rights

Free Culture and Property Rights 02/10/2004 02:47 AM
Over at the Progress and Freedom Foundation blog, James DeLong attempts to prove that the "Free Culture Movement" (FCM) led by people like Larry Lessig is part and parcel of the political left:

This is a nice case of simply asserting what the author is allegedly attempting to prove.  In fact, Free Culture is eminently consistent with markets and property rights.  Lessig's Creative Commons and successful open source projects are based on well-defined software licenses.  In other words, property rights that function in a market.  The network infrastructure piece of Free Culture, open spectrum is expressly built on the idea of a market in wireless devices replacing a system of government spectrum micro-management.  And it was the Framers of the US Constitution, hardly anti-property radicals, who decreed that copyrights be for a limited period of time. 

The property rights maximalists are the true radicals here.  They have defined any challenges to the status quo as a frontal attack on property rights.  As political propaganda, this effort may have some success.  But the ultimate strength of the Free Culture Movement, or whatever one calls it, lies in this: It is an internal critique of the dominant ideology, not an external challenge to markets like communism. 

The Free Culture proponents, who offer suggestions like returning to the copyright terms of the 1790s, are the true conservatives in this debate.

Something for Nothing: The Free Culture
AudioBook Project

Something for Nothing: The Free Culture
AudioBook Project 05/25/2004 02:43 PM

chocnvodka.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2004/5/24/75489.html
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Help make a Wikipedia of Free Culture

Help make a Wikipedia of Free Culture 07/09/2004 05:19 AM
Creative Commons is creating a "Wikipedia of Free Culture" with links and annotation for every bit of open-licensed material in the universe. You're invited to help. Link

Lessig's Free Culture Chinese fan-trans

Lessig's Free Culture Chinese fan-trans 04/10/2004 03:46 AM
Kevin sez, "Some Chinese bloggers have recently launed a collabrative transaltion project to translate Lessig's Free Culture into Chinese, Create a Wiki page in SocialBrain. So far, 21 people have joined this collaborative project, memes appeared in lots of blogs. 12 chapters were assigned by contributors to translate." Link (Thanks, Kevin!)

Freely downloadable Free Culture going
into third printing

Freely downloadable Free Culture going
into third printing 07/27/2004 05:50 PM

CC Weblog

Lessig's free book still racking in the sales

Stanford Magazine carries a story this month about our chairman and co-founder Lawrence Lessig's book which has just entered its third printing. This is interesting because the book is freely available online for download (under a Creative Commons license), and has been downloaded about 180,000 times. On the one hand an author can give away free content for folks to remake into audio books, translations, and other formats, and the author still gets paid through traditional book sales. Amazing how that works, and works so well sometimes. [via Copyfight]

It will be very difficult to "prove" that the Creative Common license and the freely downloadable aspect of Free Culture improved sales, but the book is selling and making it freely available has clearly not STOPPED sales. I wonder if it is possible to show that making books available for free electronically increases the sale of real books? I wonder if there are particular genres where this holds more true...

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Streaming AudioBook of Lessig's "Free
Culture"

Streaming AudioBook of Lessig's "Free
Culture" 04/09/2004 03:59 PM
Streaming AudioBook of Lessig's "Free Culture"
http://www.turnstyle.org/ FreeCulture/

On Thursday, March 25, 2004; Lawrence Lessig's new book "Free Culture" was released to the world as a printed hardcover as well as a free download, under a Creative Commons license. On Friday, A. K. M. Adam asked a simple question: "Anyone feel like recording a chapter of Lawrence Lessig's new book?" By Saturday, contributions were coming in from around the world. Inspired by Eric Rice, Scott Matthews whipped up this site with his MP3 juke/server software, Andromeda.

Free Culture Wiki: Piracy Hits a New Low

Free Culture Wiki: Piracy Hits a New Low 04/09/2004 04:10 PM
In the latest example of blatant intellectual property abuse, self-proclaimed ?hacker? Aaron Swartz has uploaded the entirety of the bestselling?

An extremely beautiful Free Culture
eBook

An extremely beautiful Free Culture
eBook 04/09/2004 04:06 PM
There is an extremely beautiful ebook version of Free Culture here. I continue to be astonished at the creativity free culture (the idea, not the book) inspires.

Del audiobook de "Free Culture" al
audiolibro de "Cultura Libre"

Del audiobook de "Free Culture" al
audiolibro de "Cultura Libre" 09/01/2004 05:45 PM

Video of Lessig Free Culture speech in
Helsinki

Video of Lessig Free Culture speech in
Helsinki 07/27/2004 02:35 PM

There a small, but well produced mp4 video of Lessig's speech about Free Culture and the Creative Commons that he gave when he was in Helsinki this May.

Thanks to Jyri at Aula for the link and for organizing the event.

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Bill Gates: Free Culture advocates =
Commies

Bill Gates: Free Culture advocates =
Commies 01/06/2005 12:07 AM
Xeni Jardin: I imagine my blog-mate Cory might have a few things to say about this when he's online again. :-) In an interview on news.com, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates described free culture advocates as a "modern-day sort of communists." Well now.

Q: "In recent years, there's been a lot of people clamoring to reform and restrict intellectual-property rights. It started out with just a few people, but now there are a bunch of advocates saying, 'We've got to look at patents, we've got to look at copyrights.' What's driving this, and do you think intellectual-property laws need to be reformed?

A: "No, I'd say that of the world's economies, there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist.

And this debate will always be there. I'd be the first to say that the patent system can always be tuned--including the U.S. patent system. There are some goals to cap some reform elements. But the idea that the United States has led in creating companies, creating jobs, because we've had the best intellectual-property system--there's no doubt about that in my mind, and when people say they want to be the most competitive economy, they've got to have the incentive system. Intellectual property is the incentive system for the products of the future."

Link (Thanks, Rick Prelinger, and Nathan Slaughter).

BB reader Matt Bradley said, "Obviously, what we need is a large red flag with a gold copyleft in the upper left, replacing the hammer and sickle."

That sounded like a fine idea, so I whipped up the icon you see here. Enjoy, comrades!

Debates about global issues, politics
and culture set "CC-free"

Debates about global issues, politics
and culture set "CC-free" 06/17/2005 05:02 PM

In recent news - openDemocracy.net has announced that it is releasing around 150 of its existing articles under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license and will also be incorporating the option of Creative Commons licensing for all future contributors.

openDemocracy is an online magazine that provides a forum in which global issues relating to politics and culture are debated, many of which do not receive sufficient or sufficiently careful attention by the mainstream media. A brief review of openDemocracy's au thor pages shows that recent authors have included Kofi Annan, Timothy Garton Ash, Janis Ian, Iris Marion Young, Salman Rushdie, George Soros, Richard Stallman and Gillian Slovo.

It is great to have such a high caliber publication committed to the principles of spreading ideas around the globe and adopting a Creative Commons to fulfill that objective. You can read more about their decision to switch and why Salman Rushdie said no to a Creative Commons license in our recent Featured Commoner segment.

Happy Birthday, Free Culture Movement
(finally)

Happy Birthday, Free Culture Movement
(finally) 06/22/2005 02:31 AM
So as reported about two months ago, the Free Culture Movement turned one in April. I promised a present. At the time, we were organizing a call in recording of "Happy Birthday," from some of the leaders of the free world. Well, finally, after some struggle clearing rights, and after lots of nitpicking on my part, we've released the song. Check out the @page at Creative Commons, donate something in support, and download the song. Sorry for the delay.

UMaine launches free
culture/code/knowledge service

UMaine launches free
culture/code/knowledge service 12/16/2003 11:12 AM
The University of Maine has launched "Still Water," a copyright-free zone for posting and sharing images, music, videos, programming code and texts.

"We are training revolutionaries -- not by indoctrinating them with dogma but by exposing them to a process in which sharing culture rather than hoarding it is the norm," said Joline Blais, a professor of new media at the University of Maine and Still Water co-director.

Link

Bill Gates calls free culture advocates
communists

Bill Gates calls free culture advocates
communists 01/07/2005 12:01 AM

Xeni @ Boing Boing

Bill Gates: Free Culture advocates = Commies

In an interview on news.com, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates described free culture advocates as a "modern-day sort of communists." Well now.

Q: "In recent years, there's been a lot of people clamoring to reform and restrict intellectual-property rights. It started out with just a few people, but now there are a bunch of advocates saying, 'We've got to look at patents, we've got to look at copyrights.' What's driving this, and do you think intellectual-property laws need to be reformed?

A: "No, I'd say that of the world's economies, there's more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist.

Lessig Blog

what a total (intellectual) disappointment this man is

If I had the time, and the money, I'd do the deep analysis that it would take to explain to myself why it is I constantly hope to be surprised by Mr. Gates. Yet I never am.

It's one thing to read this sort of thing from a studio exec, or head of a record label -- surrounded as they are by the sort that surround them. But the people I've met at Microsoft are miles beyond this sort of silliness. Does Mr. Gates not even talk to them?

More Gates "Creative Commies" propaganda on Boing Boing.

I'd be interested to know why Larry expected to be positively surprised by Mr. Gates.

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Free Culture and the Future of Music,
Part 1: Ad Hominem, Ad Nauseum

Free Culture and the Future of Music,
Part 1: Ad Hominem, Ad Nauseum 05/04/2004 09:12 PM
How influential is the Free Culture Movement and the book that gives it its name? One way to judge is by measuring the ferocity of the opposition. Those who have pushed for copyright maximization over the past decade or so have been able to do so unfettered by inconveniences like...

Consumers Can Now Access Free Unbiased
Phone Service Reviews

Consumers Can Now Access Free Unbiased
Phone Service Reviews 08/27/2004 02:04 PM
North Charleston, SC — Online consumers can now receive free, unbiased information about a broad range of telecommunication products and services, thanks to a new user review section on PhoneDog.com. [PRWEB Aug 24, 2004]

Boing Boing: Bill Gates: Free Culture
advocates = Commies

Boing Boing: Bill Gates: Free Culture
advocates = Commies 01/06/2005 02:39 PM
yesterday's Boing Boing post .. posts more of Gates' quote, .. BoingBoing link

boingboing.net/2005/01/05/bill_gates_free_cult.html
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The Fight Between Sharing Culture And
Owning Culture

The Fight Between Sharing Culture And
Owning Culture 06/22/2005 02:17 AM
It seems that museums are finally starting to realize that the digital age represents a real opportunity for them to reach many new people by digitizing their offerings and sharing the culture they represent across a much wider audience than a physical museum allows. It seems that many museums are having trouble figuring out how to digitize their collections, and would welcome help in doing so. However, another story points out how that can cause problems when the people involved get stuck on intellectual property issues. Apparently some people who created 3D digital versions of Michelangelo's David are freaking out that if they share the digitization without some form of copy protection people might (gasp!) share it without permission. Wait a second... isn't that what they should want? That would allow them to share the cultural wonder with many, many more people, and allow them to experience it in ways never possible before. That's a good thing, not something to be worried about. However, in an age where people seem to think that every idea, concept, software or piece of data needs to be "owned" and locked up, apparently it's the natural response -- and that's unfortunate for every culture.

New Mobile Phone Forum Featuring
Discussion Forums, Brand Reviews, FAQs,
Service Providers Reviews

New Mobile Phone Forum Featuring
Discussion Forums, Brand Reviews, FAQs,
Service Providers Reviews 12/22/2004 01:50 AM
Mobile Phone Discussion Forum. Share your views and experience at forums. Discuss all about Mobile phone manufacturers and service providers. Checkout cell phone reviews, FAQs. [PRWEB Dec 20, 2004]

RecordStoreReview.com : Listings and
reviews for over 300 cities worldwide
including US stores. record store
directory list stores list reviews
review US, UK, Japan, Canada records
guide usa us u.s.a. stores shops new
york london tokyo

RecordStoreReview.com : Listings and
reviews for over 300 cities worldwide
including US stores. record store
directory list stores list reviews
review US, UK, Japan, Canada records
guide usa us u.s.a. stores shops new
york london tokyo 11/11/2003 03:40 AM
RecordStoreReview.com : Listings and reviews for over 300 cities worldwide including US stores. record store directory list stores list reviews review US, UK, Japan, Canada records guide usa us u.s.a. stores shops new york london tokyo

recordstorereview.com
track this site | 5 links

Show me a culture that despises
virginity and I'll show you a culture
that despises childhood

Show me a culture that despises
virginity and I'll show you a culture
that despises childhood 06/16/2004 06:37 AM
"Virginia Tells Men: No Sex with Young Girls" .. underage partners .. what the fuck? .. don't go there

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40804-2004Jun14.html
track this site | 7 links

Miami New Times | miaminewtimes.com |
News : Feature Myths Over Miami,Captured
on South Beach, Satan later escaped. His
demons and the horrible Bloody Mary are
now killing people. God has fled.
Avenging angels hide out in the
Everglades. And other tales from
children in Dade's homeless shelters.,By
Lynda Edwards The Alternative Miami
connection for events, event listings,
music reviews, CD reviews, and all of
the latest alternative news from the
Miami area.

Miami New Times | miaminewtimes.com |
News : Feature Myths Over Miami,Captured
on South Beach, Satan later escaped. His
demons and the horrible Bloody Mary are
now killing people. God has fled.
Avenging angels hide out in the
Everglades. And other tales from
children in Dade's homeless shelters.,By
Lynda Edwards The Alternative Miami
connection for events, event listings,
music reviews, CD reviews, and all of
the latest alternative news from the
Miami area. 11/12/2003 10:23 PM

Pop Culture

Pop Culture 09/08/2004 02:29 PM
Three years after its tragedy on September 11, Cantor Fitzgerald uses pop quizzes to make sure it's ready for any disaster it could face.
Grok Description matches for Free Culture reviews
GrokA matches for Free Culture reviews

Andromeda Streaming Jukebox 1.9.3.2

Andromeda Streaming Jukebox 1.9.3.2 05/24/2004 12:50 PM
A tool to turn collections of MP3s into streaming Web sites.

Andromeda Online 1.0

Andromeda Online 1.0 08/03/2004 08:01 PM
A strategic starship battle game.

Zina is not Andromeda

Zina is not Andromeda 09/19/2004 04:04 AM
Zina-0.11.x ALPHA Release

Andromeda And Mutant X Cancelled

Andromeda And Mutant X Cancelled 04/28/2004 03:15 AM

Andromeda Online Open Beta Begins

Andromeda Online Open Beta Begins 07/07/2004 04:37 PM
Aepox Games has opened the beta program for their online starship war game to anyone wishing to participate. Scheduled to run through September 30, the game offers clients for Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. The game allows players to command a fleet of ships in a battle of up to 10 players. Client downloads, account sign-ups, and more information are available at the Andromeda Online site.

Reel Stream to Begin Beta Testing for
Andromeda

Reel Stream to Begin Beta Testing for
Andromeda 04/13/2005 04:01 AM
Reel Stream announces beginning of its beta testing program for Andromeda. Andromeda is a data acquistion system intended for use with the Panasonic DVX100 in order to extract uncompressed digital video. [PRWEB Apr 13, 2005]

OD2 Launches Penny-Per-Song Streaming
Jukebox

OD2 Launches Penny-Per-Song Streaming
Jukebox 06/15/2004 06:56 AM

warez.metafilter.com

warez.metafilter.com 08/27/2004 01:51 PM
After the FBI raid five pople's homes (and the offices of one ISP) seizing their equipment for operating a "network" sharing the equivalent of 60,000 movies or 10.5 million songs (according to Mr Ashcroft) as part of Operation Digital Gridlock's attempts to crack the "organisation" known as The Underground Network (and perhaps to rail against the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' recent decision backing up the legality of P2P networks) one of those raided - "The Answer Man" - contacts P2Pnet, to give the inside scoop and talk about the distortions created by the media reporting of the case. [Thanks Squeak]

Warez supports terrorism

Warez supports terrorism 03/14/2003 01:08 PM

Warez Suspect To Be Extradited, After
All

Warez Suspect To Be Extradited, After
All 09/06/2004 11:57 PM

Bram: BitTorrent use up, it's not all
warez

Bram: BitTorrent use up, it's not all
warez 01/07/2005 04:41 AM
Cory Doctorow: Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent, notes, "I'd like to point out that although a number of very large BitTorrent-based web sites have been taken down recently, downloads of BitTorrent have only gone down slightly. There's a widespread belief that BitTorrent is used almost exclusively for warez, probably a perception of people who themselves use it almost exclusively for warez, but that impression is simply untrue." Link (via Waxy)

FBI Takes Down Warez Group

FBI Takes Down Warez Group 04/22/2004 08:00 PM
An update to the earlier story we had on a schoo ls being raided by the FBI for sharing music files, here's the news on a larger FBI operation to shut down a larger software, music and movies warez group. This makes more sense than just going after file sharing, but it still makes you wonder. There is this huge terrorist threat thing going on right now, and you would think that it might make more sense for the FBI to protect us from being blown up than to worry about people sharing music files that they can probably get on file sharing networks anyway.

Warez pirate convicted

Warez pirate convicted 12/28/2004 09:29 PM
TechSpot Dec 29 2004 12:31AM GMT

DrinkOrDie Warez Trader to be Extradited
to U.S.

DrinkOrDie Warez Trader to be Extradited
to U.S. 03/14/2005 05:56 PM

Operation Fastlink Cracks Down on Warez

Operation Fastlink Cracks Down on Warez 04/22/2004 02:46 PM

Warez spammers discover Linux

Warez spammers discover Linux 08/12/2004 09:25 AM
We Linux users have probably gotten a collective total of at least 32 trillion pieces of spam email trying to sell us Windows warez. But until now, we were always frozen out of these bargains. Unless we ran CrossOver Office, what did we need with a pirated copy of Photoshop or Microsoft Office? (Not only that, most of us use free, open source alternatives anyway.) But now we have arrived. There is finally enough commercial software for Linux that the pirates and warez spammers want our business, too.

Cellphone Warez Has Hidden SMS Dialer

Cellphone Warez Has Hidden SMS Dialer 08/09/2004 09:46 AM

A cracked version of the popular "Mosquito v2.0" game for Symbian phones has turned out to include a special trojan payload: a dialer that sends a text message to the UK number 87140 with a charge of £1.50 (about $2.75) a pop. So yeah, that sucks, but you shouldn't be downloading phone warez, either.

Fortunately, if you're one of the unlucky ones who has been stung by the malware, removing it appears to be as simple as deleting the offending file. And while this is notable, and a little bit scary, maybe it should be a sign to mobile OS developers to start locking down the dialing functions of their phones a little more securely?

Read - Summer Brings Mosquito-Borne Malware [Informit via Mobile9]

Feds convict warez pirate

Feds convict warez pirate 12/28/2004 03:31 PM
An Iowa man pleads guilty to piracy charges in first U.S. conviction from Operation Fastlink, an international law enforcement push.

Warez Group targeted in Raids

Warez Group targeted in Raids 04/23/2004 02:52 AM
Federal agents raided dozens of locations nationwide to sweep up Warez servers. This appears to be a significant sweep and...

U.S. authorities convict warez pirate

U.S. authorities convict warez pirate 12/28/2004 09:28 PM
CNET Asia Dec 29 2004 1:53AM GMT

Feds Convict Warez Dealer

Feds Convict Warez Dealer 12/28/2004 07:32 PM

US authorities convict warez pirate

US authorities convict warez pirate 12/29/2004 06:00 AM
CNET Asia Dec 29 2004 10:14AM GMT

Warez pirate pleads guilty

Warez pirate pleads guilty 12/28/2004 03:18 PM
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Witchfinder General targets NSA in Warez
sweep?

Witchfinder General targets NSA in Warez
sweep? 04/22/2004 04:06 PM
Keystone Piracy Cops

International sweep on suspected "warez"
groups

International sweep on suspected "warez"
groups 04/22/2004 04:02 PM
"Operation Fastlink" takes place in 27 states and 10 countries, netting about $50 million worth of copyrighted material.

Three Brits arrested in global warez
raids

Three Brits arrested in global warez
raids 04/22/2004 05:27 PM
Dragnet

Major DoJ warez crackdown -- Operation
Fastlink

Major DoJ warez crackdown -- Operation
Fastlink 04/22/2004 04:08 PM
Covert DoJ investigations into online swapping of copyrighted materials have identified over 100 people in the USA and other countries involved in the distribution of music, movies, and software valued at over $50 million. The initiative is called Operation Fastlink, and targeted warez groups like Fairlight, Kalisto, Echelon, Class and Project X. Excerpt from DoJ press release:

Attorney General John Ashcroft announced today the most far-reaching and aggressive enforcement action ever undertaken against organizations involved in illegal intellectual property piracy over the Internet. Beginning yesterday morning, law enforcement from 10 countries and the United States conducted over 120 searches worldwide to dismantle some of the most well-known and prolific online piracy organizations.

"Intellectual property theft is a global problem that hurts economies around the world. To be effective, we must respond globally," Attorney General Ashcroft said. "In the past 24 hours, working closely with our foreign law enforcement counterparts, we have moved aggressively to strike at the very core of the international online piracy world."

Link to DoJ press release, Link to related coverage from AP. (Thanks, JP)

Warez Raids Net First Conviction For
Software Piracy

Warez Raids Net First Conviction For
Software Piracy 12/29/2004 01:06 AM
TechWeb Dec 29 2004 4:09AM GMT

Worldwide Warez hunt nets first
conviction

Worldwide Warez hunt nets first
conviction 12/27/2004 05:31 PM
Operation Fastlink gets its man

International crackdown scores warez
victory

International crackdown scores warez
victory 12/29/2004 06:00 AM
ZDNet UK Dec 29 2004 9:34AM GMT

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