Lazy sunday readings:
* Congress targets deceptive ‘sex’ sites — don’t know how this could be prosecutable, but it looks like using “furby” in your URL/name could have you up on federal charges. Snip: “Anyone who includes misleading words or images intended to confuse a minor into viewing a possibly harmful Web site could be imprisoned for up to 20 years and fined, the legislation says.”
* Sweet Viviane spotted a cute interview with my super-adorable and whipsmart friend Ducky Doolittle: check out Just Ducky. Snip: “Apparently, Tofu Wu Wu — 1 block of soft tofu, 1 can of 100 per cent pineapple juice, and salt — tastes just like vagina.”
* This is a case worth watching, and if you haven’t been following it the Xbiz article EFF Sides With Google Over Perfect 10 on Appeal will fill you in nicely. Snip: “Perfect 10 wants to hold Google responsible for the misdeeds of the websites it links to,” EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann said. “No search engine could survive if that were the rule, nor, for that matter, could most bloggers or other web publishers. If Perfect 10 succeeds in convincing the court that in-line linking and framing of images constitutes a public display or distribution of copyrighted work, then millions of web publishers and bloggers will suddenly be on the wrong side of copyright law — as well as the millions of web users who may follow a link to a website with infringing content.”
* And the YouTube TOU issue developed on Boing Boing last week, with YT only finally addressing the attention with a statement *after* the EFF’s Jason Schultz called them on the carpet. Personally, I see it as a neat obfuscation; they focus on the fact that the original blog post excerpted the new TOU — which is parsed nicely in the comments — without copping to the fact that yes indeed they do have a TOU that effectively forces users to remove their content in order to know they completely control what happens with their videos/images/music. If you want your full rights the way to enforce ownership is to delete your videos from the service. Take your ball and go home, crybaby. Snip from Wired blog: “The fact that YouTube is not required to alert you to when they use your content, means that they can use your content before you can remove it. It’s kinda moot to remove it from the site after they’ve already used it.” Of course they’re not the only service that behaves this way with user content but they’re a good example for a discussion like this. However, for the videos I make and care about owning the content, I’ll stick with Blip‘s full roster of Creative Commons licenses that I can choose from on upload for each of my videos, thanks. Plus, they may not be as fast as YT (yet), but the videos *look* a hell of a lot better anyway.
