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Links - New and Old Censorship, Anti-trust, Privacy Violations and Pollution.

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  • Anti-Trust

    • Pay TV piracy hits News
      The actions are documented in an archive of 14,400 emails held by former Metropolitan Police commander Ray Adams who was European chief for Operational Security between 1996 and 2002. The Financial Review is publishing thousands of the emails on its website at URL afr.com.

      The emails show that Murdoch used "piracy" as a competitive weapon, helping people to break the digital handcuffs of rival's pay TV boxes. The loss of face and revenue helped Murdoch to consolidate his media empire.



    • Microsoft all but buys Netscape with AOL patent acqusition

      This Microsoft friendly news source uses gloats over this superposed "end of the browser wars" and uses the term "intellectual property" while glorifying and validating software patents.



  • Censorship

    • The reason I'm helping Chris Hedges' lawsuit against the NDAA
      the Homeland Battlefield Bill has already a chilling effect upon my ability to investigate and document matters of national controversy that would ordinarily be subject to my professional inquiry. It has therefore prevented my readers from receiving the full spectrum of truthful reporting which, in a functioning democracy, they have a right to expect.


    • Iraq’s internet on the brink
      A year since the Arab Spring, the internet in the region is facing significant threats from governments trying to gain more control over it.


    • Media companies & ISPs outline plan to stop piracy

      Not so voluntary censorship is set to roll out on people in the US. Appealing accusations of sharing will cost people $35.



    • World Without Web
      ... we underestimate the alarming degree of contingency lurking behind ‘inevitable’ developments. ... The divergence point for this history is in 1983-1984, when the leadership of DARPA lied through its teeth to Congress about who was being allowed access to the Internet. ... what if DARPA had been caught in that lie, funding for its network research scaled back, and a serious effort made to kick randoms off the early net?


    • CISPA – The Sneaky Son Of SOPA

      A good collection of links about a nasty law against sharing.





  • Civil Rights



  • Privacy



  • Education Watch



  • DRM

    • How Adobe DRM Requires People to Pirate Library Books
      Open standards make sense. What makes no sense is that large companies in the field still do not understand this. ... It turns out that a majority of the 6,495 titles available at my local library were accessible only through a locked .acsm file format. ...you can think of a .acsm file as being very much like a .torrent file. If you use Windows or Mac, you can (theoretically) download and install Adobe Digital Editions (ADE). This software reads the .acsm file and then it will download the actual .epub book, complete with DRM. ... there is no legal way to access the content without breaking the law if you are using free (libre) software.

      Tell your local librarian to never use a system like this!





  • Intellectual Monopolies

    • Another Patent Attack on Google with More Wild $$ Predictions ~pj
      Nokia and Microsoft. Partners at law, so to speak. Is this another Microsoft/Nokia outsourced production? Remember when Barnes & Noble told us that it views Microsoft and Nokia's patent campaign as an antitrust violation, a deliberate campaign to destroy Android and maintain Microsoft's monopoly on the desktop and extend it to smartphones, with Nokia piggybacking with its patents for weapons and MOSAID being brought in to do some of the dirty work? So when you read the scare headlines, remember this: Google is awesome at patent litigation. It tends to prevail. I told you that when Oracle first sued Google


    • Oracle’s Position is Worse Than I Thought


    • USPTO Issues Interim Mayo Guidance ~pj
      "...the claimed product or process amounts to significantly more than a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea with conventional steps specified at a high level of generality appended thereto." Why *wouldn't* that apply to software?


    • Mayo Decision Impacts Myriad Genetics - Judgment Vacated, Remanded ~pj
      Things are looking up in PatentLand


    • Prometheus bound: An important precedent for the next software patent case
      Plainly, this was not a dispute about software patents, but the Court’s unanimous opinion will guide it and lower courts as they analyze future software patent cases.


    • Copyrights

      • Judge rules file sharing is not a "conspiracy"
        The litigators are trying to get around the fact that judges aren't happy with allowing mass lawsuits, so what they are doing is taking one internet user to court but using that lawsuit as a pretext to subpoena other defendants who had participated in the same BitTorrent swarm. ... James Holderman of the Northern District of Illinois raised his eyebrow in disgust at this trick, saying that it was trying to get around the "stiffening judicial headwind."


      • 5000+ Artists Line Up For a Pirate Bay Promotion
        “We’re one of the worlds top 60 sites in the Internet. This brings us a responsibility to use the site to do something good. When I think about it, it’s insane that all the other top 100 sites only blast ads and self-centered stuff on their front pages. We do this for fun and for the love of culture, so we’re everything the major labels are not.”


      • 3 Major Publishers Sue Open-Education Textbook Start-Up

        See also this excllent summary

        To gain access to the digital alternatives, students select the traditional books assigned in their classes, and Boundless pulls content from an array of open-education sources to knit together a text that the company claims is as good as the designated book. The company calls this mapping of printed book to open material “alignment”—a tactic the complaint said creates a finished product that violates the publishers’ copyrights.


      • DRM is crushing indie booksellers online


      • MPAA Lines Up With Porn Studio in Steamy Copyright Dispute

        A video site that published movies as urls is surprised that people would download those movies. They also found a judge that agrees enough to shut down a website where users share the urls, sometimes as embedded movies.







  • Recent Techrights' Posts

    Hard to Find a Job After Working for Microsoft (Back Doors Giant, Bribery Hub)
    It generally looks like people who chose to serve Microsoft's agenda don't end up too well
    Altering Perceived Reality to Make It Seem Like Microsoft is Thriving, Not Failing
    pretend XBox did not die
    Confluent Insiders: IBM Laid Off Over 800 at Confluent, Not Just 800
    For the record, the layoffs at Confluent won't be over. After the bluewashing there will be "IBM RAs" impacting Confluent folks, aside from PIPs
    Where and How to Spot LLM Slop
    Many people correctly perceive LLMs as a site's downfall, a step towards the abyss
     
    Links 26/03/2026: Tor Relay at National Taiwan Normal University, Copyright Hammers Fall
    Links for the day
    Gemini Links 26/03/2026: "The War of the Worlds" and "sometimes science is just the dumbest thing"
    Links for the day
    The World Wide Bots
    The shape of the Web is so bad that bots exceed humans in some places
    Links 26/03/2026: Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Closes 101 Law Firms in 2 Years, "Please Compensate the Work You Appreciate"
    Links for the day
    Regaining Software Freedom Means Regaining Control Over Programs That Run on Our Devices
    Richard Stallman will speak in Italy
    Microsoft Secure Boot Removes Users' Choice
    Has Greenland banned Microsoft and 'secure' boot yet?
    IBM Pushes Workers Out, It Does Not Count Them as "Layoffs"
    The number of IBM layoffs can be as large as tens of thousands per year
    Microsoft Lost 31% Of Its Alleged "Value" in Five Months, Then It Got Downgraded
    In 2026 Microsoft focuses on keeping the layoffs silent
    SLAPP Censorship - Part 24 Out of 200: The Failed Effort by Brett Wilson LLP to Strike Out My Lawsuit and My Wife's Lawsuit Against Garrett (the Master Allowed Our Lawsuits to Proceed)
    This is lawfare
    Official New Figures Show That Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Sees Rise in Dishonesty Among Law Firms Forcibly Shut Down ('Euthanised' Due to Misconduct)
    It's rather if in our little country as many as 16 law firms were found to be so dishonest that they needed to be shut down
    Back to Normalcy
    In our datacentre at least
    IBM is "Increasing Its Temporary and Part-time Headcount" While Net Headcount Falls (Despite Buying Many Companies and Their Workforce)
    Headcount is a rather superficial yardstick.
    EPO Union Decides to Continue Industrial Actions, Next Strike in Four Days
    The latest strike had the highest participation rate
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, March 25, 2026
    IRC logs for Wednesday, March 25, 2026
    Microsoft's "Silent Layoffs" in Slop Clothing
    "AI-powered transformation" is just a euphemism for mass layoffs
    Public Talk by Richard Stallman in Half a Day "at the Engineering and Architecture Campus of Cesena of the University of Bologna"
    He'll probably attract a fairly large crowd
    Gemini Links 26/03/2026: Buying a House, Stargazing, OFFLFIRSOCH 2026
    Links for the day
    Links 25/03/2026: Nations Return to Russian Oil and Burning Wood
    Links for the day
    Gemini Links 25/03/2026: Resisting Authoritarianism and Why Slop Needs to Go Away
    Links for the day
    Fedora Maintainer-ship Using Slop (Mistakes) Would Make Fedora Less Reliable
    It won't produce reliable code or stable systems one can rely upon
    IBM's "Legacy Employees" (Experienced Workers, IBM Management Dubs Them 'Dinobabies')
    This notion of "legacy employees" seems like something overlapping with "expensive" (well paid) staff, even if not entirely equivalent
    EPO's "Current Industrial Actions Are Likely to Intensify Further."
    There is another strike in 5 days
    This Morning The Register MS Published Slop Promotion With the Term "AI" 15 Times In It. The Register MS Was (As Usual) Paid to Do This
    This is not a serious publisher
    SLAPP Censorship - Part 23 Out of 200: We Were Right All Along (for 2 Years) About Third Party Funding and Willingness to 'Break the Bank' in Pursuit of "Revenge"
    How much damage can a person do to oneself in pursuit of cover-up of legitimate technical concerns?
    Gnome Foundation Inc is in Trouble
    the agenda is set GAFAM and IBM rather than donors
    Links 25/03/2026: Airports Further Militarised, "Slopification and Its Discontents", Microsoft 'Open' 'Hey Hi' Shutting Things Down
    Links for the day
    Gemini Links 25/03/2026: Blogging Fright and Absolutely Useless 'Apps' Made by Slop Machines
    Links for the day
    Rise in Energy Prices Will Significantly Accelerate the Death of So-called "AI Companies"
    It should be noted that fake news about Microsoft OpenAI doubling workforce (mere words, not actions) can serve as a nice distraction from the death of Sora due to divestment
    It's Always a Question of Trust
    There's a widespread stigma of lawyers being manipulative and chronically dishonest
    Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Must More Carefully Investigate or Assess the Financial State of Law Firms in the UK
    We'll cover this in depth in the future
    GAFAM Mozilla Removes Theora Support, Now GNU Needs to Re-encode Videos
    Mozilla used to mean something to Free software advocates
    An Open Admission Profits Depend on Addiction
    Proprietary software tends to be like this
    IBM Americas President Ayman Antoun Comes to OpenText, Weeks Ahead the Mass Layoffs Begin
    Is that what IBM will be good at?
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, March 24, 2026
    IRC logs for Tuesday, March 24, 2026
    SLAPP Censorship - Part 22 Out of 200: When You Complain People Impersonate You in IRC (But You Yourself Impersonate People in IRC and Lock Them Out of Their IRC Handles)
    We'll cover this with direct evidence some time soon
    Gemini Links 24/03/2026: Junk Drawer Time Capsule and Building Outside Alire
    Links for the day
    Not Much LLM Slop About "Linux" Lately, It Only Ever Comes From the Same Few Sites
    As long as only few such sites use LLM slop we can skip and avoid them
    Links 24/03/2026: "Epic Lays Off Over 1000 Employees" and US in Financial Trouble According to the Fed
    Links for the day
    The "Media" Does Not Only 'Miss' Mass Layoffs
    "The Treasury just declared the U.S. insolvent. The media missed it"
    The Empty Suits of IBM Managers (NIH or "Nothing Invented Here")
    IBM's management adopted the business model of parasites
    2012: 'Secure' (Microsoft-Controlled) Boot Has Not (Yet) Been Made Obligatory. 2026: systemd Has Not Implemented Age Verification
    should we stop calling "nazi" everyone we don't agree with?
    More Threats (Including Physical Threats) Against Us Are a Dumb Move
    It's like a "hit list" (targets list) and I shall keep the police duly informed
    New Example of Pentagon in "Feminist" Clothing Inside Fake News of Publishers Paid to Promote Outsourcing to US ("Clown Computing") and American Slop
    Google now pays money to promote Google as a friend of women
    Hating Techrights is a Career
    but is it good for civil society?
    Dr. Stallman’s Work Will Never be Considered 'Mainstream' Because He Rejects and Works Against the So-called 'Mainstream'
    Try to be more like Stallman
    The New Layoffs: 'Silent Layoffs', 'Secret Layoffs', 'Quiet Layoffs', 'Passive Layoffs' 'Stealth Layoffs', and Unannounced Layoffs Disguised as Return-to-Office (RTO Mandates)
    The US needs to revisit and fix the WARN Act
    EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part IX - Cocaine Addicts in Charge of the EPO Attacking Families of EPO Staff
    Things like being high-profile and being a serious drug addict aren't opposites
    What Feminism in Science Means (Codes of Conduct Don't Tackle the Real Issues)
    Universality matters, more so in a project or community that's said to build the "universal operating system" (Debian)
    SLAPP Censorship - Part 21 Out of 200: It's About Behaviour Online, Not How Much Money From Shadowy Third Parties Gets Spent on Lawyers and Two Barristers
    75+ KG of legal papers, 2 cases, 2 barristers (one hiding in the metadata) and maybe two law firms (also hiding in the metadata) against two modest people in Manchester seems disproportionate and vindicative
    Links 24/03/2026: "Airports on ICE" and "Have You Paid Your “Intuit Tax”?"
    Links for the day
    Gemini Links 24/03/2026: Slop Interview and Why Slop Makes Lousy Code
    Links for the day
    Richard Stallman to Give Public Talk This Thursday at the University of Bologna (Italy)
    Hardly the first time he speaks in Bologna
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Monday, March 23, 2026
    IRC logs for Monday, March 23, 2026