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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

    IBM Eliminating Over 20,000 IBM Workers by Year's End, Insiders Claim
    the layoffs are silent
    The Register MS Publishes More Word Salads Promoting "AI" Because It's Paid to Do So
    Hype, name-dropping, and scaremongering
     
    SLAPP Censorship - Part 171 Out of 200: Talking About Corruption and Violence Against Women
    Today the Labour Party (UK) speaks about corruption
    Warming Up for Investigative Journalism About the European Patent Office (EPO), Europe's Second-Largest and Probably Most Corrupt Institution in Europe
    It continues to exploit diplomatic immunity for impunity
    Microsoft Handing Out PIPs by the Thousands, Anxiety in GAFAM Building Up
    Years ago I heard from people who pretended to be ill to avoid getting fired
    BRICS in the Windows: Brazil's GNU/Linux Share (as Measured by CDN) Has Hit Highest Point in a Month
    The largest Web CDN, Clownflare, sees GNU/Linux at 8.1% right now in Brazil
    Corporate Media Will Always Glorify Its Owners (Corporations That Value Nothing But Capital)
    Collecting "money" like it's a form of competition where they track "score"
    We'll Never Do Slop!
    Being against slop is not being "left behind"
    Thieves Complain About the People They Steal From
    "When you point the finger at someone, there are three fingers pointing back to you"
    Links 04/09/2026: "The Rise of the Billionaire Lobby", the "Imperialist Delusions", and Digital Restrictions (DRM) From Nvidia
    Links for the day
    Buying From China
    Nations must begin to speak about their digital sovereignty, which Free software is best equipped to grant and best positioned to assure in the face of outside resistance
    GNU/Linux Continues to Grow in China
    GNU/Linux reached its highest point in a month
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 03, 2026
    IRC logs for Thursday, September 03, 2026
    Gemini Links 04/09/2026: Forgotten Realms Avatar Series and Slop Plagiarism's Footprint in Gopher/Geminispace
    Links for the day
    Like Uber, Paypal's Debt Has Shot Up 2.5 Billion Dollars in 3 Months, Now the Mass Layoffs Come to India
    even reducing the salaries by offshoring isn't enough to save the company
    Microsoft "engineers who aren’t critical are let go" this week/month (silent layoffs)
    "stack ranking"
    Is Microsoft Trying to Kill What's Left of XBox by Year's End?
    How many people will still bother purchasing these consoles by the end of the year?
    SLAPP Censorship - Part 170 Out of 200: Downtimes
    Yesterday traffic skyrocketed here
    Gemini Links 03/09/2026: Google Maps, Gemini's Early History, and Suppressing Slop Plagiarists
    Links for the day
    Links 03/09/2026: Unsafe Skies, Thunderbird Adopts Proprietary / Vendor Lock-in Traps, "Xbox Live Down Again"
    Links for the day
    Growing Thirst for Free Software, the LibreOffice Edition
    LibreOffice is in "high demand"
    Links 03/09/2026: John Ternus Enters Apple Amid Mass Layoffs, Journalist İrem Delice Arrested
    Links for the day
    Stallman.org Down Due to Virtual Machines Issue, "Senior Engineers are Investigating the Issue" Since Saturday
    RMS site down due to virtual machines issues upstream
    Linux Foundation is Plagiarism Hub, Linux is at Risk From It
    Torvalds never looked weaker and more compromised
    Gemini Links 03/09/2026: Back in Japan, Another New Year, Reasons to Avoid Have a "Smart" "Phone", and Rant About Built-in Batteries
    Links for the day
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 02, 2026
    IRC logs for Wednesday, September 02, 2026
    Identi.ca is Practically Dead, Just Like All Social Control Media (Eventually)
    All Social Control Media is a waste of time
    Gemini Links 02/09/2026: Intentions, Publishing on Workstations, and Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA)
    Links for the day
    GNU/Linux Reaches 6% in Nepal
    Today I checked GNU/Linux in Nepal again
    SLAPP Censorship - Part 169 Out of 200: Calling People "Nazis"
    'Cancel culture' in action
    GNU Turns 43 This Month, GNU/Linux Turns 35 Next Year
    It seems like no area of computing has not been impacted by the GNU/Linux revolution
    Uber Debt Grew 2.5 Billion Dollars in 3 Months, Company Lays Off at Least 10% of Workforce
    The media repeats the "official" numbers
    Links 02/09/2026: The Machine Stops, AuraSearch, and DOOM 1/2
    Links for the day
    1-1 Meetings at IBM This Week, PIPs Expected, Maybe RAs Too
    As usual, we invite whistleblowers to tell us what's going on
    Links 02/09/2026: Germany Blames Russia for Leipzig Airport Drone Attack and China Gains Power as US Faces Humiliation in the Midst of Presidential Cover-up
    Links for the day
    Quit Talking About "AI Layoffs" and Talk About How Chatbots and Other Bots Broke Recruitment Processes by Cheating
    Bots talking to other bots isn't HR; it's a catastrophe
    It's Inevitable Anyway, So...
    of course blame Chinese Communists for the "anti-AI" messages
    Robotics Isn't "Hey Hi", Robotics Isn't New Either
    Is the official Arduino blog becoming shilling platform for Qualcomm's "hey hi" [so-called 'intelligent'] chips?
    Giving 'Free Publicity' to the People You Hate and Attack
    Be careful what you wish for in social control media
    Today We'll Focus on Growth of GNU/Linux
    We've meanwhile noticed that Clownflare statistics for north American nations show 19% of requests (CDN) originating from GNU/Linux
    IBM Secret (or Silent) Layoffs in September 2026
    We need whistleblowers
    Gemini Links 02/09/2026: GAFAM's E-mail Cartel, ROOPHLOCH 2026, and Homeworlds
    Links for the day
    Not Only Microsoft and IBM Hide Layoffs (Secret Layoffs) and Fail to Follow the Law (or Bypass It)
    Microsoft's tactics are not so unique
    People Who Participate in the Slop Plagiarism Pyramid Scheme and the Moral Dilemma (What's Acceptable for a Salary?)
    giant pyramid scheme
    State of the Slop, Linux Edition
    Whether slop about "linux" becomes rarer by the end of this year, well... time will tell
    Links 02/09/2026: 'Open' 'AI' (Proprietary Slop Plagiarism) Destroying Evidence, "Data Center Backlash Has Officially Rattled Scam Altman"
    Links for the day
    Andrew Lee Has Turned Freenode Into a Slopfarm (Because Who Needs IRC Anyway?)
    The site is churning out slop all day long
    Over at Tux Machines...
    GNU/Linux news for the past day
    IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 01, 2026
    IRC logs for Tuesday, September 01, 2026