They might spot a new hairstyle or a new dress in a glossy fashion magazine and they want to know what their friends think - so they take a quick snap with their mobile phone camera and send everybody a picture.

But the publishers of those magazines feel they are being cheated out of valuable sales.

Together with Japan's phone companies, they are issuing stern posters which warn shoppers to be careful of their "magazine manners".

"It's plain that the dinosaurs of the recording industry have completely lost touch with reality," said Fred von Lohmann, EFF senior staff attorney. "At a time when more Americans are using file-sharing software than voted for President Bush, more lawsuits are simply not the answer. It's time to get artists paid and make file-sharing legal. EFF calls on Congress to hold hearings immediately on alternatives to the RIAA's litigation campaign against the American public."

Blocking software in schools damages educational opportunities for students, both by blocking access to web pages that are directly related to the state-mandated curriculums and by restricting broader inquiries of both students and teachers. Teachers and students 17 years or older (most high school juniors and seniors) should be exempt, yet suffer the consequences of CIPA implementation.

After testing nearly a million web pages related to state-mandated curriculums, the researchers found that of the web pages blocked, 97 - 99% of a statistically significant sample were blocked using non-standard, discretionary, and potentially illegal criteria beyond what CIPA requires.

"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer,'' replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads...

"I'm interested,'' Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights.''

“I made my comments at yesterday’s hearing because I think that industry is not doing enough to help us find effective ways to stop people from using computers to steal copyrighted, personal or sensitive materials. I do not favor extreme remedies – unless no moderate remedies can be found. I asked the interested industries to help us find those moderate remedies.”

• Broken Social Scene, You Forgot It in People. Reviews of this album invariably resort to the old, "you just have to listen to it for yourself" line, and it's true. One of the best pop albums (in the best sense of the word) in recent years.


• The Dears latest album, No Cities Left, is wonderful but unfortunately doesn't seem to be available at Amazon. Their last album, End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story, is well worth checking out as well. The influence from the likes of The Smiths, Pulp and New Order is a bit obvious at times but more often than not there are fits of originality (besides, that's not a bad bunch to be influenced by).
  update: download an mp3 of Lost in the Plot, from No Cities Left, on the band's official site.


• Radiohead, Hail to the Thief. If you're anything like the average Mindjack reader, chances are you've bought this already, but if you haven't, you should.


• The Sounds, Living in America. New Wave goodness from Sweden. Watch their videos here.


• Interpol, Turn On the Bright Lights. Amazon has a free MP3 download of one of the album's best tracks, NYC. Check it out.

Mr Bayer points out that to make up for lost ground, Afghanistan was using high-end technology which is still a premium service in the West.

Afghans access the net through a wireless broadband system which actually means high-capacity lines and faster connections.

"Quite a few Afghan children are starting to use the mobile wireless environment and we are looking at that as a very rapidly growing business environment," says Mr Bayer.

"It's a bit similar to Japan where they use PDAs, different kinds of phones and computers to access the internet through Bluetooth [a technology that uses radio to communicate rather than cables]."

"Some players noticed that their money and weapons had suddenly vanished. A few whispered that tonight the monsters somehow seemed slightly bigger and meaner.
And then all hell broke loose.

Shadowbane had been hacked by several of its players. But unlike standard game hacks, where players gift themselves with super strength, health or wealth, these hackers managed to completely alter the rules of Shadowbane -- turning a suddenly wrathful game loose on its players.

"At first, players started speculating that there was a really bad bug in the game code," player Tim Wheating said. "Then we realized that somehow an insane god had taken control of our world and was out to kill us all." ..."

The NCSD will provide for 24 x 7 functions, including conducting cyberspace analysis, issuing alerts and warning, improving information sharing, responding to major incidents, and aiding in national-level recovery efforts.

The Kansas Republican's bill requires that a copyright holder obtain a judge's approval before receiving the name of an alleged peer-to-peer pirate. That would amend the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which a federal court concluded enables a copyright holder to force the disclosure of a suspected pirate's identity without a judge's review. This law is at issue in the recording industry's recent pursuit of the identity of a Verizon Communications subscriber.

The main thrust of the Brownback bill, however, is to slap regulations on digital rights management (DRM) technology,

In April 2002, U.S. District Judge Stephen Limbaugh rejected a request by a video game industry group to invalidate the ordinance.

But the appeals court ruled there was no justification for disqualifying video games from the right to free speech simply because they are considered interactive.

"Whether we believe the advent of violent video games adds anything to value of society is irrelevant; guided by the first amendment, we are obliged to recognize that 'they are as much entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature,'" Judge Morris S. Arnold wrote.

FCC SETS LIMITS ON MEDIA CONCENTRATION
Unprecedented Public Record Results in Enforceable and Balanced Broadcast Ownership Rules