Tuesday, 5 July 2011
Unlicensed: Are Google Music and Amazon Cloud Player illegal?
In the following weeks, two more companies announced music services of their own. Google, which has long had a frosty relationship with the labels, followed Amazon's lead; Google Music Beta was announced without the Big Four on board (read our first impressions). But Apple has been negotiating licenses so it can operate iCloud with the labels' blessing.
The different strategies pursued by these firms presents a puzzle. Either Apple wasted millions of dollars on licenses it doesn't need, or Amazon and Google are vulnerable to massive copyright lawsuits. All three are sophisticated firms that employ a small army of lawyers, so it's a bit surprising that they reached such divergent assessments of what the law requires.
So how did it happen? And who's right...?
Continue reading
Timothy B. Lee @'ars technica'
Military detention: Uncovering the truth
The Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC) has obtained a number of previously classified and confidential documents relating to Australia’s involvement in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.PIAC believes that these documents gives rise to a number of important revelations.
The Australian Government deliberately tried to to avoid its obligations under international law in relation to detainees caught by the Australia Defence Force in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Australia’s detainee policy had disastrous consequences.
The previously classified and confidential documents reveal that an Iranian man, Tanik Mahmud, died in custody. He was captured by Australian SAS troops in Western Iraq and transferred to UK custody. There is strong evidence suggesting that Mr Mahmud was fatally assaulted by UK RAF troops. The UK and Australian governments have refused to release the full details surrounding the death.
The Australian Government had prior knowledge of illegal detention practices in Iraq, including at Abu Ghraib prison. This included hiding prisoners from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and obstructing the ICRC’s access to prisoners. An Australian military lawyer advised on US interrogation techniques and concluded they were open to abuse.
The Australian Government failed to raise concerns about US breaches of international law with its ally. This suggests some level of complicity on behalf of the Australian Government.
The Australian Government misled Parliament and deliberately withheld important information from the Australian public relating to detainee mistreatment in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The documents obtained by PIAC raise serious questions about the functioning of the ADF and Department of Defence. Australia was ill-prepared for the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no policy on what to do with detainees.
Key information about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to be withheld.
Contact your MP to call for a full, independent inquiry to answer outstanding questions, including:
MORE
The Australian Government deliberately tried to to avoid its obligations under international law in relation to detainees caught by the Australia Defence Force in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Australia’s detainee policy had disastrous consequences.
The previously classified and confidential documents reveal that an Iranian man, Tanik Mahmud, died in custody. He was captured by Australian SAS troops in Western Iraq and transferred to UK custody. There is strong evidence suggesting that Mr Mahmud was fatally assaulted by UK RAF troops. The UK and Australian governments have refused to release the full details surrounding the death.
The Australian Government had prior knowledge of illegal detention practices in Iraq, including at Abu Ghraib prison. This included hiding prisoners from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and obstructing the ICRC’s access to prisoners. An Australian military lawyer advised on US interrogation techniques and concluded they were open to abuse.
The Australian Government failed to raise concerns about US breaches of international law with its ally. This suggests some level of complicity on behalf of the Australian Government.
The Australian Government misled Parliament and deliberately withheld important information from the Australian public relating to detainee mistreatment in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The documents obtained by PIAC raise serious questions about the functioning of the ADF and Department of Defence. Australia was ill-prepared for the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, with no policy on what to do with detainees.
Key information about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan continues to be withheld.
Contact your MP to call for a full, independent inquiry to answer outstanding questions, including:
- What was the legal basis for Australia’s detention policy in Iraq and Afghanistan?
- Did Australia express concern to the US regarding its illegal detention practices?
- What formal arrangements were put in place to ensure a US soldier was always present with ADF troops to take legal responsibility for their capture?
- What policies and procedures are now in place to ensure that Australia complies with international law in relation to the detention and treatment of captives?
MORE
Full inquiry needed into Australia’s military detention
Australian censorship filters are a joke
In a move claimed to "protect children" the Australian government initially wanted a filter which would sit on every ISP's computer. It would filter out access to every website that the Australian government felt that people should not see.
After an outcry, it was decided to make the scheme voluntary with only the country's main ISPs signing up to it.
According to Delimiter, the country's second-largest telco Optus has admitted that users would be able to defeat it by changing the DNS settings on their PC.
Optus said that using a different DNS server than the default was "a feature" of the Interpol list.
Telstra was less willing to comment than Optus, saying it would be pretty dumb to tell the world how to bypass the filter. Although, we guess, it is not proving that difficult for the world to find out.
Electronic Frontiers Association spokesperson and board member Stephen Collins said he had to wonder why Optus would even bother with the filtering system.
It seems that nobody will be protected from criminals by this. Punters who think their kids are safe from paedophiles thanks to the filter will not be. Meanwhile those who feel that it is wrong to have their internet connection slowed by filtering for sites they don't visit will be furious.
In short, it was a complete waste of time.
Nick Farrell @'TechEYE'
Telstra, Optus net filters 'trivial' to bypass
Mike Huckaby takes on Sun Ra for Reel To Reel Edits
This month sees the release of The Mike Huckaby Reel To Reel Edits Vol.1, the first instalment in a projected series of 12″s which finds our man in his absolute element – reworking his jazz favourites. The first artist to go under the scalpel is Sun Ra, with his classic pieces ‘UFO’ and ‘Antique Blacks’. These are edits in the purest sense of the word, respectful of the source material, Huckaby simply tweaking and re-structuring the original’s instrumental elements so that they’re more DJ-friendly and danceable.
This release comes on Rush Hour-affiliated Kindred Spirits, home to the likes of Aardvarck and Build An Ark. It’s available on 12″ vinyl with exclusive artwork by Stephen Serrato with a silk-screen printed plastic insert. It’s a limited edition, though the label aren’t giving away exactly how limited. More information here.
Tracklist:
A1. UFO
A2. Antique Blacks
Via
News of the World hacking - what you can do
PS: I'd imagine they're having quite a testing day on the #NOTW News Desk (02077821001)
Missing Milly Dowler's voicemail was hacked by News of the World
Milly Dowler was last seen alive on 21 March 2002. Photograph: Surrey police/PA
The News of the World illegally targeted the missing schoolgirl Milly Dowler and her family in March 2002, interfering with police inquiries into her disappearance, an investigation by the Guardian has established.
Scotland Yard is investigating the episode, which is likely to put new pressure on the-then editor of the paper, Rebekah Brooks, now Rupert Murdoch's chief executive in the UK; and the- then deputy editor, Andy Coulson, who resigned in January as the prime minister's media adviser.
The Dowlers' family lawyer this afternoon issued a statement in which he described the News of the World's activities as "heinous" and "despicable". Milly Dowler disappeared at the age of 13 on her way home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey on 21 March 2002.
Detectives from Scotland Yard's new inquiry into the phone hacking, Operation Weeting, are believed to have found evidence of the targeting of the Dowlers in a collection of 11,000 pages of notes kept by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed for phone hacking on behalf of the News of the World.
In the last four weeks the Met officers have approached Surrey police and taken formal statements from some of those involved in the original inquiry, who were concerned about how News of the World journalists intercepted – and deleted – the voicemail messages of Milly Dowler.
The messages were deleted by journalists in the first few days after Milly's disappearance in order to free up space for more messages. As a result friends and relatives of Milly concluded wrongly that she might still be alive. Police feared evidence may have been destroyed.
The Guardian investigation has shown that, within a very short time of Milly vanishing, News of the World journalists reacted by engaging in what was then standard practice in their newsroom: they hired private investigators to get them a story.
Their first step was simple, albeit illegal. Paperwork seen by the Guardian reveals that they paid a Hampshire private investigator, Steve Whittamore, to obtain home addresses and, where necessary, ex-directory phone numbers for any families called Dowler in the Walton area. The three addresses that Whittamore found could be obtained lawfully, using the electoral register. The two ex-directory numbers, however, were "blagged" illegally from British Telecom's confidential records by one of Whittamore's associates, John Gunning, who works from a base in Wiltshire. One of the ex-directory numbers was attributed by Whittamore to Milly's family home.
Then, with the help of its own full-time private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, the News of the World started illegally intercepting mobile phone messages. Scotland Yard is now investigating evidence that the paper hacked directly into the voicemail of the missing girl's own phone. As her friends and parents called and left messages imploring Milly to get in touch with them, the News of the World was listening and recording their every private word.
But the journalists at the News of the World then encountered a problem. Milly's voicemail box filled up and would accept no more messages. Apparently thirsty for more information from more voicemails, the News of the World intervened – and deleted the messages that had been left in the first few days after her disappearance. According to one source, this had a devastating effect: when her friends and family called again and discovered that her voicemail had been cleared, they concluded that this must have been done by Milly herself and, therefore, that she must still be alive. But she was not. The interference created false hope and extra agony for those who were misled by it.
The Dowler family then granted an exclusive interview to the News of the World in which they talked about their hope, quite unaware that it had been falsely kindled by the newspaper's own intervention. Sally Dowler told the paper: "If Milly walked through the door, I don't think we'd be able to speak. We'd just weep tears of joy and give her a great big hug."
The deletion of the messages also caused difficulties for the police. It confused the picture at a time when they had few real leads to pursue. It also potentially destroyed valuable evidence.
According to one senior source familiar with the Surrey police investigation: "It can happen with abduction murders that the perpetrator will leave messages, asking the missing person to get in touch, as part of their efforts at concealment. We need those messages as evidence. Anybody who destroys that evidence is seriously interfering with the course of a police investigation."
The paper made little effort to conceal the hacking from its readers. On 14 April 2002, it published a story about a woman allegedly pretending to be Milly Dowler who had applied for a job with a recruitment agency: "It is thought the hoaxer even gave the agency Milly's real mobile number … The agency used the number to contact Milly when a job vacancy arose and left a message on her voicemail … It was on March 27, six days after Milly went missing, that the employment agency appears to have phoned her mobile."
The newspaper also made no effort to conceal its activity from Surrey police. After it had hacked the message from the recruitment agency on Milly's phone, the paper informed police about it. It was Surrey detectives who established that the call was not intended for Milly Dowler. At the time, Surrey police suspected that phones belonging to detectives and to Milly's parents also were being targeted.
One of those who was involved in the original inquiry said: "We'd arrange landline calls. We didn't trust our mobiles."
However, they took no action against the News of the World, partly because their main focus was to find the missing schoolgirl and partly because this was only one example of tabloid misbehaviour. As one source close to the inquiry put it: "There was a hell of a lot of dirty stuff going on."
Two earlier Yard inquiries had failed to investigate the relevant notes in Mulcaire's logs.
In a statement today, the family's lawyer, Mark Lewis of Taylor Hampton, said the Dowlers were distressed at the revelation. "It is distress heaped upon tragedy to learn that the News of the World had no humanity at such a terrible time. The fact that they were prepared to act in such a heinous way that could have jeopardised the police investigation and give them false hope is despicable," he said.
Lewis told the BBC this afternoon the Dowler family was pursuing a damages claim against the News of the World.
The News of the World's investigation was part of a long campaign against paedophiles championed by the then editor, Rebekah Brooks. The Labour MP Tom Watson last week told the House of Commons that four months after Milly Dowler's disappearance the News of the World had targeted one of the parents of the two 10-year-old Soham girls, Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, who were abducted and murdered on 4 August 2002.
The behaviour of tabloid newspapers became an issue in the trial of Levi Bellfield, who last month was jailed for life for murdering Milly Dowler. A second charge, that he had attempted to abduct another Surrey schoolgirl, Rachel Cowles, had to be left on file after premature publicity by tabloids was held to have made it impossible for the jury to reach a fair verdict. The tabloids, however, focused their anger on Bellfield's defence lawyer, complaining that the questioning had caused unnecessary pain to Milly Dowler's parents.
Surrey police referred all questions on the subject to Scotland Yard, who said they could not discuss it.
News of the World's parent company News International, part of Murdoch's media empire, said the revelations were: "A development of great concern". It issued a statement saying: "We have been co-operating fully with Operation Weeting since our voluntary disclosure in January restarted the investigation into illegal voicemail interception. This particular case is clearly a development of great concern and we will be conducting our own inquiries as a result. We will obviously co-operate fully with any police request on this should we be asked."
Nick Davies & Amelia Hill @'The Guardian' Unfugnbelievable...well actually...!
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