Sunday, 2 October 2011
Politician Violates His Own Two-Strikes Anti-Piracy Plan
When the German politician Siegfried Kauder introduced a two-strikes model to beat online piracy a few days ago, his own actions with regard to copyright were weighed carefully.
It didn’t take long before people spotted Kauder’s first infringement on his personal website, which was quickly followed by another one.
In what has now been dubbed Kaudergate, the pro-copyright politician was hosting at least two photos on his website which were taken from a photo sharing site without permission (1, 2).
When blogs and news sites picked up this ‘mistake’ the photos were quickly removed, but by then it was already too late.
Confronted with the blatant copyright infringements, Kauder tried to turn the tables in an attempt to use his failure to support his plans. He told the German news outlet Der Spiegel that this is a perfect example of how effective a two-strikes policy would be.
“I’m grateful that I got the opportunity to show how the warning model works. The use of the two copyright-protected photographs was brought to my attention. The photos were then removed, so the warning model works,” he stated.
An interesting attempt at spinning things around, if it weren’t for the fact that the copyrighted photos are still hosted on the server of Kauder’s website. So even after being outed by hundreds of blogs and the mainstream press two days ago, the politician – who is also a lawyer – continues to infringe copyrights (1, 2).
Even worse, Kauder claimed in the press that he had somehow “licensed” the photos after he realized his mistake. However, the photographer who owns the rights denies this and commented that the politician hasn’t been in contact at all.
One has to wonder that when a politician who wants to introduce a two-strikes anti-piracy system doesn’t even know how to stop breaking the law, how can he demand that others should?
Needless to say, the public is now demanding that he will be disconnected from the Internet. That would probably set a good example.
Ernesto @'TorrentFreak'
Downloadable #OccupyWallStreet Posters
The posters provided on this page are free for you to download, print, and hang up within your community, not only to promote local efforts, but the solidarity of all occupiers around the country. In fact, we highly encourage it as this will be a great means of spreading the word and getting others involved.
All of the posters on this page have been graciously donated to the cause by graphic designers who have contacted us and sent us materials. If you would like to contribute, please feel free to send us your work...
All of the posters on this page have been graciously donated to the cause by graphic designers who have contacted us and sent us materials. If you would like to contribute, please feel free to send us your work...
Richard Nixon's Watergate Grand Jury Testimony To Be Unsealed
Illustration: Ralph Steadman
A transcript of former President Richard Nixon's testimony on the Watergate scandal before a grand jury in 1975 is going to be unsealed thanks to a lawsuit filed by Public Citizen on behalf of an historian.Over the objection of the government, a federal court granted Public Citizen's request to unseal the 36-year-old transcript in July. The order became final this week when the Justice Department declined to appeal.
Grand jury records are typically sealed, but the good government group founded by Ralph Nader argued that Nixon's testimony should be unsealed "because of the extraordinary historical interest in Watergate and Nixon's legacy, and because the concerns that support secrecy of grand jury records no longer apply to this decades-old material," according to a press release.
In Nixon's 11 hours of testimony -- taken over the course of two days in June 1975 -- the disgraced president answered questions about the 18.5 minute gap in a tape recorded conversation between he and H.R. Halderman. The National Archives and Records Administration are expected to finish processing the transcript for release this fall.
"The release of this testimony is great news for historians and anyone interested in the history of the Nixon administration," Allison Zieve, director of the Public Citizen Litigation Group, said in a statement. "This key piece of history will be a valuable addition to the historical record."
Public Citizen posted their petition and the court's decision here.
Ryan J. Reilly @'TPM'
American Jihadi
Khan, who was reportedly killed in an airstrike in Yemen on Friday, Sept. 30, alongside his mentor, Anwar al-Awlaki, was not a religious authority. But he helped create the media architecture of the American online jihadi community, an Internet incubator for radicalization.
Born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Khan's family moved to New York City in 1993 when Samir was 7. When he was 15, Khan attended a camp sponsored by the nonviolent yet fundamentalist Islamic Organization of North America. There he first came into contact with members of the Islamic Thinkers Society (ITS), a rebranding of an offshoot of the British-based jihadi organization Al-Muhajiroun, that first expanded into New York in 2000. As such, the ITS is one of the longest-running organizations in the United States that sympathizes with the jihadi message -- though it does so through nonviolent aims such as "street dawahs." That said, the ITS has made many connections to the global jihad over the years.
Take, for instance, one individual who was at the founding of the New York Al-Muhajiroun, a man named Mohammed Junaid Babar. Al-Muhajiroun allowed Babar to travel to Pakistan and join al Qaeda, where he was instrumental in helping set up a training camp for the 7/7 London bombers. The ITS was also linked to a plot in 2004 to set off bombs at the Republican National Convention, and two members were arrested in June 2010 after plotting to travel to Somalia to join the jihad. Bryant Neal Vinas, a Dominican convert from Long Island who was convicted of plotting to bomb the Long Island Railroad on the orders of al Qaeda, also started out with ITS.
After connecting with ITS in 2001, Khan created his own blog, The Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge, under the online handle Inshallahshaheed (God willing, a martyr). At times over the course of his online jihadi career, he also went by Abu Risaas and Abu Jabbal. His blog bounced around between a variety of hosts due to ISP violations. But Khan finally found an online home hosted by the Islamic Networking Forum (formerly called ClearGuidance), which was the brainchild of Sarfaraz Jamal.
This blogging and forum community spawned some of the most important figures in the American jihadi movement in the past five to six years...
Continue reading
Saturday, 1 October 2011
The Situationist City
According to the Situationists, the benign professionalism of architecture and design had led to a sterilization of the world that threatened to wipe out any sense of spontaneity or playfulness. The Situationists hankered after the "pioneer spirit" of the modernist period, when new ideas, such as those of Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche, still felt fresh and vital.
By the late fifties, movements such as British and American Pop Art and French Nouveau Ralisme had become intensely interested in everyday life, space, and mass culture. The SI aimed to convert this interest into a revolution—at the level of the city itself. Their principle for the reorganization of cities was simple and seductive: let the citizens themselves decide what spaces and architecture they want to live in and how they wish to live in them. This would instantly undermine the powers of state, bureaucracy, capital, and imperialism, thereby revolutionizing people's everyday lives.
Simon Sadler searches for the Situationist City among the detritus of tracts, manifestos, and works of art that the SI left behind. The book is divided into three parts. The first, "The Naked City," outlines the Situationist critique of the urban environment as it then existed. The second, "Formulary for a New Urbanism," examines Situationist principles for the city and for city living. The third, "A New Babylon," describes actual designs proposed for a Situationist City.
Walk The Streets
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
