BullJustin writes in to alert us to the news that the Department of Homeland Security is cutting subscriptions to paper newspapers and magazines, cutting $47,160 from the budget over the next two years. Of course, for Homeland Security that’s a tiny drop in the bucket (hell, it’s not even that big). But, the writeup (somewhat tongue in cheek) suggests that this is unfair to newspapers who are “hurting enough financially” already. Of course, on the flip side, I’d think most people agree that not wasting taxpayer money on content that people are probably reading for free online anyway, is a good thing…

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The publisher of popular RSS readers FeedDemon and NetNewsWire is ditching its proprietary online RSS synchronization in favor of Google Reader. Newsgator‘s eponymous online service will cease on August 31..

Soon, Google Reader will be the only online synchronization option for Newsgator users.

(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)

When the beta version of FeedDemon updated earlier this year with the ability to synchronize to either Newsgator or Google Reader, fans of the program rejoiced. Google Reader synchronization, the company says, was one of the most requested features for the Newsgator desktop clients. They have instructions for users who need to move their feeds to Google.

Google Reader may frustrate some, but it has far more users than Newsgator. Newsgator says that this was the main impetus for ditching the Newsgator synchronization for Google, but it’s also using the opportunity to revamp its product line.

Along with Google Reader synchronization for FeedDemon, NetNewsWire, and the NetNewsWire iPhone app, Newsgator will discontinue Newsgator Online, Newsgator Go!, Newsgator Inbox, the Newsgator browser toolbar, and the desktop notifier. Several features in the desktop apps that depended on the proprietary syncing service will also cease to function at the end of August. If you use the blogroll, ratings or headlines features, Newsgator recommends removing them from any Web site they’re used on by August 31. The shared clipping feature will transition into Google Reader’s analogous feature.

Despite its popularity, one feature that Google Reader doesn’t support that Newsgator does is authenticated feeds. For people who used Newsgator solely for that feature, their opprobrium on message boards and in comment threads is palpable. Interestingly, the last answer in the Newsgator transitioning FAQ points to another reason for the switch: a growing emphasis from the company on their enterprise-based business.

Newsgator recommends that all FeedDemon and NetNewsWire readers upgrade to the beta builds before August 31, since only those latest versions contain the Google Reader option. It gave no word on when the beta builds would finish development, but readers who want the current stable builds can get them for Windows and Mac.

Originally posted at The Download Blog

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The NY Times has an article about how a group of psychologists are quite upset that the original 10 “Rorschach test” ink blots have been added to Wikipedia, along with brief explanations of what people commonly see in the ink blots (here’s the Wikipedia page on the Rorschach test). As I would hope most of you know, Rorschach tests are used by some psychologists, believing that what people see in the blots can tell the psychologist a lot about their personality. The ink blots themselves are in the public domain, so there’s really no legal issue over them being available, but that hasn’t stopped the complaints. Some psychologists are worried that this creates a “cheat sheet” that will be abused. To that, I say that if your test is so easily gamed, it’s time to find a different test.

But, much more bizarre is the claim by the German publisher of Rorschach’s book, Hogrefe & Huber Publishing, that it’s likely planning legal action:

We are assessing legal steps against Wikimedia…. It is therefore unbelievably reckless and even cynical of Wikipedia to on one hand point out the concerns and dangers voiced by recognized scientists and important professional associations and on the other hand — in the same article — publish the test material along with supposedly ‘expected responses.’

It’s pretty difficult to see any leg to stand on. The content is clearly in the public domain. And, on top of that, the issue shouldn’t be with Wikimedia, but the guy who uploaded the images. Also, most of that statement from the publishing company doesn’t make much sense. It’s not cynical to both post the images and the discussion about the concerns. It’s actually quite logical and reasonable.

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Update: Article updated 7/31/09 at 8:50 am with more details about the app’s projected release.

Good news for humorists–a dedicated mobile app for comedic video site Funny or Die will be coming to your iPhone, eventually.

Web content platform Babelgum announced on Thursday an exclusive wireless deal with Funny or Die to bring videos from the latter to mobile applications like the iPhone. Look for a Funny or Die app to hit Apple’s iPhone App Store sometime in the very near future. Babelgum tells us it submitted the software to Apple for consideration on Thursday.

The license agreement also allows Babelgum to integrate Funny or Die videos into the comedy channel of Babelgum apps. Babelgum, which streams videos in film, music, and other categories, says it will also feature a Funny or Die section on its online comedy channel.

The exclusive wireless partnership between the two companies will last for two years.

Note: Funny or Die features some video clips with mature themes.

Originally posted at iPhone Atlas

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With our CwF + RtB experiment in full swing, we’ve asked some of the participants involved to provide some guest posts, including their thoughts on the experiment itself. Jill Sobule is a well-known singer/songwriter, who last year embraced the CwF + RtB spirit with her Jill’s Next Record experiment. We asked her to share some of her experiences with it as a guest post:

Around 2 years ago, I put up the website — jillsnextrecord.com — where fans, as well as semi-pressured family members and friends, could donate to the recording and release of my next record. I didn’t want them to just give me money, so I came up with different levels of donation for various “gifts and services”: For example: The $25 Polished Rock Level would get you an advance CD — no big deal. But the $50 Pewter Level would place you in the liner notes. My favorite was the $500 Gold Level where I would write you your very own theme song — just to let you know, the host of… “Dancing With The Stars” went for that one. Within two months, much to my surprise, I reached my goal. Not only have I bypassed that much maligned middleman (the record label) but I have developed and maintained a closer relationship to the one’s that really matter: the fans. Someone asked me if I ever had any stalkers. I said yes, and I put them to work selling my merch at shows or helping me with my website… They do such a better job.

I really like that Techdirt is promoting artists and writers who are trying to break the mold — and in many cases, already succeeding. Also, as in my case, the creativity didn’t stop at just the music itself… We worked together to figure out how to best to offer my work. Our first idea was a semi-lame faux cactus (to match the cactus on the album cover). We, thankfully, came up with a better one: handwritten lyrics on a moleskin journal to go along with the new record. Wish I would have thought of that before.

Given her experience, we were thrilled that Jill agreed to be a part of the whole CwF + RtB program. Not only that, but she went above and beyond in enthusiastically volunteering to create custom, one-of-a-kind notebooks for everyone who orders the Techdirt Music Club. For each order, she’ll take a brand new notebook, and jot down some song lyrics and some doodles on the first few pages — so you’ll get a totally unique “Jill Sobule original” notebook, along with a signed copy of her CD. If you order both the Techdirt Music Club and the Techdirt Book Club before midnight PT, August 3rd, we’ll throw in a free Techdirt hoodie, or a free lunch with me (Mike).

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eBay wants to spin off telephony service Skype into a separate publicly traded company, but something’s standing in the way: Skype’s founders are threatening to take back some of the technology amid a licensing dispute.

The auction giant’s solution, according to a Bloomberg report on Thursday: build a new one.

This was revealed in a 10-Q regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission; eBay is not commenting beyond the filing. You can decide whether “Frankenskype” or “Skypenstein” is a better name for the hypothetical creation.

Here’s what has happened: Skype’s founders have established a company called Joltid Ltd., which still owns the rights to some of Skype’s technology. Joltid has made the accusation that eBay doesn’t have the right to do everything it wants with all of Skype’s code as a result; eBay is suing Joltid to get that technology back. (Is this like the Silicon Valley equivalent of body-snatching?) But the catch is that the trial isn’t scheduled until next June, which could put a big roadblock in the way of eBay’s plans for a Skype IPO.

So that’s why eBay is working on a total rebuild of Skype’s software.

There is, however, this little issue. “The new software will be expensive and might not work,” Bloomberg’s article summarized. “The company said it might have to shut down Skype if the dispute with the founders isn’t resolved.”

eBay purchased Skype in 2005 for $2.6 billion, but it hasn’t proven to be the best fit for the company. Rumors circulated that it was looking to sell Skype, possibly to Google, but then opted to take the company public instead.

Download Skype for Windows | Mac | iPhone | Windows Mobile from CNET Download.com.

Originally posted at The Social

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A bunch of folks have sent in various versions of how the entertainment industry is trying to convince the Copyright Office not to grant a special DMCA exemption for breaking DRM in the very limited — but quite real — scenario where a DRM server goes dark, taking away access to content people thought they had legally purchased. This seems like a perfect example of a reasonable DMCA exemption (people legally bought something, and they can no longer access it without getting around the DRM). On top of that, the music industry especially has finally come to terms with the fact that DRM not only doesn’t work, but decreases the value of the music and makes people less willing to buy. So you might think that they wouldn’t put up much of a fight. But, you’d be wrong.

Nate Anderson’s coverage does the best job highlighting the absurdity of the response representing the RIAA and MPAA:

“To recognize the proposed exemption would surely discourage any content provider from entering the marketplace for online distribution… unless it was committed to do so… forever. This would not be good for consumers, who would find a marketplace with less innovation and fewer choices and options.”

The mind boggles. This reads like copy from a Bizarro World manifesto on DRM, since the reality of the market for downloaded music (which was the issue behind the proposed exemption) has shown quite clearly that people don’t want DRM on their tunes and providers are happy to comply once the labels allowed it. The current situation, with several major stores and little or no DRM on downloads, is manifestly better for buyers.

Just an ordinary day for the established entertainment industry’s lawyers, where they love to insist that, theoretically, what’s happening in reality is impossible.

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By now, you’ve probably seen the video of the wedding party entrance for the wedding of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz (if not, go check it out). It’s been seen by many millions of people, and the number just keeps on growing. The wedding party entrance is choreographed as the entire wedding party dances enthusiastically to Chris Brown’s song Forever. The video, of course is almost certainly copyright infringement. Even if we assume that the church in St. Paul where this took place paid its public performance license, that would only cover the venue, not the eventual rebroadcast on YouTube. Now there are some who will insist that every streamed version of this song should require that a fee be paid. But, of course, if that were the case, this video almost certainly would not have been put on YouTube and would not have been seen by so many millions of people.

And what would have happened then?

Well, JohnForDummies notes that the success of this video is having a major impact for Chris Brown (who’s reputation is, reasonably, in tatters for assaulting his then girlfriend, the singer Rihanna). Not that we advocate supporting someone who assaulted his girlfriend, but the video is having an impact. The song Forever has jumped into the iTunes top 10, despite having been released over a year ago. Also, the video itself has greatly outpaced an attempt by Brown to create a viral video “apologizing” for his actions.

It’s not clear how the record label (in this case, a subsidiary of Sony Music) feels about this (see update below) — though, I will note that embedding has been disabled on the video (Update: Embedding enabled again, so I’m adding the video below) and there is a link to buy the song on the YouTube page. At the very least, this suggests that Sony (which has a good relationship with YouTube, unlike some others…) worked out a deal to take advantage of the publicity around the video. Though, the disabling of embedding seems rather pointless. Embedding the video would likely guarantee far more views, and with it, more purchases.



Update: Thanks to a bunch of folks sending in the news that Google is now promoting this as a case study of a rights holder taking control over content.

Update: Embedding has been re-enabled, so here you go:

Also… there’s already been an amazing spoof video of the couple’s “divorce” proceedings:

I don’t think Sony’s “taken control” of this one yet…

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A Dutch court has ruled in favor of antipiracy foundation BREIN, giving three of The Pirate Bay‘s co-founders 10 days to block traffic to and from the Netherlands, effectively revoking access to its residents.

According to blog TorrentFreak, the suit goes against The Pirate Bay founders Fredrik Neij, Peter Sunde, and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, all of whom were reportedly not even aware of the case. As a response they sent back a letter to the court to get it dismissed, and are currently seeking an appeal with legal representation.

The ruling, which took place on Thursday, will put a hefty 3 million euro fine on the three if they choose not to comply, along with a 30,000 euro ($42,227) per day fine if access is still not shut off after that 10 days.

Back in mid-April, the three, along with Carl Lundstrom, who had been financing The Pirate Bay’s operations, were found guilty by a Swedish court helping users commit copyright infringement. The four were ordered to pay $3.6 million in damages and serve a year in prison. Also, on Wednesday, the Motion Picture Association of America filed legal papers in a Swedish court saying that even after the April ruling, Neij, Svartholm Warg, and Pirate Bay spokesperson Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi continue to help people commit copyright infringement–a claim which Kolmisoppi and co. have vehemently denied.

Things have also become complicated with the potential sale of the site. Swedish company Global Gaming Factory announced plans to buy The Pirate Bay for a reported $7.8 million last month, although the latest negotiations have fizzled.

Originally posted at Web Crawler

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We’ve seen more than enough stories already about questionable court rulings around the globe saying that certain ISPs must block access to The Pirate Bay or other sites. Historically, such blocks have been a disaster. They don’t work (people find an easy way around them) and the announcement of the ban itself almost always generates a lot more traffic to the banned site. It’s like free advertising. However, the anti-piracy group BREIN appears to have taken a different strategy in the Netherlands. Rather than asking the court to have ISPs block The Pirate Bay, it asked the court to tell The Pirate Bay to block Dutch web surfers. BREIN, of course, has a history of overreaching, including demanding names of file sharers against local privacy laws and declaring that a usenet group, by itself was illegal.

And yet again, a court has ruled in the entertainment industry’s favor, going against basic civil rights. The court has said that The Pirate Bay must start blocking Dutch web surfers from reaching the site. Somehow, I doubt the folks at The Pirate Bay will comply. They’ve already complained about the process, noting that they were never summoned to the court to defend themselves, while the ruling itself actually spends a fair amount of time claiming that the folks from The Pirate Bay were fairly summoned through a variety of means. The court basically concludes that they should have known about the case, and their failure to show up will not stop the case from moving forward.

Not surprisingly, the Pirate Bay folks find the whole thing to be a farce. They’re already suing BREIN’s lawyers for falsely claiming that The Pirate Bay had launched a DDoS attack on BREIN’s website. Also, amazingly, the court wouldn’t even give them a copy of the ruling against them. Of course, as brokep notes, The Pirate Bay doesn’t have any operations in the Netherlands anyway, so what can the court do?

In the meantime, is it worth mentioning that it was a Dutch study that recently said that file sharing had a positive impact on the economy?

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