Yahoo's current headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.

(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Yahoo is apparently thinking about making a run for the border: the Sunnyvale border, that is.

Marketwatch reports that Yahoo is finally preparing plans for a parcel of land it acquired three years ago in Santa Clara, Calif., a few exits south on U.S. 101 of its current headquarters in Sunnyvale. The land has apparently sat vacant ever since Yahoo bought it in 2006 in hopes of expanding, which, of course, didn’t exactly work out given Yahoo’s financial performance over that time and the economic downturn.

It’s not clear whether Yahoo wants to move the executive offices or just expand into that location. But the proposal submitted to Santa Clara officials involves a 13-building complex covering 3 million square feet, which means it’s probably not going to be used as a satellite office for obscure divisions of the company.

It seems Yahoo is feeling confident enough about its business prospects to consider taking on a building project. The company released a statement about its plans for Santa Clara.

“Yahoo purchased 42.5 acres of land in Santa Clara in July 2006. We submitted initial plans to the City of Santa Clara to redevelop the property in August 2008 and plans are currently with the City to procure entitlements for developing the land. We are taking the proper steps to secure approval for the development of the land. We continue to evaluate our real estate portfolio on a worldwide basis to ensure it best supports our business.”

Originally posted at Relevant Results

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There have been an increasing number of questions raised about both the length of copyright and the fact that it passes on to heirs after the original creator passes on. The original purpose of copyright had nothing to do with creating a welfare system for the children of content creators, no matter how much some content creators would like it to work that way. Economist Greg Mankiw points out a “factoid” that drives home the oddity that comes from such long copyrights:

Royalties from The Great Gatsby totaled only $8,397 during Fitzgerald’s lifetime. Today Gatsby is read in nearly every high school and college and regularly produces $500,000 a year in [F. Scott Fitzgerald's daughter] Scottie’s trust for her children.

The article this comes from goes into great detail into F. Scott Fitzgelald’s earnings over his lifetime, and what’s striking is that with a different sort of copyright system in place, he barely seems to rely on copyright royalties at all to make money. Instead — like most jobs — he recognizes he needs to keep producing new works to earn money, selling stories to various publications, along with working for Hollywood studios in addition to his novels. How much things have changed.

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When Twitter announced its new Lists feature late last month, I was excited. As someone who follows everyone who follows me, it does become difficult to see only those tweets from certain people. Lists promises to change that.

Twitter’s Lists feature allows you to make a themed list of Twitter users. So, let’s say you wanted to create a list of only CNET writers. After you add us all, you’ll be able to view only the tweets from those you added to the list. It’s a nice way to edit out the noise. It helps you see only what you want to see.

Twitter Lists is coming to Twitter.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

So when I saw that Twitter had given me access to Lists (which is in limited testing) on Wednesday, I jumped right in. And after using it for a while I’ve found that, aside from a few kinks, Twitter has developed a winner.

The basics

When you create a list, Twitter displays a dialog box, allowing you to name your list and decide if you want it to be public or private. By default, the list is set to public.

Creating a list in Twitter Lists.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Once you choose your settings, Twitter brings you to its user search page. Simply input the name or username of the person you want to add to your themed list. When you find the person you’re looking for, you’ll see a “lists” option lumped between the “follow” and “actions” options. Click that lists icon and you can choose which list you want to add the person to. You can also create a new list from the pane.

I created two lists–”tech” and “tech news”–allowing me to find tech updates quickly when I’m looking for story topics. So far, I have a handful of users in both lists, but I’ve already seen the value of it. It’s now much easier for me to find out what different publications are writing about. I need only to click the list I want on my profile page and I’m all set.

You can see which lists you're following.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

I should note that you can also add yourself to lists you create. That said, Twitter makes it more difficult to do so than it should.

The whole point of Lists is to create themed groupings. Since I’m involved in tech news, it makes sense for me to add myself to my public tech-news list. Unfortunately, Twitter makes you jump through hoops to do it. As far as I can tell, you can only add yourself to a list by viewing your profile and clicking the “Lists” option. It won’t even let you add yourself from the search field.

Considering Twitter’s own description of the service includes creating timelines “consisting of friends, family, co-workers,” wouldn’t it only make sense for you to make it easy to add yourself to the list, so those folks can see what you’re up to? Granted, you can add yourself. But it needs to be an option at the beginning of the list-creation process. You shouldn’t need to search for it.

You can follow or unfollow Twitter Lists.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

When you set your list to public, users can follow them just as they would any other profile. If you’re the list creator, you automatically follow the list. Conversely, any public list you find allows you to follow it. While that makes sense, Twitter has yet to make it easy to find lists. For now, the best way to find lists is to see which lists you’re included in or to see what kind of lists other users are following by clicking on the new “listed” link on profile pages. It’s rather annoying. A List search is in order.

Design changes

With the addition of lists, your personal Twitter home page has become a little more cluttered. The “tweets” tally has been moved to just below your username. It has been replaced with the number of lists following you. Quick links to lists you follow has been placed just below the search box, but above the “Trending Topics” list. It might get a little unruly when there are several lists you follow and you’re looking for just one, but having quick access to them is a welcome design choice.

The new profile page on Twitter.

(Credit:
Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)

Bottom line

I’m quite happy with Twitter Lists. The service, still in a closed beta, has some design quirks that Twitter needs to work out, but having the ability to filter tweets is quite appealing.

There are some who might question the need for lists in Twitter. After using it, I don’t. I think it’s a great way to find users you might never have known about. It’s also a nice way to find all the Twitter content that you actually care about.

Kudos, Twitter. The new Lists feature is a winner.

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FoxyTunes unlocks access to a wide range of music players.

(Credit:
Yahoo)

FoxyTunes, the popular music-player plug-in for Firefox, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Thunderbird, and so on, is now a plug-in supporting Yahoo Messenger for Windows, versions 8.1, 9, and 10 beta.

Maybe we should to call it “FoxyHoo.”

With the plug-in installed, you can control your desktop music player in addition to sharing what you’re playing in the status bar. Specifically, you can launch about two dozen supported music players from the Yahoo Messenger interface, manipulating everything from volume to skipping a song. Here’s a sampler of integrated players: iTunes, RealPlayer, VLC, Windows Media Player, WinAmp, and MediaMonkey.

In addition to commanding your music player, the FoxyTunes plug-in for Yahoo Messenger can also open lone audio files. To check out song lyrics while a tune plays, there’s a FoxyTunes Planet button you can click. The Web site features music news, lyrics, and videos.

We would have thought that FoxyTunes’ integration with Yahoo Messenger for Windows would have been the first thing Yahoo did when it snapped up FoxyTunes in 2008 for its music division. After all, the ability to share musical selections via Yahoo Messenger ha been available for the Mac client since 2006, a Yahoo representative told CNET. However, one look at the Web site, which promotes a Download.com review from 2006, tells us that maintaining the brand isn’t very high on Yahoo’s list.

That said, FoxyTunes has been far from idle. Back in August, FoxyTunes integrated support for posting music choices to Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo Messenger’s status bar, and Last.fm (Last.fm is a part of CBS Interactive, which also publishes CNET.)

The easiest way to get started downloading the plug-in is to click “Add Plug-ins” from your Yahoo Messenger interface and select FoxyTunes.

Corrected on 10/30/09 at 3:10 pm: A Yahoo representative has clarified that Yahoo Messenger has been able to post FoxyTunes selections on Mac since 2006.

Originally posted at The Download Blog

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I know that my grammar is not ideal, though I really do strive to get the basics right. There are times, however, when I feel that the strict “rules” that are put forth by grammar go too far. If the text makes the point in a way that people can understand, what is the problem? On top of that, there’s the utter snobbishness with which some (no, not all!) grammar aficionados put down anyone who makes a silly mistake. I have no problem with someone letting me know about a typo or a grammatical problem in a friendly and useful manner — but all too often the message is delivered in the tone suggesting that making such an elementary grammatical error suggests that I obviously never made it out of the second grade. So I’m glad to see an English professor taking on the grammar nazis.

Salon is running a review of a new book by English professor Jack Lynch, called The Lexicographer’s Dilemma, which argues that grammar nazis should chill out. Grammar rules are mostly to make people feel elite, not to make them any clearer, according to the book. Again, I have no problem with basic grammar rules for the sake of clarity, but focusing too much on the rules over the clarity is a mistake, and it’s nice to see at least some “experts” agreeing.

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Kaspersky unveiled a new tool on Thursday called “Krab Krawler” that analyzes the millions of tweets posted on Twitter every day and blocks any malware associated with them.

The tool looks at every public post as it appears on Twitter, extracts any URLs in them and analyzes the Web page they lead to, expanding any URLS that have been shortened, Costin Raiu, a senior malware analyst at Kaspersky, said in an interview.

The company is scanning nearly 500,000 new unique URLs that appear in Twitter posts daily, he said. Of those, anywhere between 100 and 1,000 are malware attacks. Twitter has also been targeted by the Koobface virus which posts malicious links from infected users’ accounts.

About 26 percent of the total posts contain URLs, and many of those lead to spam sites that are marketing products or services and aren’t considered malware, according to Raiu. Tens of thousands of different accounts are posting spam links, most likely from accounts created by bots, he said. The most frequent URLs posted lead to online dating sites, he added.

Twitter has its own filtering system, but some malicious links still manage to get through, Raiu said.

While Kaspersky’s regular antivirus software may detect and block 95 percent of the malware Twitter users are threatened with, malware code changes frequently to evade filters and it could take between two and 12 hours for new stuff to be classified as malicious and detected, he said.

While antivirus companies have traditionally focused on protecting e-mail-borne viruses, they are increasingly turning their attention to social-media sites as attackers do.

Trend Micro has technology that monitors Twitter posts for malicious URLs, as well as looks for attack patterns in the posts, such as use of popular terms to indirectly lead people to malicious links, said Morton Swimmer, a senior threat researcher at Trend Micro.

Meanwhile, Finjan offers a free browser plug-in dubbed SecureTwitter that warns users when they encounter a malicious URL in Twitter, as well as Gmail, Blogger, MSN, MySpace, Google search, Yahoo, and other sites.

Social-media sites are popular for attackers not only because people are flocking to them, but also because users seem to trust messages that appear to come from friends on those sites more than they trust e-mails, Raiu said.

“People are worried about unsolicited e-mail, so they are careful not to run the programs they get by e-mail, but they aren’t prepared to deal with these kinds of new attacks,” he said.

The most common piece of malware associated with Twitter links is Trojan-Clicker.HTMLIFrame, a malicious JavaScript that can get downloaded to a computer when it visits a compromised Web site.

(Credit:
Kaspersky)

Originally posted at InSecurity Complex

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In the past couple of days I’ve received emails from two separate people who found that public domain material they put on YouTube was taken down to companies claiming ownership of the work. In both cases, the stories seem pretty ridiculous, and for all the complaining that copyright holders do about how awful it is that they need to “police” their own content on YouTube, it seems like those who are getting hurt are people who are putting up public domain material and getting shut down — often with little recourse.

The first story comes to us from two self-described “hippies,” Haint and Littia, who had put up a video showing some of Haint’s works, and used as background music a song by a group called the Psalters, who put their entire album into the public domain so that anyone could do what they wanted with it — such as using it for background music in a video. However, music licensing company Rumblefish, supposedly uploaded its catalog into YouTube’s content ID system — and apparently (and I’m still trying to figure out how, because no one seems to have a good explanation), the Psalters song is somehow in Rumblefish’s catalog. Hence, YouTube took down the video. Apparently others have also been finding their perfectly legal and licensed content taken down thanks to Rumblefish as well, and were told that they needed to call and get Rumblefish’s permission to get the content back up.

Haint and Littia note that they can’t issue a counternotice, because Rumblefish never sent a DMCA notice which they can counter (Update: to clarify, as explained in the next sentence, they can dispute, but that’s slightly different than countering the DMCA notice, and comes with its own problems). The “takedown” was triggered by the content ID match, which still makes things a bit tricky, since “disputing” such things could potentially lead to a lawsuit, so there’s a bit of a chilling effect in disputing a content ID match. Poking a big company with a stick where they can turn around and file a lawsuit is a bit scary — even if you know you’re in the legal right.

While looking into that story, reader Stephen Pate sent over his own story of having his entire YouTube account suspended. He’s not entirely sure why, but believes it has something to do with video he posted of the recent “crash on the moon.” The video was taken directly from NASA’s live broadcast, which NASA makes clear is not covered by copyright.

But… along came everyone’s favorite news organization, the Associated Press, and claimed the video was their copyrighted material. Nice of them. Due to at least one other similar incident, Pate’s entire account was shut down, and to make matters worse, this apparently happened at about the same time that YouTube switched emails to gmail logins, leading Google to claim that it can’t match his email to the email of the account in question.

I’m sure Google and YouTube are trying their best, within the confines of copyright law and various lawsuits, to handle such situations, but it seems like things are a mess — and more and more users are finding that even if they have what appears to be perfectly legal content, they may face takedowns and even loss of their entire account, with limited avenues for recourse.

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Remember GateHouse Media? The regional news company sued the NY Times for linking to it, claiming it was copyright infringement to include the headline and a brief snippet along with the link (you know, like Google…). Amusingly, it turned out that GateHouse Media was doing the same thing. Eventually the two companies settled, and apparently that’s convinced GateHouse Media that complaining about such links is a good idea.

Via CitMediaLaw we found out that GateHouse Media has sent a cease & desist letter to an online forum, claiming not just that its stories are covered by copyright, but that its headlines and ledes.

We wish to advise you that the stories, headlines and/or ledes that you are copying are the copyrighted property of GateHouse Media… and that your copying constitutes infringement of GateHouse’s rights under U.S. Copyright law. This infringement is not excused by links to the original stories or by indicating the name of the publication in which the content originated.

Of course, it’s not clear that copyright law actually agrees with that. And, even if GateHouse is correct, this makes no sense whatsoever. It’s not as if people reading the Masscops forums are doing so as a substitute for some GateHouse Media news sites. If anything, Masscops is sending traffic to them, and helping new readers discover GateHouse’s sites. What sort of company turns down links and traffic? Not one that’s long for this world…

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Two years ago, a class action lawsuit was filed against the cable companies for not offering a la carte channels. This is an issue that gets people up in arms — even as studies have suggested that mandated a la carte would cost consumers more (though, others dispute those findings). On the whole, I think that a la carte offerings that let people choose their own channels would certainly make consumers much happier (a good thing), but I have trouble believing that it should be mandated by the government.

So does the district court where the lawsuit was filed. It’s now been dismissed, with the court saying that the plaintiffs failed to show the harm to the market. Of course, the case will be appealed, so this is a long way from over.

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