COPYCENSE

"Web services are poised to revolutionize the way content sites get their goods to the folks who want them.

"Joshua Tauberer is trying to render obsolete Web surfing to track congressional bills. People usually have to check out dozens of Web addresses, like the U.S. Congress site, OpenSecrets.org, and political blogs, to find out if special interests are putting money into the campaign coffers of a bill’s sponsor, read what bloggers are saying about the bill, and find out if there’s any related legislation.

"But last year Tauberer, a graduate linguistics student at the University of Pennsylvania, built GovTrack.us to automatically retrieve the latest news and blog entries related to federal legislation from hundreds of sites. Copyright law is one topic he’s particularly interested in, and he wants to help others take advantage of all the information about it floating in cyberspace. He’s doing so via a series of related software and Internet technologies people commonly call Web services."

Olga Kharif. All Your Info in One Place. BusinessWeek Online. Feb. 8, 2005.

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"In its latest play in the ongoing search wars, Google on Tuesday quietly launched a beta site for a new map service.

"Google Maps offers maps, driving directions and the ability to search for local businesses. The search giant appears to be working with TeleAtlas for the mapping products. Neither Google nor TeleAtlas could be reached for comment.

"The service offers a few tweaks to standard mapping products. Someone using the service can click and drag the maps, instead of having to click and reload, for example, and magnified views of specific spots pop up in bubbles."

Margaret Kane. Google Finds Its Map Service. News.com. Feb. 8, 2005.

See also:
Danny Sullivan. New Google Maps Now Live. SearchEngineWatch. Feb. 8, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"An Apple lawsuit against the operators of fan websites stirs debate on whether bloggers can claim legal protections.

"Even in a country where most citizens probably have no idea what a blog is, it’s not just an academic debate. Bloggers, some observers say, are becoming major players in everything from national politics to consumer trends. As a result, "their conflicts, motives, and agendas matter enormously," says Zephyr Teachout, who served as Internet director for the Howard Dean campaign.

"Now in California, a court will soon decide whether bloggers have the same legal protections as journalists under ‘shield‘ laws that protect reporters from revealing their sources."

Randy Dotinga. Are Bloggers Journalists? Do They Deserve Press Protections?. Christian Science Monitor. Feb. 2, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Microsoft’s MSN Music on Monday announced it would offer free downloads of some songs in the running for  Grammy awards this year.

"From Tuesday through Saturday, the company will offer one song download per day. The songs will be selected by the editorial team at MSN Music, which will pick the tracks they think will win the Grammy in several categories."

Dinesh C. Sharma. MSN Music to Offer Free Songs. News.com. Feb. 7, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"A word of warning to DRM-crazed companies, says the outspoken Cory Doctorow: somewhere out there is a competitor who will steal your customers with more open products.

"Cory Doctorow is a popular figure in Internet culture. He’s an award-winning science-fiction author whose work explores the social implications of digital communication, and he recently moved to London to be the European Outreach Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit organization created in 1990 to defend our ‘right to think, speak, and share our ideas, thoughts, and needs using new technologies.’ As you might expect, Doctorow’s an outspoken critic of digital rights management, which he believes is an impediment to the rights the EFF was established to protect.

"More interestingly, he believes that DRM is bad for business, too. Doctorow shared his views on DRM as it applies to the mobile industry with TheFeature."

Mark Frauenfelder. Closed Systems = Closed Opportunities Closed Systems = Closed Opportunities. TheFeature. Jan. 25, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ Covering the Intersection of Collaboration and Technology. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"A group of file-sharing activists is practicing a little civil disobedience of its own in order to bring the documentary series Eyes on the Prize to a wider audience.

"As Wired News first reported, Eyes on the Prize, the 14-part series chronicling the civil rights movement, can no longer be broadcast on television and has never been released on DVD because of copyright restrictions.

"Old VHS tapes that remain in schools and libraries were the only way to view the landmark series, until now. Downhill Battle enlisted the help of a group called Common Sense Releasers to digitize the series and convert it to MPEG-4 format for distribution on the internet. The group hopes people will organize community screenings of the series around the country."

Katie Dean. Eyes on the Prize Hits P2P. Wired News. Jan. 27, 2005.

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.

"Isaac Richards didn’t think of himself as a rebel, or a shock to the well-lubricated system of the television industry. He was merely unhappy with the cable box provided by his local operator.

"Dismayed by the sluggish channel-changing capability and the sparsely informative program guide, he decided to build a better cable box from scratch. Today, nearly three years since Mr. Richards, a 26-year-old computer software programmer in Willoughby, Ohio, embarked on his quest, hundreds of thousands of do-it-yourself television viewers are using the free software program he wrote, MythTV, to turn desktop personal computers into customized cable boxes, complete with the ability to record shows, surf the Web and strip out unwanted commercials.

"Millions of viewers are now watching illegal copies of television programs – even full seasons copied from popular DVD’s – that are flitting about the Internet, thanks to other new programs that allow users to upload and download the large files quickly."

Lorne Manly and John Markoff. Steal This Show. The New York Times. Jan. 30, 2005.

(Editor�s Note: The Times allows free access to their stories on the Web for seven days before sending the stories to the paper�s fee-based Archive.)

SNTReport.com™ The Online Journal for Social Software, Digital Collaboration & Information Policy. A Seso Group™ Venture.