COPYCENSE

"A study of digital government (.pdf) finds that the 198 nations around the world are making steady progress at putting services and information online, but movement forward has been slowed because of budget, bureaucratic, and institutional factors. The United States and Canada rank third and fourth behind Taiwan and Singapore."

Fourth Annual Global E-Government Study. Inside Politics. September, 2004.

Attribution: SNTReport.com first discovered news the Global E-Government study through a posting in ResourceShelf, edited by Gary Price.

"A San Francisco start-up plans to boldly go where no game developer has gone before with an online game based on the cult TV series ‘Star Trek.’

"Perpetual Entertainment announced on Tuesday that it has signed a licensing deal with Viacom Consumer Products, owner of the ‘Star Trek’ franchise. The deal covers the original series and all TV and movie spinoffs.

"The agreement makes Perpetual the latest company looking to tap into the potentially lucrative but troublesome market for widely popular multiplayer online games, PC games that allow players to tap into a large online universe and interact with hundreds of other players.

David Becker. The Servers Cannot Take the Strain, Captain!. News.com. Sept. 7, 2004.

"The BBC may consider offering paid access to its website for overseas users, according to Ashley Highfield, the BBC’s director of new media and technology.

"Speaking to media and technology magazine Digital Lifestyles, Mr Highfield said pay-per-view or pay-per-play options might be possible off the back of the BBC’s Creative Archive project.

"The archive will be an extensive library of BBC radio and TV programmes, available free of charge in the UK for non-commercial use. The first stage of the archive goes live this autumn and will include natural history footage."

Jemima Kiss. Global BBC site Could be Pay Per Play. dotJournalism. Sept. 2, 2004.

"Rising tides of spam are drowning the usefulness of e-mail, according to a new report from IDC. Spam has accounted for 38 percent of the 31 billion e-mails sent each day in North America in 2004, up from 24 percent in 2002.

"IDC researcher Mark Levitt said the biggest challenge is to use the lessons learned so far and the investments made to help screen all inbound and outbound e-mails without compromising worker efficiency, corporate governance and regulatory compliance requirements."

CNET staff. Spam Volume Keeps Rising. News.com. Sept. 1, 2004.

"When Microsoft unveils its online music store later this week, the first song offered should be Dave Brubeck’s ‘It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again.’ For Microsoft, taking a trail blazed by others – then trying to dominate the market – is a familiar tune.

With the opening on Thursday, Microsoft will land itself in a market that Apple Computer pioneered more than a year ago with its iTunes online music store, in much the same way that it took on Netscape in the Web browser business and Sony in the market for console game machines.

"As a storefront on the MSN online service, Microsoft’s music service will offer song tracks for downloading to personal computers and portable music players."

Laurie J. Flynn. Can Microsoft Beat iTunes With a Store of Its Own?. The New York Times. Aug. 30, 2004.

See also  John Borland and Jim Hu. MSN Music: It’s Really About Windows. ZDNet.com. Aug. 30, 2004.

(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.)

"Overdue debtors beware: You may not be able to rely on Caller ID to screen out those annoying bill collectors much longer. A California entrepreneur has a plan to bring the hacker technique of Caller ID spoofing to the business world, beginning with collection agencies and private investigators.

"Slated for launch this week, Star38.com would offer subscribers a simple Web interface to a Caller ID spoofing system that lets them appear to be calling from any number they choose.

"Caller I.D. spoofing has for years been within the reach of businesses with certain types of digital connections to their local phone company, and more recently has become the plaything of hackers and pranksters exploiting permissive voice over IP systems. But Star38.com appears to be the first stab at turning Caller I.D. spoofing into a commercial venture.

Kevin Poulsen. US Website Offers Caller ID Falsification Service. SecurityFocus. Aug. 30, 2004.

Update: Ken Belson. Citing Threats, Entrepreneur to Quit Caller ID Venture. News.com. Sept. 4, 2004. (Founder, Jason Jepson, said the people who threatened him already tapped his phone calls and had obtained details about how much money he last deposited into his checking account.)

"A music company claiming to own the rights to Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land is Your Land’ may have gotten more than it bargained for when it took on JibJab Media, the Web animators behind a wildly popular parody of the U.S. presidential campaign.

"The animators on Tuesday beat back copyright infringement charges leveled at their work, which was based on the tune. Attorneys for the company also said they had found evidence that the copyright on Guthrie’s song expired in 1973, meaning that anyone can use it for free.

"’This song belongs to you and me,’ quipped Fred von Lohmann, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defended JibJab in the case."

Evan Hansen. JibJab Beats Copyright Rap. News.com. Aug. 24, 2004.

Electronic Frontier Foundation. Music Publisher Settles Copyright Skirmish Over Guthrie Classic. Aug. 24, 2004.

Editor’s note: See also SNTReport.com’s prior story on this political parody.