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The California Supreme Court ruled today that same-sex couples should be permitted to marry, rejecting state marriage laws as discriminatory.

The state high court’s 4-3 ruling was unlikely to end the debate over gay matrimony in California. A group has circulated petitions for a November ballot initiative that would amend the state Constitution to block same-sex marriage, while the Legislature has twice passed bills to authorize gay marriage. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed both.

From the decision:

Furthermore, in contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights. We therefore conclude that in view of the substance and significance of the fundamental constitutional right to form a family relationship, the California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples.

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Last year, EMI began offering songs without it on iTunes. “The industry has finally been able to get some hard data about how removing DRM restrictions from legitimately purchased tracks affects piracy,” says Bill Rosenplatt, DRM specialist and president of GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies. “The statistics show that there’s no effect on piracy.”

No effect. The assertion is remarkable. If DRM does not in fact discourage piracy, then it is merely a nuisance for the user.

[..]

Ironically, the music companies are now abandoning DRM because it worked too well. Apple wouldn’t license its version to rivals - so the best-selling iPod drove the iTunes store to its present position, where it is the third-largest music retailer in any form in the US. Rosenblatt says that record labels “have been desperate to find a viable competitor to Apple and iTunes”. Industry sources suggest that Apple’s iTunes store has more than 70% of the UK download market, and growing. “The record companies don’t like dealing with Apple, because Apple is in a position where it can dictate the economic terms and dictate the business models,” says Rosenblatt. “What’s going to draw people away from iTunes? One answer is to get rid of DRM.”

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Handfuls of Windows Vista Media Center users found themselves blocked from making recordings of their favorite TV shows this week when a broadcast flag triggered the software’s built-in copy protection measures. The flag affected users trying to record prime-time NBC shows on Monday evening, using both over-the-air broadcasts and cable. Although the problem is being “looked into” by both NBC and Microsoft, the incident serves as another reminder that DRM gives content providers full control, even if by accident.

It apparently recorded fine on XP or TiVo, so owners of these devices should probably file a complaint that their software is circumventing the DRM and failing to “manage” their digital rights properly.

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PC GAMERS WHO have had their fill of online activation headaches with Windows will be pretty miffed to hear the latest anti-piracy scheme being dreamed up by top games publishers.

In a post on Bioware’s forums, producer Derek French has confirmed that two of the biggest PC titles of the year - Will Wright’s Spore and the Xbox 360 conversion of Mass Effect - will require ongoing, rolling 10-day activation over the internet.

“Mass Effect uses SecuROM and requires an online activation for the first time that you play it,” French says. “After the first activation, SecuROM requires that it re-check with the server within ten days (in case the CD Key has become public/warez’d and gets banned). Just so that the 10 day thing doesn’t become abrupt, SecuROM tries its first re-check with 5 days remaining in the 10 day window. If it can’t contact the server before the 10 days are up, nothing bad happens and the game still runs. After 10 days a re-check is required before the game can run.”

Just to re-iterate that point, you will need to re-activate your copy with the publisher every 10 days. Forever.

Or, you can get it from a torrent site a few days later - if you’re going to be treated like a criminal anyway, you might as well not bother spending any money on it.

Or even better, follow my lead and just ignore this company and any game coming from it.

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A little girl and her mother were out and about.

Out of the blue, the girl asked her mother, “Mommy, How old are you?”

The mother responded, “Honey, women don’t talk about their age. You’ll learn this as you get older.”

The girl then asked, “Mommy, how much do you weigh?”

Her mother responded again, “That’s another thing women don’t talk about. You’ll learn this, too, as you grow up.”

The girl, still wanting to know about her mother, then fired off another question, “Mommy, why did you and Daddy get a divorce?”

The mother, a little annoyed by the questions, responded, “Honey, that is a subject that hurts me very much, and I don’t want to talk about it now.”

The little girl, frustrated, sulked until she was dropped off at a friend’s house to play. She consulted with her girlfriend about her and her mother’s conversation.

The girlfriend said, “All you have to do is sneak a look at your mother’s driver’s license. It’s just a like a report card from school. It tells you everything.”

Later, the little girl and her mother were out and about again.

The little girl started off with, “Mommy, Mommy, I know how old you are. I know how old you are. You’re 32 years old.”

The mother was very shocked. She asked, “Sweetheart, how do you know that?”

The little girl shrugged and said, “I just know. And I know how much you weigh. You weigh 130 pounds.”

“Where did you learn that?”

The little girl said, “I just know. And I know why you and Daddy got a divorce. You got an ‘F’ in sex.”

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NYT Bits scribe Saul Hansell (SAI 100 #29) confirms an earlier report that Charter Communications, the No. 4 cable company, has started warning its cable modem subscribers that it will start tracking all of the Web sites they visit. Charter (CHTR) will sell the data to a firm called NebuAd, which will use subscribers’ browsing history to target which ads they’ll see. Charter will test the system in four markets within a month and will then decide whether or not to roll it out to its nearly 3 million Internet subscribers, Hansell reports.

What’s the point? Charter portrays the move as an “enhancement” with which its subscribers would see better-customized ads. But in reality, it’s all about more money. NebuAd is willing to pay Internet providers “several dollars per subscriber per month,” Hansell reports.

And as usual it has an “opt-out” system - because they know if they do it properly, with an “opt-in” system, they’re not going to get a single soul interested in their “enhancements”.

Nebuad.com is already in all the lists that ship with this

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Barack Obama advanced his drive to unite the Democratic Party behind his candidacy for president Wednesday by winning the long-sought endorsement of vanquished rival John Edwards at a boisterous rally.

The announcement was a blow to Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose bid for the Democratic nomination appears all but lost, and brought Obama a welcome distraction from his landslide defeat Tuesday in the West Virginia primary.

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An Oregon federal magistrate has awarded nearly $108,000 to a Beaverton single mother who said the recording industry falsely accused her of illegally downloading music.

The money represents Tanya Andersen’s attorney fees and costs in successfully fighting a lawsuit filed by the recording industry against her.

The attorney fee award is separate from a national class action lawsuit Andersen filed against the recording industry last year.

Question for you all: is the Daily Irrelevant part of your lean forward sites, or are you still following the news in the “old-fashioned” way?