[Quote:]

L’UFC-Que Choisir a obtenu de la cour d’appel de Paris l’interdiction de placer des dispositifs anticopie sur les DVD. Ils sont jugés incompatibles avec l’exercice de la copie privée.

Et tu, EU?

Translation of the article:

UFC-Que Choisir (a French consumer protection organization) has been granted a prohibition on DVD copy protection devices by the Paris Court of Appeal, these devices having been judged to be incompatible with private copying rights.

Arnaud Devillard, 01net., April 22, 2005 at 7:28pm

What consumer protection groups have not yet succeeded in gaining for CDs, they have just obtained for DVDs. On April 22nd, the Paris Court of Appeal prohibited the use of DVD-based copy protection systems. The reason? The incompatibility of this practice with private copying rights.

Two companies, Les Films Alain Sarde and Studio Canal, thus suffered a serious setback after having won the case in the Court of First Instance at the end of April 2004.

UFC-Que Choisir latched onto the case of a consumer who was unable to copy a DVD of Mulholland Drive, a David Lynch film produced by Alain Sarde and Studio Canal, onto a video cassette. This person wanted to watch the film at his mother’s, who did not have a DVD player. The strict familial context mandated for the exercise of private copying rights was therefore applicable.

The tribunal also faulted the DVD producers for lack of consumer information. This was not entirely absent but was judged to be insufficient. The label “CP” for “Copy Protected” was indeed present on the jacket, but in “small characters” and not sufficiently explicit.

A worrying judgement for the French Video Producers’ Association.

Les Films Alain Sarde and Studio Canal have one month to unblock their DVDs. At the same time, Alain Sarde and Universal Pictures Video France must pay 100 euros in damages to the consumer in question. The same two companies, and Studio Canal, must also pay him 150 euros as well as 1,500 euros to the consumer association.

On the other hand, the court refused the request for damages and interest by UFC-Que Choisir against Studio Canal. The consumer association admitted to a legal misstep on its part, having chosen the wrong target for its request. The court also refused to release a judiciary communiqueé on the decision.

It goes without saying, however, that UFC-Que Choisir is more than satisfied, as the damages and interest were not the main object of the case. This was rather the acceptance of its argument regarding private copying. This, and the fact that the decision can be applied to other cases “as long as the original DVD was purchased legally,” says Gaëlle Patetta of the association’s legal department.

But for the delegate general of the Video Producers’ Association, Jean-Yves Mirski, the decision is “worrisome”. Not having had the time to analyze the decision in detail, the VPA has not yet decided whether to appeal the decision to a higher court (the Court of Cassation). But this is far from out of the question.

In any case, according to Jean-Yves Mirski, this judicial turn of events “directly contradicts the European Copyright Directive.” The latter permits the use of copy protection systems. This will certainly not make future legal action on this subject any simpler.

http://www.geefjemeningvleugels.nl/

[Quote:]

The weather in Oslo was pleasantly mild as Jon S. von Tetzchner prepared for his transatlantic swim this morning. After struggling with the wet suit for over an hour, the 195 cm tall CEO looked sharp and focused as he took his last steps on Norwegian soil before entering the freezing Oslo fjord.

“We are so proud of Jon for doing this,” said Anne Stavnes, HR manager, Opera Software. Considering that the closest thing Jon has ever come to swimming was in the hot springs in Iceland when he was a kid, and those aren’t even 3 feet deep.”

Sporting the Norwegian and the U.S. flag as an appropriate symbol of the journey ahead, the company inflatable raft, “Phantom”, had been duly prepared for the long trip. Manned with a satellite phone, maps, food, water and a book with inspirational quotes from the Viking sagas, Opera’s PR manager, Eskil Sivertsen, had taken it upon himself to row alongside Jon for the duration of the trip,
partly out of guilt for having made his CEO’s bold statement public.

[Quote:]

In our three-part history of animation in Britain, we look at delightful cartoons for children, engaging advertising and truly challenging films. We meet some of the innovative artists involved and, following on from the documentaries, will screen three showcases of animated films.

Link to index of Real Player clips

[The Quote:]

Pope Benedict XVI faced claims last night he had ‘obstructed justice’ after it emerged he issued an order ensuring the church’s investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret.

The order was made in a confidential letter, obtained by The Observer, which was sent to every Catholic bishop in May 2001.

It asserted the church’s right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood. The letter was signed by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected as John Paul II’s successor last week.

Lawyers acting for abuse victims claim it was designed to prevent the allegations from becoming public knowledge or being investigated by the police. They accuse Ratzinger of committing a ‘clear obstruction of justice’.

[quote]:

Juf Ingrid heeft voor opschudding gezorgd in Harkema na een blootsessie in het sexblad Foxy. De foto’s kwamen onder ogen van de schooldirecteur van It Holdersnêst waar de juf werkt. De juf is daarop een week lang thuis gebleven in overleg met de directie. Er is de afgelopen week veel gesproken. De juf zal waarschijnlijk dinsdag weer aan de slag gaan als de gemoederen zijn gesust.

De foto’s werden genomen op de Kamasutra erotiekbeurs in Utrecht waar Ingrid samen met vriendin Durkje aan de fotosessie kon mee doen. In het huidige nummer van Foxy staat een voorproefje van de gehele fotosessie die in het volgende nummer te zien is. De schooldirectie vindt de huidige situatie erg vervelend omdat een juf toch ook een voorbeeldfunctie heeft. Voor sommige schoolkinderen maakt het misschien minder uit. Zij zijn al aan het sparen zodat ze het boekje waar hun juf in staat straks kunnen kopen.

[Quote]:

UK music lovers are getting frustrated with restrictions placed on digital music tracks once they buy them from online stores, says PC Pro magazine.

The magazine reported that people are also being turned off net music stores because of pricing and disappointing sound quality compared to CDs.

[..]

One confused reader said he had spent 40 pound in an online store. Although his MP3 player played Windows Media Audio (WMA) files that he created, it would not play the copyright-protected WMA files he had purchased.

Another revealed to the magazine how he had to pay twice to download a song because of an error with the online store.

When he tried to swap the song onto another computer he found he was restricted from doing so.

PC Pro says people are growing increasingly dissatisfied with restrictions on tracks they have paid for, especially if the price they pay is similar to that which is paid for a physical CD.

Looks like people are finally reading the fine print…

My iBook died this weekend. That is, the machine works fine except for the video. I gues I’ll turn it into a small server.

For donations for a replacement: contact me

In the mean time, I guess I won’t be blogging as much, since I’m now temporarily using a 380 Mhz Pentium II laptop with a knoppix installation without all the goodies I’ve been getting used to in OS X.

-John

[Quote:]

Marla Ruzicka went to Iraq with one clear purpose — to help Iraqis who are victims of the ongoing battle with insurgents. Tragically, she too was a casualty, killed in a suicide bombing. But those whose lives she touched say she will never be forgotten.

This photo with an Iraqi child was taken only hours before Ms. Ruzicka’s untimely death. The little girl was just three-months-old when she lost her entire family in a rocket attack.

It was for this child, and many other Iraqis victimized by the ongoing violence, that Marla founded the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, or CIVIC.

Because the Pentagon doesn’t keep track of civilian casualties, Marla visited homes and hospitals in Iraq, trying to get an accurate count and description of civilians killed or wounded.

Her work took her to the most dangerous areas. Those who knew Marla feared for her life; she frequently drove around Iraq without any bodyguards. Sadly, their worst fears came true recently, when Marla was killed in a suicide bombing near Baghdad.

[Quote:]

Growing at a rate of about 900 inmates each week between mid-2003 and mid-2004, the nation’s prisons and jails held 2.1 million people, or one in every 138 U.S. residents, the government reported Sunday.

By last June 30, there were 48,000 more inmates, or 2.3 percent, more than the year before, according to the latest figures from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. …

…While the crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison and jail is outpacing the number of inmates released, said the report’s co-author, Paige Harrison. For example, the number of admissions to federal prisons in 2004 exceeded releases by more than 8,000, the study found.

Harrison said the increase can be attributed largely to get-tough policies enacted in the 1980s and 1990s. Among them are mandatory drug sentences, “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” laws for repeat offenders, and “truth-in-sentencing” laws that restrict early releases.

…Added Malcolm Young, executive director of the Sentencing Project, which promotes alternatives to prison: “We’re working under the burden of laws and practices that have developed over 30 years that have focused on punishment and prison as our primary response to crime.”

He said many of those incarcerated are not serious or violent offenders, but are low-level drug offenders. Young said one way to help lower the number is to introduce drug treatment programs that offer effective ways of changing behavior and to provide appropriate assistance for the mentally ill.

According to the Justice Policy Institute, which advocates a more lenient system of punishment, the United States has a higher rate of incarceration than any other country, followed by Britain, China, France, Japan and Nigeria.

There were 726 inmates for every 100,000 U.S. residents by June 30, 2004, compared with 716 a year earlier, according to the report by the Justice Department agency. In 2004, one in every 138 U.S. residents was in prison or jail; the previous year it was one in every 140.

In 2004, 61 percent of prison and jail inmates were of racial or ethnic minorities, the government said. An estimated 12.6 percent of all black men in their late 20s were in jails or prisons, as were 3.6 percent of Hispanic men and 1.7 percent of white men in that age group, the report said.