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This is Part 2 of a five-part series. Link to Part 1.

A great read. Summary: “We shouldn’t defend against specific tactics, but against the larger threat. So we’ll keep defending against specific tactics.”

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Two-thirds of Ohio counties have destroyed or lost their 2004 presidential ballots and related election records, according to letters from county election officials to the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner.

The lost records violate Ohio law, which states federal election records must be kept for 22 months after Election Day, and a U.S. District Court order issued last September that the 2004 ballots be preserved while the court hears a civil rights lawsuit alleging voter suppression of African-American voters in Columbus.

Oh, shocking.

What are Paris and Lindsay up to today?

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Music-industry litigation tactics against suspected online music pirates face a challenge in Tennessee, with an Army sergeant arguing that record labels have engaged in a “conspiracy” to defraud courts and violate privacy rights.

The claims come in response to a lawsuit against Nicholas Paternoster of Clarksville, Tenn., 33, soldier at nearby Fort Campbell, who is accused of infringing copyrights by using the peer-to-peer file-sharing program Kazaa to distribute songs online.

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In the response, Paternoster denies the allegations of copyright infringement and responds with a counterclaim charging that the record labels are abusing copyright law.

The labels, “ostensibly competitors in the recording industry, are a cartel acting together in violation of the antitrust laws and public policy,” allege Paternoster’s attorneys from the Nashville law firm Beam & Rogers.

The countersuit points out that although the recording industry singled out only six songs whose copyrights were infringed, the complaint includes screenshots of more than 4,600 files from Paternoster’s personal computer, including hundreds of apparently pornographic pictures and movies.

According to another document filed in the case, Paternoster was unaware that the Kazaa software was installed on his computer. While on a tour of duty in Germany from 2004 to 2005, the document says, another soldier downloaded the software and set up a Kazaa account under Paternoster’s name.

Last summer Paternoster discovered the software and “thousands of files downloaded on his computer by the soldiers he housed,” and he uninstalled the software and deleted the files, according to the document.

Kazaa and other file-sharing networks often make a computer’s files available for download by other network users, which allows the RIAA’s investigators to document instances of copyright infringement. The file-sharing option can be disabled, but many users never realize they are making their files available.

By including the full list of Paternoster’s files in the public record, the record labels invaded his privacy and are trying to “shame” him into accepting their demands, his attorneys argue.

“Such actions by the Counter-Defendants are a blatant misuse of their right to investigate potential copyright infringement and violate public policy,” the countersuit reads.

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Attorneys for the record labels from the Nashville law firm Bowen Riley Warnock & Jacobson would not comment on the case, referring questions to the RIAA.

“We try to be fair and reasonable in resolving these cases,” said RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth. “Our aim is not to be in court, but to seek appropriate retribution for the damage done to the industry.”

Interesting choice of words, right? They don’t care about compensation, they want retribution. If they could ask for blood, they would.

It reminds me of a passage in the latest Harry Potter (yes, I’ve read it – mock me if you want):

“You don’t understand, Harry, nobody could understand unless they have lived with the goblins. To a goblin, the rightful and true master of any object is its maker, not the purchaser. All goblin-made objects are, in goblin eyes, rightfully theirs.”

“But if it was bought —”

“—then they would consider it rented by one who had paid the money. They have, however, great difficulty with the idea of goblin-made objects passing from wizard to wizard.

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“I believe he thinks, as do the fiercest of his kind, that it ought to have been returned to the goblins once the original purchaser died. They consider our habit of keeping goblin-made objects, passing them from wizard to wizard without further payment, little more than theft.”

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Stichting de Thuiskopie heft haar fonds op dat geld doneert voor de audio(visuele) cultuur in Nederland. Zij zal voortaan alle geïnde gelden doorsluizen naar de rechthebbenden, zoals muzikanten, componisten en producenten. Die kunnen eventueel zelf een cultuurfonds optuigen.

En software fabrikanten kunnen ook in de toekomst dus gewoon barsten: wel geld moeten besteden aan een heffen op de media die ze nodig hebben, maar nog steeds gewoon als dief behandeld worden.

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CNN.com has slowly been moving to an all-ad format over the past few years, but the former news giant hasn’t abandoned their legacy of news reporting completely.

The company has named Tommy Rickey head of the new “advernewsment” division, to find innovative ways to place news in advertisements on the site.

Rickey said, “While the website might be entirely ads and promotions for our television shows, we still have the ghostly soul of a news organization, and that will remain as long as I’m here.”

Rickey was formerly executive producer at Entertainment Tonight where he honed his skills on their all-ad format. He highlighted some innovative techniques that CNN.com would be taking.

“A recent flash ad we ran for Coca-Cola featured Condoleeza Rice handing Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki an icy cold Coke. It was informative and refreshing,” said Rickey. Other innovative ads he showed included a “Punch the Sarkozy” banner ad and a advernewsment story about GM’s new plug-in hybrid car which had a sentence about global climate change.

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An RAF typist who injured her thumb at work is to be paid almost half a million pounds by the Ministry of Defence.

The civilian’s award is almost 30 times the amount a serviceman would receive for the same injury.

It is eight times more than a soldier would receive for losing a leg and almost double the amount he could expect if he lost both legs.

The £484,000 payout was condemned by former soldiers, politicians and servicemen’s charities who fear it will severely damage morale.

The woman, believed to be in her 20s, developed a repetitive strain injury while typing computer data.

She claimed it left her unable to work and caused her to become depressed, and she started legal action against the MoD.

Tory defence spokesman Liam Fox said: “I think it is indicative of a very weird set of priorities that those who are injured carrying out orders are less well compensated than those who are typing up the orders.”

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“They never connect the dots,” says Jill June, president of Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa. But her organization urged voters to do just that in the last gubernatorial election, in which the Republican contender believed abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape and incest. “We wanted him to tell the women of Iowa exactly how much time he expected them to serve in jail if they had an abortion,” June recalled. Chet Culver, the Democrat who unabashedly favors legal abortion, won that race, proving that choice can be a winning issue if you force people to stop evading the hard facts. “How have we come this far in the debate and been oblivious to the logical ramifications of making abortion illegal?” June says.

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Cinema Guzzo, a leading Quebec movie chain, is being sued for a rough search of some of its patrons (Guzzo searches has been the subject of some online discussion here, here, and here).  La Presse reports that a Montreal woman is seeking $60,000 in damages for the way the theatre chain searched her bags.  The woman’s lawyer argues that there are less invasive ways to search for camcording equipment, such as x-ray detectors.  Vincent Guzzo responds that such machines cost $70,000 each (though he also claims that the issue costs the theatre one million dollars annually) and that the theatre typically prefers to target its searches to males between 18 and 35 with backpacks.  He adds that the theatre includes clear signage indicating that they reserve the right to search bags.  Bill C-59, the new anti-camcording law, creates new penalties for camcording, but does not grant theatre owners any new rights to search patrons.

Yep, here’s another one…

The more I think about this equation, the more it makes sense… sort of.