Nebraska Officials Upset That Librarian Used Funds To Make The Library Cool For Kids

from the how-dare-they! dept

GamePolitics alerts us to the rather ridiculous situation in Nebraska, where state officials were investigating some librarians for buying a PlayStation 2 and Rock Band set for use in the library. Considering all of the questions over the past few years about keeping libraries relevant in an age of computers and the internet, attracting kids with a fun game seems like a pretty good idea... but not to Nebaska's state auditor. In fact, the very point that it was fun for kids was seen as a bad thing:

The purchase of gaming equipment is a questionable use of public funds. It is common knowledge that children enjoy games and toys, so there appears to have been little need to purchase the games.

Instead, public funds should apparently only be used on things that kids hate and that won't get them interested in coming to the library at all!

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Nebraska Forces City To Stop Advertising Free WiFi

from the how-dare-they! dept

I'm actually on a road trip across the US this week, still working along the way with a mix of EVDO and WiFi. I'm writing this post while connected to some WiFi in Cheyenne, Wyoming (nice town) and I'll be on my way into Nebraska shortly. That's why this story caught my eye: apparently the small town of Louisville, Nebraska has set up a free WiFi zone in their downtown and smartly decided to advertise that fact on the main highway that runs by the town. Yet, the State of Nebraska Roads Department has forced them to take down the sign, worried that other towns across the state might also demand that the state put up signs advertising free WiFi. Considering that the signs in Louisville weren't installed by the Roads Department in the first place, this seems like a totally misplaced worry. If other cities demand such signs, why not just tell them to put up their own signs if they want to? I might just have to swing by Louisville myself and post something using their WiFi.

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Is Creating A Fake News Story Libel Or Copyright Infringement?

from the seems-a-bit-questionable dept

Creating fake news stories has a long history on the web. People do it all the time, usually for fun as something of a hoax. Many of these stories pretend to be from respected news publications -- but to anyone beyond the most casual observer, it should be obvious that they're fakes, based on the fact that they're not hosted on the actual publications' website. However, that's apparently not enough for some. Romenesko points out that the Oklahoma Publishing Company (publishers of The Oklahoman) and sports writer Jake Trotter are suing a guy who wrote up a fake article (using Trotter's byline) and posted it on his own website. The news report covering this is in the Oklahoman's own paper, so it doesn't share the guy's side. However, a look around various blogs shows what you'd expect: he did it as a silly hoax because he's a fan of Nebraska's football team over Oklahoma's. So he created a silly fake news story about some Oklahoma players. Yes, it was stupid, but sports fans do plenty of stupid things against opposing teams.

There isn't any indication that anyone actually believed this fake story was true. It was only posted on a site whose domain was clearly someone rooting for the Nebraska Cornhuskers, rather than on the Oklahoman's actual website. It's difficult to see what sort of "damages" this story could have had on anyone. Yes, it was a stupid hoax stunt from an overly passionate fan, but suing him for libel, copyright infringement and trademark infringement seems like an even bigger overreaction in response.

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