Another Study Shows That Action/Violent Video Games Improve Vision

Studies

from the and-yet... dept

Nearly six years ago, we wrote about a study showing that playing video games can help improve your vision, and now there’s another study showing that such video games can help improve vision — specifically contrast sensitivity, which is noted to be “important in situations such as driving at night, or in conditions of poor visibility.” But, of course, rather than paying attention to all that, we get stories about how all violent video games must be banned.

Filed Under: eyesight, video games

Why Didn't The NY Times Properly Forward IHT Links?

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the not-the-most-intelligent-move... dept

At times, the tech geeks at the NY Times show that they understand what it takes to be a modern online newspaper. At other times… it makes you wonder. Valleywag notes that when the New York Times shut down the International Herald Tribune, which reprinted many nytimes.com stories at their IHT.com website, the NYT pointed every IHT link to a single landing page, rather than properly forwarding them to the proper stories at the NY Times — effectively breaking tons of useful links online (including plenty right here on Techdirt). For a company that was just among those complaining that Google didn’t rank its stories high enough, perhaps the powers that be at the NY Times should take a look at its own policies before whining to Google.

Filed Under: forwarding, links
Companies: ny times

Supreme Court Won't Consider Virginia Anti-Spam Law

Email

from the spammers-have-rights-too dept

The US Supreme Court has passed on the state of Virginia’s appeal to keep its anti-spam law in place. The state’s Supreme Court had ruled the law was unconstitutional, following the appeal of a spammer that had been convicted under it. He argued that the law overstepped the boundaries by outlawing non-commercial, as well as commercial spam, including things like political and religious speech that have generally been protected under the First Amendment. By not taking up the case, the high court appears to be extending that protection to cover spam as well. On balance, that’s probably a good thing — particularly as this “loophole” is unlikely to really make the spam problem any worse.

Filed Under: spam, supreme court, virginia

EU Rejects Copyright Extension… For Now

Politics

from the good-news dept

Following the recent debates on copyright extension, there’s a bit of good news. It appears that the Council of the European Union rejected yet another attempt to extend the copyright on sound recordings from 50 to 95 years. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like this is (by any means) the end of such proposals. In fact, it’s been made clear that this rejection is just a step in the process towards copyright extension. Of course, a bunch of recording industry lobbyists are complaining about how unfair this is, but they fail to explain how it could possibly be seen as fair to retroactively change the deal made with the public to take away the public domain. The entire purpose of copyright is to put in place a limited-time monopoly to act as incentive to create new works. Obviously, that incentive worked, or the content wouldn’t have been created. Unfortunately, the recording industry now wants people to believe that copyright is some sort of welfare system for musicians, whereby they should continue getting paid for work they did over 50 years ago. It’s a total distortion of the purpose of copyright law — and one that will cost consumers dearly, and pay musicians little, but enrich the recording industry tremendously. Yet, because of some sob stories about how musicians need this, politicians across Europe have been leaping on board.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright extension, eu, europe

TSA Accused Of Trademark Infringement

Legal Issues

from the sovereign-rights... dept

JJ sends in the rather amusing news that the TSA’s SimpliFLY promotional campaign (which only existed during the 2007 holiday season) may actually violate the trademark of the Salt Lake City International Airport, which uses the term for its telephone help line. From the details, it seems pretty clear this is a pure money grab by the SLC airport, as the marketing director seems quite clear that filing a lawsuit against the TSA was just a way to begin “negotiations.” Of course, SLC may find that it has an uphill road to climb, as it needs to explain how the TSA was using the term “in commerce” to show that it’s a trademark violation. In the meantime, folks in the marketing department at SLC airport may find that they need to go through a bit of extra scrutiny next time they go through airport security.

Filed Under: salt lake city international airport, simplifly, trademark infringement, tsa

TomTom Realizes Microsoft's Pointy Patent Stick Is Too Sharp… Settles Patent Dispute

Legal Issues

from the cheaper-to-settle-than-fight dept

Well, it looks like the ongoing patent battle between TomTom and Microsoft has come to a quick end, with TomTom caving. The company is paying Microsoft to “license” its patents, while dropping its own patent lawsuits against Microsoft. This really isn’t too surprising. Microsoft’s obviously got plenty of money to spend on just such a legal battle (exactly what the company counts on to get companies to pay up), so at some point, the calculation on TomTom’s part has to be whether it’s cheaper to fight or to just pay up. In this case (like so many), the company obviously felt it was cheaper to pay up, rather than fight what it believed were highly questionable patents. That’s too bad — but shows just why the patent system is so widely abused. It’s almost always cheaper to simply pay up rather than fight — which is exactly the sort of situation that Microsoft counts on, as it hypes up it’s “successful patent licensing program,” failing to concede that most of that licensing is done at the end of a large and very pointy stick.

What’s still unclear, however, is how this settlement deals with the questions that were raised over GPL’d software used by TomTom. As we noted, the GPL license that covers components of TomTom’s software forbid it from putting any restrictions on the distribution of the software. A deal with Microsoft could violate the GPL and cause trouble for TomTom down the road. Perhaps the company is betting that any legal battle on that front would be cheaper than fighting Microsoft’s patent lawyers in court.

Filed Under: fud, patents, pointy stick, settling
Companies: microsoft, tomtom

So Only When Piracy Gets Really Bad Will Record Labels Change Their Act?

Culture

from the just-wondering dept

Google is today launching a free, ad-supported music service in China, with the backing of more than 140 record labels, including the Big 4. The service sounds like exactly the sort of thing that people have been calling for since the Napster days: a search engine linked to a trove of music files, supported by advertising. Google’s wanted to add some sort of music search to its Chinese product for some time, as it’s been at a significant disadvantage to rivals like Baidu, which have the feature to thank for much of their success. The record labels say this is the first attempt to monetize online music in China, and mirrors moves by some movie studios to compete with piracy there with new products and services, rather than through lawsuits and lobbying. These efforts always give a nod to the rampant piracy going on in China — acting as if it’s a completely different environment than the rest of the world. So is the lesson here that only if piracy, or at least the labels’ and studios’ perceptions of it, gets “bad enough”, will they do something positive, rather than sue people or try to get laws strengthened in their favor? Or is it only because those aren’t viable options in China that companies try something different there? The fact that the labels are moving forward with this plan in China, given its reputation as the wild west of copyright infringement, undermine their contention that they can solve the supposed piracy problem with legal or technological means elsewhere. Furthermore, it exposes the reality that what’s staring them in the face is a tremendous opportunity, not a problem.

Filed Under: china, downloads, labels, music, piracy
Companies: google

Britney Spears' Dad Using Copyright Claim To Stop Critical Fansite?

Culture

from the not-what-copyright-law-is-intended-for dept

Michael Scott points us to the news that a popular fansite of Britney Spears, called BreatheHeavy.com, has received a legal nastygram ordering the site to shut down, claiming that it infringed on numerous Britney copyrights by “posting Britney song lyrics, photos, videos and audio clips without permission.” However, the owner of the site, Jordan Miller, claims that the nastygram has nothing to do with copyright, but is really about how Britney’s father, Jamie Spears, is upset with Miller’s site for criticizing the business structure of the Spears’ family. If true (and, obviously, this is just one side of the story), it does seem like yet another attempt to use copyright to simply shut up a critic. Not surprisingly, that plan already seems to be backfiring, as this little mess is drawing a lot more attention to the story, rather than forcing it to go away.

Filed Under: britney spears, copyright, fan sites, jamie spears