Here's the story. Or at least most of it.
Some 19 years ago, a man in Germany, together with his half brother, reportedly murdered an actor named Walter Sedlmayr. The man was convicted and served 15 years in jail.
Now he is free. And, according to Wired, he has exercised that freedom by instructing lawyers, the elegantly named firm of Stopp and Stopp, to sue Wikipedia.
The lawsuit claims that German privacy law, designed to help criminals re-integrate into society, prevents the man being named in association with Walter Sedlmayr's murder.
Wired quotes Jennifer Granick from the Electronic Frontier Foundation as saying that the lawyers are not only demanding that publications change whatever they write now, but that online archives must endure revision, too.
In writing to Wikipedia, the lawyers offered a very interesting approach: "As your article deals with a local German public figure (such as the actor Walter Sedlmayr), we expect you are aware that you have to comply with applicable German law."
Well, gosh, perhaps not everyone realizes when they mention, say, Boris Becker or that interesting actress who was in the first of the Bourne movies, that one is subject to German law when one does so.
Geek.com quotes the Electronic Frontier Foundation as adding: "At stake is the integrity of history itself. If all publications have to abide by the censorship laws of any and every jurisdiction just because they are accessible over the global Internet, then we will not be able to believe what we read, whether about Falun Gong (censored by China), the Thai king (censored under lèse majesté) or German murders."
(Credit:
CC Schoschie/Flickr)
You might be wondering why I have not mentioned this German murderer's name. You see, as I write, I am reminded that the world seems to revel in the persona of murderers. In some slightly twisted way, they become figures of fascination.
I have a strange suspicion that the more the name of Walter Sedlmayr's murderer is mentioned, the more famous he will become. And the more famous he will become, the more money he might be able to make from the fame he claims not to desire.
So I am conducting a fame-reduction experiment. Moreover, I know that everyone who chooses to discover his name can do so in a myriad of ways.
I wonder how many people tried to access information about this man who murdered the German actor Walter Sedlmayr and how many people have done so in recent days.
I also wonder how Wikipedia will choose to respond to this interesting and rather revisionist-minded lawsuit. At the time of writing, the full names of both murderers are still there in the Wikipedia entry for Walter Sedlmayr.
However, the Wikipedia Administrators' noticeboard has a spirited discussion about all aspects of the case.
The solution proposed by a poster called Zara 1709 on the noticeboard is to "remove the full name from the article and the article talk page, but leave in the edit history of the article and the talk page. We would even have some sources that mention the full names in the reference, simply because they provide other, relevant information, too."
The precedent for this is the so-called Star Wars kid case, in which a 14-year-old Canadian boy waved around a golf-ball retriever like a lightsaber and then endured painful taunts, leading to an equally painful lawsuit.
Zara1709 noted that: "It is quite important to point out that, on Wikipedia, regard for people's privacy applies to criminals and former criminals, too."
However, another poster, Baseball Bugs, dissented: "There is no justification whatsoever for censoring the names of the killers. The notability argument is bogus, there is no privacy or BLP issue, and the 'doing harm' argument is crystal-ball and thus is irrelevant. And some anonymous German judge has no jurisdiction over Wikipedia."
In reading all this, I am left with the words that were often drubbed into me by teachers: "History is written by the winners."
So if this German request succeeds, might some consider that the winner is Wolfgang Wehrle, the man who, with his half brother Manfred Lauber, murdered Walter Sedlmayr 19 years ago? Dash it, I couldn't help myself. I hope I'm not causing undue work for some future editor.
Verizon Communications customers who pirate music files may soon receive an unwelcome letter from the company.
Verizon, the second-largest phone company in the United States, is expected to begin issuing "copyright notices" on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America to those accused of illegally downloading songs from the Web, according to sources with knowledge of the agreement.
The sources, who asked for anonymity, said Verizon's letter campaign is part of a test, which is expected to begin on Thursday. Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman, confirmed the existence of the test but declined further comment.
The move is significant for the music industry because among Internet service providers, Verizon has typically been among the most reluctant to intervene in copyright cases on behalf of entertainment companies.
"We recognize the importance of copyright and the need to enforce those copyrights," a Verizon spokesman said in a statement to CNET. "Without that enforcement, intellectual property won't be generated at all. At the same time, it's important for our customers to be assured that they won't have their privacy rights trampled."
The letter the RIAA will send to Verizon, and will likely be forwarded to customers, is similar to those issued in the past by other ISPs, such as AT&T, Comcast, and Cox Communications. The RIAA's letter has typically notified customers that they have been accused of illegally sharing songs and informed them that such activity is illegal.
In the letter, the user is advised to delete the content they distribute. It's important to note that not included in the letter are threats of service termination or interruptions, or any talk of a "graduated response." That's the term the RIAA uses to describe a deterrent program whereby an ISP gradually ratchets up penalties or warnings to suspected file sharers.
Last December, the RIAA announced that it would no longer seek to file new lawsuits against individuals accused of illegal file sharing. Instead, the trade group representing the four largest music labels would try to convince ISPs to adopt a graduated-response program. While some companies, such as Cox, have said they will terminate service for chronic copyright violators, most ISPs have shied away from suggesting service termination.
More importantly, in the 11 months since the RIAA dropped the filing of lawsuits on a widespread basis, not a single ISP has acknowledged a formal agreement with the RIAA.
As for Verizon, it appears that the company is expanding the antipiracy relationships it has with the entertainment sector. In past years, as many of its competitors began to lock arms with entertainment companies, Verizon appeared to hold back. Verizon fought the RIAA when the group went to court to force the ISP to turn over the name of an alleged copyright violator.
Verizon also opposed antipiracy legislation important to the film and music sectors.
Verizon's attitude toward antipiracy seemed to change in 2005, when the company quietly agreed to forward notices to suspected illegal file sharers on behalf of Disney. In exchange, Verizon received the rights to transmit 12 of Disney's TV channels over its broadband network.
Several other ISPs have recently begun forwarding copyright notices on behalf of the film studios, according to the sources who spoke to CNET. It's not yet clear which other ISPs are involved.
Corporations can be heinous places. All day, people wander around, playing politics like so many Lindsay Lohans in "Mean Girls."
So today, one wonders just what machinations are being endured by Simon Aldous, the Microsoft Partner Group manager who was Wednesday quoted by PCR as suggesting that Windows 7 was rather inspired by the simplicity of the Mac OS. Indeed, Aldous declared that Microsoft's new operating system was designed to "create a Mac look."
In what appears to be a somewhat hurriedly written post on the Windows Team blog titled, "How we really designed the look and feel of Windows 7," Microsoft showed that perhaps some of its underwear is currently a little twisted.
The post read: "An inaccurate quote has been floating around the Internet today about the design origins of Windows 7 and whether its look and feel was 'borrowed' from Mac OS X."
This would suggest that Aldous was, in fact, misquoted.
However, the post, written by Brandon LeBlanc, continued, "Unfortunately, this came from a Microsoft employee who was not involved in any aspect of designing Windows 7. I hate to say this about one of our own, but his comments were inaccurate and uninformed."
"I'm Steve Jobs, and Windows 7 was my idea?"
(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)Some would therefore now conclude that he was quoted accurately, but he didn't quite get his facts right. This is entirely possible, though one might wonder why he would have made comments with a ring of such endearing honesty.
However, perhaps the most interesting aspect of this Windows Team post is a comment left by someone with the handle "i-dont-do-tat".
This commenter wrote: "I know Simon Aldous, having worked in the same U.K. subsidiary as him for a few years. He's a good guy who, for me, is telling it like it is. He's paying testament to the common view that a Mac is cool and a great template to copy."
As many in the world of business will tell you, copying happens all the time. The competition is scrutinized religiously, and the best articles of faith are taken and sometimes even improved. This happens in every product category.
The "i-dont-do-tat" poster concluded that perhaps honesty might not be such a bad thing: "Denying this to your customers just makes you look stupid because the very look and feel of Windows 7 is desperately trying to look like a Mac OS--just admit it."
Oh, of course one mightn't expect honesty in the mass-market arena. It is a very dangerous place in which to say anything at all. Equally, though, in a tech world interview, perhaps a little nod toward the opposition is not such a bad thing. It might even lull it into a little complacent smugness.
One can only hope that Simon Aldous had a good breakfast Thursday and that he hasn't endured any untoward communications. Unless it's a job offer from Apple, of course, which he should accept only if the company gives him a better deal and appears to come from nicer people.
That's how the corporate world works, you see. Like high school, it's all temporary, so you have to make the most of it while you can.
Over the past few weeks, we've heard more and more about 2012 when, according to some, the world will end. Responding to all that talk with a healthy dose of skepticism, scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have launched a Web page to dispel the myths surrounding the momentous occasion.
On an FAQ page called, "2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won't End?" NASA wrote that much like the Y2K scare a decade ago, the end of the world won't come in 2012.
"Impressive movie special effects aside, December 21, 2012, won't be the end of the world as we know," NASA scientists wrote on its 2012 page. "It will, however, be another winter solstice."
According to NASA scientists, "nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012." The scientists wrote on the page that "our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012."
But it's further down on the page where the scientists bring out the big guns. They said although the myth surrounding 2012 contends planets will align and crash into Earth, "there are no planetary alignments in the next few decades, Earth will not cross the galactic plane in 2012, and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence."
In the end, it was a simple comment from NASA senior research scientist Don Yeomans that might sum up the agency's feelings on 2012: "There apparently is a great deal of interest in celestial bodies, and their locations and trajectories at the end of the calendar year 2012. Now, I for one love a good book or movie as much as the next guy. But the stuff flying around through cyberspace, TV, and the movies is not based on science."
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
The National Federation of the Blind is applauding the decisions of Syracuse University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison not to Amazon.com's Kindle DX as a textbook replacement.
Kindle DX
(Credit: Amazon)The universities cited the Kindle's inaccessibility to the blind as the problem.
The federation said Wednesday that while it appreciates the Kindle's text-to-speech feature, the "menus of the device are not accessible to the blind...making it impossible for a blind user to purchase books from Amazon's Kindle store, select a book to read, activate the text-to-speech feature, and use the advanced reading functions available on the Kindle DX."
For its part, Amazon believes in the Kindle's potential. An Amazon spokesperson wrote in an e-mail that "With a few modifications, Kindle has the potential to be a true breakthrough product for the blind, and we're already working on it. We're excited about it."
According to the federation, the University of Wisconsin-Madison experimented with the Kindle in upper-level history classes.
"The big disappointment was learning that the Kindle DX is not accessible to the blind," Ken Frazier, the University of Wisconsin-Madison director of libraries, said in a statement. "Advancements in text-to-speech technology have created a market opportunity for an e-book reading device that is fully accessible for everyone. This version of the Kindle e-book reader missed the mark."
Frazier added that a suitable device would include better "accessibility, higher-quality graphics, and improved navigation and note-taking. I think that there will be a huge payoff for the company that creates a truly universal e-book reader."
Pamela McLaughlin, director of communications and external relations at Syracuse University, said in a statement that her school bought two Kindle DX units to see if it could replace hardcover textbooks and course materials.
Although students are still evaluating the devices, she said, the university has "no plans to purchase any more of these units in light of the fact that they are inaccessible to blind students. If Syracuse University decides to use e-book technology on campus, we will require technology that can be used by all of our students, including those who are blind."
Marc Maurer, president of the National Federation of the Blind, said his organization commends the universities' rejections of "broad deployment of the Kindle DX in its current form because it cannot be used by blind students and therefore denies the blind equal access to electronic textbooks."
Mauer pointed out that the federation does not oppose electronic textbooks and believes that "they hold great promise for blind students if they are accessible."
Updated at 10:14 a.m. PST to include Amazon comments.
Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
NEW YORK--Manhattan is the center of book publishing, all four music labels have headquarters here, and it's home to the country's largest general newspaper.
(Credit:
New York magazine)
But even in the Big Apple, many people appear unwilling to pay for media.
New York magazine conducted an apparently unscientific poll of 100 pedestrians in Manhattan's SoHo district and it revealed some startling and humorous results.
Few of those polled are willing to pay for The New York Times. Asked whether they subscribe to the paper, 79 said no. Asked how much they would be willing to pay to read the paper online, 63 said "nothing." To the question of how charging a fee to read the paper online would affect The Times, 65 answered that it would make it less successful.
The good news for the music industry was that 34 of the respondents say they pay for all their music. The bad news is that 61 acknowledged obtaining at least some of their music illegally.
As for downloading TV shows illegally via BitTorrent files, seven of those polled said "all the time." Five said never." 38 said only if they miss a show on TV. 12 asked "What the hell is a torrent?"
When it came to books, the respondents were much more willing to pay and don't appear to be Kindle fans. Check it out.
Guess what? Google has too many Spocks and not enough Captain Kirks.
That was one of the many interesting insights BoomTown gleaned from a video interview Wednesday night with well-known New Yorker scribe Ken Auletta, who has just written a new book, "Googled: The End of the World as We Know It."
This "lack of emotional intelligence" at the search giant, said Auletta, reminded him a lot of the subject of one of his previous books: Microsoft.
Oh, the delicious irony!
Auletta was feted at a lovely party on Wednesday night for at the San Francisco house of Common Sense Media's Jim Steyer, where a range of Google execs, Internet folks, and fans gathered to talk about the book.
It's all about Google, its history and, most importantly, its impact on the world. And, how you look at the powerful search giant depends entirely on whether you are the changer or the changed, as Auletta stresses in multiple anecdotes in the book.
Traditional media, for example, has certainly been mucho irked of late about the impact of digital technologies on their businesses and has not been shy about casting blame most heapingly on Google's Silicon Valley plate.
And the government regulators are also giving the company the hairy eyeball, much as they had previously done to Microsoft.
Auletta and I talked about all that and more in the video interview here, in which he noted that he told Googlers at a talk at their adorkable Googleplex HQ in Mountain View, Calif., on Wednesday that they needed to focus less on being engineering brainiacs and more on trying to understand how to deal with fears of their growing power. (You can see interviews I did with guests here too).
Below that is one of the disturbing number of mash-up music videos about "Star Trek" buddies, the highly illogical Kirk and the Vulcanish Spock, the geek bromance of all time:
Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.
Story Copyright (c) 2009 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.
Additional stories from AllThingsD
Tuesday's post on using Craigslist to buy secondhand concert tickets drew a response from a company called FanSnap, which uses live feeds to aggregate ticket listings from online marketplaces and broker sites (such as StubHub and TicketNetwork) and eBay auctions.
FanSnap would argue Craigslist is fine for price-sensitive fans who don't need to go to a particular show and who are willing to meet and negotiate with other individuals, pay cash where necessary, and run the risk of buying a fake ticket. (Although the only time I've ever seen a fake concert ticket was in 1989 on the streets of Manhattan, when I bought a very realistic counterfeit to a Jane's Addiction show at the Ritz.)
Fans who want a slightly more convenient buying experience might go with eBay, where they can use PayPal and rely on seller ratings, while fans who absolutely need a guaranteed ticket can go with a marketplace like StubHub, which offers a toll-free customer service line, money-back guarantee, and other benefits. FanSnap operates on an affiliate-oriented revenue model, so it gets a commission from sites on which sales are made.
FanSnap shows you where tickets are located in a seating chart of the venue.
I ran a search on FanSnap for Pixies tickets, and it found more than 70 listings for the sold-out show this Friday, compared with about 30 listings on Craigslist. (The Craigslist screenshot in Tuesday's post showed only listings that had been added on that day.) Prices were similar to Craigslist--lower in a few cases--and the site has some great design touches, like a seating chart of the venue that maps tickets to particular locations. Craigslist, of course, is purposely and resolutely lo-fi. I still think there's something refreshing about dealing with a real fan, face to face, but I can see reasons why others wouldn't want to.
Correction at 8:00 a.m. PDT, Nov. 12: This post mischaracterized how FanSnap aggregates ticket listings. The site uses live feeds from its sources, which allows ticket listings to be updated immediately as prices change.
You might suffer paralysis in several digits when I tell you that there is now a dating site exclusively for those deemed gorgeous.
BeautifulPeople.com exists to protect its members from having to espy the corpulent, the disproportioned, and the downright fugly-puglies.
On its home page, next to a photograph of a quite impossibly eugenic couple, the site presents its most famous media quote: "The sexiest Web site in the world today."
Entertainment Weekly? No, CNN.
Now, another august publication, the Telegraph, has reported some painful news from this online island of the beautiful: BeautifulPeople.com says British people are ugly.
Perhaps you might wish to blame the fish, chips, haggis, curry, and 14 pints of lager consumed by the average inhabitant of the Fragmented Kingdom. Perhaps you might indicate that such a lifestyle suggests an increasing amount of procreation between beings of indeterminate provenance in indeterminate places.
But BeautifulPeople.com revealed that only 12 percent of British men and 15 percent of their female cohorts were accepted by the prettiest online community in the world. This compares rather desperately with the 65 percent of Swedish males who enter this refined paradise and 76 percent of Norwegian women.
The site went live around the world just a couple of weeks ago and so far 83 percent of those who have attempted entry have failed to satisfy the bouncers.
Oh, did I mention that when you present yourself at BeautifulPeople.com's doors you have 48 hours to impress with your deeply ingrained pulchritude and your pulsating profile before you are voted in or out?
BeautifulPeople.com's managing director, Greg Hodge, told the Telegraph: "It hurts me. I'm British."
I am concerned, as I often am, for the Brits.
They donate so many pretty actors and actresses to the world--Hugh Grant, Sienna Miller, Ian McKellen, Judi Dench, Michael Gambon--that one wonders if they are using their theatrical greats to cover up for some serious national genetic deficiencies.
One can only appeal to the British government to launch an immediate campaign in all media. The government should spend some of its vast advertising resources in encouraging its most striking citizens to put their finest jaws and fingers forward and apply for membership to this site.
National pride is at stake. And if the British can substantially increase their presence on BeautifulPeople.com, it might be the start of yet another British cultural renaissance.
Facebook seems to have contributed to countless broken love affairs, divorces, and insane levels of jealousy. People pry into your friend lists and updates until they sometimes reach conclusions far beyond reality. How lovely, then, that a mere status update appears to have saved a Harlem man from jail.
According to The New York Times, Rodney Bradford decided to update his status with a call from the soul. "Where's my pancakes?" is the Times' translation of a status update it says was written in "indecipherable street slang." The fact that Bradford did this at 11:49 a.m. on October 17, using his father's computer, meant that he would not have to suffer pancakes of a more distasteful nature in the local penitentiary.
(Credit:
CC Slushpup/Flickr)
Bradford, you see, was arrested the next day for robbery. However, after he was booked, his lawyer was intelligent enough to update the district attorney with news of Bradford's Facebooking.
A subpoena was swiftly flung the way of the Zuckerbergville crew so that they might reveal whether the timing and location of the update were correct. They were, meaning Bradford could update his criminal status to "cleared."
There are some, however, who are not entirely convinced the charges should have been dropped. Joseph Pollini, a teacher at the Department of Law, Police Science and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice told the Times: "With a username and password, anyone can input data in a Facebook page."
He also offered a dire warning of the infinite dastardliness of people Bradford's age: "Some of the brightest people on the Internet are teenagers. They know the Internet better than a lot of people. Why? Because they use it all the time."
Oh, why is it so hard to give young people the benefit of the doubt--especially on Facebook?
