Good piece today on WSJ.com by Vauhini Vara about the legality Russian MP3 download sites like allofmp3.com: Russian Sites Sell Song Downloads For Pennies, But Are They Legal? (subscription only). Vauhini quotes lawyers as saying “buying music from the sites is as illegal as downloading it for free over a file-swapping network. “It doesn’t matter if … Read more
I know it’s easy to be smart after the event, but were there enough clues on the Internet for journalists to have figured out the Benjamin Vanderford video was a fake before AP and others published the news? There were some clues, at least. From the video we were able to know his name and his home … Read more
I’ve been working on a story about Wi-Fi for the masses in Asia (it will be appearing in this week’s Far Eastern Economic Review; I’ll post a snippet when it comes online), looking at how Wi-Fi is opening up all sorts of opportunities to leap over the traditional problems of the rural and urban poor … Read more
This new spam law, so far, is taking us nowhere. A new survey conducted by email marketing service Blue Sky Factory reckons that nearly half of email marketers aren’t sure whether the stuff they send out is compliant and more than half admit that they do not understand the new U.S. laws (called, catchily but … Read more
A Segway rider in San Francisco hit a 3-year-old girl while riding — illegally — on one of the city’s sidewalks, ABC reports. The man fled the scene (on his Segway). The police says it expects to be able to quickly track down the suspect by contacting Segway, and obtaining a list of … Read more