From IT Vibe:

“The Record Industry Association of America, RIAA, who recently issued another 532 lawsuits against file sharers, are now being sued by one of the file sharers they are targetting. Michele Scimeca is accusing the RIAA of extortion and racketeering offences, which fall under Americas 1970 Organized Crime and Control Act.”

Sounds like someone the RIAA targeted decided enought was enough. You have to be careful in the land of litigation, the USA. Sue someone, and inevitably someone will sue you. And with hundreds of lawsuits pending, it was only a matter of time before a defendent decided to turn the tables.

Love this media release on the FBI web site. Nothing like overstatement. “Does the number TWENTY THREE BILLION DOLLARS get your attention?”

It explains:

“That’s how much money was lost last year as a result of criminals swiping copyright-protected digital copies of music, movies, software, and games… and distributing them through websites, chat rooms, mass email, FTP, and peer-to-peer networks.”

Weeellll, maybe. If, and a big if, everyone who ‘swiped’ (lovely turn of phrase from the Bureau) turned around and paid for the material instead. Which is extemely unlikely. And therein lies one of the core issues. The copyright content industry makes a great deal of noise about ‘lost’ revenue. But is it really lost? Losing it implies it can be found. And I haven’t seen anything which suggests that’s true.

Apparently legal sales of music downloads are running at 2 million a week. Great. But illegal swaps are running at 250 million a week. Me thinks the music industry has some way to go with its campaign against the file swappers.

If you’ve ever been scammed on eBay, indeed, if you’ve ever used eBay, or considered buying and selling stuff online, check out this site. Great stories of scamming the scammers.

Despite legal setbacks, the music industry is having another crack at those pernicious fileswappers in Canada.

“The Canadian Recording Industry Association said on Friday that it had filed court requests earlier this week that seek identifying information for subscribers at five Canadian Internet service providers. The information gained from those requests would be used to file copyright infringement lawsuits against people who had made large amounts of music available for upload, the group said. “

All this follows on from a Canadian court ruling a little while ago that downloading from services such as Kazaa appeared to be legal under Canadian law. Of course, the music industry disagreed, although this time they appear to be focussing on people who upload as opposed to download.

A DJ who re-mixed the Beatles White Album with words from a popular rapper has incurred the wrath of music giant EMI whilst simultaeneously enjoying ‘thermonuclear’ applause and the album being dubbed an instant classic. Problem is, he didn’t ask EMI’s permission, and they own the rights to the Beatles album.

“As news of EMI’s demand spilled online this week, music-industry and intellectual-property activists went ballistic. It’s a sign of everything that’s wrong in the American copyright system, they contend. “

If my kids ever find out, I’m in big trouble. A love for M&M chocolates has sparked a physics breakthrough. A US physicist was known to be passionate about the chocolates, so his students played a prank, leaving an oil drum’s worth in his office. Which made him realise that the oval M&Ms packed more tightly than normal round spheres.

“The issue of how particles pack together has intrigued scientists for centuries and has implications for fields such as the design of high-density ceramic materials for use in aerospace or other industries.”

Well I suspect a legion of Barry White fans would suggest he would be off the scale with this little gadget. It’s the Love Detector, a gadget which allows you to analyse a person’s voice on your computer as they speak on the telephone.

“On the computer screen, the love level is presented by a daisy. The more petals on the daisy, the hotter the passion. If the love level is negative, the daisy starts to wilt. The program also gauges the level of embarrassment and concentration in the call. “

Apparently it’s based on Israeli anti-terrorism software!

Ticketmaster7 has been taken to task because of a security flaw on their web site, patched only in the last few days, which allowed anyone to look up other peoples’ personal information. They were using a simple url with a 4 digit code number at the end to display your details. All you had to do was change the code number and it would bring up someone else’s details.

As a web programmer this is about as simple a mistake you can make in security terms, and it’s extremely surprising, and worrying, that a company like Ticketmaster7 would let this happen. Normally a web site would use precuations such as a encrypted link, or a user id matched with a password, for these types of URL links.

Nice story from London about an online art sales web site, which weathered the dot com boom and bust, and which now employs several people, is selling 25 pictures a month, and is about to hold it’s first offline art prize and exhibition.

“The site works because it gives artists who struggle outside the gallery system an opportunity to sell their work. More than 1000 pieces were entered for The Art of Love, for example. The site also provides an outlet for buyers, who may live far from art galleries or not have the time to peruse. The site offers a full refund if you don’t like the art you’ve ordered. Returns are less than 1%. “