Hefty fine for French downloader
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A schoolteacher is among the first to be fined in France for illegally swapping music on the internet.
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(InfoWorld) - French authorities will give out 175,000 USB memory sticks loaded with open-source software to Parisian high-school students at the start of the next school year. The sticks will give the students, aged 15 and 16, the freedom to access their e-mail, browser bookmarks and other documents on computers at school, home, a friend's house or in an Internet cafÃ© -- but at a much lower cost than providing notebook computers for all, a spokesman for the Greater Paris Regional Council said Friday. It's a way to reduce the digital divide, said spokesman Jean-Baptiste Roger. The sticks will probably contain the Firefox 2 Web browser, Thunderbird e-mail client, an office productivity suite such as OpenOffice.org 2, an audio and video player, and software for instant messaging, he said. The exact mix of software will be defined by the company that wins the contract to supply the sticks, but will be open source, he said. At the European arm of the foundation behind the Firefox browser, Mozilla Europe president Tristan Nitot hailed the news as "an excellent surprise." It could even be a way to fight software piracy, he said, since the open-source software that the sticks will contain may be freely and legally copied. "It's better to copy that than Microsoft Office: it's cheaper, and it's legal," he said. School heads will distribute the USB (Universal Serial Bus) sticks to 130,000 students at the start of the next academic year, as they arrive for their first of three years at high school. There are 476,000 students in the 468 public high schools operated by the council and the 213 privately run schools it funds. Apprentices at the 173 professional training centers funded by the council will receive the other 45,000 sticks. If the project goes well, there's no reason why funding shouldn't be renewed next year, said Roger. The council plans to spend â¬2.6 million (US$3.4 million) on the USB sticks this year, a small fraction of its overall educational budget. School funding in France comes from many sources. Teachers are paid by the national government, while the provision of teaching facilities including the construction and maintenance of schools is paid for by local governments: city authorities, in the case of primary and middle schools, and regional councils in the case of high schools. In 2006, the Greater Paris Regional Council's budget for maintaining high school facilities, including buildings, libraries and its 120,000 computers, totalled â¬728 million. It also spent â¬195 million on facilities for apprentices in professional training centers.
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Device features two optical drives and a 160GB hard drive for storing content.
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It's been a real thrill to watch Loic Le Meur roll out his new video community tool called Seesmic. He's got the French touch, a bit self-deprecating, he's good at seduction, keeps his ego in the background and puts the focus on the users, where it should be.  As he's been seeding people one by one, they create videos which then appear on Twitter (heh) so people who don't have Seesmic get an idea what it's like through the eyes of people they know. This immediately creates a feeling of envy, but if you beg Loic he gives you an activation code, and off you go -- ready to become his next evangelist. Feeling priviledged to be his next evangelist. It's like Tom Sawyer and the fence. He reminds me so much of Jean-Louis Gassee in his prime, when he had all the Mac developers wrapped around his finger, and loving it.  I have an idea of where Loic wants to go with this, and it's going to be big. It'll be a fun ride, and fun to watch a master promoter at work. PS: Here's my latest Seesmic video, a demo of FlickrRiver. You may have to turn up the audio to understand what I'm saying, or use headphones. We're going to do something fun with the people at Le Web 3 and FlickrRivr. Thanks to Loic for also having a curious mind.  PPS: Beware the exclusive.
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Late last month, the Court of First Instance in Brussels issued a decision ordering Scarlet, one of Belgium&#39;s leading ISPs, to begin blocking copyrighted material that passes through its servers. The court gave the ISP six months to implement one or more technologies recommended by a court-appointed expert, and threatened the company with fines of up to 2,500 euros per day (roughly US$3,400) if it fails to comply.
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Yet another utility for downloading files. It has segmented downloading engine in its core, and downloads one file from multiple URLs much faster than ordinary web browsers. aria2 currently supports HTTP, FTP and BitTorrent.   This release adds Cygwin/MinGW support and French translation and several new features.
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Apple makes it easy to (legally) download films. But it faces stiff competition
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"Copyright officials recommended on Thursday that U.S. law be amended so that companies that rely on copyright infringement to make a profit can be held liable for their actions."  Which of course applies only to US companies.  Kazaa should be free and clear.  ...  Should have supplied a link.  I'm a BAD blogger!
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Youâve downloaded a file from the web and you canât remember where it came from. No problem â read this weekâs tip to see how you can easily find out.
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Les versions allemande, franÃ§aise et nÃ©erlandaise sont dÃ©sormais disponibles. La version italienne sera bientÃ´t accessible. Copernic et son partenaire de dÃ©veloppement Ã©conomique international Contraco
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(InfoWorld) - In a surprise move, the European Commission said Wednesday it is shelving plans to overhaul Europeâs rules on copyright fees, after intense lobbying from France and from groups representing artists and authors. The Commission, the executive body of the European Union, was planning to replace the patchwork of national rules with a Europe-wide code designed to better suit the digital age. Presently most countries impose copyright levies on a wide range of products, from photocopiers to mobile phones, and including recordable formats such as CD-Rs, blank cassettes and even paper. The size of levies varies widely from country to country. Only the U.K., Ireland, and Luxembourg do not impose any such levies. Copyright levies are supposed to compensate artists and authors who donât receive any payment when their copyrighted music, documents, or pictures are duplicated by consumers. The Commission wanted to harmonize the rules and scrap levies on most hardware. Its aim was to reduce the fees, which in some cases increase the price of goods dramatically. For example, in Spain consumers have to pay almost â¬300 ($398) in levies when they buy an 80GB MP3 player; in Austria the equivalent charge is just â¬8, according to the Copyright Levies Reform Alliance (CLRA), a coalition of businesses dedicated to harmonizing and lowering copyright fees in Europe. The Commission said it was abandoning the rule change for now. It had planned to publish a proposal before the end of this year. âMore reflection is needed on this complex issue,â spokeswoman Pia AhrenKilde Hansen told journalists. She wouldnât give a new timetable for the legal proposal. She acknowledged that the French prime minister Dominique de Villepin had written to the Commission earlier this month, urging it to drop the plan but she insisted that the Commission will decide for itself when the proposal will be launched. The Commission has been planning to harmonize copyright levies across the E.U. since 2000. Since then the case for scrapping most levies has grown stronger. Digital rights management software, which allows copyright owners to track the copying of their works, has become commonplace. The Commissionâs climb down sparked an angry reaction from the companies and industry groups pushing for a change to the system. âEuropean industry is deeply disturbed by the European Commissionâs apparent about-face on the planned reform of copyright levies,â said Mark McGann, spokesman for the CLRA in a statement issued Wednesday. âWith this decision, it is clear to industry that the Commission has abandoned any serious efforts to establish transparency, efficiency and fairness in the way these levies are set, collected and distributed,â he added, warning that without the revamp of copyright levies, several large European companies now intend to file official complaints with the Commission that will likely result in a wave of infringement procedures against certain member states. âThe reform of copyright levies would then move from the European executive to the European Court of Justice,â CLRA said in its statement.
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By Jamey Keaten Associated Press  PARIS -- A new law in France makes it a crime for anyone who is not a professional journalist to film real-world violence and distribute the images on the Internet.
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Copyright groups have hailed a Belgian  court decision making an Internet service provider responsible  for illegal file-sharing on its network as a European first  that could help the music industry.
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aTunes is a powerful, full-featured, cross-platform player and manager, with audio cd rip frontend. Currently supported formats are mp3, ogg, wav, wma, flac, mp4, and radio streaming.  Changelog:  - Added year and genre fields to CD ripper (Thomas Beckers) - Added saving of currently selected AudioScrobbler panel (Thomas Beckers) - Added brighter tray icons for Windows Vista (Thomas Beckers) - Added icons in About menu (Thomas Beckers) - Added an entry for enabling/disabling Audioscrobbler panel (Thomas Beckers) - FIX: Persistent split pane divider location (Thomas Beckers) - FIX: Null pointer when deleting a radio station (Thomas Beckers) - FIX: Icons doesn't change from "play" to "pause" [Bug 1818060] (Thomas Beckers) - FIX: "Clear Tag" option freezes UI - Updated Substance Look And Feel version to 4.0 - Repository refresh improved: now checks modification date - FIX: duplicate entries on stats - FIX: Null pointer on Amazon album search - FIX: aTunes freezes at startup when no repository found - Added button for search filter in playlist bar and moved playlist bar to the bottom (Sylvain Gaudard) - Added saving of last used settings in CD ripper (Sylvain Gaudard) - Added filename and pathname checking for export tool (Sylain Gaudard) - Added CTRL-F keybinding to search filter in playlist panel and allowed switching it off by pressing a second time the search filter button (Sylvain Gaudard) - Added Terracotta and Sunset themes avaible in Substance 4.0 (Sylvain Gaudard) - Added new icon for search field reset (Sylvain Gaudard) - Added tooltips to playlist search filter (Sylvain Gaudard) - Reduced font size of file properties panel to allow longer filenames (Sylvain Gaudard) - FIX: Adapted preferences dialog for greek translation in order to display the complete text (Sylvain Gaudard, Pavlos Paraskeuopoulos) - FIX: Null pointer when file properties panel gets enabled if no song in playlist [Bug 1810167] (Sylvain Gaudard) - FIX: Race condition in mplayer handler (Sylvain Gaudard) - FIX: aTunes launches several mplayer instances [Bug 1818064] (Thomas Beckers, Sylvain Gaudard) - FIX: Updated cdda2wav.exe to version 2.01.01a35 to fix compatibility with Windows Vista (Thomas Beckers, Sylvain Gaudard) - FIX: Race condition on AudioScrobbler service - Added device features: auto-mount devices, copy from and to repository - FIX: Set default max memory to 128MB (previously was 64MB) - AudioScrobbler Album information visual changes - AudioScrobbler Artist information visual changes - AudioScrobbler Similar artist information visual changes - Added Artist Bio at AudioScrobbler panel - FIX: aTunes would not play the next file with non-english version of mplayer (Bertrand Florat)
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High Efficiency codec recommended to network, content providers
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Update Slammed for touting unavailable but unlicensed content
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(InfoWorld) - France TÃ©lÃ©com, the parent company of mobile phone operator Orange, is offering a service that lets mobile phone users access videos, music and other content from their PCs. Called "Mon PC Ã  distance," it marks the second launch of the remote mobile access technology from Orb Networks in Europe. The service requires users to download a free software client onto their PCs. They can then use any mobile device with standard browsing and multimedia capabilities to view photos or videos and listen to music stored on their PCs. No special client software is needed on the mobile device. Mon PC Ã  distance, announced Thursday, was actually introduced last month. The service may roll out in France TÃ©lÃ©com's other mobile markets, which include Switzerland, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovakia, and the U.K. Orb introduced the mobile component of its offering in early November. Previously, Orb enabled remote PC access from other computers. Orb is one of the services offered with 3 Group's X-Series mobile data offering, although it can be accessed by any mobile phone with a browser and media player. 3 is charging customers Â£10 ($19) per month to use Orb and another service that lets them watch TV on their mobile phones. Orange customers pay â¬10 ($13) per month for unlimited use of Mon PC Ã  distance.