Surprise: Judge Throws Out Jury’s Awful Copyright Infringement Decision Over Katy Perry Song Techdirt.

Mar 202020
 

Last summer, we wrote about yet another post-Blurred Lines decision, showing that any two random songs that sounded kinda a little similar, might be ripe for a court to find infringing. In this case, it was a Katy Perry song, Dark Horse, that was found to infringe on a little known artist named “Flame,” who had a song called “Joyful Noise.” As we noted at the time, the similarities between the song were simply basic…

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Banks Pressure Health Care Firms to Raise Prices on Critical Drugs, Medical Supplies for Coronavirus The Intercept

Mar 202020
 

In recent weeks, investment bankers have pressed health care companies on the front lines of fighting the novel coronavirus, including drug firms developing experimental treatments and medical supply firms, to consider ways that they can profit from the crisis. The media has mostly focused on individuals who have taken advantage of the market for now-scarce medical and hygiene supplies to hoard masks and hand sanitizer and resell them at higher prices. But the largest voices…

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Hacking the planet with Notcurses LWN.net

Mar 202020
 

Author Nick Black has written an extensive book on the creation of textual user interfaces using the notcurses library; it’s available under the Apache license [PDF]. “Many people asked how such a thing was useful. My usual response was that numerous devices don’t present a bitmap interface, that X11 GUIs run remotely over SSH are effectively unusable, that plenty of machines don’t have a GUI environment installed, that there are obvious applications for large outdoor…

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Dealing With Coronavirus Requires Bold Action. The Democratic Leadership Won’t Take It. Jacobin

Mar 202020
 

The Democrats have an opportunity to push for desperately needed, sweeping economic change in response to coronavirus. Instead, they’re letting themselves be outflanked by Republicans. US Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks to members of the media as Rep. Lizzie Fletcher (D-TX), Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) and Rep. Susie Lee (D-NV) listen at the US Capitol March 13, 2020 in Washington, DC. Alex Wong / Getty There’s nothing better to shift our…

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Charter Countersues Music Companies for Sending Inaccurate DMCA Notices TorrentFreak

Mar 202020
 

Last year, several major music companies sued Charter Communications, one of the largest Internet providers in the US with 22 million subscribers. Helped by the RIAA, Capitol Records, Warner Bros, Sony Music, and others accused Charter of deliberately turning a blind eye to its pirating subscribers. Under US law, providers must terminate the accounts of repeat infringers “in appropriate circumstances” and Charter failed to do so, according to the music labels. Specifically, the ISP is…

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ASCII art + permadeath: The history of roguelike games Ars Technica

Mar 202020
 

Appreciate the game that inspired the genre and its name: Rogue. Roguelike games have grown in popularity over the 40 years the genre has existed, even though they implement ideas that might seem anathema to popular gaming: extreme randomness, ASCII graphics, permadeath, enormous complexity, and more. Yet these days, you can just about sneeze and hit something that has at least been influenced by roguelikes. And so, in the spirit of game genre histories past—we’ve…

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Pervasive digital surveillance of citizens deployed in COVID-19 fight, with rules that send genie back to bottle The Register

Mar 202020
 

Israel is up for it. America, Iran, Thailand may be, too. China is there already, natch Pervasive surveillance through digital technologies is the business model of Facebook and Google. And now governments are considering the web giants’ tools to track COVID-19 carriers for the public good.…

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Bernie Sanders Is Trying to Rescue America’s Frail Democracy Jacobin

Mar 202020
 

The Democratic Party elite insists nothing can be done to mobilize working-class nonvoters. By challenging their cynicism, Bernie Sanders is rendering a profound service to American democracy. Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders participates in a coronavirus public health roundtable with healthcare professionals on March 09, 2020 in Detroit, Michigan. Scott Olson / Getty Let it be said at once: the treatment received by Bernie Sanders in the leading media in the United States and…

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Baking through the pandemic: Sourdough soft pretzels Boing Boing

Mar 202020
 

A few days ago I started a sourdough starter because baking chills me out and provides stuff to eat. I took a look at the old French Press carafe I am using as a container a few hours after the 3rd time I fed said starter. The starter looked like it was READY TO GO but I figured I should probably feed it a few more times just to be sure. I did not, however,…

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