“Grand Theft Childhood” Authors: Kids Who DON’T Play Videogames are at Risk

Grand Theft Childhood is a new book written by Dr. Lawrence Kutner and Dr. Cheryl Olson, a husband-and-wife team who co-founded the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media. In the video above, Drs. Kutner and Olson talk with X-Play’s Adam Sessler about some of the findings from the study documented in their book.

Read on for more (and to see the video at a larger size)…

Update on Creative Labs’ PR Nightmare

Even more on Creative Labs’ recent mistake. Read on for details…

Creative Labs’ Forums Filling With “Dear John” Messages

As you may have read in this article, Creative Labs have asked a programmer who goes by the handle “Daniel_K” on their forums to remove a thread in which he posted his own software that make features on their older Sound Blaster Audigy cards available under Windows Vista (they work under earlier versions of Windows, […]

Creative Labs: Where No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

When driver incompatibilities with Windows Vista caused Creative Labs’ Audigy series of sound cards to lose some of their functionality, one “Daniel_K” stepped up and wrote some workaround software that restored those missing features. You’d think that this act — essentially crowdsourcing at its best — would be applauded by the fine folks at Creative. You be wrong.

Read on for more about how Creative did not let a good deed go unpunished.

Taliban Wants Mobile Phones Shut Off at Night

The Taliban wants mobile phone networks shut off at night. It’s less about their war on all things fun and more about their belief that American soldiers and rebels within Afghanistan are using mobile phones to track down remaining Taliban members. Afghanistan’s 4 mobile phone operators were told to expect their towers and offices to […]

Facebook Asked to Remove the “Scrabulous” Game by Scrabble’s Rights-Holders

The toy companies Hasbro (who own the rights to Scrabble in the U.S. and Canada) and Mattel (who own the rights to Scrabble for everywhere else in the world) have asked Facebook to remove the “Scrabulous” application as it infringes on their copyright for the game…

Facebookers Playing Fast and Loose with Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act

For the second time in a week, a group of Canadian Facebook users broke the law by publishing the names of youths charged under Canada’s Youth Criminal Justice Act…

Gag Orders in a Facebook Age

“For 24 hours, newspapers, TV and radio stations were legally forbidden to release Stefanie Rengel’s name [a teenage girl in Toronto allegedly murdered by a teenage boy, allegedly at the request of his girlfriend, also a teen], but on the Internet tributes to the slain teen – and the names of her accused killers – […]

Canada’s Copyright Czar Dismissed for Being a Little Too Cosy with Movie Industry Lobbyist

Canada Rocked by Copyright Scandal, reads the Inquirer headline. Speaking as a Canadian, I’m not rocked. Slightly tickled with schadenfreude perhaps, but not rocked.
Here’s the story: Patricia Neri, the Director General of Copyright Policy at Canadian Heritage has been removed from her position for a conflict of interest — inappropriate involvement with Doug […]

Is it Illegal to Make My Own Ringtones from Music I Bought? (No. Mostly.)

That’s the answer, courtesy of an Engadget interview with Apple VP Phil Schiller. Strangely enough, some thanks goes to those enemies of fair use, the RIAA:

Well, the RIAA wanted to be able to distribute ringtones of its artists without having to pay them big money to do so (surprised?), and it won a decision last […]

Richard M. Stallman: Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks

I attended last night’s presentation at the Mississauga Campus of the University of Toronto featuring Mr. Free Software himself, Richard M. Stallman. The presentation was titled Copyright vs. Community in the Age of Computer Networks.
Here’s a brief abstract of the presentation, courtesy of Greg Wilson’s blog:

Copyright developed in the age of the printing press, and […]

Big Content 1, Cablevision 0, Apple ?

New York cable operator Cablevision has been trying to roll out network DVR service to their customers for the last year:
In a move that could ignite a major debate about consumer “fair use” of TV programming, Cablevision Systems will unveil plans to test a service that gives cable subscribers the ability to record and time-shift […]

Kiss Your Open WiFi Goodbye if the RIAA Gets Their Way

Back in July 2003, someone who read the Wired article titled Giving Sharers Ears Without Faces wrote to our pal (and former boss) Cory Doctorow over at Boing Boing:
One issue that I have not seen addressed in the RIAA vs. P2P front relates to the potential for an unsupecting home PC user who just happens […]