You’d think that with the passage of the Higher Education Act, which forces colleges and universities in the United States to block P2P and promote authorized music stores, that companies like Napster would have it made - obviously, that’s not the case.It is starting to look like Napster may once again become a symbol in the copyright debates. A report out of the LA Business Journal points to Napster’s current struggle to stay afloat in the business world. According to the report, Napster executives are now open to the idea of selling off the company. From the report:The Los Angeles-based company has retained UBS Investment Bank as an advisor, according to Bloomberg.

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There’s been quite a lot of evidence to support the idea that copyright term extension in Europe is a bad idea, yet the people tasked to determine whether or not it’s a good idea seems to simply think otherwise. Many suggest that the evidence has been ignored in favor of lobbying.The Open Rights Group reported on a letter sent from Professor Bernt Hugenholtz, a commission adviser, to the Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. The letter essentially asks why the evidence arguing against copyright term extension has been, by and large, ignored.The term has been recommended to be extended by 45 years.

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Protests against over-reaching surveillance powers isn’t just for Europeans anymore - the campaign appears to be expected to make it all the way to the United States among other countries.After an unusually long time without announcements, EDRI posted observations of the ‘Freedom, Not Fear’ campaign. The report contains the following:After last year’s demonstration for democracy and civil rights, which was the largest in Germany in 20 years with over 15 000 participants, protesters in several countries will, for the first time simultaneously, take to the streets to demonstrate for their freedom. Currently, 15 countries have announced their participation in the international action day on 11 October. Such unanimous protests are mainly due to the ongoing shift of politicians to push through negotiations on surveillance and control measures behind closed doors.

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Includes amount of data both downloaded as well as uploaded. Comcast has formally announced that beginning on October 1, 2008, it will “…amend its Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and establish a specific monthly data usage threshold of 250 GB/month per account for all residential customers.

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Programmer from the UK makes an earnest attempt to learn what drives the trend with “zero ulterior motive.”Too often we see game developers have knee jerk reaction to piracy. Rather then try to learn what drives the trend and adjust their business model accordingly they instead resort to lawsuits like the recent effort by Atari, Topware Interactive, Reality Pump, Techland and Codemaster to sue as many as 25,000 accused game pirates in the UK. Cliff Harris, a 38 yo Game Designer and programmer from the UK is trying to forge a different path by trying to make sense of it all. “I want to know why people pirate my games,” he writes in a post on his blog.

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Illinois State University launches new website promoting legal alternatives to illegal file-sharing after it restricts their use on campus networks thanks to recent passage of the Higher Education Authorization Act. The revamped Higher Education Act (HEA) was signed into law by President Bush a few weeks ago on August 14th and already we are starting to see some of the effects the legislation will have on colleges and universities throughout the country. Illinois State University, no doubt in time for the new Fall semester, has decided to begin prohibiting the use of P2P and file-sharing applications and services on the campus network. Erik Christiansen, a junior business teacher education major at ISU, noted that he “..

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Must detail how it did it, how it plans to stop the practice by the end of the year, and also how it intends to manage network traffic in the future. It was just recently that the FCC found Comcast in violation of the agency’s principles for electively targeting and throttling the connection speeds of a single application - BitTorrent - as part of its overall efforts in managing network traffic. "We consider whether Comcast, a provider of broadband Internet access over cable lines, may selectively target and interfere with connections of peer-to-peer (P2P) applications under the facts of this case," reads the FCC’s ruling. "Although Comcast asserts that its conduct is necessary to ease network congestion, we conclude that the company’s discriminatory and arbitrary practice unduly squelches the dynamic benefits of an open and accessible Internet and does not constitute reasonable network management."The FCC even went so far as to say that Comcast "compounded the harm" to its customers by refusing to divulge it’s throttling practices.

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Notes that “It didn’t work for the music industry,” and that there are better ways of resolving this within our power as developers and publishers.”Recent plans by five of the world’s top game developers to sue up to 25,000 accused file-sharers have led to some within the video game industry to speak out and criticize their efforts. In an interview with Eurogamer at the Leipzig Games Convention, EA Sports boss Peter Moore said he think it’s a bad idea to “punish your consumer,” noting that the plan “didn’t work for the music industry” and in no way does he wish to repeat their mistakes. I’m not a huge fan of trying to punish your consumer. Albeit these people have clearly stolen intellectual property, I think there are better ways of resolving this within our power as developers and publishers.

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Get real-time search results from 8 of the most popular BitTorrent tracker sites around.BitTorrent has forever changed the way people share files online. The only downside about searching for torrents is the fact that there are so many places to look. Sometimes it can be tough to find specific things quickly or at all. Enter Usniff.

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It seems that one political party in New Zealand has some bold plans for the future of New Zealand’s technology sector.There’s an interesting report over on Stuff which suggests that one of the political parties of New Zealand, namely the Green Party, is pushing for bold plans for New Zealand’s technological future. The policy as released by MP Metiria Turei says that, among other things, it would exclude software from the patent process and investigate the possibility of a free municipally owned wireless network.The report suggests that this move follows up an earlier move to get government desktop computers moved over from Microsoft’s Windows to open sourced solution Linux. From the report:Centre systems manager Jason Horncy says it is “very satisfied” with its decision in 2003 to install Linux on the 120 desktop PCs in its 25 regional offices and on most PCs in its head office.

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