The Morning Reboot Friday February 9

The Morning Reboot: Following Steve Jobs’ call on record companies to drop DRM, EMI is reportedly considering the move, but Warner Bros think’s it’s crazy talk. Powerset, a search engine startup, has licensed “a broad portfolio of patents and technology” Xerox’s Palo Alta Research Center. Powerset is working on a “natural language” search engine which […]

Any_key_3The Morning Reboot:

  • Following Steve Jobs' call on record companies to drop DRM, EMI is reportedly considering the move, but Warner Bros think's it's crazy talk.

  • Powerset, a search engine startup, has licensed “a broad portfolio of patents and technology” Xerox's Palo Alta Research Center. Powerset is working on a “natural language” search engine which the company hopes will one day rival Google.

  • Ars Technica has a nice article examining Steve Jobs' claim that licensing Fairplay DRM would make it less secure. Ars concludes: “none of the hacks to date on FairPlay or Microsoft's DRM stem from secrets being leaked. The same is true for the majority of DRM hacks out there, including the most recent hacks on AACS.”

  • The Electronic Frontier Foundation wants to know if you were wronged by Viacom's recent DMCA take-down attack on Google.

    “Among the 100,000 videos targeted for takedowns was a home movie shot in a BBQ joint, a film trailer by a documentarian, and a music video (previously here) about karaoke in Singapore. None of these contained anything owned by Viacom. For its part, Viacom has admitted to ‘no more than' 60 mistakes, so far. Yet each mistake impacts free speech, both of the author of the video and of the viewing public.

    Has your video been removed from YouTube based on a bogus Viacom takedown? If so, contact information@eff.org —we may be able to help you directly or help find another lawyer who can. In this situation, as in so many others, EFF will work to make sure that copyright claims don't squelch free speech.