Court Rejects RIAA’s ‘Making Available’ Piracy Argument

The recording industry’s music piracy fight was dealt a setback Tuesday when a federal judge rejected the RIAA’s “making available” argument in a lawsuit against a husband and wife accused of copyright infringement.

In Atlantic v. Howell, Judge Neil V. Wake denied the labels’ motion for summary judgment in a 17-page decision (PDF), allowing the suit to proceed to trial. The argument–that merely the act of making music files available for download constituted copyright infringement–has been the basis for the Recording Industry Association of America’s legal battle against online music piracy.

The RIAA sued husband and wife Pamela and Jeffrey Howell for copyright infringement in 2006, claiming the couple had used Kazaa to make copyrighted files available for download. In a deposition, Jeffrey Howell admitted loading the file-sharing software onto his computer and that the songs listed in the complaint were for personal use but that he had not placed the files in the program’s shared folder. He said that the recordings were copies made from CDs he owned placed on the computer for personal use and not copies downloaded from Kazaa.

News Source: C|Net News
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Microsoft Device Helps Police Pluck Evidence From Cyberscene

The COFEE, which stands for Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor, is a USB “thumb drive” that was quietly distributed to a handful of law-enforcement agencies last June. Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith described its use to the 350 law-enforcement experts attending a company conference Monday.

The device contains 150 commands that can dramatically cut the time it takes to gather digital evidence, which is becoming more important in real-world crime, as well as cybercrime. It can decrypt passwords and analyze a computer’s Internet activity, as well as data stored in the computer.

It also eliminates the need to seize a computer itself, which typically involves disconnecting from a network, turning off the power and potentially losing data. Instead, the investigator can scan for evidence on site.

News Source: The Seattle Times
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Microsoft Office Labs Looks To Make Office Better

For anyone that has used Microsoft Office for a number of years, one of the biggest changes to occur interface wise was the new ribbon interface in Office 2007. Many realized finding the commands they were used to seeing in one place on older versions of Office was a bit more difficult in the new ribbon interface.

To combat this problem, Microsoft has announced Office Labs, a new service that consists of a small cadre of developers headed up by Chris Pratley. Office Labs plans to test new products and ideas for Microsoft Office that may eventually make it into an Office product or may simply turn out to be a bad idea.

The idea behind Microsoft Office Labs is very similar to Google Labs in that small pieces of code are offered up to users with the caveat that Office Labs offerings are available for the sole purpose of gathering feedback on an idea. To gather feedback, Office Labs will track how the code it offers is used and the code is beta and offered for use at your own risk.

News Source: DailyTech
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18 Features Windows Should Have (But Doesn’t)

Love it or hate it, Microsoft Windows is the world’s most dominant operating system. But when you look at some of the hot features found in competitors such as Linux and Mac OS X, both XP and Vista can seem a little incomplete.

From intuitive interface features like Apple’s application dock and Cover Flow to basic media capabilities such as ISO burning, Windows often falls short on built-in goodies. And some features that other operating systems offer by default– such as 64-bit processing and business-networking tools–require a premium-version license in Windows.

News Source: PC World
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Smaller Firms Will Fare Better During Financial Squeeze

Smaller UK software and IT services companies are best placed to survive the global financial squeeze, with more than half forecasting double-digit growth in 2008.

But larger organisations are less positive about their growth, says software suppliers trade association Intellect, reflecting analyst predictions that the UK software market as a whole is moving toward recession.

According to an online survey of more than 100 mainly small to medium-sized companies, suppliers are challenging gloomy economic projections, with 53% of respondents predicting double-digit growth compared with 49% the previous year.

News Source: ComputerWeekly
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Cool: Windows Server Core - CoreConfigurator GUI

At first look, developing a GUI utility for configuration of Windows Server Core might sound quite absurd. Alas, the whole point of Server Core is a cut down version of Server OS without the overhead of GUI and having some GUI tool to help you configure it would be like walking backwards.

Yet, if you look back at various blogs and articles, you will see that there is a repeating pattern: there is more-or-less predefined set of tasks that you need to do in order to get the installation of Server Core up and running (activation, IP and firewall configuration, domain join, feature installation, configuration of Remote Desktop and etc…). All the tasks are performed at command line, but there is no single utility/interface and for each task you need to know what command to use and what are the parameters required in order to complete the task.

News Source: Bink.nu
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Hey! Ho! Time For Ballmer To Go?

The investment community likes Steve Ballmer. He’s competent, aggressive and occasionally crazy. He’s been at Microsoft’s helm for eight years, during which time the technology landscape has drastically changed several times over. And although Microsoft hasn’t always kept up, it has remained ridiculously profitable.

But Wall Street loves a winner, and what happens when one of the most-feared companies in the world becomes a limp, lame underdog? Nothing good. And it usually starts with the CEO’s ouster.

“This is a company that screwed up a real important product transition, and you’ve got to lay the majority of the blame at the foot of the CEO,” says Paul Kedrosky, a venture capitalist and blogger.

News Source: Wired
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Holes In HP Software Update Threaten Data Leakage

The offending component of the HP Software Update application is the HPeDiag ActiveX control, which checks for and downloads security, firmware, software and driver updates.

The flaw affects any HP PCs, or any PC connected to HP scanners, printers and cameras that contain a version of the update.

Tan Chew Keong from Vuln.sg, who advised HP of the flaw in March, said the vulnerable ActiveX controls are installed as part of HP Software Update version 3.0.2.991 when the user installs the Windows software suite for HP colour LaserJet 2820/2840.

News Source: ZDNet AU
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Microsoft Messenger For Mac 7

Messenger for Mac 7 is an integrated communications client that enables you to communicate with contacts within and outside your organization. Messenger for Mac 7 is a Universal application that is built to run on both PowerPC-based and Intel-based Macs and makes it easy to take advantage of the full power of real-time communications.

News Source: Bink.nu
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Windows XP SP3 Now Available Via Windows Update

Windows XP SP3 is finally here for those that use Windows Update, and here is a direct link to the stand-alone version of SP3 for x86 XP systems (32 bit). Thanks Bink! Neowin reader WindowsNT says: “There won’t be a 64bit version until Windows Server 2003 hits SP3 since they share the same code base.”

Here is an interesting article regarding SP3 performance, ignoring the fact that Vista SP1 is still faster than XP SP2/SP3 users will enjoy a performance boost over SP2. When will people learn that Vista ain’t all bad!

Windows® XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) includes all previously released updates for the operating system. This update also includes a small number of new functionalities, which do not significantly change customers’ experience with the operating system. This white paper summarizes what is new in Windows XP SP3.

News Source: Neowin
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