NBC to Offer Free Downloads of some Primetime Shows

The article i read this week comes from the BNA Internet Law News article talking about the recent idea for the NBC network. The popular television network NBC is going to start offering limited free downloads of some certain prime time shows such as "Heroes" and "The Office". They say it will help "expand the digital distribution of their programs" and they also think it will help compete with Apple's iTunes store. They say that this service will be available to anyone using Microsoft Windows software. This program for downloading prime time shows will be available for a week after the show is aired on television, but then the digital file will expire. NBC, like many other networks, already has many of their shows available for purchase permanently and has streams of some of their shows free on their website. But with new technology and new business models NBC is trying to give viewers more options for watching these shows.

I think in general this is a good idea. Then I was thinking, isn't this one of the reasons that there is this writers strike which is taking place now. All of the writers for these big networks such as NBC are all on strike and no new shows are being wrote. One of the reasons these writers are on strike is because the writers don't receive any of the money for shows downloaded over the Internet. This is exactly what NBC is trying to do. That's why in general I think it is a good idea to try to expand viewers options for watching some of these shows but at the same time I feel that this will further extend the writers strike that is currently taking place.

Targeted e-mail attacks spoof DOJ, business group

This article from the November 21st issue of the BNA Internet Law News talks about how two e-mail attacks were launched 2 weeks ago targeting different corporations. The first attack was sent to about 400 people in different institutions and seemed as though it was a complaint from the U.S. Department of Justice sent specifically to that individual. A second attack just a few hours later was similar but claimed to the coming from the Better Business Bureau. The attachments in these e-mails would send out a Trojan virus and take over their system. A security analyst claims that once these were installed that they could use that machine for basically anything. These e-mails are very hard to detect because they seem to be coming from legitimate sources. One big issue with these are the number of attacks has increased drastically in the past few years.

I feel like this is a big issue. If these are hard to detect and hard to trace back to the source that they came from, how do we know that people aren't extracting valuable resources that they can actually hurt out country. For instance if a terrorist group sends out on of these attacks and is able to take over some of our systems, how do we know that they won't receive valuable information that is supposed to be confidential. This case may be a little extreme, but in these attacks people's identities may also be taken which is a serious issue. I feel the United States need to come up with another smart system that will be able to detect and track any of these viruses.

Internet Gambling Disbute could Cost U.S. Billions

This article from the November 21st issue of the BNA Internet Law Highlights talks about how two little Carribean nations of Antigua and Barbuda are trying to sanction the United States for Billions of dollars because the United States are trying to withdraw for a World Trade Union accord recognizing the legality of Internet gambling. Antigua is seeking sanctions of about $3.4 billion and possibly may they may claim more by becoming a harbor of for pirated material as well, for such things such as pirated music and musical recordings. If this were the case they would try to sanction the United States for almost $100 billion. The United States argues that this would not happen.

I find this outrageous. I think it is crazy that a small nation would try to sanction the United States for this much money just for withdrawing from a World Trade Union. The reason the United States is withdrawing is to try to prevent Internet gambling which is seen as a serious issue in our country. I feel that unless the United States has some sort of contract with this union, (which it doesn't say in the article) that they should be able to withdraw whenever they feel. The United States are doing it to protect our country in certain ways and I feel we shouldn't be penalized for it.

Radio host tried to lure girl for sex

The article I read was about a sexual predator on the Internet. The article told the story of a radio personality who tried to lure a 14 year old girl into having sex. Little did he know, the 14 year old girl he was talking to in the chat room was really an undercover detective. Apparently they talked for two days, then they decided to meet up. Mr Fox, the radio station personality showed up at the place they decided to meet at 9:30pm with a box of condoms, beer, and quilts covering his floor in his SUV. He was arrested on the spot and Mr. Fox didn't argue at all.

This story completely disgusted me. I suppose i hear it a bunch how there are a ton of sexual predators all around the Internet, including myspace and websites such as those. But after reading that article its disgusting, the man knew she was 14 years old. That's awful! Parents should be keeping a closer eye on who their children are talking to on the Internet. Also, I think that is good that there are a lot of detectives online to try and trap these sexual predators because clearly it is an issue and it needs to be prevented as much as possible.

UK Court Orders Disclosure of Blog Poster Identities

I read an article from the BNA Internet Law news about how people have been keeping their identities hidden on the Internet. The article talks about how people have been posting inappropriate things on the Internet but making them anonymous. Someone can create a website or a blog and keep it anonymous from others finding out who created it. This has been a problem as of late because people have been pushing the limit on what they are actually saying. For example the article talks about some "disgruntled fans from Sheffield vented their dissatisfaction with the football clubs bigwigs in anonymous Internet postings. What was posted what completely inappropriate and the owner of the site was forced to reveal their identity and will now face expensive libel claims.

In my opinion, this is a problem that needs to be fixed. It worked out in this case because because the owner of the website was forced to reveal his identity, but that may not be true in all cases. There could be more serious things that people may post or say on the Internet that should be regulated. If someone posts something that poses any type of threat or about an issue that is completely inappropriate, there should be consequences. Just because people can stay anonymous doesn't give people the right to pose threats to others just because they don't think people will find out who they really are. Hopefully this problem can be resolved in the near future.

Candian Copyright Reform Likely to Follow U.S. Model

Earlier this month Canada suggested that they should adopt a new U.S. style amendment to improve their copyright law. People are arguing that this will improve the "protection of culture and intellectual rights in Canada," while others argue that it will harm some consumers if stricter laws are enforced. There are critics in Canada that are also arguing that the copyright laws that Canada have in place now do not protect certain peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa and Bittorrent from circumventing their copyrighted files to different users illegally. People are not sure if this will be passed because recently, in 2005, Canada tried passing a copyright bill which was rejected.

As the article advances it basically just gives many different opinions of many different critics whether this law will be affective or if it will be worth passing. In my opinion I feel that the law should be passed because the illegal distribution of copyrighted materials is a big problem and should be stopped. There are many record companies and many movie distributers that are being hurt because the copyright laws are not strict enough. Some people in the article argue that it isn't the case that the law in place now isn't harsh enough, but it is that it isn't enforced enough. If this is the case then Canada really has to do a better job enforcing the law because this is a serious issue.

Major Pirate Website Shut Down

www.tv-links.co.uk was a website which was one the most used pirated movie websites. The website featured many TV shows such as 24 that people could watch online for no cost. After the investigation of the site, there were raids and arrests of the operators of the site for copyright infringement. Visitors of the site could also view movies that were hand recorded in cinemas and put online. People were able to access these movies online days after they were put in theaters. This was the first major target in a campaign to crack down on web piracy.

In my opinion this is a good step to take towards cracking down on web piracy. There are an websites on the Internet today that are breaking copyright laws. It is good that a campaign has begun to crack down on this. From my experience, I know about 4 websites where I can watch nearly unlimited TV shows and multiple movies for free. I know these sites are most likely not legitimate websites, but they are still in existence. With all of these websites still in existence it is hurting the television industry along with the movie industry because people are a lot less likely to go out and buy a movie if they already have access to it at any time.