Cody Taylor

Reservoir Hill writes “The NYTimes reported in their June 13, 1897 edition that ‘Canadian pirates’ were flooding the country with spurious editions of the latest copyrighted popular songs. ‘They use the mails to reach purchasers, so members of the American Music Publishers Association assert, and as a result the legitimate music publishing business of the United States has fallen off 50 per cent in the past twelve months’ while the pirates published 5,000,000 copies of songs in just one month. The Times added that pirates were publishing sheet music at 2 cents to 5 cents per copy although the original compositions sold for 20 to 40 cents per copy. But ‘American publishers had held a conference’ and a ‘committee had been appointed to fight the pirates’ by getting the ‘Post Office authorities to stop such mail matter because it infringes the copyright law.’ Interestingly enough the pirates of 1897 worked in league with Canadian newspapers that published lists of songs to be sold, with a post office box address belonging to the newspaper itself. Half the money went to pay the newspapers’ advertising while the other half went to the pirates who sent the music by mail.” The AMPA never dreamed of suing their customers, though.

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We discussed Microsoft making IE8 a critical update a while back; but then the indication was that the update gave users a chance to choose whether or not to install it. Now I Don’t Believe in Imaginary Property writes in with word that the update not only does not ask, but it makes IE the default browser. “Microsoft has a new tactic in the browser wars. They’re having the ‘critical’ IE8 update make IE the default browser without asking. Yes, you can change it back, but it doesn’t ask you if you want IE8 or if you want it as the default browser, it makes the decisions for you. Opera might have a few more complaints to make to the EU antitrust board after this, but Microsoft will probably be able to drag out the proceedings for years, only to end up paying a small fine. If you have anyone you’ve set up with a more secure alternative browser, you might want to help check their settings after this.”

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It’s the most secure distribution version of Windows XP ever produced by Microsoft: More than 600 settings are locked down tight, and critical security patches can be installed in an average of 72 hours instead of 57 days. The only problem is, you have to join the Air Force to get it.

On May 5th, general users will have access to an entire year of Microsoft’s brand new operating system, Windows 7, for free! It is already available to download for MSDN and TechNet subscribers.

Hana table by Japanese designer Shige Hasegawa consists of five interlocking plywood legs that support the glass top without any screws or nails.

Forget about the flu, let’s get back to outrage over corporate greed. This EMC exec earns M in three years, goes to work for a competitor, then sues his old company to get out of the non-compete clause. Yeesh.

As cool and advanced as the iPhone is, it still can’t do a lot of things that “lesser” phones can. The next version of the iPhone OS will deliver many of these features, and more. Of particular interest: Indications are the iPhone OS 3.0 will enable not just the capture of video, but the editing of it as well.

portscan writes “OpenBSD 4.5 has been released. New and extended platforms include sparc64, and added device drivers. OpenSSH 5.2 is included, plus a number of tweaks, bugfixes, and enhancements. See the announcement page for a full list. OpenBSD is a security-oriented UNIX/BSD operating system.” As per OpenBSD tradition, of course there’s a song.

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Twitter, the microblogging phenomenon that’s got everyone hooked from Stephen Fry to Britney Spears, can sometimes lead to big gaffes – as MP Sion Simon found out the hard way. Simon tweeted: “I’m not saying Susan Boyle caused swine flu. I’m just saying that nobody had swine flu, she sang on TV, people got swine flu.

Google has launched a video campaign to promote its Chrome browser, which is every bit as innovative as the comic-book it commissioned for the browser’s launch. The 11 short videos guide you through just what Chrome is capable of, and even have their own YouTube channel. The films (mostly animations) are all under two minutes long and attempt to