Cody Taylor

jamie points out news that Charter Communications filed for “prearranged” Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday, primarily to reorganize some of the .7 billion in debt it has accrued. Quoting: “The St. Louis-based company seeks to emerge from bankruptcy as early as the end of summer and doesn’t plan on selling any of its assets to competitors. After Chapter 11, interest costs at Charter, which has never posted a profit since going public in 1999 due to massive debt interest payments, will be cut in half to 0 million a year. The filing restructures about billion of debt at Charter, which is controlled by Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen, but leaves about billion of debt on its books. Allen will control 35 percent of the votes in the reorganized company. In the bankruptcy, Allen’s 51 percent equity stake in the cable operator will be wiped out, along with shares of other stockholders. Allen also holds some debt and preferred stock.”

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TechDirt is reporting that the ACLU has stepped in on behalf of several teens facing the threat of child pornography in Pennsylvania for sharing of nude pics of themselves. Unfortunately for a girl in New Jersey she is facing much more than just a threat as she was arrested yesterday for posting almost 30 explicit pictures of herself on MySpace for her boyfriend to see. “the ACLU has sued the prosecutor on the girls’ behalf, saying he shouldn’t have threatened them with baseless charges — which haven’t yet been filed — if they wouldn’t agree to probation and a counseling program. The prosecutor says he was being “proactive” in offering them a choice, but the ACLU says he shouldn’t be using “heavy artillery” to make the threats. As its attorney points out, teaching kids that this sort of behavior can bring all sorts of unwanted and unforeseen ramifications is a good idea, but threatening them with child-porn charges isn’t the best way to do it.”

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Jane Q. Public writes “At the Federal Trade Commission’s Seattle conference on DRM, FTC Director Mary Engle started off by referencing the Sony rootkit debacle, and said that companies are going to have to get serious about disclosing DRM that may affect the usability of products. She also said that disclosure via the fine print in a EULA is not good enough, and ‘If your advertising giveth and your EULA taketh away, don’t be surprised if the FTC comes calling.’ Transcripts and webcasts are available from the FTC website.” Update 18:13 GMT by SM: as Jane Q. Public was nice enough to diplomatically point out, the webcasts are no longer functioning, but transcripts are still available.

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The AP is reporting that a senator has introduced legislation that would allow struggling newspapers to operate as nonprofits, similar to the way public broadcasting works. “[Sen. Benjamin] Cardin [D-Md.] introduced a bill that would allow newspapers to choose tax-exempt status. They would no longer be able to make political endorsements, but could report on all issues including political campaigns. Advertising and subscription revenue would be tax-exempt, and contributions to support coverage could be tax deductible. Cardin said in a statement that the bill is aimed at preserving local newspapers, not large newspaper conglomerates. … The head of the newspaper industry’s trade group called the bill a positive step.”

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An anonymous reader writes “Who needs crusty old rubbish like the Victorian era or World War II? Instead, an Ofsted report leaked to The Guardian details proposals to teach UK primary school children how to use Wikipedia, Twitter, podcasts and blogs. Presumably they’re already au fait with b3ta and 4chan. And you already can’t get the kids off Bebo without a crowbar.”

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Death Metal writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: “If there were any doubt that open access publishing was setting off a bit of a power struggle, a decision made last week by the MIT faculty should put it to rest. Although most commercial academic publishers require that the authors of the works they publish sign all copyrights over to the journal, Congress recently mandated that all researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health retain the right to freely distribute their works one year after publication (several foundations have similar requirements). Since then, some publishers started fighting the trend, and a few members of Congress are reconsidering the mandate. Now, in a move that will undoubtedly redraw the battle lines, the faculty of MIT have unanimously voted to make any publications they produce open access.”

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Island Dog sends news that shortly after Valve showed off their new anti-piracy methods in Steamworks, Microsoft and Stardock were quick to demonstrate their new, similar technologies as well. All three companies are bending over backwards to say that this is not traditional DRM. Stardock (the company behind the Gamer’s Bill of Rights) calls their system Game Object Obfuscation (Goo), “a tool that allows developers to encapsulate their game executable into a container that includes the original executable plus Impulse Reactor, Stardock’s virtual platform, into a single encrypted file. When a player runs the game for the first time, the Goo’d program lets the user enter in their email address and serial number which associates their game to that person as opposed to a piece of hardware like most activation systems do. Once validated, the game never needs to connect to the Internet again.” Microsoft’s update to Games for Windows Live has similar protections. “You can sign in and play your game on as many systems as possible, but you have to have a license attached to your account. Of course, this only works for online games.”

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We reported yesterday about Apple’s alleged delay in payments to iPhone app developers, but there is more alarming news from iPhone developers about Apple’s refund policies.

A Japanese humanoid robot made its debut this week at a fashion show, although news reports noted that its smooth walk still didn’t measure up to the stride of a human supermodel. HRP-4C represents just the latest robot attempting to achieve bipedal walking, which remains a distinctly human feature in comparison to most animals…

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes “After receiving a Rule 11 Sanctions Motion (PDF) in a Houston, Texas, case, UMG Recordings v. Lanzoni, the RIAA lawyers thought better of proceeding with the case, and agreed to voluntarily dismiss the case ‘with prejudice’, which means it is over and cannot be brought again. The defendant’s motion papers detailed some of the RIAA’s litigation history against innocent individuals, such as Capitol Records v. Foster and Atlantic Recording v. Andersen, and argued that the awarding of attorneys fees in those cases has not sufficiently deterred repetition of the misconduct, so that a stronger remedy — Rule 11 sanctions — is now called for.”

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