Mission Creek

This really makes me wonder, if more people had the resources to stand up to the RIAA, if the RIAA can ever prove up any of these cases.

Mothers. You’ve got to love them. They give birth to us, feed us, clothe us, teach us to chew with our mouths closed, and go to bat for us against the RIAA.

An Oklahoma mother, Debbie Foster, was accused by the RIAA of copyright infringement back in November 2004, and her daughter Amanda was added to the complaint in July 2005. According to the RIAA, the Internet account paid for by Debbie Foster was used for file sharing, with an unspecified number of songs downloaded.

The music group offered to settle the case for US$5,000, but Foster decided to take her chances in court. She requested that the RIAA provide specifics such as the dates of the alleged downloading and the files involved. The RIAA failed to provide the requested information and Foster filed a motion for summary judgment. In turn, the RIAA decided to cut its losses and asked the court to withdraw its case. The court approved the RIAA’s request, but named Foster the winner and awarded her attorneys fees over the RIAA’s objections.

In his opinion, Judge Lee R. West wrote, “because this Court finds that the plaintiffs’ voluntary dismissal with prejudice services as a complete adjudication of the issues set forth in their complaint and acts as a bar to further action on their claims, the court concludes the matter has been finally adjudicated in the defendant’s favor… [which] represents a judicially sanctioned material alteration in the legal relationship between Deborah Foster and the plaintiffs. Ms. Foster is therefore the prevailing party for purposes of the Copyright Act.”

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full story here

link to decision here

from chicagobusiness.com

McDonald’s Corp. is striking back in the ongoing fast food breakfast war with a new billboard in Wrigleyville.

Designed by ad agency Leo Burnett with the input of an engineer, the billboard features a real sundial whose shadow falls on a different breakfast item each hour until noon, when the shadow of the McDonald’s arches are dead center.

full story here 

from wired.com

Here is an excellent summary of the difficulties Google faces, and insight into some actions. As the internet marketing model moves more mainstream, the technics will become increasingly complex, and most likely, Google will continue to expend an increasing amount of resources to counter their effects. If there ever is the perception that the click advertising model is ripe with fraud, then Google and its revenue stream could come crashing down very quickly. Their reputation, effectiveness, and future promise are the basis for the share value, loose any of those items and the perceived value in the market place will drop like a stone.

Google’s $6 billion-a-year advertising business is at risk because it can’t be sure that anyone is looking at its ads. The problem is called click fraud, and it comes in two basic flavors.

With network click fraud, you host Google AdSense advertisements on your own website. Google pays you every time someone clicks on its ad on your site. It’s fraud if you sit at the computer and repeatedly click on the ad or — better yet — write a computer program that repeatedly clicks on the ad. That kind of fraud is easy for Google to spot, so the clever network click fraudsters simulate different IP addresses, or install Trojan horses on other people’s computers to generate the fake clicks.

full story here

from usatoday.com

Here is another story about a new twist on ‘phising.’

BOSTON — Internet con artists are turning to an old tool — the phone — to keep tricking Web users who have learned not to click on links in unsolicited e-mails.

A batch of e-mails recently making the rounds were crafted to appear as if they came from PayPal, eBay’s online payment service. Like traditional phony “phishing” e-mails, these said there was some problem with the recipients’ accounts.

Phishing e-mails generally instruct recipients to click a link in the e-mail to confirm their personal information; the link actually connects to a bogus site where the data are stolen.

But with Internet users wiser about phishing, the new fake PayPal e-mail included no such link. Instead it told users to call a number, where an automated answering service asked for account information.

Security experts tracking this scam and other instances of “vishing” — short for “voice phishing” — say the frauds are particularly nefarious because they mimic the legitimate ways people interact with financial institutions.

full story here