Inside View from Ireland

Let the individual infringe

GMSV -- A federal appeals court has ruled that distributors of peer-to-peer software cannot be held liable for the copyright infringements of their users. This is a major setback for Senator Orrin Hatch, co-author of the INDUCE Act, a poisonous piece of legislation that would make technology that might enable copyright infringement illegal.

Kennedy the terrorist

HE IS AMONG the most recognizable politicians in the United States, but liberal lawmaker Ted Kennedy said that even he has fallen victim to the tightened air security of the terror-conscious, post-9/11 era.

The Massachusetts Democratic senator has endured weeks of inconvenience after his name ended up on a watch list barring persons deemed to pose a threat to civil aviation or national security from air travel. Kennedy talked about his plight in a hearing with a Senate subcommittee. The Associated Press picks up the story.

Second-hand surprises

DUBLIN -- Heads-up to those flogging their used cameraphones. When you delete an image, you don't remove the content from your phone. You just allow another image to overwrite all or part of it. We've resurrected some compromising photos from a few 21st birthday celebrations. I suspect there will be a brisk trade in fringe photo lists among fetish photographers.

Pictures in galleries

ONE OF THE MOST unfortunate things about the Irish art scene is the prohibition against taking pictures in many galleries. That policy hurts artists. Could you imagine the truncated reach of the Parts with Appeal exhibit if it was not snapped and blogged?

Roots of mBoom in Cork

EXAMINER -- One of the most reliable ways of measuring the strength of the Irish economy is to track the strength of the telecommunications sector. In Ireland, that usually means when Motorola innovates, the economy percolates.

Blog addicts

If you assume that blogs can be addicitive, it's fair to assume that the most addictive ones are also written by blog addicts. I skimmed through my Bloglines subscriptions and fingered those most likely to be blog addicts.

Motorola E398 Review

MOTOROLA -- I have to sit through miles of crap music coming from tinny speakers on other passengers' mobile phones so it is wonderful listiening to the quality stereo sound coming from the Motorola E-398. Its powerful stereo speakers deliver an exciting and loud performance. Sound is very important for the youth market and phone marketers know they have to appeal to this market segment. What is very important to realise is that the youth feature set is different than the business feature set. My 13 year old neighbourhood expert told me this. ("I wouldn't want a boring business phone. They're boring.") Right so. What we're looking for is youth design and lifestyle functions. So the text function has to be spot-on (good tactile key experience) and things like quality speakers for playback rock the world.

Farewell Flake Girl

GUARDIAN -- As part of a mass re-branding of all of its products, Cadbury is to banish the crumbliest, flakiest chocolate's long-serving emblem--a bubble-bathing saucepot, somewhat over-fond of her phallic chocolate tret. In her stead comes a woman chatting with a puma, who represents inner happiness. Ah yet, yet again it's that age-old conundrum: puma or fellatio?

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Please tell Laura Barton who writes "Sidelines" for The Guardian.
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Three views on microcontent

MING -- Flemming Funch gives two takes on microcontent and my news aggregator adds another perspective.

Olympic Links

IF DAYPOP CITATIONS are anything to go by, the hopelessly out-of-touch Olympics 2004 linkage policy has been steamrolled by noncompliance and Googlebombed for effect. The organisers "have established a procedure for parties wishing to introduce a link to the ATHENS 2004 website on their site. By introducing a link to the ATHENS 2004 official Website on your site you are agreeing to comply with the ATHENS 2004 Website General Terms and Conditions."