3 Count: Anonymous Threat

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1: Anonymous Threat Taken Seriously

First off today, members of the group Anonymous, upset about the recently passed legislation in New Zealand to suspend suspected file sharers from the Internet, have threatened to attack the New Zealand Parliament’s website, as they have done with other sites in the past. The government has said that they are taking the threats serious and are taking steps to mitigate against the potential attack. There is no word as to when the attack is scheduled to begin or how serious the threat is.

2: Dropbox Attempts to Kill Open Source Project

Next up today, cloud-based file synchronizing service Dropbox has filed a “mistake” DMCA notice and has attempted to kill an open source project, Dropship, which takes advantage of Dropbox’s hashing system to share files. Dropbox, which synchronizes files between computers via the Web, using a hashing system to prevent it from storing a file more than once. Dropship uses this system to allow Dropbox users to share files using just the hash, having the file appear in both user’s Dropbox folder. Dropbox has requested the project be removed from Github, which its owner did voluntarily, and has removed copies of Dropship stored on their server. Dropbox has admitted a DMCA notice it sent was a “mistake”, caused by a bug in Dropbox’s file removal system, but has continued to try and shut down all mirrors of the software.

3: YouTube Is Said to Be Near a Major Film Rental Deal

Next up today, reports from industry insiders indicate that Sony, Warner Brothers and Universal have all inked deals with Google to rent movies via YouTube, a project that has been in the works for at least two years. According to reports, the prices will be similar to the rental rates on iTunes and other competitors. Currently independent filmmakers already offer such rentals on YouTube for $2 to $4 per viewing.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

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