The helpful guide that McDonald’s just published offering practical tips on how its workers can subsist on poverty wages is full of ingenious ideas: Get a second job! Don’t squander money on trifles like heat and health care! Yet, it is missing one key suggestion: Apply for food stamps and other government assistance immediately so McDonald’s can keep the corporate welfare flowing.

The mere existence of the “Practical Money Skills Budget Journal” disseminated by America’s most prominent fast-food brand offers the latest evidence that national thinking about economic matters has descended into the intellectual equivalent of dumpster-diving. We are dispensing with complicated yet necessary conversations about how to invest in productive enterprises that might deliver millions of good paychecks. We seem politically incapable of lifting the minimum wage though — as I have argued here before — that would amount to a jolt of economic stimulus benefiting everyone.

Instead, we have pundit David Brooks inventing fantastical reasons why able-bodied men have supposedly lost their appetite for work -– it’s just not macho enough anymore, what with all those microwave ovens in office kitchens.

And now we have a major employer of the working poor arming its employees with this handy new survival kit: a line item budget that can help them survive on less than $8 an hour and still sleep indoors.

Huawei is going on the aggressive against politicians and critics, claiming that they've subjected the company to racist treatment and slander because of its Chinese heritage. Both the United States and the United Kingdom have subjected Huawei — a major manufacturer of networking equipment — to additional scrutiny over concerns that it could covertly assist state-sponsored hacking from China. There's been a lot of talk, but Huawei doesn't think there's been a lot of evidence. "Someone says they got some proof of some sort of threat? Okay," William Plummer, vice president of external affairs at Huawei, said in a statement to The Verge. "Then put up. Or shut up."

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It probably won't hurt, and it could help, says Scott Gavura at Science Based Medicine. But it's also worth taking a closer look at the nuance behind probiotics, too. These are promising medications and a fascinating field of research, but educating yourself on what we do know and what we don't (especially when it comes to purity of various products) is a really good idea.

Joss Whedon fans, you might want to go grab some duct tape. Got it? Now roll about eight feet of it around your head, just in case it explodes with shiny rainbows at this next bit of news: there's an official Firefly game coming to Android. Not a fan project. Not some promotional minigame. A real title based on the cult classic sci-fi TV show and movie. That sound you're hearing now is a million Browncoats shouting with unrestrained glee.

• [New Game] Kairosoft's Cafeteria Nipponica Hits The Play Store – Micromanage Your Own Restaurant Like Never Before
• Da Vinci THD To Be The First Full Tegra 3 Game, Bringing A Dynamic Online FPS Experience To Your Quad-Core Device
• Steve Jobs, 56, Co-Founder Of Apple Computer, Has Died
• New In The Android Market: Guns'n'Glory By HandyGames - Time To Go Rob Some Settlers!

[Big Damn Heroes] Official Firefly Online Game Coming To Android In 2014 was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Third-party messaging apps now have access to Google Voice; CyanogenMod to include 'Babel' soon

Likely best known for his work on all things ClockworkMod, Android developer Koush has been working for the past few weeks on a tool he currently calls "Babel" to integrate Google Voice into third-party messaging apps. Following a development cycle with some ups and downs, he has decided to completely open-source the project for anyone to use and implement. Babel (although this is only a temporary name) works alongside code in the latest nightly builds of CyanogenMod to seamlessly integrate your Google Voice messages into the stock Messaging app.

Nothing is perfect just yet, but the latest versions of the Babel apk along with the latest nightly builds of CM give users a relatively seamless integration option for the stock messaging app after a little bit of hackery to get things set up just right. In his latest post on Google+, he notes that it is going through review to be included in CM completely as well, which should cut down on the hassle for users to get things working.

The hope is that going forward more messaging apps will take advantage of this code to integrate Google Voice using Babel (or whatever it is called going forward) as the back-end. Enterprising developers among us can take a look at everything available on GitHub at the source link below.

Source: +Koushik Dutta (Google+); GitHub

Keep up with your top stories from any device running Chrome

Pocket (formerly known as Read It Later) has carved out quite a market for itself as a great bookmarking and reading service, and is expanding the number of clients available today with a new Chrome app. The new app is far more than just a web page, and actually opens properly in its own window to display your queue of unread stories. You can browse through stories in either a list or grid format, with a nice view of the article title, headline image and source name. You can also sort by articles, videos or images and use the universal search to find things if you need.

As always, there is a great Pocket app for Android available that syncs everything with your account across your devices, including when you're signed into Chrome. You can download the Android app from the Play Store at the link above, and grab the Chrome app from the Chrome Web Store at the source link below.

Download: Pocket

'You wanna know how powerful I am?'

We’ve seen pictures of Jamie Foxx in his full Electro get-up for The Amazing Spider-Man 2. But as Comic-Con kicks off, Sony is ramping things up, putting out a short teaser showing the man himself talking to some off-screen scientist as he’s strapped into machinery.

It’s a really quick burst of the film, presumably teasing more footage to come when the panel happens on Friday, but it’s enough to give a tease of the villain.

The plot finds Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) dealing with bad guys and juggling his newfound superhero world with his usual life – not the least of which is his ongoing relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone).

So he’s naturally not best pleased when, in trying to dig further into his past for clues about his real nature, he also has to deal with the arrival of two new potential enemies – Electro and Rhino, played by Paul Giamatti. There’s also time for meeting back up with an old friend, in the shape of Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), whose father (Chris Cooper) runs Oscorp.

We’ll likely see more once the panel happens on Friday, so watch this space for more. But if you’re desperate for any nugget of info on the Spider-sequel, Felicity Jones gave a rather spoilery interview about her recent work to View London. If you’re trying to stay pure, skip the next paragraph and content yourself with waiting for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 to arrive on April 18 next year.

Jones was asked about her character, and while she stayed coy about her name in the film, she did let the following info slip: "It’s all quite shrouded in secrecy, but I’m the Goblin’s girlfriend - I’m in a relationship with him, and his accomplice. I’m on the dark side...". She’s been rumoured as Black Cat, so this seems to be pointing even more towards that idea... 

One of the more frustrating parts of buying a personal computer comes when you fire it up and realize that the OEM has larded it up with storage-clogging bloatware that degrades your PC's performance. However, startup Jumpshot thinks it has the perfect solution in the form of its USB stick-delivered software that can comb through your PC for little-used software that nevertheless takes up significant resources when you turn on your machine. Once it discovers this apparent bloatware, it removes its icons from your home screen and prevents it from automatically running whenever you switch on your PC. Jumpshot got its start last year as a Kickstarter project that received funding of more than five times its original funding goal.

With Google's chitchat breakfast event with Sundar Pichai coming up next week, speculation has been rampant that a new Nexus 7 could be imminent. Just like clockwork, the leaks are beginning to flow. A new video purports to show the second edition of Google's 7-inch slate, and it's accompanied by some snapshots.

The device certainly looks legit with the sideways Nexus branding on the back, matching a previous leak. An Asus logo is also clearly visible at the bottom.

• [CES 2013] Vizio Announces New 7" (Tegra 3) And 10" (Tegra 4) Tablets Running Stock Android
• Galaxy Tab 3 Pre-Orders Available At Samsung, Amazon, Best Buy, And Other Retailers, Devices Ship July 7
• [Deal Alert] Save $50 On The Xperia Tablet S, Plus Score A Free 'Casual Cover' When You Buy Directly From Sony ($110 Total Savings)
• Reminder Tip: Developer Options Are Hidden In Android 4.2, Here's How To Find Them

The New Nexus 7 Breaks Cover, Allegedly Spotted In Leaked Video And Pics was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

All Access makes its first expansion outside the United States

Folks down in Australia and New Zealand will be the first outside of the U.S. to get Google's latest subscription music service, Google Play Music All Access. An update to a Google Play support document today lists the two countries as having the new service available, with little else to go on. Presumably the appropriate deals have been made to offer the entire music collection available here in the U.S. to folks down under. All Access seems to be pretty well-received -- we're certainly enjoying it -- so it's great to see the service expand outside of the states.

Hopefully this paves the way for additional countries to get the service in the coming months, as over a dozen countries currently have access to the basic user-upload Google Play Music features.

Source: Google Play Support

I'm not a big fan of AC. It's not an ideological thing for me (although it's hard for me to not be aware of how much energy those systems draw). Instead, it's mostly about comfort. Air conditioned spaces usually feel too cold to me, and too stuffed up. I'd prefer to have the fresh air and the open windows. Of course, there are some days when that's not exactly comfortable, either. Treehugger has a slideshow that can help. It's filled with tips for changing your lifestyle and your home to make things more comfortable at higher temperatures, reducing the number of days when you actually need the AC. This isn't all stuff you can do in a day — for instance, it will take a while to get a good shade tree outside your house — but the suggestions are interesting, and helpful, and most of them are focused cheap and simple, rather than high-tech and costly.

Invites are going out for a Google event in San Francisco, Calif. next Wednesday, July 24. Dubbed "breakfast with Sundar Pichai," the event will likely cover new developments in Android or Chrome, the two product areas Pichai now oversees. The event will also be livestreamed on YouTube for those who can't be there.

On the Android side, we're expecting the arrival of a new OS version — version 4.3 — and possibly a new ASUS-built Nexus tablet along with it. There's also the possibility that the newly-Googlified Motorola could drop in to show off its new Moto X handset.

Whatever happens, we'll be live from San Francisco next Wednesday to bring you full coverage.

New apps need lovin’ too, right? Every day there are thousands of new entries on the Google Play store, but many go unnoticed and never receive the attention they deserve. We’ve shown in the past that this community can discover great apps and launch them to new heights. Our weekly column Fresh Meat highlights new apps with less than 100k installs. Browse our new Android app picks below and let us know which ones you enjoy.

Pimp Your Screen

Description: Pimp Your Screen is a perfect app to customize the look of your Android device by giving you an exclusive collection of specially designed widgets and cool HD wallpapers. With Pimp Your Screen you can make your phone or tablet truly personal and unique. Wallpaper section includes:

- High resolution Android wallpapers and background images designed exclusively for your Android phone or tablet.
- Wallpaper adjustments: Normal/No Scroll/Widescreen.
- New and Popular tabs; check the new backgrounds and popular wallpapers for Android.

Pixuru

Description:

Ready to order high quality wall art right from your Android device? With Pixuru you can order your best Android image on canvas, wood, metal or framed print from wherever you are in the world. We promise it will look great at any size. 100% guarantee. We have free shipping in the US, fast two-day turn around and the highest quality printing on the market.

Open Championship 2013

Description: The Open Championship app for 2013 will bring you live scoring, video highlights, latest news, weather updates and Championship statistics for golf’s oldest major at Muirfield. Combined with an interactive course guide, player profiles, live radio and video highlights the app will bring you close to the action.

Pencil Sketch Special

Description: An easy-to-use app to make you an artist by creating pencil sketch of your photos. You can pick a picture from your gallery or capture one from your camera to generate the sketch. Both black-white and color sketch results can be easily created by JUST one button click. There are two styles included in the app: “Sketch” and “Doodle.” “Sketch” style creates more accurate results with better edges and curves, which is very good for human portrait photos. “Doodle” style is suitable for objects and nature views, since it is more casual with lower accuracy on edges and curves.

Awoken – Lucid Dreaming Tool

Description: Do you want to learn Lucid Dreaming? Awoken is the tool to do that.

FEATURES:
- Reality Checking: Reminders to analyze your surroundings, so you can learn to check if you are dreaming.
- Dream Clues: low audio cues that can trigger your lucid dreaming by playing a special Totem Sound you choose.
- Dream Journal with optional pin-protection: Have a silent notification ready each morning to start recollecting your dream. Keep your journal entries in a searchable list and protect your dreams if needed.

Zumba Dance

Description: The unique Zumba® Dance game helps you stay motivated by tracking your calories burned, goals met and technique improvements as you play. The initial purchase includes a 20-minute workout, but you can maximize your workout by purchasing up to 3 pre-programmed 60-minute classes or by creating your own playlist of previously purchased routines with the custom class feature. With three and half total hours of rockin’ routines, Zumba Dance lets you party yourself into shape anytime, anywhere.

CBS Sports Fantasy Football

Description:  All New for 2013! Whether you play on Yahoo!, ESPN, NFL or of course CBSSports.com, this will be your go-to source for the best fantasy football news, stats, projections, analysis and advice — no longer just for CBSSports.com fantasy players. Plus, CBSSports.com users get easy-to-use roster management and live scoring.

Control Center – iOS Style

Description: Control Center is an iOS 7 Style and Android Capability Control Center. You can get the iPhone user experience in Android Phone!

Duxter

Description: Duxter connects you to your gamer life wherever you are. Connect with your gamer friends and share your experiences. Discover the best gamer content online. Earn rewards for playing the games you already love.

Biophilia

Description: Biophilia is an extraordinary and innovative multimedia exploration of music, nature and technology by the musician Björk. Comprising a suite of original music and interactive, educational artworks and musical artifacts, Biophilia is released as ten in-app experiences that are accessed as you fly through a three-dimensional galaxy that accompanies the album’s theme song Cosmogony.

Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft Skydrive are just a few examples of the many file-storage and backup services available today.

All these services have a major drawback, as they rely on external cloud-based hosting to back up and store files. This means that not only do you have to trust these companies with your personal and confidential files, but free storage space is limited.

BitTorrent Sync is a new backup tool that eliminates these drawbacks, and it’s much faster too. The functionality of the Sync application is comparable to most cloud-based sync tools, except for the fact that there’s no cloud involved.

Users simply share their files across their own devices, or the devices of people they invite to their private folders.

Today BitTorrent Inc. has moved Sync’s status from alpha to beta. The San Francisco company is developing the product at a rapid pace and is already seeing a massive demand from users who have shared eight petabytes of data so far.

“Since April, alpha users have synced over 8 petabytes of data; applying BitTorrent to classroom setups, film collaborations, remote backup, data storage, blogging, and project management. Pretty massive,” the company notes.

While Sync is an entirely new product, it is based on the uTorrent code base which has proven its value to millions of users.

In recent weeks Sync has been upgraded with some smaller features including one-way synchronization and one time secrets. With the new beta, BitTorrent Sync expands further with support for Android devices, and an archive feature that allows users to access previous versions of synced files.

The Android version allows users to sync files from a mobile device to a computer, and vice versa. In addition it supports quick ad-hoc BitTorrent sharing between two mobiles or tablet.

Like its Windows and Mac-based applications, the Android app is available without charge, and BitTorrent Inc. informs us that it will remain free in the future. Eventually the company may launch premium features to monetize the service.

“The basic Sync functionality – that is to say all of the features being made available as of today – will remain free to use,” a BitTorrent spokesman told TorrentFreak.

“We are exploring potential business models which may include premium features to address certain applications. For example, enterprise, where we have the potential to offer significant cost savings and added security and speed benefits.”

It will be interesting to see how Sync evolves, but as the public grows more skeptical of the privacy vulnerabilities of cloud services, we expect there to be a healthy demand. Interested? The latest beta version is available in the BitTorrent labs.

Source: BitTorrent’s Secure Dropbox Alternative Goes Beta, Adds Mobile

The UK Intelligence and Security Committee today cleared the country's GCHQ security service of allegations of illegal activity related to the NSA's PRISM program. Following an investigation into the allegations, the committee concluded that the suggestion security services broke UK law by using "the NSA’s PRISM program to access the content of private communications" was "unfounded."

According to a statement released by the committee, "in each case where GCHQ sought information from the US, a warrant for interception, signed by a Minister, was already in place," in accordance with UK law. The statement also shows the UK's definition of what PRISM is, and how it is used. A section titled "What is PRISM?" explains:

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Your cell phone doesn’t know what you’re watching on your TV. Microsoft would like to change that. The company is launching a new initiative today, called the “Companion Web,” it says enables the Internet to bridge the gap between all the different devices we use. To that end, Microsoft recently worked with opinion-sharing service Polar to create a reference app for its vision for what these kind of apps can look like.

In Polar’s example, you connect your phone to your Windows 8 device by snapping one instance of Internet Explorer to the side of the screen while you watch a video on the rest of your display. You then scan a QR code to connect this to your smartphone (any phone will do) and share opinions about what you are watching. Your smartphone controls what you’re seeing in the sidebar on your large screen. Here is what this looks like in practice:

This example seems a bit complicated and contrived, but the overall idea that we can and should connect all of these different experiences is interesting and something we don’t see enough of today. Other examples of Companion Web services Microsoft previously work on include a DailyBurn app for using a smartphone to control workouts you view on your TV and Mix Party, a collaboration with Nokia that allowed users to collaboratively control a playlist through their phones.

As Bryan Saftler, a senior product manager for Internet Explorer developer relations, told me earlier this week, Microsoft already has some experience with this through its work with the Xbox SmartGlass app. Indeed, it’s the success of this experience that led the company to invest in this idea. Saftler believes that developers don’t currently think about all the opportunities that offering these kinds of experiences across multiple devices could provide.

Web Companion services, in Microsoft’s view, should use reusable web-based code, which makes it easy for developers to create experiences that work across devices.

In Saftler’s view, you should be able to watch a video on your Xbox (or, in a few months, your Xbox One) and when you pull up Amazon while you’re sitting on the couch, Amazon should know that you are, for example, watching Star Trek and immediately show you some related items for purchase when you bring up the site from your smartphone. Amazon, in this case, would be looking at your metadata by tapping into a cloud-based storage hub for this kind of information.

Microsoft isn’t making any announcements about this today, but Saftler hinted that the Xbox One could offer some of these services out of the box. It’s worth noting that Microsoft is only announcing its interest in these kinds of experiences. In about two weeks, it will launch the first libraries and frameworks to turn this idea into reality.

Saftler did stress, however, that while Microsoft will obviously focus on its ecosystem, the whole idea of the Companion Web is based around web standards and that the company would welcome an open discussion with developers and other vendors about how to implement this across platforms.

The Nexus 7 refresh finds its way into retail inventory software, we hope that means it soon finds its way into our hands

While we still can't say for sure when the Nexus 7 refresh will be available, we now have a pretty good idea what it will cost. In this leaked inventory screen, we see listings for both the 16GB version, priced at $229, and the 32GB version, checking in at $269. Those prices aren't bad at all, as the rumored specs for these show a Snapdragon 600 processor, 5MP camera, and possibly a 1080p display.

Both models are simply listed as quad-core, so there is no new information on that front. We also see that zero units of either size are in inventory at this particular ninja's location right now.

With retail locations getting ready for inventory of the new Nexus 7, the wait can't be very much longer. That's a good thing, because we're getting excited for some new Nexus gear, and possibly the launch of Android 4.3 to go with it.

Thanks, Anon!

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.

This is the app roundup. The game roundup from this week can be found here.

• The Android Police Podcast LIVE (7/10/13)
• Verizon's NFL Mobile Finally Updated With Tablet Support, Also Adds Postseason Video
• 15 Best (And 2 WTF) New Android Apps From The Last 2 Weeks (6/4/13 - 6/17/13)
• Astro File Manager: Now with Forced Ads!

26 Best (And 1 WTF) New Android Apps And Live Wallpapers From The Last 2 Weeks (7/4/13 - 7/16/13) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Joel Allen Schroeder says Dear Mr. Watterson...

This has admittedly been online for a while, but has just been brought to our attention by a small piece in the New York Times. And if you, like us, had so far managed to miss news of Joel Allen Schroeder's Dear Mr. Watterson - an affectionate missive to Calvin and Hobbes and their creator - you'll thank us for sharing the love and bringing you this trailer.

If you're new here - and you've been seriously missing out if you are - Calvin and Hobbes was a syndicated newspaper comic strip, involving a boy and his tiger (real to Calvin, stuffed to everyone else), that ran from 1985 to 1995. In far too small a nutshell for the job, it basically deals with the awkward co-existence of real life and Calvin's fantasy inner world. It's beautifully drawn, meticulously observed, quietly philosphical and never not funny.

A man of principle, Watterson always refused what would no doubt have been an absolute fortune in merchandising opportunities, preferring to keep his creation unsullied by the market. He also continues to eschew the spotlight and doesn't do interviews. Hence, Schroeder's crowdfunded documentary is a collection of talking heads in celebration of the work, rather than an attempt to track down its source (although a project like that kind of exists, in Nevin Martell's book Looking For Calvin And Hobbes).

Seth Green, Berke Breathed (Bloom County), Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine), Jef Mallett (Frazz), Keith Knight (The K Chronicles), Jan Eliot (Stone Soup) and Bill Amend (Fox Trot) are among the interviewees. Dear Mr. Watterson has just been picked up for distribution in the States, with November 15 the official release date. 

Google is meeting with media companies to pitch an upcoming Internet TV service, a so-called over-the-top package that would offer cable-channel bundles over online connections, the Wall Street Journal reports. This proposed service, for which Google is still currently seeking licensing, could potentially join a plethora of rumored Internet TV packages from companies like Intel. 

Image via Shutterstock

In response to recent allegations that the company helped the NSA access private emails and Skype video calls, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith says in a blog post that "we do not provide any government with direct access to emails or instant messages. Full stop." In order to dispel the allegations against it, Microsoft has asked the US Attorney General to "personally take action" to allow the company to share information about how it handles requests for customer information — requests that are made in secret under sealed "National Security Letters."

Until the Attorney General responds, Microsoft says it wants to share as much information as possible, and that "there are significant inaccuracies" in reports alleging that the...

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Driverless cars will soon be rolling across the UK's public roadways, thanks to a government decision to permit tests by the end of 2013, reports BBC News. A report from the country’s Department of Transport gives a rundown of the plans, which it believes will lower congestion and improve safety — part of a £50 billion investment aimed at upgrading the country’s roads.

The UK is joining a handful of US states that are already testing driverless cars, including California (where they are street legal), Florida, and Nevada, with Michigan not far behind. And the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is pushing for other states to follow suit. Over the past year, automakers including Nissan, Audi, and Toyota have all...

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Bruce Schneier has a great essay about the fact that NSA spying apologists say that dragnet surveillance is limited to cases of terrorism: but "terrorism" is now synonymous with "whatever it is people we want to spy on are doing."

Back in 2002, the Patriot Act greatly broadened the definition of terrorism to include all sorts of "normal" violent acts as well as non-violent protests. The term "terrorist" is surprisingly broad; since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, it has been applied to people you wouldn't normally consider terrorists.

The most egregious example of this are the three anti-nuclear pacifists, including an 82-year-old nun, who cut through a chain-link fence at the Oak Ridge nuclear-weapons-production facility in 2012. While they were originally arrested on a misdemeanor trespassing charge, the government kept increasing their charges as the facility's security lapses became more embarrassing. Now the protestors have been convicted of violent crimes of terrorism -- and remain in jail.

Meanwhile, a Tennessee government official claimed that complaining about water quality could be considered an act of terrorism. To the government's credit, he was subsequently demoted for those remarks.

Mission Creep: When Everything Is Terrorism (Thanks, Bruce!)

Eric William Carrol's art show, G.U.T. Feeling, is on exhibit at Highlight Gallery in San Francisco.

A kind of unattainable ideal, various G.U.T.s have been developed by establishment and fringe physicists alike, each striving to explain the fundamental forces of the universe in a single elegant solution. Fringe science is either valid science departing from the mainstream or a bunch of hogwash, depending on whom you ask. Struck by the absurdity, grandstanding and purely visual poetry of theories created by these outsiders, Carroll responded with photography, his medium of choice.

Eric William Carroll’s “G.U.T. Feeling” at Highlight Gallery, San Francisco

This fall, a team of scientists (backed up by a crew of documentary filmmakers) will head out to the Pacific in search of "The Loneliest Whale in the World", aka "The 52 Hz Whale", in honor of the unique frequency of its vocalizations.

Royalty collection agencies are known for going to extremes as they go about claiming money on behalf of artists and music composers.

In the United States this has resulted in hundreds of lawsuits over the years, mostly targeted at pubs, restaurants and bars that play music without a proper license. Last year more than a hundred of these cases were filed and in 2013 the counter is already at 81 suits.

Like file-sharing lawsuits, most cases are resolved with a settlement where the owner of the establishment pays several thousand dollars to make the problem go away. However, every now and then a judgment is entered, which happened recently in the case against the Texan hotel / bar Clarion Inn.

The bar was sued by the royalty collection agency BMI and several rightsholders including Sony and Universal, for playing karaoke songs without a proper license. In their complaint the music groups claimed to have suffered “great and incalculable damage” by these unauthorized performances, and they demanded compensation.

The unauthorized performance was meticulously recorded by an investigator, who sent over a detailed track list as well as photos and a drawing of the establishment. Among the tracks, are the appropriately titled “A Pirate Looks At Forty” by Jimmy Buffet, “Respect” by Otis Redding, “Crazy” by Willy Nelson and “Folsom Prison” by Johnny Cash.

Photo evidence of the karaoke

Replying to the accusations the Clarion Inn didn’t dispute that they offered karaoke to their visitors, but the manager of the bar, Dana Mosley, testified that she wasn’t aware of any wrongdoing when she hired the karaoke provider.

“It was my experience that those who provided music were independently licensed and I believed that the karaoke provider was licensed. At the time that she provided the services I was under the impression that she complied with all licensing requirements and that the performance would not violate any copyrights,” Mosley stated.

“At no time did I intentionally violate any copyrights and if there were copyright violations they were innocent and not committed knowingly or intentionally. If there was any question about the copyrights I would have not allowed the performance.”

A diagram drawn by the investigator

The Texas District Court, however, dismissed this testimony and the innocent infringer defense, as the manager merely “believed” that the karaoke was licensed. The testimony therefore can’t be entered as fact, and the judge awarded a summary judgment in favor of the music groups.

In his order, the judge also notes that the Clarion Inn had been warned on numerous occasions, and that the BMI invited the owner to enter into a license agreement.

“Defendants were not innocent infringers, but were advised both timely and repeatedly that their conduct constituted infringement. Nevertheless, they failed to cease their infringing acts or come into compliance with the copyrights, despite multiple offers to do so.”

As a result the court entered a permanent injunction against the Texan hotel / bar. For the 15 infringements the judge awarded $45,000 in statutory damages to the music groups, as well as $11,243.36 for attorneys’ costs.

The above damages award seems to be standard procedure in the cases that have made it to summary or default judgment. Needless to say, this provides a healthy revenue stream for the music groups, which together with the settlements could be worth millions.

In any case, bars and pubs are on notice not to host rogue karaoke events.

Source: Bar Hit With $45,000 Fine for “Pirated” Karaoke Songs

UltraViolet, the cloud-based platform that lets you watch purchased or redeemed digital movies from anywhere, remains a novel concept that's struggling in some key areas. One of those is downloading. Streaming UV movies is a largely straightforward process that works well enough on a range of smartphones, tablets, and PCs. But when it comes to storing videos for viewing offline later on, the situation is far more clunky. There's currently no way to transfer UltraViolet files between a laptop and smartphone, for instance; you need to download the same movie twice, once from each location.

Thankfully UltraViolet's backers realize this isn't ideal, and a solution — the UltraViolet Common File Format — has long been in development and...

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At the start of July a brand new law aimed at reducing online piracy went live in Norway.

The product of years of effort, the legislation will allow registered anti-piracy groups to pursue individuals sharing copyrighted content.

The law also allows infringing sites to be blocked at the ISP level. Needless to say, The Pirate Bay is at the top of the list but it’s expected that all major torrent sites will become targets in the months to come.

Industry lobbying for these changes has taken place over many years, with the Ministry of Culture finally getting down to business a little over two years ago. However, it now becomes apparent that the need for these tough laws has been reducing massively.

According to a new report published by Ipsos, between 2008 and 2012 piracy of music, movies and TV shows collapsed in Norway.

The report shows that in 2008 almost 1.2 billion songs were copied without permission. However, by 2012 that figure had plummeted to 210 million, just 17.5% of its level four years earlier.

As expected, piracy of movies and TV shows in 2008 was at much lower levels than music, with 125 million movies and 135 million TV shows copied without permission. But by last year the figures for both had reduced by around half, to 65 million and 55 million respectively.

So what is responsible for these significant drops in piracy? First of all this effect cannot be put down to anti-piracy campaigns. Only a tiny number of Norwegian file-sharers have been prosecuted in the past five years and only since July 1st has the law been loosened to allow that position to change.

So with scare tactics out of the way we’re left with the common sense approach yielding the best results.

“When you have a good legitimate offer, the people will use it,” says Olav Torvund, former law professor at the University of Oslo.

“There is no excuse for illegal copying, but when you get an offer that does not cost too much and is easy to use, it is less interesting to download illegally.”

The dramatic reduction in audio piracy suggests that the music industry has responded most effectively and that theory is backed up by stats in the report.

Of those questioned for the survey, 47% (representing around 1.7 million people) said they use a streaming music service such as Spotify. Even more impressively, just over half (corresponding to 920,000 people and 25% of Norwegian Internet users) said that they pay for the premium option.

While TV show piracy has reduced by half in four years, it actually peaked at the start of 2011 with 200 million shows copied without permission. However, since then with the introduction of legal alternatives, unauthorized copying is down more than 72%.

For movies the decline has been more steady but with the introduction of Netflix into Norway during October last year, figures for 2013 should be even more encouraging.

It’s likely, however, that the entertainment industry will put this year’s successes down to the new law. While that may have an effect it is clearly the legal offerings making the big differences in Norway.

Source: Piracy Collapses As Legal Alternatives Do Their Job

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