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TOP STORIES FOR FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 03, 2004 Acacia Offers New, Softer Deal to Small Colleges Researchers Raise the Bar for Data-Transfer Rate More Compromised Data, or Simply More Disclosure? U.S. Copyright Office Drafts New Version of Induce Act Convention Technology Donated to Schools ACACIA OFFERS NEW, SOFTER DEAL TO SMALL COLLEGES Responding to complaints that the licensing fees it was demanding were excessive for some colleges and universities, Acacia Research Corporation is offering a revised schedule of fees for small schools. Acacia claims a patent that covers audio and video streaming technologies and has recently begun demanding license fees from organizations, including colleges and universities, that use such technologies. The fees, however, which were typically $5,000 a year, raised objections from smaller schools. Under the new offer, schools with relatively small enrollments of distance-education students, or that generated no revenue from streaming technologies, would pay no fee. Larger schools could pay either 7 cents per stream or $2 per student, with a minimum fee of $1,000. As with the earlier deal, this new one includes a deadline, after which the fees will rise and schools that choose not to pay could face legal action from the company. A number of schools are working on a coordinated legal defense to Acacia and its patent claims, which are being tested in court and have already been dealt one setback by the courts in July. Chronicle of Higher Education, 3 September 2004 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2004/09/2004090303n.htm RESEARCHERS RAISE THE BAR FOR DATA-TRANSFER RATE Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) this week set a new record for data transfer between the CERN facility in Switzerland and Caltech in Pasadena, California, 9,800 miles away. In the exercise, the group was able to transfer 859 gigabytes of data in less than 17 minutes, achieving a rate of 6.63 gigabits per second. Enabling such high rates of data transfer is vital to the success of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), due to begin operating in 2007. The $10 billion LHC is an enormous particle accelerator that scientists hope to use to find the Higgs boson, a theoretical particle that they believe creates mass. The LHC is expected to generate 15 petabytes of data per year, and this data must find its way to scientists around the globe to be effectively analyzed. Internet News, 2 September 2004 http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3403161 MORE COMPROMISED DATA, OR SIMPLY MORE DISCLOSURE? Since January 2004, officials in California have notified nearly 600,000 students, faculty, and staff at the state's higher education institutions that personal data about them had been compromised in a number of separate incidents. In June, for example, an auditor working for the California State University system lost a hard drive that contained information including names, addresses, and Social Security numbers for 23,500 individuals. The largest single incident involved data for more that 500,000 individuals, which was accessed by hackers who broke into computer systems for San Diego State University and the University of California, San Diego. A law requiring notification of such security breaches went into effect in July 2003. Joanne McNabb of the Office of Privacy Protection in the California Department of Consumer Affairs noted that the incidence of such compromises likely has not increased. "It's just that we know about them now," she said, "when we didn't hear [about them] before." San Jose Mercury News, 2 September 2004 http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9568329.htm U.S. COPYRIGHT OFFICE DRAFTS NEW VERSION OF INDUCE ACT Responding to strong criticism of the recently introduced Induce Act, the U.S. Copyright Office has written a revised version of the legislation. The "discussion draft" offered by the Copyright Office attempts to shield devices such as Apple's iPod from prosecution for inducing consumers to commit copyright violations while outlawing networks such as Kazaa and Morpheus for doing just that. The draft limits liability to those who "intentionally induce" piracy--a more stringent definition of wrongdoing than in the original bill. The Copyright Office's draft has sparked new criticism, however, based on requirements that ISPs and technology companies must take all "reasonably available corrective measures" and cannot "actively interfere" with efforts to locate copyright violators. Sarah Deutsch, vice president and associate general counsel of Verizon Communications, noted that the language in the draft is vague and could make an ISP liable, for example, if it refused to provide copyright holders with a list of the company's subscribers. CNET, 2 September 2004 http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5345528.html CONVENTION TECHNOLOGY DONATED TO SCHOOLS Computers and other high-tech equipment donated to the Republican National Convention in New York are being given to the city's public schools. Nextel Communications gave the convention 1,200 cell phones, worth more than $250,000, which will now be used to improve safety and security in schools. Cisco Systems donated telephones and network hardware worth $4 million for the convention, and some of that will find its way to the city's schools. Joel I. Klein, Schools Chancellor for New York, also said that schools would receive equipment from IBM worth about $1 million. Klein said that private donations to the city's school system have totaled about $160 million over the past two years. New York Times, 3 September 2004 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/03/nyregion/03phone.html ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your settings, visit http://www.educause.edu/pub/edupage/ Or, you can subscribe or unsubscribe by sending e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SUBSCRIBE Edupage YourFirstName YourLastName To UNSUBSCRIBE, in the body of the message type: SIGNOFF Edupage If you have subscription problems, send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For past issues of Edupage or information about translations of Edupage into other languages, visit http://www.educause.edu/pub/edupage/ ***************************************************** OTHER EDUCAUSE PUBLICATIONS EDUCAUSE publishes periodicals, including "EQ" and "EDUCAUSE Review," books, and other materials dealing with the impacts and implications of information technology in higher education. 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