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TOP STORIES FOR WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 10, 2004 Campus Groups Educate Students about Copyright FCC Votes to Exempt VoIP from State Regulation Panel Calls for Increased Federal Support for Technology Brits Reject Open Access Publishing Firefox Ready to Take On IE New Report Links File Trading and Lower CD Sales CAMPUS GROUPS EDUCATE STUDENTS ABOUT COPYRIGHT Students at about a dozen colleges and universities have started organizations called Free Culture groups to educate other students about copyright and fight what they see as a tilting of the law to favor copyright owners. The first Free Culture group was started by Swarthmore College student Nelson Pavlosky, known for his successful legal challenge to Diebold Election Systems' use of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in trying to suppress leaked company memos. Pavlosky and other Free Culture organizers want college-age people to understand how copyrights have changed in the electronic era, particularly with respect to legislation such as the proposed Induce Act. Pavlosky acknowledged that a danger of the Free Culture groups is that participants will simply be seen as "rich white kids who want free music." Jessica Litman, a law professor at Wayne State University and a speaker at a meeting of the Free Culture groups, noted that copyright law is traditionally written by lobbyists who represent copyright owners and said that consumers should be included in that process. Wired News, 10 November 2004 http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65616,00.html FCC VOTES TO EXEMPT VOIP FROM STATE REGULATION In a unanimous vote, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has ruled that voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) phone service falls under the jurisdiction of the FCC and is not subject to state rules. The agency stopped short, however, of declaring VoIP an information service, which would also have freed Internet phone service from certain state taxes and fees. The decision also does not cover access fees, which local phone companies charge for calls delivered across conventional phone lines. FCC Chairman Michael Powell said the growth of the VoIP industry depends on a simple regulatory approach rather than forcing providers to comply with rules from as many as 51 different jurisdictions. The FCC's ruling applies to any company that offers VoIP service, which currently has about 600,000 subscribers. That number is expected to rise to about one million subscribers by the end of the year. San Jose Mercury News, 9 November 2004 http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/10138307.htm PANEL CALLS FOR INCREASED FEDERAL SUPPORT FOR TECHNOLOGY A scientific panel convened by the National Research Council has called on the federal government to substantially increase its funding of supercomputing initiatives or risk seeing the United States lose its position as a global leader in technology. The panel's report warns of a widening gap between software and hardware development in high-performance computing. Panel member Steven Wallach of Chiaro Networks said, "We are calling for a sustained and long-term investment to help develop advanced software and algorithms." The federal government currently provides about $42 million annually for such research; the panel recommends that amount be raised to $140 million. Susan L. Graham, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and cochair of the panel, said, "If we don't start doing something about this now, there will be nothing available in 10 years when we really need these systems." New York Times, 9 November 2004 (registration req'd) http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/09/technology/09compute.html BRITS REJECT OPEN ACCESS PUBLISHING The British government has rejected the findings of a government committee that recommended taking steps to encourage widespread adoption of open access publishing. The Science and Technology Committee of the House of Commons in July urged requiring free access to research funded with public money, in an effort to combat the rising costs of scientific journals. The committee also expressed support for the author-pays model of academic publishing. In its response, however, officials of the British government called the publishing industry "healthy and competitive" and said they are unaware of "major problems in accessing scientific information." Publishers welcomed the government's response, while supporters of open access publishing accused the government of bowing to pressure from the publishers, saying it "reached conclusions very different from those reached by the scientific community." Because the research councils that distribute funds may opt to follow the committee's recommendations despite the government's position, supporters of the report remain optimistic that many of the councils will support the open access model. Chronicle of Higher Education, 10 November 2004 (sub. req'd) http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2004/11/2004111004n.htm FIREFOX READY TO TAKE ON IE The Mozilla Foundation has released an initial version of its Firefox browser, following a two-month period in which a "preview release" version of the browser was downloaded more than seven million times. The Mozilla Foundation consists of programmers working together on development of the browser, much of whose foundation comes from Netscape. Chris Hofmann, director of engineering at the Mozilla Foundation, said that open source projects such as Firefox are based on a "much higher standard" than products such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE). Developers contend that Firefox 1.0 is more stable and secure than IE, which some say has been neglected ever since Microsoft gained a near monopoly on the browser market. Firefox also adds functionality, including the ability to have several Web pages open within a single window. Firefox is available for computers running Windows, Linux, or Macintosh operating systems. According to Web usage tracker WebSideStory, IE's share of the browser market has slipped from 95.5 to 92.9 percent, while Firefox's share has grown from 3.5 to 6 percent. Reuters, 9 November 2004 http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=6755158 NEW REPORT LINKS FILE TRADING AND LOWER CD SALES A new report argues that file sharing does have a negative influence on sales of CDs, contradicting earlier reports that suggested there is no link between the two. The report, "Piracy on the High Cs," was written for the National Bureau of Economic Research by two professors at the University of Pennsylvania. Rafael Rob and Joel Waldfogel studied the music habits of college students and concluded that when downloading songs is an option, the students spent less on legally purchased music. According to the report, every five albums downloaded from the Internet accounted for one lost sale for the music industry. Spending on new music was estimated to decline from $126 to $100 as a result of file trading. Researchers also found that legally purchased music is more highly valued by the students in the study than music obtained from the Internet. BBC, 9 November 2004 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3995885.stm ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your settings, visit http://www.educause.edu/Edupage/639 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/Edupage/639 ***************************************************** 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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