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TOP STORIES FOR FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2006 NCSU Professor Suspends Sales of Lectures Spamhaus Unmoved by Fine Taiwanese P2P Site Gives Up NCSU PROFESSOR SUSPENDS SALES OF LECTURES A communication professor at North Carolina State University (NCSU) has suspended his practice of selling audio recordings of his lectures over the Web after administrators raised questions about the practice. Robert Schrag had been selling lectures since August for $2.50 each through a Web site called Independent Music Online. Despite having received approval from the head of his department to sell the lectures, Schrag agreed to stop selling the MP3 files, at least temporarily, after Toby Parcel, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, expressed concerns about the appropriateness of the practice. At NCSU, faculty own the course materials they produce, but some students had objected to Schrag's selling his lectures, saying that they should be available free for students. Schrag disagreed, saying that tuition for the course does not necessarily cover such materials as recordings of lectures. He said the recordings are intended for motivated students who want to review materials after class, students for whom English is not their first language and would benefit from hearing lectures again, and students who would rather skip class. Chronicle of Higher Education, 15 September 2006 http://chronicle.com/free/2006/09/2006091501t.htm SPAMHAUS UNMOVED BY FINE A federal court in Illinois has issued a default ruling against British antispam organization Spamhaus and ordered it to pay $11.7 million to e360insight, the plaintiff in the matter. Officials from e360insight complained that Spamhaus included the company on its blacklist, alerting users of the list that e-mail from e360insight is spam and should be filtered. Default judgments are issued when a defendant offers no defense; in this case, Spamhaus did not offer a defense. The court also ordered Spamhaus to remove e360insight from its blacklist and publish an apology. Officials from Spamhaus said e360insight in indeed a spammer and would publish no such apology. Further, they said that because Spamhaus is based in the United Kingdom, a ruling from a U.S. court is meaningless. If David Linhardt, chief of e360insight, wants a court ruling that will have an effect, he must file his case in the United Kingdom, according to Spamhaus officials. Dean Drako, CEO of Barracuda Networks, which makes antispam appliances and uses Spamhaus's blacklists, supported Spamhaus and accused e360insight of taking advantage of the U.S. courts to gain what he sees as a meaningless judgment. CNET, 14 September 2006 http://news.com.com/2100-7350_3-6116009.html TAIWANESE P2P SITE GIVES UP Following legal action by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, operators of the Taiwanese file-sharing service Kuro have agreed to discontinue their current operation and begin offering a legal music-download service. Previously, the federation had won a criminal case against executives at Fashionow, the company that developed and distributed the Kuro P2P software. Under the settlement, Fashionow will shut down the Kuro service, stop distributing the Kuro file-sharing software, and pay undisclosed damages. Kuro is estimated to have 500,000 subscribers, who pay about $3 per month for the service. A statement on Kuro's Web site following the settlement said, "Starting from now, users can enjoy top quality music on Kuro without any doubts about lawsuits or any possibility of being sued." ZDNet, 15 September 2006 http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6116047.html ***************************************************** EDUPAGE INFORMATION To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your settings, or access the Edupage archive, 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] ***************************************************** OTHER EDUCAUSE RESOURCES The EDUCAUSE Resource Center is a repository for information concerning use and management of IT in higher education. To access resources including articles, books, conference sessions, contracts, effective practices, plans, policies, position descriptions, and blog content, go to http://www.educause.edu/resources ***************************************************** CONFERENCES For information on all EDUCAUSE learning and networking opportunities, see http://www.educause.edu/31 ***************************************************** COPYRIGHT Edupage copyright (c) 2006, EDUCAUSE
