NewsScan Daily, 20 August 2004 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 20 August 2004 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"  
       Court on File-Swapping: Get Used to It
       A Satisfying Profit for Google Insiders
       IOC Nixes Blogging By Athletes
       Data Debate Stirs in Britain
       Elderly and Wireless

FEATURES           
       Flash Card
       Honorary Subscriber: Geoffrey Chaucer

COURT ON FILE-SWAPPING: GET USED TO IT
     A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that
the movie and recording industries can't stretch copyright law to block
online piracy of songs and movies. If the decision is appealed, the U.S.
Supreme Court could revisit its landmark Sony Betamax ruling that protected
from copyright lawsuits products that have substantial legitimate uses.
Whereas the same appeals court ruled against file-sharing service Napster in
2001 because it stored illegally copied files on its central computers,
today's peer-to-peer file-sharing networks have no central computers -- and
cannot even monitor users, let alone control them. The court urged the
entertainment industry to adapt to file sharing the way movie studios did
after losing the Betamax case: "The introduction of new technology is always
disruptive to old markets, and particularly to those copyright owners whose
works are sold through well-established distribution mechanisms. History has
shown that time and market forces often provide equilibrium in balancing
interests, whether the new technology be a player piano, a copier, a tape
recorder, a video recorder, a personal computer, a karaoke machine or an MP3
player."(Los Angeles Times 20 Aug 2004)
<http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-grokster20aug20,1,7512636.story?col
l=la-headlines-technology>

A SATISFYING PROFIT FOR GOOGLE INSIDERS
     The biggest individual winners in Google's initial public stock
offering this week have of course been co-founders Larry Page and Sergey
Brin (each now worth about $3.8 billion) and chief executive Eric E. Schmidt
(now worth $1.4 billion). Venture capitalist Don Railey explains that
Google's IPO is a "liquidity event" that allows investors to take some cash
off of the table: "Any big liquidity event is usually a very satisfying
event that comes after a long period of hard work. Most that have been
through it think they earned it." (Washington Post 19 Aug 2004)
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17045-2004Aug19.html>

IOC NIXES BLOGGING BY ATHLETES
     The International Olympic Committee has barred competitors, coaches,
and support personnel at the Olympic games from writing firsthand accounts
for news and other Web sites. Its position is that athletes and their
coaches should not serve as journalists and that the interests of accredited
media come first. The editor of Duke University's alumni publication says:
"This is unfathomable to me. I don't understand what the International
Olympic Committee might be concerned about. It's a way to engage a wide
audience with reporting from the field and therefore generate excitement and
interest in the games. This is a means to personalize the Olympics, to
excite a constituency with the thrill that comes with the knowledge that a
couple of their own are participants in the competition." The IOC isn't
buying it. (San Jose Mercury News 19 Aug 2004)
<http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/9445119.htm>

DATA DEBATE STIRS IN BRITAIN
     A customer of Lloyds TSB bank has complained to Britain's Information
Commissioner arguing that data should not be transferred outside Europe
without the consent of individual customers. The complaint by an
unidentified Lloyds customer, filed in July, argues that Indian workers
would not be subject to the same data protection standards applicable in
Europe, according to the Lloyds TSB union, which has been campaigning
against outsourcing of work to India and other countries. The Information
Commissioner's office said British companies are still bound by European
standards when data is  transferred overseas: "There are various bases in
law which can be used to legitimize the transfer overseas of personal data,
consent from the  individual is just one of them." (The Australian 19 Aug
2004) Rec'd from J. Lamp
<http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,10495322%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5
E,00.html>

ELDERLY AND WIRELESS
     A poll taken by the Wyoming AARP has found that many elderly people are
considering discarding their traditional wireline telephone service in favor
of cell phones; Wyoming's AARP director says, "Most of our members are
satisfied with the quality of their phone service. But our members complain
the cost of their landline is too much, and that seems to be driving them to
consider using a cell phone for their needs." More than two-thirds of those
surveyed think they pay too much to have a landline phone in their homes.
(AP/USA Today 20 Aug 2004)
<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/phones/2004-08-20-wireless-wyo-elders
_x.htm>

*****

FLASH CARD
     "Nowher so besy a man as he ther n¹ as, And yet he semed besier than he
was." (Geoffrey Chaucer)

HONORARY SUBSCRIBER: GEOFFREY CHAUCER
     Today's Honorary Subscriber is the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer
(c.1340-1400), who is best remembered for his great narrative poem, 'The
Canterbury Tales," considered one of the masterpieces of world literature.
The 17,000 lines of the poem tell the stories of a diverse group of 24
pilgrims journeying their way to the shrine of Thomas Becket in Canterbury
Cathedral. In the manner of Boccaccio's Decameron, Chaucer invited the
pilgrims to pass the time on the road by engaging in a storytelling contest.
The tales ran the gamut from romance to sermon to ribaldry, revealing their
tellers to be endowed with social insight and humor. The richness and
grandeur of Chaucer's poetry went unappreciated for centuries after 1400
because of the abandonment of Middle English, but in the 18th century he
came into his own as one of the greatest English poets.
     What is known of Chaucer's life is sketchy and poorly documented at
best. There seems to be agreement that he was born some time between 1340
and 1345. His father was John Chaucer, a London vintner, who had some
connection with the Royal Court, and young Chaucer is believed to have been
a court page. He seems to have been well-educated, but it is not clear that
he ever attended a university. In his adult years he served in the army, and
later was dispatched by the Court on frequent diplomatic missions.
     In London he held various official positions, including Clerk of the
Works at Windsor, Westminster and the Tower. He received a lifetime pension
at a relatively early age, but for several years payment was suspended,
causing him some financial distress. He spent the years 1372-3 in Italy, at
either Florence or Padua.. Towards the end of his life he lived in a house
in the monastery garden at Westminster, where he died in 1400. Today he lies
buried in a canopied gray marble altar-tomb, in the poet's corner on the
south side of Westminster Abbey.

[See 
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0486282414/newsscamcom/ref=no
sim> for "The Canterbury Tales" -- or look for it in your favorite library.
[Note: We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult literacy
programs.]

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