Charity Must Pay To Link To Newspaper Articles Featuring Them
It’s a real shame that we don’t have a ‘WTF’ tag for posts here in the ‘Bits’ section of TorrentFreak since this story desperately needs one.
Women’s Aid is an Irish charity supporting victims of domestic violence. As part of its quest to raise both funding and awareness, the charity sometimes gets featured in newspaper articles. The exposure is obviously highly valued.
However, when the charity wrote about these press mentions on its website and linked to the stories so that its readers could find them more easily, it had a nasty surprise.
According to their solicitor, Women’s Aid received correspondence from Newspaper Licensing Ireland Limited which advised the charity to obtain licensing in order to obtain “permission to scan clippings for 16 national titles and 90 regional newspapers plus some foreign newspapers.”
Failure to obtain the license, the charity was warned, would expose them “to expensive litigation,” adding, “Reproducing copyright content without permission is theft.”
Now, Women’s Aid were not scanning or reproducing clippings, so maybe there was some sort of mistake? Apparently not. In subsequent correspondence the charity was warned:
“A licence is required to link directly to an online article even without uploading any of the content directly onto your own website.”
McGarr Solicitors, who are acting for the charity, are as surprised as anyone at the demands and have urgently asked Newspaper Licensing Ireland to clarify their position.
A spokesperson for NLI declined to comment, which is just as well since it would only serve to make them look even more idiotic.
Here’s a suggestion NLI – get all your clients to remove their work from the web, then people won’t be suckered into generating a hyperlink in order to generate traffic for their websites.
And stay strong Women’s Aid – no one should get away with bullying, ever.
Source: Charity Must Pay To Link To Newspaper Articles Featuring Them
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warmth: #Maxthon Browser 3.3.9.900 Beta Released (New #HTML5 Test Score: 465+13 points) | http://t.co/QqB5p1Sg (via @Maxthon) #BetaTester #UpadteUberFacts: The second longest running animated series in the U.S. is the children’s show "Arthur." First is "The Simpsons."
UberFacts: The second longest running animated series in the U.S. is the children's show "Arthur." First is "The Simpsons."→ Three Things That Should Trouble Apple
Great article by Guy English.
A big one I’d add: Apple’s software quality is declining.
I’m not just talking about the most recent releases of everything, or the last couple of months — I’ve noticed this trend for about 2–3 years. As Apple’s software has grown to address larger feature sets, hard-to-solve problems such as sync and online services, shorter release cycles, increasingly strong competition, and Apple’s own immense scale, quality has slipped.
The list of exceptions to “It just works” is growing quickly.
That, more than anything, scares me about Apple’s future.
Apple iPad prototype with dual charging docks listed on eBay
From time to time, Apple prototype devices will make their way to eBay. Usually, they're iterations of the device's final design, but this latest one to hit the auction site is really different - it's an iPad with two dock connectors.
As noted by MacRumors, the tablet device includes a standard portrait connector and a second one for connecting in landscape. Both ports work for charging and syncing the iPad. It's also running Apple's test software SwitchBoard and has several other markings that suggest it is legitimate.
According to the listing, the prototype was disabled before it was discarded, but the seller has restored as much functionality as possible to the device. The eBay auction will end late on Monday May 28 (PDT) and, at the writing of this post, has 19 bids with a current topper of US$10,000.
Apple iPad prototype with dual charging docks listed on eBay originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 28 May 2012 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Face.com: From $160k Domain Sale to Rumored $100,000,000 Sale
Not only is Face.com a fantastic domain name, but it’s become “a technology company with the best-in-class face recognition software.” TechCrunch is reporting that there are “rumors that it is being acquired by Facebook for up to $100 million,” although the CEO didn’t confirm (or deny) the rumor.
I do not know much about company that owns Face.com (Vizi Labs), but it’s interesting to see one of the Whois contacts is “John Berryhill Attorney Trust Account,” so perhaps there are domain industry connections there. In any event, there are at least two domain industry connections associated with Face.com.
According to Nat Cohen’s blog, domain investor Andy Booth once acquired Face.com for $160,000:
“Securing Face.com was a big deal. It was not easy to acquire, but I saw a listing on Afternic, where it had a $130,000 bid on it. I contacted the owner and established that he was looking to sell it, but wanted the market to dictate its value. After numerous calls, I convinced him to accept my $160,000 offer, and we got the deal wrapped up. I felt that given the general domain market, this kind of money was more than value for such a premium, generic domain and later DNF appraisals and the resultant sale would affirm this belief.“
It looks like Andy owned the domain name sometime around August 15, 2007, and it appears to have been subsequently re-sold to a company called Vevron shortly thereafter. I reached out to a representative from Vevron (someone with many domain industry ties), and they confirmed that the company sold the domain name to its current owners, but details are covered by a non disclosure agreement.
It’s interesting to follow the history of a fantastic domain name like Face.com and see it grow into a big business.
Google Chrome Tab Stacking
I’m not really sure when Google introduced the tab stacking feature in the Google Chrome browser, only that it is available at least in the Windows Chrome Canary builds right now. Tab stacking basically allows you to stack tabs on top of each other to save screen estate when the tab count reaches a level where the browser would originally resort to scrolling.
If I’m not mistaken, it was Opera that introduced tab stacks in version 11 before any other browser. I personally think that all major browsers will eventually introduce a tab stacking feature eventually as it offers a great way of saving screen estate in the tab bar if multiple pages on the same domain name are open in the Internet browser.
Back to Google Chrome and the browser’s tab stacking implementation. The feature is currently only available via the chrome://flags list of experimental features. Just load chrome://flags/ in the browser’s address bar, hit F3 and enter stacked tabs in the on-page search form to find the parameter immediately on the page.
It reads: Stacked Tabs. Tabs never shrink, instead they stack on top of each other when there is not enough space.
Click on the Enable link and restart the browser to enable tab stacking in Google Chrome. If you have tried Opera’s tab stacking functionality before, you will notice that Chrome’s differs in core aspects.
In Opera, you simply drag and drop tabs on each other to create a stack. This stack is then visualized with an arrow on the right side of the stack that is pointing away from it. A click on the arrow or a double-click on the active tab displays all tabs of that stack in the tabbar.
In Google Chrome, the tab stacking feature is automatic. When there is not enough room, pages are stacked on top of each other. The method is confusing at first, as the original tab and the newly opened tab are displayed next to each other first, and only added to the stack once you click on an unrelated tab.
Another difference is that you can’t drag and drop tabs on top of each other in Chrome.
To paraphrase: Opera supports manual tab stacking while Google Chrome only the automatic creation of tab stacks. It needs to be noted at this point that the Chrome implementation is experimental right now, and that the Chrome devs may make changes to the feature in the future.
Got Money To Burn? iPad Prototype Appears On eBay, Shows Off Its Two Dock Connectors
Every gadget that graces our shelves goes through plenty of tweaks and changes during its design phase, but it isn’t too often that we get an actual glimpse of those scrapped iterations. It can be tremendously cool to see what our stuff could have looked like in some alternate timeline, and a new eBay listing reveals a peculiar iPad that may have been.
The listing is for an early first-generation iPad prototype, and unlike the final model it sports two dock connectors, allowing the iPad to be docked in either portrait or landscape mode.
Astute readers may recall that some of Apple’s earlier iPad-related patents pointed to a dual-docking device, and nearly three years later, we’re finally getting our first real look at one. Long story short, it looks just as dumb as you would expect it to. While the ability to dock the iPad in either orientation is arguably useful, it makes for a design that isn’t as clean or as thoughtful as Apple is (usually) known for.
It probably goes without saying that this early 16GB iPad is more of a conversation piece than a fully functional gadget, though. The seller notes that the touchscreen doesn’t work properly thanks to some funky digitizer issues, though it’s possible that someone with enough gumption (and the right tools) may be able to get it running again.
The prototype also runs an early build of iOS 3.2 along with Apple’s Switchboard hardware testing suite. It’s nothing that will make its eventual owner’s life any easier, but it certainly lends a bit of credence to the notion that it is actually some in-house Apple hardware instead of a carefully crafted hoax.
Between this and that Atari-era Steve Jobs memo, Apple aficionados have plenty of Cupertino memorabilia to lust after. Of course, it’ll cost you a pretty penny should you try to score this piece of iPad history — the prototype currently sits with a $4,800 bid, but it could be yours for a cool $10,000 if the whole bidding-on-things bit isn’t your style.
[via MacRumors]