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4 January 2012 | BBC News

Anti-internet piracy law adopted by Spanish government

The Spanish government has approved tough new legislation which could see websites deemed to be trading in pirated material blocked within ten days. The legislation creates a government body with powers to force internet service providers to block sites. It comes as the US plans to adopt similar tough new rules. The crackdown on piracy has been welcomed by the creative industries but criticised by net activists. Under the Sinde Law, named after the former Spanish culture minister Angeles Gonzalez-Sinde, rightholders can report websites hosting infringing content to a newly created government commission. The intellectual property commission will decide whether it wants to take action against an infringing site or the ISPs providing infrastructure to it, and the case will then be passed to a judge to rule on whether the site should be shut down. The aim is to complete the process within 10 days. The Spanish government said that the legislation was necessary to bring it in line with international crackdowns on piracy. It had been put on hold by the previous government but the ruling party, Partido Popular, decided to move ahead and implement it at one of its first meetings since coming to power in November. Opposition has been strong in Spain, with bloggers, journalists and tech professionals staging a series of protests, including writing an anti-Sinde manifesto.

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4 January 2012 | Sydney Morning Herald via The Guardian

Philanthropist funds Australian public interest journalism site

An Australian philanthropist is funding a not-for-profit online start-up that is pledged to publishing public interest journalism. Internet entrepreneur Graeme Wood is prepared to spend more than AUD 15m on The Global Mail, which is set to launch next month. It will not charge readers, will not sell ads and is not seeking more donors. It was born from a dinner party conversation between Wood and former Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC) journalist Monica Attard, who is the site's editor-in-chief. Attard, an award-winning foreign correspondent, said her starting point was the Arab spring. She said: "I wondered whether there was any prospect of creating a news organisation which was web-based, and app-based ultimately, where you were tapping into great social movements around the world and where you could also speak to Australian affairs as though we were part of a wider world, rather than simply this pimple of an island somewhere near the South Pole." Attard, who has has hired former ABC colleagues Ellen Fanning and Stephen Crittenden, says about two-thirds of the journalists will have a broadcast background. The site will be "heavily multimedia." The Global Mail's funding model is based on the US website Propublica, which was founded in late 2007 and funded by billionaire philanthropists Herb and Marion Sandler. And ProPublica's editor-in-chief, Paul Steiger, has become a member of The Global Mail's editorial advisory committee. Wood has made a five-year commitment to funding The Global Mail.

Original source

4 January 2012 | Rferl.org

Belarusian TV station suspends Euronews broadcasts

A Belarusian state television channel has suspended broadcasts of the Euronews channel, RFE/RL's Belarus Service reports. The Minsk-based television channel MTIS ended the Euronews broadcasts on January 1, replacing them with programming from the Russian movie channel NTV-Plus Kino+. MTIS told the Interfax news agency that the decision to drop Euronews was temporary and made due to an increase in the broadcasting fees being charged by Euronews's owners. It said negotiations between MTIS and Euronews are taking place and should be resolved by February. The pan-European channel Euronews has been the only independent international news source available on state-controlled Belarusian TV. On December 20, the channel reported claims by the Ukraine-based Femen group about an attack on its activists shortly after a protest in front of the Belarusian KGB building. In April, following Euronews coverage of the Arab Spring protests in the Middle East, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka called the channel "a weapon in the hands of bandits." Independent Belarusian television expert Leonid Mindlin told RFE/RL that Euronews is "a window into the world" for its audience, which he said was some 15 percent of the Belarusian viewers. Mindlin said it is not known if Euronews was dropped for political or financial reasons. He maintained that Belarusians can still access it and other independent TV stations via satellite or Internet. Mindlin added that another Minsk cable television operator, Cosmos TV, continues to broadcast Euronews but has limited access across the country.

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4 January 2012 | BBC News

‘Spam capital’ India arrests six in phishing probe

Police in India say they have arrested six foreign nationals suspected of defrauding hundreds of people using text message and email scams. Scam victims were duped after being told they had won a lottery. Authorities seized 14 laptops, seven memory sticks and 23 mobile phones, as well as fake documents and cash. The arrests come after security firm Kaspersky reported that India now sent more spam than any other country in the world. Police said the six men, all Nigerian, would be remanded in custody until 12 January. The arrests signal attempts to crack down on a growing cybercrime problem in the region. Mumbai-based internet security specialist Vijay Mukhi said poor enforcement of laws meant spammers could act with impunity. The crackdown is being seen as a positive sign in India where the officials have been accused of not keeping up with cybercriminals. Indian companies are now taking cyber-threats seriously as a number of recent surveys have pointed out that there appeared to be a considerable lack of preparedness to counter such threats. Indian corporations lost an estimated USD 27.8m in the first half of 2011 due to phishing attacks, said RSA, the security division of data specialist EMC. It is not just corporations but individuals too who are targeted as Indian internet users spend more and more time on Facebook, Google and Yahoo. The threats mainly relate to intellectual property theft, online banking or trading frauds and phishing attacks.

Original source

4 January 2012 | BBC News

China campaign cuts entertainment TV by two-thirds

Satellite broadcasters in China have cut entertainment TV by two-thirds following a government campaign, state news agency Xinhua has reported. An order by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) to curb ''excessive entertainment'' came into effect on 1 January. The number of entertainment shows aired during prime time each week has dropped to 38 from 126, said the watchdog. The order, which was issued in October 2011, limits each of the country's 34 satellite channels to two entertainment programmes each week and a maximum of 90 minutes of entertainment content every day from 7:30 to 10 p.m. Broadcasters are also required to air at least two hours of news programming between 6 a.m. and midnight. They must each broadcast at least two 30-minute news programs between 6 and 11:30 p.m. The country has the largest number of television viewers in the world - an estimated 95 percent of its 1.3 billion people. Talent shows and reality TV are among the biggest casualties of the cuts. The list of restricted programmes also included talk shows and emotional stories that were deemed to be of "low taste", said the Xinhua news report. However the SARFT statement also said that popular dating shows, such as If You Are The One, and soap operas, such as Li Yuan Chun, produced by Henan Satellite TV, will still be on air during prime time on weekends.

Original source

4 January 2012 | Reuters

Twitter embarrassed by fake Wendi Murdoch account

Twitter, the popular microblogging site, apologized on Tuesday for incorrectly verifying a false account for Wendi Deng, the wife of News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch. The fake account with the handle @Wendi_Deng popped up on Sunday soon after a real Twitter account was started by the media mogul on New Year's eve. News Corp communications staff confirmed that the Murdoch account was genuine. Like Murdoch's own Twitter account, the Wendi account was initially verified by Twitter, featuring the well-known blue tick which shows Twitter has confirmed the account belongs to the named person. But by early Tuesday New York time, Twitter was forced to remove its famous blue tick from the Wendi account after it said it confirmed the account did not belong to her. Twitter, which allows anyone to create an account under any name for free, uses the blue tick verification to help its users to differentiate real accounts of well-known personalities from parody pages made by other users. The @Wendi_Deng profile said she was joining her husband on an "adventure" on Twitter and began tweeting regularly about Murdoch and with public messages to celebrities like Piers Morgan and British entrepreneur Alan Sugar. Twitter has a private verification process for celebrities and other famous people who ask to be verified or complain about parody pages. It has nearly 17,000 verified accounts.

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