Obviously a new Rammstein song called “Liebe ist für alle da” and a few promo pics have been leaked on the internet. It didn’t take a long time for fan forums, blogs and even news sites to report or discuss the new song.
But what did the management of Rammstein do? Of course they take action against all sites which host or present the song, but they also try to close down the discussion about the song on various fan forums and other sites by issuing out cease-and-desist orders. This led to the newspaper Augsburger Allgemeine to put an article reporting about this leak offline. This is something which cannot be tolerated and is a serious violation of the freedom of press and the freedom of opinion.
A quick search on youtube reveals that the leak cannot be stopped anymore, so the management should reconsider using that to their marketing advantage now.
And BTW, the management of Rammstein should really consider using an imprint on their recently registered website: www.liebeistfueralleda.de
German Internet Censorship efforts now reach a new height: the German domain www.wikileaks.de is currently locked down by the German registry DENIC… two weeks after a police raid to the house of a German Wikileaks sponsor, who owns the domain. The police raid was issued after an Australian internet censorship list was published on Wikileaks. Read more on this on Wikileaks.
last.fm announced yesterday that international users of their free streaming music service have to pay a subscription fee of 3 Euros per month, starting on the 30th March 2009. Only for users in Germany, United Kingdom and United States nothing will change and the formerly free streaming service will still be free.
Well, I am from Germany and a paying subscriber since 2005, having scrobbled nearly 30,000 songs into my profile. I don’t have a problem with paying for a, in my eyes, excellent service I regularly use. Even if it’s on the Internet. And obviously there won’t be a change for subscribers, it only affects those users using last.fm for free.
Judging from the comments on the last.fm-blog, there are still people believing everything’s free on the internet. Only a few see the commercial reason behind the move. last.fm concentrates on their biggests markets (DE, UK and US) where the income from advertising seems to pay for the costs of the free music streaming. BTW, you don’t see ads when you opt in for a subscription.
Of course you can argue if this is just the influence from a big bad corp like CBS, trying to squeeze the last drop of money from yourself. But what the heck, nothing is free today. And if good chunks of the money last.fm collects, gets back to the smaller independent artists/labels, it’s certainly ok. Fingers crossed.
But what I am more afraid off is I am fearing last.fm to lose the international flair and becoming another (web) radio station playing the commercial bullshit the big major labels produce today. This would really suck.
If you are using youtube to search for music, just use this Israelic startup jogli from now on. They draw on youtube’s API and order the whole youtube-mess in albums. And the best is, you can easily embed whole albums nearly anywhere. A fantastic service. Thumbs up!
A colleague of mine has started his own blog (in German), where he writes about Handball, Australia and whatever comes to his mind. It’s fun to read, so if you can read (and understand) German, head to tok’n’web. Enjoy!
Well, Google shouldn’t have unleashed Chrome onto the masses and open up millions of computer to cyber criminals. It’s still a beta with the version number 0.2. Go figure!
According to the Bkis Security BLog, there is a critical vulnerability which lets hackers perform a devious attack and take control of the targeted computer system.
A proof of concept of the exploits (which opens the Calculator) can be seen on the Bkis Security Blog.
Google Chrome sollte nicht für den allgemeinen Gebrauch eingesetzt werden (Google Chrome shouldn’t be used for general [internet] usage.)
and because of the incorporation of search functions, e-mail, webbased textwriting etc.:
Aus sicherheitstechnischen Gründen ist die Anhäufung von Daten bei einem Anbieter kritisch. (Because of the security-relevant reasons, the accumulation of data at one supplier is critical.)
Despite fixing all bugs and exploits in Google Chrome, I agree with the assessment of the BSI. Well, I would say everyone accumulating data, being them corporations or even state departments or anyone else, is a risk to your personal data security and privacy. So be careful with whom you share your data.
11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services.
11.2 You agree that this license includes a right for Google to make such Content available to other companies, organizations or individuals with whom Google has relationships for the provision of syndicated services, and to use such Content in connection with the provision of those services.
11.3 You understand that Google, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services or media. You agree that this license shall permit Google to take these actions.
11.4 You confirm and warrant to Google that you have all the rights, power and authority necessary to grant the above license.
Think about what this means for anything you do with the browser.
Bye bye Chrome!
A more in depth discussion about this can be found on TapTheHive.
The carpet-bombing flaw known to exist with Safari 3.1 (and was patched by Apple in their update to 3.1.2) does affect Google Chrome Beta because it’s using an older version of the WebKit engine.
So I only can advise people not to use Google Chrome Beta at the moment.
German Internet Censorship efforts now reach a new height: the German domain 
last.fm 
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