Bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted, US Defence secretary has banned the use of cameraphones by US forces in Iraq. The Business quotes a source inside the Pentagon as saying that the United States suspects that a significant number of the digital photos and videos of prisoner abuse seeping out of Iraq were taken using cameraphones.

Although most cameraphones are configured to capture video snippets (circa 10 seconds long) so that they can be sent as multimedia messages (MMS), such handsets can also be set to video for as long as there is storage space left. Which, with SD/MMC cards for cameraphones reaching 128Mb, means hours rather than minutes.

Italy has made transferring content via the Internet without the permission of the copyright holder a criminal offence

The Italian parliament yesterday voted in favour of imposing jail sentences of up to three years on anyone caught uploading or downloading unauthorised copyright material to and from the Net.

The move comes in direct response to the rise of P2P services such as Kazaa and Gnutella, and was prompted by the country's film industry.

Those found guilty of the unauthorised distribution of copyright material now face a fine of between €154 and €1032 ($185-1240), a jail sentence of between six months and three years, the confiscation of their hardware and software, and the revelation of their misdeeds in Italy's two national newspapers, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera.

We've already had stories about how the recording industry is looking for any possible way to raise prices on digital downloads (showing just how little they understand the concept of an emerging market), and now we find out that the standard $1 price is really more for marketing reasons. Now that Napster has launched in the UK, they seem to think that it's a good idea to use the "1 standard unit of currency" as the main price - probably because it looks better in advertisements. So, in the US, a track is $1. In the UK it's £1. Now, while the recording industry couldn't be bothered, most users understand exchange rates, and realize that £1 = ~ $1.77 (with some fluctuations). In other words, for the sake of being able to use the "1 standard unit of currency" pricing, the recording industry gets to nearly double the price in the UK. This doesn't seem likely to encourage much adoption - but may encourage plenty of resentment. Of course, by this point, it appears the recording industry thrives on resentment.

In February, singer Eminem announced that he was suing Apple for having a commercial that showed a kid singing one of his songs. At the time, I wondered if compulsory licensing laws that handle the ability of a musician to "cover" a song would apply - but some claim that it doesn't apply to commercial offerings. Now, a judge has ruled that the case can proceed, and it could bring up some interesting legal arguments about fair use. Note that Apple didn't actually use Eminem's version of the song - just some kid singing it. That seems like a very fine line. Of course, what may complicate this story is the fact that Apple tried to buy the rights from Eminem, and still went ahead when he refused. It almost makes you wonder if the whole thing (including the lawsuit) is part of a publicity stunt.

How about a celebrity boxing match between Quentin Tarantino and Jack Valenti? Last week Tarantino spoke at an "anti-piracy" conference and made the case that movie piracy isn't so bad in many cases. However, by not sticking to the script, Tarantino has apparently upset MPAA head Jack Valenti. It's a little unclear what was said, but from the article linked here, it sounds like Valenti was threatening Tarantino. He tells him that it's time to "get on-board" with the industry's anti-piracy efforts. However, there doesn't appear to be an "or else," which certainly makes it sound like quite the idle threat. However, he's also threatening file sharers, and is basically admitting that the MPAA is likely to follow in the RIAA's footsteps and start directly suing end users. Valenti warns: "Suppose you can [download] a movie in five minutes, piracy will explode like a pandemic." Mr. Valenti's track record in such predictions isn't so hot. After all, he's the guy who predicted the VCR would kill the movie industry just before it (oh, that's right) saved the industry.

Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the expansion of a secret program that encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners to obtain intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq, The New Yorker reported Saturday.

According to the story, which hits newsstands Monday, the initial operation Rumsfeld authorized gave blanket approval to kill or capture and interrogate "high value" targets in the war on terrorism. The program stemmed from frustrating efforts to capture high-level terrorists in the weeks after the start of U.S. bombings in Afghanistan.

The program got approval from President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and Bush was informed of its existence, the officials told New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh.

Under the program, Hersh wrote, commandos carried out instant interrogations -- using force if necessary -- at secret CIA detention centers scattered around the world. The intelligence would be relayed to the commanders at the Pentagon.

Earlier this week Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer apparently suggested that the way to keep American jobs was to lower US professionals' pay to $55,000 - according to a report here.

According to this report on Cnet last September, Steve B and Bill G each got $551,667 in salary and $313,447 in bonuses last year.

Perhaps Steve should start by cutting his own salary by a tenth, as he is undoubtedly a US professional, and set that as the benchmark for the rest of the thousands of employees at Microsoft?

Online spammer forums like the Pro Bulk Club the Bulk Club and bulkmails.org have been gatecrashed by activists from organisations like Spamhaus. Steve Linford of Spamhaus said spammers know this already but they don't know who amongst their number is working for the other side.

Instead of using open mail relays or unscrupulous hosts (so-called 'bullet-proof' hosting - in reality ISPs in the third world who pull the plug on spammers when enough complaints are received by their upstream provider), spammers are using compromised machines to get their junk mail out. Viruses such as My-Doom and Bagle surrender the control of infected machines to hackers. This expanding network of infected, zombie machines can be used either for spam distribution or as platforms for DDoS attacks, such as those that many online bookies have suffered in recent months.

A little investigative journalism can go a long way, and Moses Avalon has turned up something rather curious: the numbers that the RIAA uses to talk about "sales" are actually just numbers relating to shipments. The gist of it is pretty simple: the RIAA has their own tracking system based on units shipped, while Nielsen Ratings bases their Soundscan tracking system on actual barcode-scanned purchases. The problem is that Soundscan shows a 10% increase in music sales when comparing the first quarter of 2004 to 1Q 2003. Yet, the RIAA insists that music sales are down. Avalon suggests that sales aren't down, only shipments are. How can that be possible? Simple: in the past, the RIAA always shipped considerably more units than were sold. Why the change? Retails stores simply want less inventory, so they order less, even though they are selling more.

In other words, the supposedly woeful state of CD sales isn't all that woeful after all. Retail outlets have been working hard to keep up with online competition, and part of that has meant following the rule of Dell: don't have inventory if you can avoid it.

If more units are being sold and fewer units are being shipped, then that means the total cost-per-CD is actually in the RIAA's favor. That is, with all things being equal, more sales and fewer shipments ads up to more profit than before, because there's less overrun and less returns from retailers who can't move product.

Election officials in San Bernardino County say they will defy a ban on electronic voting ordered by Secretary of State Kevin Shelley in November's presidential election.

In Orange County, about 2,000 voters cast ballots in the wrong races after being given the wrong computer access codes. In San Diego County, an equipment malfunction prevented more than half the polling places from opening on time. And in San Bernardino County, a vote tally was delayed for three hours because election staffers improperly entered data into their main computer.

Ten of the 14 California counties that use electronic voting, including Riverside and San Bernardino counties, could reapply for certification if they meet 23 security conditions, which county officials have said would be costly and time-consuming.

The remaining four counties -- San Diego, San Joaquin, Solano and Kern -- are banned from using their Diebold touch-screen systems in November.