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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The European Commission currently has proposals on the table to extend performers’ copyright terms. Described by Professor Martin Kretschmer as the “Beatles Extension Act”, the proposed measure would extend copyright from 50 to 95 years after recording. A vast number of classical tracks are at stake; the copyright on recordings from the fifties and early sixties is nearing its expiration date, after which it would normally enter the public domain or become ‘public property’. E.U. Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services Charlie McCreevy is proposing this extension, and if the other relevant Directorate Generales (Information Society, Consumers, Culture, Trade, Competition, etc.) agree with the proposal, it will be sent to the European Parliament.

Wikinews contacted Erik Josefsson, European Affairs Coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (E.F.F.), who invited us to Brussels, the heart of E.U. policy making, to discuss this new proposal and its implications. Expecting an office interview, we arrived to discover that the event was a party and meetup conveniently coinciding with FOSDEM 2008 (the Free and Open source Software Developers’ European Meeting). The meetup was in a sprawling city centre apartment festooned with E.F.F. flags and looked to be a party that would go on into the early hours of the morning with copious food and drink on tap. As more people showed up for the event it turned out that it was a truly international crowd, with guests from all over Europe.

Eddan Katz, the new International Affairs Director of the E.F.F., had come over from the U.S. to connect to the European E.F.F. network, and he gladly took part in our interview. Eddan Katz explained that the Electronic Frontier Foundation is “A non-profit organisation working to protect civil liberties and freedoms online. The E.F.F. has fought for information privacy rights online, in relation to both the government and companies who, with insufficient transparency, collect, aggregate and make abuse of information about individuals.” Another major focus of their advocacy is intellectual property, said Eddan: “The E.F.F. represents what would be the public interest, those parts of society that don’t have a concentration of power, that the private interests do have in terms of lobbying.”

Becky Hogge, Executive Director of the U.K.’s Open Rights Group (O.R.G.), joined our discussion as well. “The goals of the Open Rights Group are very simple: we speak up whenever we see civil, consumer or human rights being affected by the poor implementation or the poor regulation of new technologies,” Becky summarised. “In that sense, people call us -I mean the E.F.F. has been around, in internet years, since the beginning of time- but the Open Rights Group is often called the British E.F.F.“

On 19 February 2007, XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio announced a move that will change the face of satellite radio in the United States and Canada: XM and Sirius will be merging, creating a single satellite radio provider.

This in-depth page will track Wikinews and outside articles to provide you with up to date information about the merger deal. As new actions regarding the merger occur, they can get posted below.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Wikinews interviewed author Amy Scobee about her book Scientology – Abuse at the Top, and asked her about her experiences working as an executive within the organization. Scobee joined the organization at age 14, and worked at Scientology’s international management headquarters for several years before leaving in 2005. She served as a Scientology executive in multiple high-ranking positions, working out of the international headquarters of Scientology known as “Gold Base”, located in Gilman Hot Springs near Hemet, California.

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Late Sunday night and Monday morning, the website of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) became unresponsive, which interfered with attempts by the public to express their views on the proposals currently up for comment, including one about Net Neutrality. Although comedian John Oliver on his show Last Week Tonight had asked his viewers to inundate the website with comments supporting Net Neutrality, the FCC says a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) cyberattack, not angry HBO fans, are responsible for their website’s issues.

FCC Chief Information Officer David Bray explained in a formal statement that FCC.gov’s problems did not come from a large volume of complaints and comments, which is what Oliver had asked his fans to make, but from sabotage. “These actors were not attempting to file comments themselves; rather they made it difficult for legitimate commenters to access and file with the FCC,” said Bray.

Net Neutrality is the idea that Internet providers should not be allowed to speed up or slow down access to certain websites, which would presumably be done for payment. In 2014, the U.S. government ruled Internet providers must be held to standards similar to those of telephone companies and changed their legal classification to fall under Title II of the 1934 Telecommunications Act, which gave the FCC the legal authority to order them not to give preferential treatment to high-paying customers.

In response to a previous Net Neutrality proposal in 2014, John Oliver did a segment on the fifth episode of Last Week Tonight explaining the difference between Title I and Title II status and asking his viewers to flood the FCC’s websites with comments supporting regulation. Approximately 4 million did so, and the website crashed. Sunday night, Oliver asked the public to repeat the performance, recommending comments to make and providing a single link to take them to the exact part of FCC.gov required: “America needs you to rise — or more accurately, remain seated in front of your computer screen — to this occasion,” said Oliver on the air. “So please, fly my pretties, fly once more!” Again, the FCC website soon suffered problems.

Despite Sunday night’s issues, the FCC still received tens of thousands of comments on the proposed relaxing of the 2014 regulations, which is up for a vote on May 18.

Thursday, October 29, 2009

NASA completed the first successful space flight of the new Ares I-X rocket yesterday. After delaying the launch 24 hours because of poor weather, Ares lifted off at 11:30 (EDT) in the morning from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The 327-foot tall Ares I-X test vehicle produced 2.6 million pounds of thrust to accelerate the rocket to nearly 3 g’s and Mach 4.76 — just shy of hypersonic speed. It capped its easterly flight at a sub-orbital altitude of 150,000 feet after the separation of its first stage, a four-segment solid rocket booster. After reaching an altitude of about 40 km, the first stage separates from the launch vehicle. The second stage was very brief, reaching around 46,000 metres, before an uncontrolled descent. The Orion capsule model should splash down approximately 230 nautical miles from the launch site. The first stage booster from the test descended for recovery using a parachute braking system.

“This is a huge step forward for NASA’s exploration goals. Ares I-X provides NASA with an enormous amount of data that will be used to improve the design and safety of the next generation of American spaceflight vehicles — vehicles that could again take humans beyond low Earth orbit,” said Doug Cooke, associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C..

The Ares I is a new rocket developed under the Constellation program, part of the Vision for Space Exploration announced in 2004 by then-president George W. Bush. Derived from a booster used on the current United States Space Shuttle, it should help to lift the Orion spacecraft carrying people and supplies for the International Space Station (ISS). The rocket with Orion is also planned to lift the crew to Altair lunar landing module, which will be lifted into orbit using the Ares V heavy-lift rocket.

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

The New Zealand government officials have announced that it will give NZ$160,000 in aid to help farmers who were affected by the huge amounts of snow in Canterbury, New Zealand two weeks ago.

The aid package will provide four regional offices for co-ordination, food supplies and ongoing support.

The Federated Farmers for mid Canterbury say that the aid will be a start to what looks like a tough winter. President of the mid Canterbury Federated Farmers Rupert Curd says, “It is too early to say exactly how much help the relief package will provide.”

The snow has not yet reached a crisis point.

The Insurance Council has estimated the cost of the snow storm has reached $35 million so far. Chief Executive of the Insurance Council says, “There has been damage to homes, commercial premises both on farms and in town and vehicles. Businesspeople who have been without power are also claiming for loss of income.”

The Minister of Agriculture Jim Anderton has said that they are not ruling out giving further aid.

Thursday, July 14, 2016

On Tuesday, English capital football club Chelsea F.C. announced 27-year-old Brazilian midfielder Willian has signed a four-year contract extension with the club.

Willian joined The Blues three years ago in summer 2013 from Russian club FC Anzhi Makhachkala. Since then, Willian has made 140 appearances for Chelsea in all competitions.

After agreeing to the terms, Willian said, “I’m very happy to sign a new contract with Chelsea. It’s a dream to continue with this club and over the next four years I will try to help the team win more trophies.”

The player has scored nineteen goals for Chelsea, of which thirteen were scored last season.

Under José Mourinho’s management, Willian has won the Premier League title and League Cup in 2014–2015. Last season, Willian was voted the best player in the club by its supporters.

After completing the unsuccessful campaign with Brazil in the Copa América Centenario last month, Willian arrived at the Chelsea F.C. training facility on Monday.

Last week, Chelsea signed 22-year-old Belgian striker Michy Batshuayi.