Mules, long noted for stubbornness, would seem to have nothing on either the music labels or Jammie Thomas-Rasset. Both sides have dug in deep and are prepared, almost unbelievably, to have a third trial on the question of whether Thomas-Rasset was a dirty P2P pirate... and of what she should pay if she was.

Thomas-Rasset was the first US defendant of the RIAA lawsuit campaign to take her case all the way to trial. That first trial in 2007 found her liable for copyright infringement and fined her $222,000. She was then granted a retrial by the judge on the grounds that he had been misled on one particular jury instruction that described simply "making available" a copyrighted file as copyright infringement. Citing Eight Circuit precedent, the judge decided that this wasn't good enough and that only actual proof of a file transfer could be counted.

At the second trial, in 2009, Thomas-Rasset was again found liable, but the jury this time fined her $1.92 million. Last week, federal judge Michael Davis decided that this was "monstrous" in its disproportionality and slashed the damages to $54,000. The recording industry could either accept his decision or request a third trial.

Ubisoft have taken their senses and posted them into outer space. Responding to the public outcry for more draconian, inconveniencing copyright management, they have announced their new PC-only DRM system. One that requires you be permanently online in order to be able to play.

The attempt to sell this new system begins with what it doesn’t do. There’s no CD check, and there’s no installation limits. A good start. And then, GameSpy reports enthusiastically, it will support cloud saving. Well, I love cloud saving — it’s something Valve promised ages ago (although with sadly little movement since). When I choose to use it. Which with this DRM, the current reports suggest, you cannot.

The price we pay for not requiring the CD in the drive, and for being able to install a game we’ve legally bought on as many machines as we want, is to be permanently online when playing Ubi games. It will authenticate itself online each time you load it, and then save remotely every time you save.

The rental feature, which goes live this Friday, will apply to the five Sundance films until the end of January. YouTube says that other films and programs will be made available for rental in the near future, but has not yet named which partners will be involved outside of mentioning that the health and education industries will be included.

Going forward, YouTube is inviting what it calls a "small group" of partners that will be able to apply the new rental model to videos they have hosted on the service. And similar to what YouTube did with paid video downloads around this same time last year, owners of these videos will be able to set their own pricing, as well as duration of how long that rental can be accessed.

In order to rent videos, users must have a Google Checkout account. The company has not said whether it will allow other payment platforms, such as PayPal, to be used as as a payment option.

The new title should be "very close to reveal by now,” according to an unnamed source speaking to VG247. Bethesda's official response was no comment, but the anonymous mole confirmed that the new game will be set in the "Elder Scrolls" universe.

As reported by Duck and Cover, testimony from a preliminary injunction hearing held on December 29 between Bethesda and Fallout yielded information relating to Zenimax Online's project. Duck and Cover reports that the studio has "tens and tens of millions of dollars" as well as "close to a hundred people" wrapped up in crafting a "World of Warcraft"-style MMORPG. Bethesda reportedly has been trying to keep the project under wraps in an effort to stave off competition.

EVE Online player Curzon Dax scammed investors out of 374.4 billion ISK, the sci-fi-themed, subscription-based MMORPG's currency, with an in-game IPO that promised to reward backers with high returns and expensive ships before the player left the game.

CCP Games's EVE Online is no stranger to controversy, as its player-driven economy and corporation/alliance structure have been the source of several high-profile but fascinating virtual heists and wars. In fact, it's this open, lawless setting that's helped attract so many devoted users to the MMORPG.

While Dax's ISK haul is likely less than the hundreds of billions stolen by the player-run EVE Intergalactic Bank in 2007, it's more than four times what Dynasty Banking (80 billion ISK), another player-run in-game bank, embezzled in January of this year. Comparing the amount to current ISK rates at third-party real money trading services, 374.4 billion ISK would fetch around $14,601 in real-world money.

They began by just writing and drawing a game-oriented web comic strip but Penny Arcade has since grown into hosting a massive game expo, orgazising a children's hospital charity and even helping to develop games based on their strip. Now they have moved into their next venture with the launch of the PATV web site.

In short the site hosts original videos related to games. The first show is (surprise) Penny Arcade The Series with each episode following the two creators around as they do what they do. Other shows made by others are on the way. In fact the first one, Blamimations!, is live now.

In related news, The Child'sPlay web site has revealed that the 2009 donation drive has now exceeded $1.5 million in donations, a new record for the charity that helps children's hospitals around the world.

The e-mail system of one of the world's leading climate research units has been breached by hackers.

E-mails reportedly from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU), including personal exchanges, appeared on the internet on Thursday.

A university spokesman confirmed the email system had been hacked and that information was taken and published without permission.

An investigation was underway and the police had been informed, he added.

I’ve attached a cleaned-up and commented version of the matlab code that I wrote for doing the Mann and Jones (2003) composites. I did this knowing that Phil and I are likely to have to respond to more crap criticisms from the idiots in the near future, so best to clean up the code and provide to some of my close colleagues in case they want to test it, etc. Please feel free to use this code for your own internal purposes, but don’t pass it along where it may get into the hands of the wrong people.

In fact, many of you have commented that you have cancelled your preorders in response to the design decisions made by Infinity Ward. But Activision, publisher of what will be one of the largest titles of the year, doesn't seem all that worried about the backlash from PC gamers.

"We're, of course, watching this very carefully and paying attention to it," Activision president Mike Griffith said in response to a financial analyst, as noted by Kotaku. "But we're not overly concerned about it."

"One of the problems with our PC SKUs in the past is that it has not been as friendly a consumer experience in terms of matchmaking and online play as the consoles have allowed it to be," he added. "Our solution here improves that consumer experience overall by a significant margin. And so we think that the benefits we will see are going to far outweigh any negatives that seem to be surfacing."

I've read so many posts of such a batshit, bugfuck nature about this Modern Warfare Server Thing that it's hard to know where to begin. If you are angry at this break from tradition, and if you feel betrayed by these eleventh hour revelations, these are both situated well within the reasonable and comport (by and large) to the known. Do not buy it. Your platform of choice is the most open, universal digital venue on the planet. A suitor will be along presently.

It's not cherry-picking to say that the notion of Microsoft somehow being involved runs deep. You could be charitable and say they mean Infinity Ward was infected somehow by Microsoft's peer to peer vision, but that's not what they're saying. They're talking about literal collusion to bring about the downfall of the PC. Even though Modern Warfare 2 is launching on Steam, leverages Steamworks, and grants Steam Achievements.

Some of the rage is channeled semi-constructively into (not a boycott, per se, but) a redirection of funds from Modern Warfare 2 over to Battlefield 2: Bad Company - a notion that has been cannily seized by the would-be recipient. Battlefield 2 is going to be pretty good, so why not buy it - but let's pause for a moment and really absorb the idea that PC gamers are rallying around a DICE console port in their zeal. Nevermind the fact that you can't host your own Battlefield 2 servers, and that having a dedicated server for the game involves renting it from one of their partners. Maybe they didn't read the FAQ?

So how easy is it to pirate? Assuming you have a Jailbroken iPhone and Cydia installed, you can simply add a new package source to download the pirating software from Hackulous. This pirating software is simply a kernel patch that bypasses Apple’s DRM system (or something like that).

When you add the package source Cydia is nice enough to give you a message warning you that what you may be doing may be morally wrong (see below). Since I was only intending to pirate our apps, I added it anyway. A quick install of the software and a reboot is all that is needed to allow your phone to run pirated software.

Once the phone is rebooted, all you have to do is download a cracked version of the app from one of the MANY places on the internet, add it to iTunes, sync, and you are done. NOTE: Surprisingly this is MUCH easier than actually buying it on iTunes!!

With Dragon Age: Origins' November 3 launch less than a month away, developer BioWare has unveiled its initial downloadable content plans for the game. Unlike with the role-playing game developer's previous project, the acclaimed sci-fi adventure Mass Effect, players won't have to wait long to expand the upcoming dark fantasy.

They won't have to wait at all, in fact.

BioWare today announced that Dragon Age: Origins will get its first downloadable expansion on day one. Called the Warden's Keep, the DLC will add a dungeon-based quest to the game along with six new abilities, a variety of items, and a base where players can trade with merchants. It will feature a supernatural storyline set in an ancient--and possibly haunted--fortress once used as a redoubt by the Grey Wardens, the ancient order at the center of Origins' main storyline. (A magic suit of Grey Warden armor will be one of the items in the add-on.)

As mentioned in the Sunday Papers yesterday, there has been some controversy sparked after remarks made by Gearbox’s Randy Pitchford to Maximum PC regarding Steam, where he stated that the digital distribution service from Valve was “exploiting a lot of small guys.” This was later countered by an article on Gamasutra where Tripwire’s John Gibson retorted, “Ask the Tripwire Interactive employees if they feel exploited, as they move into their new offices paid for by the money the company has made on Steam.”

Interested to see if there were other positions we spoke to 2D BOY and Zombie Cow, who have sold their games on Steam, to find out about their experiences.

Says 2D BOY’s Ron Carmel:

The presentation starts with some basic information on the various file-sharing networks, and details how the company’s software can detect illegal downloads and automatically send out requests for damages to alleged pirates. Their setup is similar to those at DigiProtect and Logistep who run comparable operations all over the world.

After finding out the addresses of alleged file-sharers they send out requests for damages directly, usually in the range of a few hundred dollars (or in the UK, around £600) per infringement. Thus far, little has been known about the actual profits generated by these operations, but this is exactly what the last part of the DRS presentation covers.

DRS says it generally sends out emails to alleged file-sharers requesting them to pay €450 (650$) per offense. According to the company they get to keep 80% of the money, leaving 20% for the copyright holders. The anti-piracy outfit claims it uses the money to cover their IT costs, administration costs, attorney fees and other costs.

Having virtual sex in Second Life isn’t what it used to be.

The 6-year-old virtual world, run by Linden Lab of San Francisco, is apparently so littered with bootlegged sex toys that it’s hard to know whether you’re getting the right bang for your buck.

Raising the stakes on a two-year-old intellectual property controversy in Second Life, a popular seller of online adult novelties filed a federal copyright- and trademark-infringement lawsuit against Linden Lab this week. The suit claims that Linden looks the other way, while virtual residents rip off the SexGen product line, which includes specially programmed beds, rugs, sofas and even a coffin that enable consenting avatars to engage in virtual sex acts.

In just a few weeks time The Pirate Bay as we know it will be no more. There is no doubt that its demise will signal the end of an era, however, it will also mark the start of a new one. Or to use the words of Pirate Bay insider Rasmus Fleischer, “It’s time to sink the ship and move on!”

pirate bayWhether or not The Pirate Bay will end up being sold, the ship has served its purpose and is destined for Davy Jones’s Locker. Luckily for most BitTorrent fans there are plenty of alternatives.

However, in the current climate where media moguls send their lawyers after everything that could be used to infringe copyrights, a paradigm shift might be needed. This is exactly what Piracy Bureau co-founder and Pirate Bay insider Rasmus Fleischer is hinting at.

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They're not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.

The new version would allow the president to "declare a cybersecurity emergency" relating to "non-governmental" computer networks and do what's necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.

Internet security company Norton Symantec has come up with a list of Top 100 Dirtiest sites, which could infect your computer with malware.

Malware is a software that can damage or compromise a computer system without the owner's consent.

Natalie Connor, spokeswoman of the anti-virus company, said that even visiting any of the named websites could expose a computer to infection and put the personal information into the hands of unwanted people.

"What people don't realise is when you type in a website, you're bringing down information on a page and with it could be malware," News.com.au quoted her as saying.

Windows 7 is not quite a "Vista service pack." It does share a lot of the core tech, and was clearly designed to fix nearly every bad thing anyone said about Vista. Which ironically puts the demon that it was trying to exorcise at its heart. What that means is that Windows 7 is what Vista should have been in the public eye–a solid OS with plenty of modern eye candy that mostly succeeds in taking Windows usability into the 21st century–but it doesn't daringly innovate or push boundaries or smash down walls or whatever verb meets solid object metaphor you want to use, because it had a specific set of obligations to meet, courtesy of its forebear.

And as a bonus, we compare Windows 7 to Snow Leopard. The Snow Leopard vs. Windows 7 feature comparison is pretty much final, but it's not a review, because Snow Leopard isn't out yet. Once Snow Leopard is released, we'll revisit the subject, in case Apple decides to sneak in something crazy at the last minute.

For starters, we’ve had reasonable facsimiles of cyber czars before – to little effect. The studies have been done, the list of tasks complete, yet we continue to fail year after year.

Second, the cyber czar, like most actual royalty in the world these days, is destined to be more figurehead than Sun King. He (or she) would have no power of service providers or industries that are both the underpinnings of cyber space and the victims of online assaults. Despite grandiose claims to the contrary, the government has very little direct impact on how safe national resources are online.

Finally, even if the czar did have a lot more pull with industry than he actually would; how does she put that juice to good use? Given that the czar and the individual with the power to make things happen in cyber space are not the same person: she doesn’t.

He has no idea how the little visitors got there, but suspects jokers who regularly prop up the bar of the Lamb in Yapton, West Sussex.

He said: "I couldn't believe it when I saw them. It was 8am and I was half asleep and saw all these little eyes looking up at me.

This weekend did not go well for AT&T. The broadband provider began blocking access to parts of 4chan on Sunday (img.4chan.org, which of course includes /b/) thanks to what AT&T says was a denial of service attack coming from that domain. AT&T was uncommunicative with customers at the onset of the 4chan blockage, leaving many users questioning whether the telecom was trying to censor 4chan. AT&T's official silence on the matter also led some 4chan denizens to launch attacks against the company.

The block began in the early evening Sunday and went on through the night, with numerous users (including some of our own staff members) confirming that they were unable to access 4chan's image servers. Why? According to an Anonymous posting on 4chan itself, it seems as if there were hundreds of thousands of connections being made from the IP address of the image server (888,979 at the time of that posting, to be exact).

No problem, there is a store near my home. I called on Wednesday, and went to the store on Friday. I know they will want employment verification so I bring my name badge, photo id, the paper with the discount code. Go in and the man at the desk goes about setting me up. Then he says this "There is an activation fee of $36 to add this discount to your account.