Amazon.com's Video On Demand service, which allows you to preview and purchase streaming videos online, uses Adobe's Flash Media Server to deliver the video. Late last week, Reuters reported that hackers had discovered an exploit that would allow users to turn the free preview into the full stream, allowing folks to watch movies for free using software like Replay Media Catcher from Applian. Adobe took issue with Reuters' contention that Flash isn't secure — instead suggesting it was Amazon's fault for not enabling various security options such as streaming encryption and player verification. Why did Adobe choose to blame a customer instead of quietly fixing the problem behind the scenes? Probably seemed easier.

New Facebook lawyer Ted Ullyot will have his hands full. Before Mark Zuckerberg came along, every college had a facebook — a collection of pictures of the incoming freshman class, distributed in print. But now, there's only one Facebook. Aaron Greenspan, a Harvard student who came up with an online facebook called HouseSystem prior to the creation of Facebook, has long disputed Zuckerberg's claim to the idea — and he's been disputing the company's name, too. Records from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office now show that Greenspan's suit to cancel Facebook's trademark has resumed, having survived two motions to dismiss. The most probable outcome here: Like Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the twins who claim they hired Zuckerberg to work on their college social network, ConnectU, Greenspan will get paid off with a piece of Facebook, too.

Everyone knows that Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, was once Sarah Heath, beauty pageant contestant, right? Someone in Alaska claims that a clip posted to YouTube is a legitimate video of the vice presidential candidate's appearance in the 1984 Miss Alaska show. (She was runner-up.) Versions of the same clip have been posted on YouTube, only to get yanked down in a game of whack-a-mole. How long did you think it took the McCain campaign to find a pageant organizer who can file a copyright claim to get the video taken offline? Paul Boutin says they should keep it on the site: "This video is of vital importance to national security — why else would all our media-hipster friends in New York be reloading it over and over again?"

This much is provable: G.ho.st, a hosted service that dubs itself the Global Hosted Operating SysTem, uses a slogan, "No Walls." Microsoft's new Seinfeld-powered Windows campaign pushes several slogans, including "Imagine No Walls." Sleep-deprived superreporter Kara Swisher tells us the G.ho.st gang claims trademark infringement on a pending trademark for "No walls." Our attempts to pull G.ho.st's trademark entry from the United States Patent and Trademark Office's searchable database returned no matches to G.ho.st's claim. Ball in your court, G.ho.st.ers — post your USPTO documentation in the comments, or it didn't happen.

Will Wright's new videogame, Spore, allows buyers to install it on three computers at most, unless they buy another license. Copyright activists and just plain huffy consumers clogged Amazon.com with 2,000 one-star reviews for the game, based solely on the three-machines limit. Spore's maker, Redwood City-based Electronic Arts, has upped the limit from three to five. An EA spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that fewer than one percent of buyers attempt to install on a fourth machine (EA can collect these stats from its activation servers, just as it can change the number of allowed machines on the fly.) "Less than one percent" is a standard PR dodge. Still, in theory, boosting the limit to five should appease all but a few customers. In reality, the not-so-smart mob won't be happy until the game is free and EA tries to make its money selling T-shirts.

Mattel, owner of the Scrabble brand outside of the United States, brought suit against brothers Jayant and Rajat Aggarwal, creators of Scrabulous, for copyright and trademark infringment. Delhi High Court judge S Ravindra Bhat has ruled that while Mattel couldn't claim copyright on the board design, it could defend its trademark. The Aggarwal brothers must not use the name "Scrabulous" in any form, including in links or source code.The popular Facebook application version had already been banned by the social network, both in the US and in India, but a new version called Wordscraper appeared, but now competes with official versions from Mattel and US rightsholder Hasbro. (Image by k1v1n)

Copyright crusaders are climbing over one another to denounce Will Wright's Spore from video game publisher Electronic Arts. Even the normally stable ZDNet warns Spore's three-install limit could kill PC gaming. Kill it! Meanwhile, the scientific-methody gang at Ars Technica decided to test the system. They hit plenty of annoyances — at one point Spore's DRM servers were down — but a call to customer service got them more than they expected:

The Church of Scientology has been in a losing battle with the Internet for nearly two decades, ever since the first critics started revealing the sordid details of the organization on Usenet newsgroups. Of late, zealots have been using the Digital Millenium Copyright act to squelch dissent on YouTube — with four thousand bogus takedown requests sent in a few hours. Because of YouTube's automated system to respond to such complaints, all those videos and channels like Mark Bunker's XenuTV were pulled from the site. Counter-claims have since been filed and many of the videos and accounts restored. Videos included the one above with ex-Scientologist Tory Christman explains how the church uses members to help censor dissent online. What could YouTube possibly do to stop this abuse?The company's hands are largely tied — there is no provision in the DMCA that allows sites and ISPs to confirm the provenance of claims. Issuers of bogus takedown notices can only be held accountable after the fact in court, and while it's not clear, YouTube would have to be wary of exposing to itself to more liability if it manually monitored cases. For instance, in Bunker's case, his XenuTV channel has been taken down and restored multiple times. Because either through flagging or phony takedowns, the automated system rewards the whims of "concerned citizens" who may well have an axe to grind. What YouTube can do is help users affected by illegal copyright notices go after the liars. Individuals acting alone with no legal or financial support would have an uphill battle against L. Ron Hubbard's disciples. But YouTube could certainly lend both lawyers and money to a possible class-action suit, either directly or through a proxy like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (so as not to offend a paying advertiser). While rightsholders are given a warning that issuing false claims could result in a perjury conviction by the automated takedown system, until someone actually pays the price its just that — only a warning.

Metallica and its label, Atlantic Records, have changed their tune — instead of heavy legal metal, it's more light copyright jazz. The band, which for many years playd for their RIAA puppet masters by speaking out against illegal file sharing, has now embraced the promotional power of fans infringing on music publishing rights held by the songwriters by performing classic Metallica tunes on YouTube. The clips chosen by the band and their marketing minions for the new MetallicaTV channel are not clearly fair use, since as cute as an eight year old faithfully reproducing the guitar solo from opus "One" is, note-for-note re-recordings are not typically considered satire or commentary. Ironically enough, the band is giving in where it probably should have taken a stand in the first place.Traditionally, bands playing covers of songs written by other bands had to pay a royalty to music publisher organizations like ASCAP and BMI. The irony is that under traditional recording contracts, bands didn't make much from album sales, but touring and (to a lesser degree) publishing rights. So toeing the record industry party line on illegal file sharing, while giving in to the abuse of the band's publishing and public performance rights, actually makes the least economic sense for musicians in terms of the old music business.

Arizona's Jeffrey Howell did several dumb things on his way to being ordered to pay the RIAA a $40,500 fine for downloading songs such as "Waiting For A Girl Like You," "Money For Nothing," and "Sweet Child O' Mine" using peer-to-peer file-sharing service Kazaa. The first was downloading Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine" when he could have turned on a classic rock station and waited 15 minutes to hear the overplayed song twice. An even bigger mistake was wiping his hard drive after a Judge ordered him not to. But Howell's worst mistake?According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation's attorney, Fred von Lohmann, it was his refusal to hire a lawyer who could represent him in court. "I think if Howell had an expert and lawyer to speak for him, he would have told a different story," von Lohmann told Ars Technica. Now Howell owes $40,500 in damages, plus 2.12 percent interest until he pays it off. On top of that, he has to pay the court $350 in costs. That's a lot of used Guns N' Roses CDs.

In a summary judgement issued today, Judge Howard Lloyd of the Northern California Federal District Court declared that online video site Veoh can not be held liable for copyright infringement in a case brought by the Io Group, an adult content producer better known as Titan Media. Users had uploaded clips of steamy man-on-man action to Veoh, including one clip which ran 40 minutes. Rather than issue takedown notices to Veoh, the Io Group sued immediately for infringement. The judge found that Veoh's policies and practices in terms of policing the site — both at the time and currently — were "reasonable." Such practices include fingerprinting video files in order to block identical copies from being uploaded in the future and disabling the accounts of repeat infringers, which the site has done 1,096 times since it's launch, according to the company. The precedent it sets could very well aid YouTube in it's defense of similar allegations brought in the suit by Viacom. After the jump, highlights from Lloyd's decision.When Veoh allowed adult material on the site, it was all about customer service:

Following the shutdown of Muxtape, a site for posting online mixtapes, in a dispute with the music industry, someone has launched Opentape.fm, where you can download code to easily create your own Muxtape-like online mixtapes of MP3 files. And if the creators of Muxtape aren't directly responsible, they probably fed Opentape's developers everything they would need. The first clue is that the site is powered by the favored online publishing platform of millennial hipsters, Tumblr. Another clue is that the domain registration information points to 152 W. 57th Street in Manhattan, which just happens to be IAC CEO Barry Diller's address (Justin Ouellette, Muxtape's founder, worked at IAC site Vimeo). Then there are two small hints in the code:The site uses a package of Javascript, Mootools, which was also used by Muxtape. And in the source code, an HTML comment reading "Liberating taste" appears where an ASCII graphic appears in the Muxtape source code. The launch of Opentape is likely a tactic in Muxtape's fight against the RIAA. It puts the record industry trade organization in the position of having to play whack-a-mole as mixes pop up on numerous clone sites using the open-source software. It also means that Muxtape's backers no longer have to shoulder the site's soaring bandwidth costs.

The best way to judge a society is to judge how well it takes care of those unable to take care of themselves — like music and film executives, for example. Motivated by profit and self-interest, they have been helpless to stop digital piracy from eroding their relevance and profit margins at home or abroad. Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden to the rescue! Reports PaidContent:

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel has ruled that fair use — a complex set of exemptions to copyright meant to allow for commentary, criticism, and parody — must be taken into consideration before rightsholders request the removal of infringing content from websites like YouTube. The improper takedown suit was brought by Stephanie Lenz after Universal Music Group asked the popular video-sharing site to remove a clip of Lenz's then 13-month old son dancing to party-jam classic "Let's Go Crazy" by his purple majesty, the pied piper of Minneapolis, Prince. Lenz and her lawyers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation can now proceed with their case seeking damages against Universal for issuing an improper takedown request.

There are only two acceptable copyright stories on the Internet: "Evil Big Guy Sues Saintly Little Guy," and "Evil Big Guy Violates Sacred Creative Commons License." This is one of the latter. Prime Minister Gordon Brown's official website, Number10.gov.uk, uses a WordPress theme called "NetWorker" created by sometime Web designer Anthony Baggett in Mississippi. Baggett licensed the work under a CC license that requires attribution — all he wants is public credit — but it seems the PM's site builders stripped that part out. All of which would be stupefyingly boring, except for this one line from Baggett:

The days of marveling over online music service Pandora's ability to know that you hella heart Oakland's own Digital Underground may soon be over. A court decision adored by the recording industry doubled the royalties Web broadcasters have to pay. Radio stations pay nothing to for rebroadcast rights to recordings, but do pay publishers a royalty. Satellite broadcasters pay nearly half what online music providers are charged. Pandora reports that the charges, payable to royalty collector SoundExchange, will amount to $17.5 million of their $25 million in annual revenue. Which would permanently mangle the company's business model, according to CEO Tim Westergren. The flip, convenient thing to do here is to blog about the evils of the rapacious music industry. Sure, SoundExchange is notorious for its long list of artists it can't find in order to pay, while it naturally collects royalties regardless. But after Muxtape's run in with the RIAA today, one has to think there's blame to spread around. What did these music entrepreneurs expect?Let's not forget: Apple pays a similar percentage to music labels for sales through iTunes, and yet it manages to stay in business. For that matter, Google pays publishers the bulk of advertising revenues it collects on ads it places on their websites. Oh, and how much of Wal-Mart's revenues get shipped straight to its suppliers in China? It's not like it's impossible to make a living in a business where most of your revenues go to the people who make the business possible. Perhaps this is Pandora's problem, not the music industry's. One way Pandora could boost revenue and curry favor with the RIAA is through good old-fashioned payola. Why not strike a deal to waive royalties on tracks the industry would like to see promoted and mixed into playlists just a little more heavily than usual? Users would still have a "commercial-free" listening experience, and Pandora could provide the thumbs-up, thumbs-down data back to promotions and marketing departments with contextual data like related songs as chosen by listeners to boot. Or Pandora could cater to the hipster avant-garde. Why not broaden affiliate sales to vinyl? LP sales jumped over 33 percent from 2006 to 2007. Let me program "only if available for online purchase on vinyl" into my Pandora listening schedule. If I could click-to-buy a 12" of Pushin' On by the Quantic Soul Orchestra, I'm sold on the record and even $10 a year for the filter feature and a few others besides. (Photo by Steven Toomey)

Muxtape, a New York-based online-music startup much favored by the Tumblr set, has shut down its website, citing a "problem" with the RIAA, a music-industry organization which polices copyright. Could it have anything to do with the ease with which users can download music files from the site, despite founder Justin Ouellette's efforts to block them? The company blog elaborates, barely: "No artists or labels have complained. The site is not closed indefinitely. Stay tuned."

Michael Dell will not get paid every time you say "cloud computing." The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has finally shut down Dell's attempt to trademark the phrase "cloud computing" late last week. Earlier in the week, the USPTO reversed a decision letting Dell proceed with its trademark request. [The Register]

Italian ISPs blocked traffic to bootleg supersite The Pirate Bay last week, in response to a government request. You can guess how this played out: A Pirate Bay spokesman claims the site has jumped 10 places on Alexa's Italian rankings, whatever those mean, thanks to the free nationwide PR. Italian traffic to the site — a search engine for pirated video, music and porn on peer-to-peer networks — is up five percent despite the block on most ISPs. [TorrentFreak]

The International Olympic Committee has issued a takedown notice to YouTube over a video that features protestors projecting free Tibet propaganda on the walls of the Chinese consulate in New York City. It's a clear abuse of copyright law. According to the takedown notice from YouTube, the IOC found the video through the "Claim Your Content" system that makes it easy to issue infringement claims.However, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the law which sets up a process for notifying sites like YouTube of copyright infringements, issuing a counternotice is not so simple. YouTube requires the notice must be submitted by mail. The IOC is officially liable to both the creator of the video and to YouTube for legal fees and other costs related to improper copyright claims, but I doubt Google would risk their rights to broadcast Olympic highlights to Rwandans by holding the IOC accountable.