June 2011

The rule changes set forth earlier this week by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that will allow new generic top-level domain (gTLD) names could end up costing governments quite a bit of money, whether they apply to own one of the extensions or not.

Instead of the traditional .gov, .org or .com gTLDs currently in use, starting on Jan. 12, 2012, various city and state names and almost any word can be applied for and purchased. That cost is an estimated $185,000 fee, plus a $25,000 annual price-tag to operate the gTLD. But the legal fees associated with protecting a government entity’s name may ultimately be pricier, according to Scott Bain, chief litigation counsel of the Software & Information Industry Association, a trade association representing the software and digital content industries. Governments without the funds to apply for their own gTLD face the possibility of someone else buying the extension and being forced to tangle with that purchaser in court in order to block it, Bain said. Although the high cost and yearly fee theoretically would curtail most common cyber-squatters from actually buying a gTLD and fully exploiting it, Bain maintained the real worry is the thousands of domains that could spawn from each new extension.

With the economy looking a bit weaker than it was at the start of the year, Gannett has returned to layoffs at its 80 U.S. community newspapers. The publisher will cut 2 percent of its workforce, or roughly 700 jobs.

Gannett flagship USA Today, which is not part of the community publishing division, is not affected by this announcement. But unless the print ad picture turns around, it too could find itself hit with more reductions. On top of the 700 job cuts, Gannett will once again use mandatory unpaid furloughs for executives over a certain pay level to save money in the face of a soft national and local advertising.

[Commentary] The dream of the Internet as a libertarian oasis is firmly planted in the eyes of a million computer programmers. The mantra that "information wants to be free" is the gateway to utopia. When information is free, then power is wrested from the gatekeepers of knowledge. Anyone can become enlightened. All the tools are there and readily available. And, you can become rich in the process. With a firm grasp on rationality and a computer, anyone can enter into the information technology industry. Access to jobs is not decided by bureaucracies and old-boy networks, but is instead grounded in a true merit-based society. To a certain extent this depiction is accurate. Many people have made fortunes in the computer industry.

But there is a dark side. For every dot-com millionaire, there are most likely a thousand IT employees that will never see an IPO. These are the workers that struggle as contractors and freelancers, often without benefits or job security. While a highly sought dream job designing video games might offer an employee the chance to create something of worth, it might also involve incredibly stressful, hundred-hour work weeks hunched over a cathode ray tube without overtime pay. Certainly, the gross salary for information technology positions can be generous, but that salary can be heavily garnished -- sometimes up to 50 percent of the total paycheck -- by staffing firms and headhunters that many companies rely on for HR needs. Then there are the other miscellaneous pitfalls of the less-than-ideal information technology job: non-compete clauses, few long-term career paths and demands to stay current on new technologies or risk being replaced by someone significantly younger. In other professions, issues like pay, career trajectory and job security were addressed by forming unions, but those drawn to the IT sector have been resistant to this approach. Unions are often seen as emblematic of the bureaucracies of the past. The idea that some complex process could stand in the way of independent accomplishment is anathema to the fundamentals of the libertarian, self-made, DIY, hacker culture.

A federal judge ruled that publishing an entire article without the rights holder’s authorization was a fair use of the work, in yet another blow to newspaper copyright troll Righthaven.

It’s not often that republishing an entire work without permission is deemed fair use. Fair use is an infringement defense when the defendant reproduced a copyrighted work for purposes such as criticism, commentary, teaching and research. The defense is analyzed on a case-by-case basis. The ruling dismissed a lawsuit brought by Righthaven, a Las Vegas-based copyright litigation factory jointly owned with newspaper publisher Stephens Media. The venture’s litigation tactics and ethics are being questioned by several judges and attorneys, a factor that also weighed in on U.S. District Judge Philip Pro’s decision. Righthaven has sued more than 200 websites, bloggers and commenters for copyright infringement. More than 100 have settled out of court. The lawsuit decided Monday targeted Wayne Hoehn, a Vietnam veteran who posted all 19 paragraphs of November editorial from the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which is owned by Stephens Media. Hoehn posted the article, and its headline, “Public Employee Pensions: We Can't Afford Them” on medjacksports.com to prompt discussion about the financial affairs of the nation’s states. Hoehn was a user of the site, not an employee.