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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: freeus who wrote (7468)	10/24/1997 11:00:00 AM
From: david decamp	Respond to of 22053

Pretty strange indeed... And unfortunately, it looks like this may have something to do with the general sinking of tech stocks (and unfortunately COMS) as well. Looks like the HK jitters aren't over yet: biz.yahoo.com Dave

To: freeus who wrote (7468)	10/24/1997 12:31:00 PM
From: Jeffery E. Forrest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22053

As I recall you live in SoCal too right? It has been the worst year for ants that I have ever seen down here. As you very well know we ALWAYS have the "ant season" here, but I've never seen anything like this one. They seem VERY aggressive this year too. Bite like hell and swarm on the most miniscule crumb of food. What really creeps me out is when they get in the microwave. I nuked those bastards for 5 and 10 minutes at a time and it didn't seem to phase them in the slightest. Hmmmm, maybe that's the problem. I've created a new breed of mutants<G>

To: freeus who wrote (7468)	10/24/1997 12:42:00 PM
From: Scrapps	Respond to of 22053

Free us! Seek professional help...and I don't mean an extreminator! <GG> Seriously now you should call a pest control or better a museum of natural history. They will help you with your questions...or report you to the men in white coats! <GGG>

To: freeus who wrote (7468)	10/24/1997 3:47:00 PM
From: Moonray	Respond to of 22053

SPA Sues Net Pirates For the first time, the Software Publishers Association has filed suit against two individuals not only for distributing illegally copied programs on the Net, but also for posting the serial numbers and "cracking" tools used to get around copyright protection. The SPA, which announced the lawsuit on Thursday, filed several civil suits last year against individuals who had uploaded software and against ISPs who refused to remove the copyrighted programs from their servers when notified by the publishers. "Our allegation is that this is a case of contributory [copyright] infringement," said Peter Beruk, the SPA's director of North American anti-piracy efforts. Although the association's member companies have no direct copyright interest in the cracking tools themselves, and the law surrounding serial numbers apart from their programs is vague, Beruk said that these tools are used solely for the purpose of breaking through legitimate copyright protections. "An authorized person would never need these tools," Beruk said. Thursday's suit was filed on behalf of seven of SPA's member companies, including Adobe Systems, Autodesk, Claris, Corel, Intuit, Macromedia, and Visio. The association is investigating other similar sites and plans to file other lawsuits soon, representatives said. Beruk conceded that Thursday's lawsuit is primarily a warning to operators of thousands of similar sites. The SPA is asking for a permanent injunction against the individuals involved, barring them from ever posting similar materials again. More importantly, he said, he hopes the court rules that any posting of serial numbers or cracking tools constitutes a contributory infringement on copyrights -- something not yet established under current law. The SPA is also asking for financial damages, but "we don't really expect to walk away with any," Beruk said. "We want this to serve as a message to others." Under current law, he added, the SPA or its member companies can not pursue criminal charges against such sites unless the operators were making some kind of financial gain from the operation. Most traders in "warez" -- illegally copied programs -- do not exchange the software for money. The association's anti-piracy arm has been watching these individuals' sites for several months, Beruk said. Most recently located at www.velocity.net/~overlord and chisel.toolcity.net/~overlord, the sites switched providers and significantly grew in number of hits over the time of the investigation, he added. Both sites were blocked or removed by their ISPs after the SPA filed subpoenas asking for the site owners' names and addresses, both of which were released by the providers. For several years the SPA has monitored service providers and individual sites, looking for examples of software copyright violation. Last year, they published a series of guidelines asking ISPs to look for illegal software, using tips such as a spike in traffic or uploads of extremely large files. "We've found that ISPs really don't want to have this kind of stuff on their servers," Beruk said. Nevertheless, many service providers have protested SPA's focus on them, arguing that it is up to law enforcement and software companies themselves to do the monitoring. Once ISPs accept responsibility for monitoring content, they argue, it could legally open them up to be responsible for any illegal content passing through their servers. The SPA argues that nearly half of all copies of installed software is illegal and that the industry collectively loses more than $13 billion a year from piracy. The organization says that a recent Internet search turned up nearly 17,000 different sites that offered "infringing" material. Even a quick perusal of "warez" or "gamez" sites, which purport to offer downloads or links to downloads of copyrighted material, finds that a large proportion have already been removed from servers. Information about the individuals named in Thursday's case was not released by the SPA. The case was filed in a Pennsylvania U.S. District Court. o~~~ O