Defeated and out of ideas, Comcast has turned to the rumored data caps in order to keep illegal file sharing down. The company will, effective October 1, limit all residential connections to 250 GBs a month. In their release, Comcast reasoned that the data cap would be more than ample for the average user, amounting to roughly 50 million emails, download of 62,500 songs, 125 standard-def movies, and upload of 25,000 hi-res photos, individually and exclusively.

Their explanation, however, fails to acknowledge that many users utilize a wireless network which could possibly be shared by a multitude of devices. The millions of emails and thousands of songs a user could download become increasingly small when divided amongst several devices. Nevertheless, Comcast maintains that 99% of residential users will be unaffected by the new data caps

*Videogames: Is there a Brett Ratner Guitar Hero movie in the works? If so, David Cross seems like a shoe-in to play the blue button. (I have no real idea what that even means.)

*Video: The IFC has recorded some discussions about the state of independent music in 2008; included among commentators are that nice lady from Idolator. And some other people. [more at IFC]

*Anger management: FuckThatBand.com. A music community for the haters. [metalsucks]

*Harmonica news: Bob Dylan has a line of Hohner harmonicas coming out.

*Off topic: Combining many of my favorite things, including facial hair, grooming and jewelry is the Mustache Comb Necklace. Also Mustache Comb Necklace is like the definition of word salad. [uncrate]

*Embarrassed and annoyed: OK, I was trying to read this one site (here often referred to as "Universal Music Group," elsewhere referred to as "Stereogum") at a Caribou Coffee in my neighborhood. (Yes, I still read Stereogum sometimes and I occasionally work from chain coffee stores.) Anyway, turns out Stereogum is totally dirty, I guess, because I got blocked.

The line-up, briefly -- we lead with the strange tale of iTunes in China over the last week or so. Seems that it keeps going, well, on and off. And we hear about the iPhone Girl, and about a possible crackdown on Internet news portals in South Korea. Then, an in-depth look at the issues and technologies surrounding music piracy on the Internet. Also, a British cartographer says online mapping services are killing our appreciation for map-making. And we end by asking some cows which way is north.

Show notes, links and pics are over at Discovery.

"In so many ways it's turned our business back into a singles business," says Ken Levitan, Kid Rock's manager. Mr. Levitan says the rise of iTunes is far from being a boon to the industry; instead, he calls it "part of the death knell of the music business."

Death knell to the music business? The music industry has indeed seen steadily decreasing music sales since 2000, when Napster invaded college dorms across the country and created a vast, illegal marketplace for free copyrighted music. However, attacking iTunes as a cause of weak revenues hardly seems fitting. iTunes (especially when paired with the iPod) provides consumers with an extremely easy and legal way to download digital music, deterring many would-be pirates from obtaining music illegally. Would customers be willing to pay for an entire album if the single song they wanted wasn't available on iTunes, or would they illegally download the song from Kazaa instead?

The more appalling part of this story, however, is that the some music execs would rather blame their customers for wanting the wrong product, rather than updating their business strategy and meeting their customers’ demand. Consumers have effectively stated their preferences loud and clear: they want individual songs, not entire albums. And why not? Is this not how music has been marketed for the last several decades? We’ve all had the experience of buying an album that’s had one or two radio hits, excitedly putting the disc in the boom box, and then realizing that the album, as a whole, totally sucks. A common strategy in the music biz seems to have been to sell hit songs surrounded by “filler” tracks, rather than good and marketable musicians capable of writing many good songs. If music fans only want one or two songs from an album, their expectation is likely to be that the rest of the trac ks won't be worth the money. The music industry ought to contemplate the part they've played in shaping that expectation.

Techdirt and the Washington Post both feature opinions on the topic that are worth a read.

2m7xd85.jpg (JPEG Image, 345x270 pixels)

Second, Linux itself defies the very concept of IP protection due to the OpenSource philosophy held by its development community. Some believe that OpenSource advocates illicitly extend this philosophy to other, non-Open products – that they actually believe all products are intellectually-free – and therefore, that they do not and will never respect the true ownership of IP.

Now, I said all of that as a segway into this very non-Linux story. A British band out of Devon, England called Show of Hands admits in an interview that they depend “utterly” on piracy viral marketing to support ticket and album sales. I mulled this story over for a while and came to realize that this band is to the recording industry what a shareware developer is to the software industry.

A small band, Show of Hands probably does not enjoy nearly the amount of radio airtime as, say, Metallica. This means that album sales rely much more heavily on concert attendance and I’d venture to guess that concert ticket revenues constitute a much higher percentage of the band’s total revenues than for bigger names. Like shareware companies, tolerating some piracy actually earns them more money than preventing it outright.

Let’s look at the other side of the coin. A big-name band does receive a lot of airplay, which can translate into fewer tours (if they like). Concert venues, being oppressively spatial in nature, can hold a limited number of humans safely and the band usually has a minimum return in mind; thus the ticket price is adjusted to allow just the right number of real fans to enjoy the performance first-hand. Not everyone can see the show, but everyone can buy the band’s albums on CD. For many bands, CD sales far outweigh concert revenues, so piracy is a much bigger threat to the band’s monetary success, especially considering that sound quality is not sacrificed. Albums re-released on CD probably sold well on cassette and possibly in LP format as well. Some groups like to repackage old material into “Greatest Hits” albums and other compilations, sometimes adding one or two “new cuts” to keep old fans buying. Like big software shops, big bands like to lock you in and repeatedly resell to you.

Enter the RIAA and other IP groups who claim to have the protection of the artists at heart. Like legislators, these groups want to represent their constituents, but all too often the only folks they get to talk to are the lobbyists and the influential. The “best interests” of the recording industry and the artists themselves begin to look a lot like what the big guys want. Forget that the small bands may be able to use viral marketing to their advantage. I know, nothing is stopping them from “giving away” their IP if they choose to do so, right?

Wrong. So-called “digital media rights” must somehow be managed to protect IP (read: imposed, because legal punishment is obviously not an effective deterrent) and technological controls are increasingly replied upon to achieve this. If it becomes illegal or highly cost-prohibitive to own or operate equipment free of IP protection functionality, the small band will have no choice but to conform, eliminating one of its most effective marketing strategies. This constitutes a barrier to entry for competition, strengthening the resale potential of established big-name bands.

What does this mean for Linux? It seems that the creators of codecs and IP protection software are reluctant to share their algorithms with the Linux community, the most-likely reason being the fear of the “Wild West” described above. If you don’t want stuff stolen from your gym locker, don’t write the combination of your lock on the door, right? The IP folks probably won’t budge on this point unless the Linux community can be trusted (read: controlled).

One last thought – if music piracy is such a big problem and Windows+Mac still has 95% or more of market share, I really don’t see how Linux is the root of that problem (no pun intended).

-Brandon

Unless Vista was properly activated, it would drop into "reduced functionality mode", in which the only thing you could do with it was access the Internet in order to complete online activation -- or buy a valid product key.

In Service Pack 1, the behavior was changed so that the operating system would still operate, but the background turned black and nagging boxes warned you that you "might be a victim of software piracy".

Now, Microsoft is going to bring this "feature" to Windows XP Professional with a new version of the Windows Genuine Advantage. From the WGA blog:

With this update to WGA Notifications in Windows XP, we've implemented a couple of related features that draw on the notifications experience we designed for Windows Vista SP1. After installing this version of WGA Notifications on a copy of Windows XP that fails the validation, most users will discover on their next logon that their desktop has changed to a plain black background from whatever was there previously.

The desktop background can be reset to anything else in the usual ways, but every 60 minutes it will change back to the plain black background. This will continue to happen until that copy of Windows is genuine.

Also, the user will see the addition of what we call the "persistent desktop notification." This notification is similar to a watermark but works a bit differently. The image appears over the system tray and is non-interactive in the sense that you can't click on it or do anything to it.

This update will come only to XP Pro users, since Microsoft says that's the most-pirated version of XP. If you use XP Home or Media Center Edition, you won't get this new release of WGA. It will take several months before all XP Pro users have the new WGA.

Blog author Alex Kochis claims this is something XP users actually want:

. . . Our research has clearly shown that customers value the ability of Windows to alert them when they may have software that is not genuine, but they also want the ability to stay up to date with the least effort required on their part. . . .

OK, Alex, if you say so . . .

While I don't think users of activated, valid copies of XP Pro will care much about this, it could become an issue if WGA malfunctions, as it has in the past. If Microsoft's WGA servers mistakenly report a valid copy as being not genuine, XP Pro users aren't likely to "value" this feature all that much.

Original URL: http://blogs.chron.com/techblog/archives/2008/08/got_a_pirated_copy_of_xp_expect_to_be_nagged.html

Microsoft has updated software that verifies whether a copy of Windows is genuine in its Windows XP Professional edition. The company said it made the changes to the Windows Genuine Notification (WGA) alerts for XP Pro because it is "the product edition that is most often stolen."

Now when a version of Windows XP Pro is found to be pirated or counterfeit - [or at least Microsoft thinks it is] - the next time a user logs on to the system, the desktop screen background will be black, replacing whatever custom desktop may have been set by the user. This will reappear every 60 minutes, even if a user resets the screen's background. Previously, this was not a part of the WGA notification for Windows XP Pro.

Another new feature of the alert system is to put the PC into "persistent desktop notification" mode, with a banner at the bottom of the screen informing the user that the copy of Windows is not genuine. The notification is translucent and users can interact with any objects underneath it; however, it will continue to appear on the screen until a user installs a genuine copy of Windows.

The office pool for this month will be - how many legit copies of XP Pro will end up saddled with the Microsoft accusing finger?

Paul makes an extremely valid point.  Because WSO2 is using the liberal Apache license, users, ISVs and SIs can do virtually whatever they want with the code itself. However, if we were talking about a GPL'd product (i.e. Alfresco), we could once again see a role for the BSA.  If an ISV takes Alfresco code makes proprietary modifications and begins to ship a closed source product ABC, then ABC is violating Alfresco's license, i.e. GPLv2, and Alfresco Co.'s intellectual property is being infringed.

In retrospect, I should have kept my examples to non-BSD-based open source licenses when asking if we'd see open source companies join the BSA.

Another question that surfaced during a discussion with a friend at school is how to stop "open source support piracy" (I'm sure there is a better name for this, but I can't think of one at this moment).  In the open source world, where the code is available for free, "piracy" occurs when a customer purchases support for X number servers and runs Y>>X copies of the product, generally for a different application than those running on the X servers.  The customer then funnels any support inquiries that arise on the Y servers, through the support for the X servers.  Open source vendors try to address this through support contracts that allow a limited number of named contacts who can log a support issue.  At the end of the day, vendors must rely on the honesty of their users.

Clearly, the "open source support piracy" issue is not wholly different than traditional "piracy" in the closed source world. But in the closed source world, there is a concerted effort, however (in)effective to stop piracy.  In the open source world, there isn't much discussion about how to curtail "open source support piracy".  Maybe it is not as rampant as traditional software piracy?  Or maybe we're still too early in the lifecycle of paid open source usage to chase down "open source support piracy"?

I watch about three films in the cinema, every week. This month, I saw the Dark Knight legitimately three times.

Music, I buy DRM free downloads from artists and record labels who are not complete scumbags.

Games... Well... Never mind.

Sometimes, you simply have to torrent that album, or film, or game. You aren't able to pay, or you feel that the BPI and the RIAA are morally bankrupt scumbags who have helped destroy music and worse and ruined the lives of many vulnerable people.

Perhaps you downloaded too many Linux ISO's from bittorrent, and your ISP is throttling your downloads and they go as slow as molasses.

Perhaps you live in an authoritatian country, and you want unfiltered access to the internet. For example, in the Phillipines, a modern industrialised nation, most porn sites are blocked. Now, any sensible person would argue that this is another case of the state sticking it's grubby little nose where it does not belong. Relakks gives you an uncensored internet.

Perhaps you are worried about a company that made a shit game which you torrented and later regretted is going to send you a legal threat demanding cash, or they'll take you to court.

Perhaps you just want to stick it to the two bit industry bosses and download whatever you want.

Perhaps you're a teenage boy, and your mum has installed Net Nanny and you desperately want to go on myspace. Relakks can bypass any filter.

Even your ISP has no idea what you're doing, as it uses non-US encryption, and just comes out as net traffic.

It's likely you'll get faster internet because your ISP will not be throttling you!

Relakks gives you the whole internet, with no restrictions, and boy is it fast!

Not to mention, it is in Sweden. One of those real countries, where citizens have rights, unlike the UK.

These people will not give your information to anybody at all. Any subpeonas sent to them will likely be used as toilet paper and mailed back to the sender. With them, you are safe.

Best of all, they are giving one month of useage free. Right now I have free VPN until the 19th of next month, then I intend to pay a reasonable £3.50 per month.

If you like anonymous, free, fast, safe internet, Relakks may just be the thing for you.

Namun, pada kenyataannya membajak tidak sama dengan mencuri. Bisa dilihat pada ilustrasi berikut:

via Ngoprek Web dan PIRACY is not THEFT!

With what looks like the impending fall of Pandora Radio what will the reprecussion on those of us listen to it be? Nothings better than some good free music especially when it's legal. over one million people use this service and what's gojng to happen? The Music Industry is setting itself up for a spike in music piracy. Right now we get our free music and they got their money and everyone's happy. Except that they seem to not like having the music on the internet and want to run Pandora into the ground. Much as like the alcohol prohibition of the 1920's this is only going to add fuel to the fire for music pirates. What did prohibition in the '20's accomplish? NOTHING. People the likes of Al Capone flourished because of how profitable bootlegging and speakeasys were. A similar effect will happen with the music industry: people will turn back to programs like limewire to pirate their music and saw screw you to the people who took away their free internet radio. All the MI is doing is hurtung it's sales even more.

Listening to Pandora has gave me new songs to get, and while I haven't done so yet I would definatly buy CDs with the new songs I've heard from this, but if the CRB is going to hike internet royalties fees and more or less force Pandora to shut down why should I bother?

If Pandora goes down people will find alternative ways to listen to their music and aquire it for free. Something will replace pandora eventually, much like happend with napstar, but the overall effect will be more music piracy going on.

The id Software CEO spoke about how he thinks that hardware manufacturers are lining up on the wrong side of the piracy argument and are continuing to benefit from the very problem that is damaging software developers and publishers.

"They have lots of reasons as to why they do that," he said, "but I think that there's been this dirty little secret among hardware manufacturers, which is that the perception of free content - even if you're supposed to pay for it on PCs - is some sort hidden benefit that you get when you buy a PC, like a right to download music for free or a right to download pirated movies and games."

"I think that if you went in and could see what's going on in their minds, though they may never say that stuff and I'm not saying there's some conspiracy or something like that - but I think the thing is they realise that trading content, copyrighted or not, is an expected benefit of owning a computer."

Well, yeah, that and it's easier to read awesome sites like bit-tech.net on a PC.

Do you agree with Hollenshead, or do you think that the issue of piracy is blown way out of control? Let us know what you think in the forums.

Image courtesy of Fernando Estel.

I know i am not alone in at least once in my life having downloaded something illegal simply cause i wanted it but either couldn't afford it or didn't have access to it or some other reason, but is it really wrong?

From a legal point of view, yes it is wrong. You are basically taking something which otherwise would have cost you a few of your hard earned money, so why do it?

There are many pirates around, i know none among my friends who hasn't at some point downloaded illegally. I happily admit that when i myself did download it, i did so illegally too, but i had my reasons for doing it. Reasons i believe are justified by what we are facing today.

The situation today with software (games and programs in general), music and video today (and also on the rise, books) is that the prices are going up, and they are going up fast!
In fact the prices are rising so fast that most people who at some point was able to actually buy most of it regularly because it was within their budget can no longer buy it as often as they used to. They are experiencing that the prices of things around them are rising faster than their own salaries and thus we eventually are going to experience an inflation or a collapse in the market because people can't buy it anyway.

What piracy does is not just working to speed up this happening, but it is also working against it.
That is to say, the true pirates work to this goal, most people sadly just think that they can save much by just sticking to piracy.
i consider myself a true pirate. I wish to speed up this collapse in the market so that perhaps the industry can see firsthand what their high prices cause. Preferably i would like to convince them to create lower prices earlier so that we don't have to see the market collapse at all but that doesn't seem likely.
Like all businesses, the industry want to make money and rarely do anyone have the courage to actually be bold and attempt something wild that while in the eyes of the consumers looks much better for both sides, doesn't look so good for them. The small companies are usually the ones that try but even they are few in numbers that take that step.

So what do we end up with?
We end up with an industry that tries to create DRM (digital right management) to try and stop all the illegal copies from working. It works to some extent, they stop some of them, but usually its the wrong group that gets targeted. DRM has a drawback in that it affects both those who still pay and those who get it illegally. Those who get it illegally usually know enough to get about it anyway and really don't bother much about it. The fixes to get about it get better and better and easier to implement. They don't bother about support cause they have illegal stuff and thus they know that they will basically turn themselves in. The legal users get support that in many cases is horrible and they get the DRM that doesn't work or they have to bother about choosing between the lesser of two evils, because there are different versions of DRM's floating around the market.

I don't have any fixed numbers but i can tell you this, the industry makes a whole lot more money than they care to admit and they only want more, that is the core of any major corporate company today. They tend to rig the numbers to show that they are loosing money when they are in fact making more because of piracy. That's right, piracy has actually increased their income and they still complain.
Unofficially they love it, but officially they hate it cause its in a "status quo" situation. Both sides are at a balance where both have an edge. if one side uses their edge then the other side has to use theirs or all hell breaks loose. if they don't use it then the balance won't change and they will be stuck at an uneasy compromise neither likes. (actually no matter what it will end up in a situation that one or the other dislikes)

Another something that has happened that has really brought about a tension unlike any other is the industry's new approaches to end piracy. They have started to hunt the users and almost randomly started lawsuits against anyone. This approach has been highly debated as it is basically the Salem Witch hunts all over again.

I see really only a few things that can make things better.
One is to lower prices and the fees and taxes that comes on top of that. (to put an example, a car in Norway that can without taxes cost perhaps 100 000 does with all the taxes cost roughly 300 000)
Two is to remodel the industry, something they don't want to see. Music artists at the very least today can make most of their music alone. The industry can work out something to earn profits from merchandise and concerts etc. While the artists (any anyone whom might work for them) can get the money from the sale of the music itself. Adds, merchandise and concerts etc should be more than enough for them to continue to grow.
Three is more for the other parts (software and movies) The cost of movies and software is generally to high. Many want to buy it but few feel that they can spend over 500NOK for one single thing. If they where to reduce their prices with perhaps 200 - 250NOK to about half the price then they would sell more and they would see that there is a good balance there. (i speak in general but use my own position as the best example i can give)

There are many ways to go about it, but none of them include persecution, near illegal approaches to finding out who is a pirate or even getting the ISPs (internet service providers) to agree on banning whomever is a pirate from the internet.

What is funny, we did a search using keywords Linda Waldron' of the Nation's Archives and came up with zilch.

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Now that Jippy Doyle is safely where he belongs at the Dodds facility for raping a 13 year old girl what about Roy Morris? How long will the case of the former Editor of the Nation newspaper languish in the system? Whether he is guilty or not as the saying goes justice delayed is justice denied. We see that the Chief Justice is about to get a spanking new building on Whitepark. What would Jippy say about pouring new wine in old skins? - "Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved." -Matthew 9:17

Will our Judges in 2009 have to record evidence in long hand? Will there continue to be a backlog in cases in the traffic court? When our Court System is moved to the new Judicial Centre will the fRoy Morris file go missing at the Registrar's Office?

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Last month we highlighted that the Barbados Light & Power Company had an improved net income in 2008 of 48% or 58 million dollars. Now it is the turn of Cable & Wireless, we read today that C&W achieved a 14% growth but importantly performance in its broadband platform increases by 43%. We are not questioning the profit which C&W continues to make or should we? We prefer to question the fact that it has been several years since deregulation in the telecommunications sector and Barbadians may not yet be benefiting from the change. Many households in Barbados continue to receive separate monthly bills from C&W for fixed line, ADSL, Netspeak and, if you have a cellphone you can add that to the stack of bills.

Should the Barbadian who has contracted the full suit of C&W services not be able to benefit from a good price which is linked to a more efficient C&W billing system that rewards loyalty? So what is the role of the Fair Trading Commission?

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West Coast Blog has reported the rumour that Russian Roman Abramovich may have purchased The Sands. For those of you who do not know the gentleman, he is said to be the world's 15th richest man.  Barbados is rapidly becoming the play ground of the rich and famous. While we welcome foreign investment we are forced to ask, where is the balance?

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On behalf of the BU household we want to thank the BU family for your support. We also want to thank all those new visitors who have been logging-on to BU. The tidbits which we have posted in this blog were submitted by BU family members in recent days.

]]> http://scottobear.wordpress.com/?p=8068 Tue, 26 Aug 2008 04:40:43 +0000 scottobear http://scottobear.wordpress.com/?p=8068 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BHK!!

Allison's B'day! I buttered her nose while she was distracted by playing audiosurf. (Got it for $5 this last weekend.) I was a little disappointed that my mp3 of Christopher Walken reciting Poe's "The Raven" was so linear.

As a gift / party-favor to all for BHK's day - A GAZILLION Free to print and play games.

Oh BGG, how I thank the Internets you're there.

If you're not into free games, (or even if you are, dear journal) here's a stop-motion zombie movie called Chainsaw Maid. Best zombie film this year. (from the same people who did Bloody Date )

No Lebanese Taverna Tonight - Falafel time must wait - instead we hit Gallo's Deli - food is still pretty good. Not as superior as Selby, but only a block or two from the house. BHK opened the remainder for her loot tonight.

I got her an assortment of little trinket-treats - My faves were earring-studs in the style of mexican sugar skulls and a bottlecap pin with a pirate inside saying ARG in letter beads.... but I'm partial to things skully. I need to take a picture of BHK's loot pile - other items were a lovey charm, a ouija board pin, and a horde of coupons to do / get things, from getting me in a good mood to a movie night with no snarky comments. (2 nights, if neither are Jane Austen-related).

2 years ago - robo-post while I'm on vaykay with BHK, dragonfly-kitty pic

3 years ago - google talk, web-surfing, Katrina, Robertson apologizes, v05-blueberry, medieval career, book meme, palm doodle, weather, power-out phone post

4 years ago - bag lady update, Twilight Zone: Planet of the Apes

5 years ago - got bro a Ganesh, (but I skipped the digeridoo), law and order coloring book, first day at new gig as good server king of the south, gabbed with mi Hala re: jhumkas and moonstones, and happy thoughts of working with her, Shal'weez.

6 years ago - heroclix improvised weapons, deadly toys, poemtag

7 years ago - pirate joke, selectivity, amor, warning label poll

8 years ago - aliens operate on my body, rhymes, colors, stevie

120 years ago - A plant grows in Mexteca, Mexico, which the natives call the "herb of prophecy." A dose of it produces sleep similar in all respects to the hypnotic state. The subject answers with closed eyes all questions that are put to him, and is completely insensible. The pathologic state brings with it a kind of prophetic gift and doublesight. Furthermore he loses his will and is completely under the control of another. On returning to himself he remembers nothing of what he has done. -Excelsior Cottager, August 25, 1888.

Pirate attacks on yachts are all to common off the coasts of Africa and in the Far East, but are lucky rather rare in Europe. Until this pirate attack happened on Sunday, there had been no notable piracy attacks on yachts for several years in the Mediterranean.

Read the full story: Pirate Attack in Europe

Corsica is the fourth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and is located west of Italy, southeast of France, and north of the island of Sardinia.

Corsica is considered one of the 26 régions of France, although strictly speaking Corsica is designated as a "territorial collectivity" by law. As a territorial collectivity, it enjoys greater powers than other French régions, but for the most part its status is quite similar. Corsica is referred to as a "région" in common speech, and is almost always listed among the other régions of France. Although the island is separated from the continental mainland by the Ligurian Sea and is much closer to the Italian than to the French mainland, politically Corsica is considered part of Metropolitan France.

Read more about the Pirates of the Mediterranean

In reading the actual letter, it is also apparent that the IOC doesn't know or doesn't care about how TPB works - it is now understood by most that they aren't a site storing billions of files and then distributing them freely. Actual files are never stored on the site, which makes it even less plausible that any content would be taken down.

If you go to Brokep's blog, make sure to have a look at the comments section. It's interesting that most of the commenters are fanatic in their zealous belief that TPB does the right thing, but let's face it, it's not that easy to choose a side after considering the ethics of piracy and file-sharing. Especially if you consider it in the light of the Olympics - do we want the Olympics to be no more than a product of capitalism?

      Microsoft entered the Chinese market early, in order to seize the market faster, in fact, taken some kind of "piracy strategy", on the piracy market, "turning a blind eye", and now when Microsoft products have been more people Acceptable, "the net" will become very natural. 

      Microsoft official said, "Tomato Garden" in the software piracy in a rather long period of time is rampant, including Microsoft, the software company's rights are subject to serious damage. In view of this, together with other Microsoft software companies to join China's State Copyright Bureau and the Ministry of Public Security put forward complaints and law enforcement agencies have been on a high degree of attention. Microsoft for infringing the law enforcement agencies against such criminal acts against the severe blow to the positive action expressed appreciation and gratitude.

"These are not random acts," said Charlie Meacham, a Jacksonville-based private investigator working for several insurance companies to try to recover the stolen boats. "These guys are professionals. They are in and out, and before you know it, the boat is in Mexico."

Meacham, who is investigating several of the Pinellas County thefts, just returned from Cancun, where he says he found 44 boats reported stolen in Florida.

Click here for full story