Free Republic

As if you needed another reason not to wear your dumb Google Glass in public—or ever, actually—an Ohio man claims he was yanked out of a movie theater and interrogated by federal agents, who believed he was illegally filming the movie with his face computer. The man’s full account is posted on The Gadgeteer, but we’ll summarize it here so you can get the gist of it before you’re engulfed forever in this ghastly winter storm. Last Saturday, our Glass-wearing protagonist and his wife went to a showing of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit at an AMC in Columbus, Ohio. About...

The original Batman TV series from the 1960s, starring Adam West as the Caped Crusader, is finally going to be available to own. ... The series, which ran from 1966 to 1968 on ABC, featured guest stars including Milton Berle, Vincent Price, Liberace and Zsa Zsa Gabor, as well as Lee Meriwether and Eartha Kitt as Catwoman.

After some tumultuous years in transition, the Hiphop Archive is firmly settled back at Harvard. And it’s about to raise its profile significantly, with a new fellowship named for the rapper Nas, a widely recognized leader of hip-hop’s “knowledge is power” movement.

Instagram just set off a bomb inside its new privacy policy and terms of service. New wording essentially makes it possible to turn people’s photos posted after Jan. 16 using Instagram into advertisements. In other words, that sutro-toned picture of your beloved Lhasa apso freshly coiffed after her grooming might well become an ad for Classy Canine Dog Salon. The language at issue: [Y]ou hereby grant to Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use the Content that you post on or through the Service, except that you can control who can view certain of...

Filmmaker Michael Moore, famed for his propagandistic left-slanted portrayals of America in such films as Roger and Me, Bowling for Columbine, and Sicko, is under fire for lifting the work of a writer from the Knoxville News Sentinel and reposting it on his own site in total despite that copyright laws disallow such a practice. On his site Random Mumblings the News Director of Innovation for the Knoxville News Sentinel, Jack Lail, reported that Michael Moore lifted an entire story and its accompanying video production from his newspaper’s website and reposted it all on MichaelMoore.com. Not only did he lift...

Ann and Nancy Wilson are p*ssed at the Republican Party and have fired off a cease and desist letter to the McCain/Palin campaign. Specifically, the Heart women are upset that the GOP has used their classic "Barracuda" as a theme song for Sarah Palin. TMZ obtained a statement from Heart's rep, who says "The Republican campaign did not ask for permission to use the song, nor would they have been granted that permission." The statement goes on: "We have asked the Republican campaign publicly not to use our music. We hope our wishes will be honored."

Many readers have complained that Michael Moore, in the conduct of his latest crusade against whatever he is against this month, has illegally used one of my photos on the banner of his website. Mr. Moore is not the first to have done so, and my readers can get pretty upset when it happens. My lawyer has demanded that Mr. Moore take it down. I usually freely grant use of my work to truthful, peaceful, non-commercial, non-political outlets. For instance, a church group wanted to use one of my photos for their congregation. I was honored and gave it to...

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The NFL has nixed a church's plans to use a wall projector to show the Colts-Bears Super Bowl game, saying it would violate copyright laws. NFL officials spotted a promotion of Fall Creek Baptist Church's "Super Bowl Bash" on the church Web site last week and overnighted a letter to the pastor demanding the party be canceled, the church said. < snip > But the NFL objected to the church's plans to use a projector to show the game, saying the law limits it to one TV no bigger than 55 inches. The church will likely abandon...

MUSIC and software industry lobby groups have been accused of touting "absurd" piracy figures in an effort to get tougher copyright laws and more police resources to enforce them. A draft Australian Institute of Criminology report on intellectual property crime - obtained by The Australian- describes some industry research as "self-serving hyperbole" and warns that exaggerated statistics are being used to get government attention. "Demonstrated higher levels of piracy and counterfeiting would invariably result in additional federal government resources being diverted to enforcement activities," the report says.

Last year, singer Melissa Etheridge promised to love and protect her new partner, actress Tammy Lynn Michaels, until death do them part, but she may not be able to leave her songs to Michaels. U.S. copyright law discriminates against homosexuals by not allowing songwriters and other artists to determine conclusively who gets the rights to their work at the time of their death. No matter what an artist's intention, spouses, children and grandchildren, in that order, are the first in line to recapture the copyrights, followed by next of kin, executors and administrators. Since most states do not recognize gay...

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Chippewa Falls Prom CD Paige Pearson The prom committee usually comes up with ideas for giveaways, and this year they decided on CDs featuring songs played at prom like the Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian" and Sara Evans' "Born to Fly." One little problem: those songs are protected by U.S. copyright laws, and it's illegal to copy songs that are not in the public domain. Chi Hi officials say they are more than willing to comply with the Recording Industry of America, which is currently investigating the case. That might include paying a licensing fee or even trying to retrieve...

"Tillman chose to go to Afghanistan. He's partially reponsible for the deaths of hundreds, maybe thousands of Afghan civilians. No need to feel sorry for him, other than feeling bad that he was brainwashed into serving as a grunt." "it's amazing the kind of attention this insignificant incident is going to cause. well, he was rich, white, and an american. 10,000 (brown) iraqis get killed, and it barely merits a mention in the american news. how utterly f---ing sad."

A Los Angeles judge on Monday delivered the first good news Walt Disney has had this year when he dismissed a 13-year-old multimillion-dollar lawsuit over its rights to exploit Winnie the Pooh and his 100-Aker Wood associates. "It is all over," said Disney lawyer Daniel Petrocelli. The ruling appeared to end a colourful struggle over a group of Disney's most profitable film, merchandise and theme park characters that had stirred allegations of skullduggery on both sides. In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the entertainment group warned that losing the case would have cost it hundreds of millions...

<p>By his own proud admission, Avi Adelman is an irrepressible muckraker.</p> <p>As the proprietor of BarkingDogs.org, a "proactive" news website that unearths political malfeasance in and around Dallas, Texas, Adelman has been, as he loves to say, "a thorn in the side of a lot of people out here."</p>