So we just got this lovely abuse e-mail from Rogers, based on an e-mail from the Entertainment Software Association. The funny thing is that he was only maybe 10-20% of the way through the three potentially offensive game downloads (I checked his computer right after the e-mail came in). Funny in part because the accusation is that he’s distributing or selling the software, when… sure, he probably is dishing out little bits here and there, but he doesn’t actually have the whole thing to give away. Also they seem to associate the tracker URL with us, which is just completely wrong.

Notice E-mail:

Dear Luke Walker

Rogers Cable (Rogers) has received a notice stating that activities associated with your IP address are infringing copyright in material(s) owned or exclusively licensed by others.

The full notice is appended to this e-mail below.

Under section 4(d) of the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet End User Agreement (EUA) and Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), you are prohibited from using the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet service to engage in illegal activities, including activities that infringe copyright.  Copies of our EUA and AUP are available at:

http://na.edit.client.yahoo.com/rogers/show_static?.form=terms&.intl=ca

Where there has been a violation of our EUA and/or AUP, including the unauthorized distribution of copyright-protected material, Rogers has the right to take appropriate action against you.

If you have any questions about the attached copyright notice, please contact the sender of the notice using the contact information provided in the notice.  Please do not reply to this e-mail.

We trust you will comply with our policies and all applicable laws in using the Rogers Yahoo! Hi-Speed Internet service.

Rogers EUA Management Team
Sincerely,

EUA Management Team
Rogers Yahoo Hi-Speed Internet

http://na.edit.client.yahoo.com/rogers/show_static?.form=terms
00798035

—–BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE—–
Hash: SHA1

Entertainment Software Association
575 7th Street, NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20004 USA

Attention:  Intellectual Property Enforcement
Telephone:  202-223-2400
E-mail:  mailto:esa@copyright-compliance.com?subject=RE%3ANoticeID%3A182%2D48817084ESACanadaNotice

28 Jul 2008 04:01:48 GMT

ISP: Rogers Cable Communications Inc.
ESA Reference Number: 182-48817084

Dear Rogers Cable Communications Inc.:

The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) is a trade association that represents the intellectual property interests of numerous companies that publish interactive games for video game consoles, personal computers, handheld devices and the Internet in the United States of America, in Canada, and in other countries (collectively referred to as ESA members).  ESA is authorized to act on behalf of ESA members whose copyright and other intellectual property rights it believes to be infringed as described herein.

ESA is providing this letter of notification to make Rogers Cable Communications Inc. aware of material on its network or system that infringes the exclusive copyright rights of and is unlawful towards one or more ESA members.

ESA members are entitled to the full protection of Canadian intellectual property laws, including the Copyright Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42, as amended, in such entertainment software products.

Based on the information at its disposal on 28 Jul 2008 03:13:23 GMT, ESA has a good faith belief that 99.233.14.223 infringes the rights of one or more ESA members by offering for sale or download unauthorized copies of game products protected by copyright, or offering for sale or download material that is the subject of infringing activities.  The copyrighted works that have been infringed include but are not limited to:

Title: SimCity Societies
Infringement Source: BitTorrent
Infringement Timestamp: 28 Jul 2008 03:13:23 GMT
Infringement Last Documented: 28 Jul 2008 03:13:23 GMT
Infringer Username:
Infringing Filename: Simcity.Societies.Deluxe-RELOADED
Infringing Filesize: 2823979146
Infringer IP Address: xx.xxx.xx.xxx
Infringer DNS Name: cpe000fb5785e0f-cm001692f4f318.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com
Infringing URL: http://tracker.mightynova.com/announce

The unauthorized copies of such game product(s) or the material that is the subject of infringing activities appears on or is made available through xx.xxx.xx.xxx.  Those items are listed and/or identified thereon by their titles or variations thereof, game-related listings/references/descriptions, or depictions of game-related artwork.  Such copies, titles, game-related listings/references/descriptions, depictions, and material that is the subject of infringing activities, are hereinafter referred to as “Infringing Material.”

Accordingly, ESA hereby requests Rogers Cable Communications Inc. to immediately do the following:

1.    Notify the account holder of the Infringing Material.
2.     Remove, or disable access to, the Infringing Material detailed above.
3.     Take appropriate action against the account holder under your Abuse Policy/Terms
of Service Agreement, including termination of a repeat offender.

Please inform us whether you will remove or disable access to the Infringing Material as requested.  Rogers Cable Communications Inc. or the account holder may contact ESA at the above-listed contact details, with email preferred.  Please include the above-noted Reference Number in the subject line of all email correspondence.

Thank you for your cooperation and prompt response in this matter.

Sincerely,

Intellectual Property Enforcement
Entertainment Software Association

A bit of departure from my normal blog posts… I spent a lot of today reading/listening to the news, or my version of ‘the news’ (not all of it new, not all of it newsy). I do this most days, but today, for some reason, a lot of what I read really struck me. Mostly in a bad way. Mostly because there’s been so much coverage of the war on terror lately, and that never makes me a very happy camper.

The terror stuff
Three links for you. First, Omar Khadr. The Current (CBC Radio One) played tapes of his CSIS interrogations at Guantanamo today (Video on The Star’s site. Not easy to watch/listen to). I won’t lie… Canada’s (and by that, I mean that government of Canada’s) treatment of the Omar Khadr file absolutely disgusts me. The fact that it’s often referred to as ‘a file’ disgusts me. He’s a human being. A very young one, who was even younger when he was arrested on allegations of being an enemy combatant. Our governments’ (both Liberal and Conservative, though the Liberals have now changed their stance) inability to do what’s right an bring this child soldier home to Canada is completely infuriating and embarrassing. I’m not particularly proud to be Canadian at the moment.

While PM Harper argues that he’s being treated humanely, Christopher Hitchens’ article “Believe Me, It’s Torture” (in the August issue of Vanity Fair, and recently interviewed on CBC Radio One’s As It Happens) makes me doubt that my definition of humane is quite the same as that of the government of the United States. A ‘favourite’ quote, after Mr. Hitchens first-hand experience with water-boarding: “You are being drowned, but very slowly and under controlled conditions. It’s not simulating the effects of drowning…”

And last but not least, the US’s terrorism watch list has grown to include a million names (courtesy BoingBoing). Not a million people, but a million names. Because if your name is on there, regardless of whether or not you’re the one to have done anything wrong, good luck with the whole hassle-free travel thing. Oh wait, no, it’s not about ACTUAL wrongdoing. The list is all about the suspected potential for wrongdoing, proof (or even public knowledge of the criteria that gets you on the list) be damned.

Back to the internet…
In good news… the Top Friends app on Facebook looks like it’s a goner! But not because people are mature enough to recognize that the kind of friendship gymnastics required by Top Friends are best left back in 2nd grade… it’s because Facebook has launched a simplified version of the app’s features (link: valleywag). That said, I understand the rationale–kind of. If I were spending as much time on Facebook as I used to (my use is largely limited to Scrabulous these days), I might spend a second or two caring about which friends show up on my profile when people view it, and that is something quite a bit different than labelling people my Top Friends… but that said, if I’ve added someone to my Facebook, why should I be worried about him/her showing up on my profile? Hmmm… could be grounds for a friends list cull.

i really appreciate the point made at the NECC leadership session on Sunday that you don’t share computers in the workplace, but… does that really mean that every kid needs their own laptop in kindergarten? if so… why? i’m not sold. more thoughts on the NECC closing keynote later… need to process and not just jerk my knee.

My first blog post from NECC! I’m checking out a much more intimate session with Jim & Mali (friends & this morning’s keynotes), as well as Julie Lindsay and a few others, on transforming education with global perspective.

Julie Lindsay/Qatar Academy: Co-founder of the Flat Classroom project, totally worth checking out. Giving some great background on IB and the education system in Qatar, a country that has always fascinated with me. Love getting a chance to get a glimpse of a country that knows its traditional resource base/source of wealth won’t last forever and is actually trying to do something about it. And the massive wealth makes the process quite an interesting exercise–not every day you get the chance to reinvent yourself and have the resources to actually make it happen. (Wifi in the park… love it).

Education City is interesting… the connection between Julie’s comments about moving from colonialism to a knowledge society while building a city that seems to be filled with American universities and a focus on getting “an American education” is… well, I need to find out more. The point about giving girls the option of an American education (since going abroad is not an option in most cases) is a good one. No time for a whole lot of depth, but there should be some good info posted at her pbwiki

Next speaker, didn’t catch name: works in Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, and UAE, for Michigan State… this should be interesting. First American U to open a full campus in Dubai… he runs a great program in Ed Tech (oh, maybe I should check that out :P). Interesting that his initial outreach internationally wasn’t met with happy smiles. Despite that, it seems to have grown into a pretty big program pretty quickly… who knows how this will transition to Jim & Mali’s work.

Sounds a lot like the challenges he’s presenting as challenges of ed tech in the ‘developing’ world are actually universal. Especially if you’re somehow lumping UAE into the ‘developing’ category. And… he’s out of time.

Trudy Sweeney: emerging technology in Australia. New PM is ramping up computers in students’ hands. Ooooh, flash-based learning objects. Not loving any of this so far… Oh but now she’s moving on to talking about blogs, and making some good points about teacher understanding. She’s talking about points very similar, if somewhat less eloquent, to those of Peter Levine in Civic Life Online (PDF of his chapter, and [shameless plug] check out mine[/shameless plug] in the same book :P) about ‘the audience problem’ for user-generated content in the classroom setting, giving the long-tail, etc etc etc.

Talk about ethics (which usually refers to IP/copyright) around here is always interesting/troubling because it’s so often set in the ‘this is the law (or my understanding of it), and this is what we have to follow to be ethical’, rather than questioning whether the various laws around IP around the world actually reflect our shared sense of ethics when it comes to using/sharing/remixing our own and other peoples’ work. Random sidebar in my head, not really the focus of this session, but I would like to see a more active discussion in fora like this about copyright in the 21st century, especially since countries (like Canada) are in the middle of setting the tone for the topic for at least the next couple of decades… oh, she just compared Ning to Moodle. Seems like apples and oranges to me, but I guess I’m biased/way-too-focused/way-too-involved in this space

Jim & Mali, iEARN Canada, SCSDB: Really good points that the technology is a mean, not an end. I’d like to say it’s nothing revolutionary, but so many people just don’t get it. Interesting point (that even fewer people get) is that standards are more of a mean than an end as well… I’d love to see some kind of research from their point this morning about whether or not the projects they do drive student interest in current issues, and whether that’s limited to the topics they’re covering, or whether they’re developing really well-rounded global citizens. Great to see that they have been able to offer the kind of data administrators like to see (test scores (no comment about the merits of that), engagement).

Questions from the audience: Great TIG plug Mali ‘Go talk to the guy in the red shirt, booth 4053!’… I love it. Next question is a bit more interesting, about the network lockdown issue, about the balance between security and collaboration. Julie makes the excellent point that digital citizenship/media literacy is the key, not solely filtering. “Web 2.0″ access is vital for creating engaging learning experiences online today–back to Jim’s point this morning about “Lord of the e-Flies”… if we block and don’t educate, where are kids getting the info/learning about some of the issues surrounding ip/safety/etc/etc of the social web? (plus: kids know how to beat filters)

Battery dying–time to post!