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(credit: Parti socialiste)

The European Commission's new "modern, more European" copyright framework, unveiled today, has ruled out a tax on hyperlinks. But it could still lead to the introduction of a Europe-wide ancillary copyright that would require people to pay a licensing fee for the use of short snippets online. This confirms earlier reports that the EU Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society, Günther Oettinger, was "open" to the idea of imposing a "Google tax" on the use of snippets.

On the issue of ancillary copyright, also known as a Google tax, the document detailing the European Commission's plans contains the following comment: "the situation raises questions about whether the current set of rights recognised in EU law is sufficient and well-designed. For news aggregators, in particular, solutions have been attempted in certain Member States, but they carry the risk of more fragmentation in the digital single market."

The "solutions" refer to attempts by Germany and Spain to require search engines—particularly Google—to pay publishers for using snippets from their publications in search results. As Ars reported in July, these have been unmitigated failures, and it's troubling to see the European Commission countenance the idea of extending a Google tax to the whole of the EU on the pretext of addressing "fragmentation" in the digital single market.

Spotify may soon allow musicians to reserve their albums for paying subscribers only, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal. Currently, music must be made available to both paying subscribers and those using the free ad-supported service, something which has proved to be a sticking point for artists like Taylor Swift, who pulled her entire catalogue from the service last year.

According to Spotify's artist guidelines, the service pays between $0.006 and $0.0084 per stream to rights holders, but notes that "the effective average per-stream payout generated by our Premium subscribers is considerably higher." If artists are able to focus their efforts purely on Spotify's 20 million paying users, the amount they earn per-stream might be reasonable enough to encourage artists like Taylor Swift to re-join the service.

The report adds that Spotify will be implementing the change with one artist initially in order to investigate how the approach might affect usage and subscription sign-ups. Who that artist might be remains up for discussion, but Spotify is said to have been in talks with Coldplay and the album "Head Full of Dreams." The deal fell through because the group's management couldn’t guarantee that it could keep the album off other free sites such as YouTube, according to the WSJ's sources.

Composite image of Abell 2744, with the smaller substructures visible around the larger central mass. (credit: ESA/XMM-Newton (X-rays); ESO/WFI (optical); NASA/ESA & CFHT (dark matter))

The cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) provides a glimpse at the baby Universe, shortly after its birth in the Big Bang. By mapping out the patterns and irregularities in this “baby picture,” researchers can get a rough idea of how much ordinary (baryonic, not dark) matter there should be in the present Universe, with respect to the dark.

The estimate they’ve obtained this way suggests that baryonic matter should account for about five percent of the stuff (energy content) in the Universe. But looking at the nearby Universe, researchers find a baryonic matter distribution that’s about half of this estimate.

One possible solution to this discrepancy is that the local Universe has lower density than elsewhere and that the filaments of the cosmic web have a higher percentage of baryonic matter. This scenario is suggested by computer simulations. Essentially, the idea is that this extra matter would be “warm-hot,” which in space just means the particles are moving around very quickly.

Australian federal police have raided the Sydney home of Craig Steven Wright, the man who—just a few hours ago—was named by Wired and Gizmodo as the probable creator of Bitcoin. Reuters reports that there are police at an office that's listed as the registered location of two of Wright's businesses, too.

Curiously, a statement from the Australian federal police said that the raids were not related to the recent Bitcoin revelation. "The AFP can confirm it has conducted search warrants to assist the Australian Taxation Office at a residence in Gordon and a business premises in Ryde, Sydney. This matter is unrelated to recent media reporting regarding the digital currency bitcoin."

Late yesterday, both Wired and Gizmodo published reports that fingered Craig Steven Wright as the likely real identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the pseudonymous figure behind the creation of the original Bitcoin software in 2009. Both Wired and Gizmodo were working from the same trove of documents. The evidence is pretty convincing: as Wired says, "Either Wright invented bitcoin, or he’s a brilliant hoaxer who very badly wants us to believe he did."

(credit: ND Strupler/Flickr)

Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), the most commonly diagnosed mental disorder among children in the US, is becoming even more commonly diagnosed, according to a new analysis of nationwide data.

Between 2003 and 2011, prevalence of the disorder in kids aged five to 17 rose from 8.4 percent to 12 percent, a 42.9 percent increase, researchers report. That means that 5.8 million children and young adults—about one in eight—in the US now have the diagnosis. Such a diagnosis identifies recurring hyperactivity and/or inattentiveness that hinders work, play, and school activities. The surge, published Tuesday in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, affected kids across different races/ethnicities, socioeconomic statuses, age groups, and genders—although, to varying degrees.

“We aren’t able to get at the driving forces behind the trends,” Sean Cleary, coauthor of the study and professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at George Washington University, told Ars. But, he said, speculation includes greater recognition of the symptoms, as well as over diagnosis. The latter, is of course a concern, Cleary said. But so is under diagnosis, he added. If ADHD is not caught and treated early, symptoms and problems could persist into adulthood, he explained.