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Ob in der U-Bahn oder im Schaufenster: Transparente OLED-Panels bleiben ein interessantes Konzept für LG. Das Unternehmen hat viele Ideen. (LG, Display)
Die Musikbranche sieht dringenden Handlungsbedarf, lässt aber offen, welche Maßnahmen ergriffen werden sollen. (BVMI, Streaming)
Vom Wikinger-Glück in Valheim bis hin zu Hochglanz-Pracht in Kena: Es war ein spektakuläres Jahr für Fans von Indiegames. Von Rainer Sigl (Indiegames, Rollenspiel)
Vom Wikinger-Glück in Valheim bis hin zu Hochglanz-Pracht in Kena: Es war ein spektakuläres Jahr für Fans von Indiegames. Von Rainer Sigl (Indiegames, Rollenspiel) Nicht-binäre Person in den Niederlanden ist schwanger und will später als Elternteil registriert werden, nicht als Mutter
Bei der Missachtung des Kinder- und Jugendschutzes im Bereich Online-Pornografie wollen Behörden einschreiten. (XHamster, Telekom)
“Wertebasierte” Außenpolitik der neuen Berliner Regierung?
Schrittweise Stilllegung ausgedienter Braunkohle-Kraftwerksblöcke wird teurer als angekündigt. Doch für die meisten Kraftwerksblöcke sollen die konkreten Vergütungen nicht mehr veröffentlicht werden
Ars chats with author Maia Szalavitz about her book, Undoing Drugs
Enlarge / A call for radical empathy: In her 2021 book, Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction, Maia Szalavitz argues for adopting the controversial practice of harm reduction when treating addiction. (credit: iStock / Getty Image)
There's rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way. So this year, we're once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one science story that fell through the cracks in 2020, each day from December 25 through January 5. Today: why we should replace the punitive approach of the "war on drugs" with a radical new paradigm for treating addiction.
In 1986, Maia Szalavitz was a heroin addict in New York City, weighing a scant 80 pounds and shooting up as often as 40 times a day. She had just discovered the heady mixture of cocaine and heroin known as speedballs, and had no intention of quitting, even though HIV was spreading rapidly through the community thanks to the practice of sharing dirty needles. But a chance encounter in an East Village apartment likely saved her life.
A woman visiting from California taught Szalavitz how to protect herself by running bleach through a shared syringe at least twice, then rinsing twice with water, as well as washing the injection point. It was Szalavitz's first encounter with so-called "harm reduction," an approach to treating addiction that emphasizes ways to minimize the risks and negative consequences associated with substance abuse—not just the risk of addiction and disease, but also social stigma, poverty, and imprisonment. Needle exchange programs, for instance, supply free clean syringes to addicts, thereby reducing the spread of HIV.
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Chip shortages, game delays couldn’t stop us from selecting 20 fantastic games.
In the world of video games, 2021 may forever be remembered as the year of COVID's great reckoning. 2020 was already rough, but many of its biggest games were mostly completed in a normal development cycle. Projects slated for the following year weren't as lucky.
Thus, this year's gaming news was rich with delays, piping-hot launches, unfinished messes, and game publishers scrambling to fill their schedules with undercooked backup plans. And that says nothing about gamers themselves, wondering if crucial chips and parts might ever be plentiful enough again so they can buy the latest in console and PC gear.
Yet against all odds, fantastic games still crossed 2021's finish line, ranging from big-budget behemoths to surprising indies. This year, in an effort to reduce ranking-based ire and celebrate every game on our list, we're removing numbered rankings, with the exception of crowning a formal Ars Technica pick for Best Video Game of 2021 at the list's very end.
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In 2020, Amazon teamed up with publisher Penguin Random House and authors including Lee Child and John Grisham to sue several pirate eBook sites operating out of Ukraine. After a tortuous legal process, a Washington court has awarded the maximum available statutory damages of $7.8 million.
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
In a summer 2020 lawsuit, Amazon Content Services, publisher Penguin Random House and several authors including John Grisham and Lee Child, accused several pirate eBook sites of infringing their copyrights.
The sites, which operated under the ‘Kiss Library’ brand, were available from domains including Kissly.net, Wtffastspring.bid, Libly.net, and Cheap-Library.com. Together they provided access to copyrighted works at “unbeatable prices”, largely due to the eBooks being pirated, the plaintiffs said.
The lawsuit aimed to put the sites out of business and also claw back damages from Ukrainian nationals Rodion Vynnychenko and Artem Besshapochny, who were said to be behind the platforms.
A preliminary injunction was quickly handed down by a Washington court which prevented payment processors, domain registrars, hosts, back-end service providers, affiliate program providers, web designers, and search engines from doing business with the sites. The court also ordered assets to be restrained.
Early on it became clear the case was unlikely to be straightforward. Judge Marsha J. Pechman acknowledged that the defendants had “gone to great lengths” to frustrate the plaintiffs and the court by using “multiple false identities and addresses” and “purposely-deceptive contact information.”
What followed was a voyage through a clearly compromised Ukrainian legal system with a local court admitting that it lacked basics such as postal stamps and envelopes.
According to a judgment recently handed down by the Washington court, neither of the defendants participated in the lawsuit but have taken efforts to avoid accountability. They did not respond to a motion for a temporary restraining order and Vynnychenko twice refused to accept service. He also failed to appear at a proceeding required under Ukrainian law.
They were served in compliance with Hague Convention rules, however, so the plaintiffs moved for and obtained default against the defendants. All that remained was the question of damages and a permanent injunction.
Judge Pechman notes that there is “little doubt” that her court has jurisdiction, in part due to the defendants directing their piracy scheme at residents of Washington, where Amazon Publishing has its headquarters.
“Defendants advertised and distributed the copyrighted works at issue to Washington consumers in violation of the Copyright Act, duping consumers and interfering with the Author Plaintiffs’ licensing relationship with Plaintiff Amazon who suffered a loss of sales in Washington,” she writes.
“Second, Plaintiffs’ copyright infringement arise from and relate to Defendants’ forum-related activities, given that Defendants knowingly and intentionally infringed on a Washington-based company’s copyrighted works and compete with the company in Washington.”
Since the defendants failed to appear, the court accepted as true the plaintiffs’ allegations that 52 copyrighted works were willfully copied, displayed and distributed. They asked for $7.8 million in statutory damages, the maximum available for the works in suit.
This large figure gave the court reason to “pause” but following consideration, the Judge found the amount to be appropriate under the circumstances.
“[G]iven the extent of the piracy scheme, Defendants’ efforts to fight or participate in this lawsuit, and the seriousness of the misconduct, the Court finds that the requested damages are reasonable,” the judgment reads.
“The Court therefore awards Plaintiffs’ the maximum statutory amount of $150,000 for each of the [copyrighted works].”
Noting that the damages award alone would be insufficient, Judge Pechman also issued a permanent injunction against defendants Kiss Library, Rodion Vynnychenko, Artem Besshapochny, their agents, and any persons acting in concert or participation with them.
The order can be found here (pdf)
From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.
Ob in der U-Bahn oder im Schaufenster: Transparente OLED-Panels bleiben ein interessantes Konzept für LG. Das Unternehmen hat viele Ideen. (
Die Musikbranche sieht dringenden Handlungsbedarf, lässt aber offen, welche Maßnahmen ergriffen werden sollen. (
Bei der Missachtung des Kinder- und Jugendschutzes im Bereich Online-Pornografie wollen Behörden einschreiten. (
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