Month: December 2024

The week before Thanksgiving, Marshall Brain sent a final email to his colleagues at North Carolina State University. "I have just been through one of the most demoralizing, depressing, humiliating, unjust processes possible with the university," wrote the founder of HowStuffWorks.com and director of NC State's Engineering Entrepreneurs Program. Hours later, campus police found that Brain had died by suicide.

NC State police discovered Brain unresponsive in Engineering Building II on Centennial Campus around 7 am on November 20, following a welfare check request from his wife at 6:40 am, according to The Technician, NC State's student newspaper. Police confirmed Brain was deceased when they arrived.

Brian Gordon, a reporter for The News and Observer in Raleigh, obtained a copy of Brain's death certificate and shared it with Ars Technica, confirming the suicide. It marks an abrupt end to a life rich with achievement and the joy of spreading technical knowledge to others.

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The week before Thanksgiving, Marshall Brain sent a final email to his colleagues at North Carolina State University. "I have just been through one of the most demoralizing, depressing, humiliating, unjust processes possible with the university," wrote the founder of HowStuffWorks.com and director of NC State's Engineering Entrepreneurs Program. Hours later, campus police found that Brain had died by suicide.

NC State police discovered Brain unresponsive in Engineering Building II on Centennial Campus around 7 am on November 20, following a welfare check request from his wife at 6:40 am, according to The Technician, NC State's student newspaper. Police confirmed Brain was deceased when they arrived.

Brian Gordon, a reporter for The News and Observer in Raleigh, obtained a copy of Brain's death certificate and shared it with Ars Technica, confirming the suicide. It marks an abrupt end to a life rich with achievement and the joy of spreading technical knowledge to others.

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Ein Unternehmer erhielt von der Investitionsbank einen Zuschuss von 50.000 Euro für einen Porsche Taycan. Doch das reichte ihm noch nicht. (Elektroauto, Auto)

AWS nennt Leistungsdaten zu Trainium 2 und kündigt einen riesigen Cluster an. Die Chips sind nun allgemein verfügbar, der Nachfolger bereits in Arbeit. (KI, Prozessor)

Der Facebook-Mutterkonzern will seine Rechenzentren mit Atomstrom betreiben - wie auch die anderen Internetkonzerne. (Meta, Google)

Zwei Töchter der Stoli Group haben Konkurs angemeldet. Die gesamte Unternehmensgruppe leidet seit August unter den Folgen eines Cyberangriffs. (Cybercrime, Cyberwar)

Im Januar soll ein überarbeiteter Antrag zu den Startlizenzen des Starship verhandelt werden. Die Anzahl bestimmt, inwieweit SpaceX seine Pläne für 2025 erfüllen kann. (Starship, Nasa)

In recent years, music industry groups have become increasingly concerned by tools that allow users to download MP3s from online streaming services, including YouTube.

These so-called ‘stream-rippers’ violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision; they argue.

This position resulted in thousands of circumvention takedown requests, which prompted Google to remove millions of stream-ripper URLs from its search engine. These removals also triggered a legal battle between stream-ripper Yout.com and the RIAA, which remains ongoing today.

YouTube hasn’t taken an official stance on the ‘circumvention’ argument but since its sister company Google honors these takedowns, it seems to agree with the music industry. However, not all MP3-related sites are inherently problematic.

MP3.to

A few weeks ago, Spanish music industry group Promusicae flagged hundreds of stream-ripper URLs in yet another anti-circumvention takedown notice. Grouped in with popular stream-rippers such as flvto, Y2mate, and 2conv was a clear outlier: MP3.to.

Promusicae Takedown

It’s important to note that MP3.to is not a stream-ripping tool. It cannot download content from third-party sites. Instead, this online tool focuses solely on converting audio files between MP3 and other formats.

MP3.to

File-conversion tools that convert MP3s, without built-in access controls such as DRM, are unlikely to violate the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provision. However, that didn’t stop Google from honoring the request and removing the URL from its search engine.

MP3.to Fights Back

The removal, which also affected the associated AdSense advertising account, came as a surprise to MP3.to and directly harmed its business.

To remedy the situation, MP3.to’s law firm Boston Law Group sent a cease and desist letter to Promusicae, describing the takedown notice as defamatory and false. The attorney urged the music group to correct the error by issuing a retraction within ten days.

“The Notice’s allegations that the Website provides technology or tools used to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to copyright works is categorically false and the Website unconditionally denies your allegations of wrongdoing.

“The Website does not decrypt any technological controls implemented to protect copyrighted works,” MP3.to’s cease-and-desist letter added.

MP3.to Cease and Desist, sent to Promusicae

In addition, MP3.to’s attorney Frank Scardino also sent a notice to Google explaining the situation. This letter explained that MP3.to adheres to relevant copyright law and doesn’t circumvent any protection measures.

Because there are no copyright infringements, MP3.to urged Google to undo all actions it took in response to the ‘false’ takedown notice.

“Therefore, the Website requests that Google disregard Promusicae’s Notice, restore Google’s Adsense account with respect to the Website, rescind any additional negative actions Google may have taken against the Website on account of the Notice,” the letter reads.

MP3.to’s letter to Google

Google Restores MP3.to

After receiving these letters two weeks ago and conducting an internal review, Google eventually reinstated the MP3.to URL. The associated AdSense account is no longer affected either.

A Google spokesperson informed us that all websites impacted by takedowns are allowed to request a re-review, after which errors can be corrected.

“Our DMCA removals process aims to strike a balance between making it easy and efficient for rightsholders to report infringing content while also protecting free expression on the web. We provide extensive transparency and submit notices to Lumen to ensure accountability,” the spokesperson said.

Promusicae has not yet responded to a request for comment. It’s possible that this takedown request was an inadvertent error on their end, confusing MP3.to with a stream-ripper.

Familiar Target & More Backlash

MP3.to operator Johnathan Nader is pleased with the outcome. Regular readers may recognize the name, as Nader is also the owner of stream-ripper Yout.com, and is actively engaged in the aforementioned legal battle with the RIAA.

Nader, who has grown skeptical of music industry groups, finds it “interesting” that he is being targeted yet again. In this case, however, things were resolved in his favor.

This brings us to the final issue with Promusicae’s takedown request. As it turns out, MP3.to was not the only file conversion site targeted. The same notice also lists online-audioconvert.com, video.online-convert.com, and similar tools.

Although these reported websites do not appear to circumvent any technical protection measures, the listed URLs remain removed from Google’s search results at the time of publication.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Bethesda hat die PC-Specs für Indiana Jones und der Große Kreis veröffentlicht. Der Titel braucht starke Hardware - und Raytracing! (Indiana Jones, Bethesda)

A Russian court has issued a life sentence to a man found guilty of being the kingpin of a dark web drug marketplace that supplied more than a metric ton of narcotics and psychotropic substances to customers around the world.

On Monday, the court found that Stanislav Moiseyev oversaw Hydra, a Russian-language market that operated an anonymous website that matched sellers of drugs and other illicit wares with buyers. Hydra was dismantled in 2022 after authorities in Germany seized servers and other infrastructure used by the sprawling, billion-dollar enterprise and a stash of bitcoin worth millions of dollars. At the time, Hydra was the largest crime forum, having facilitated $5 billion in transactions for 17 million customers. The market had been in operation since 2015.

One-stop cybercrime shop

“The court established that from 2015 to October 2018, the criminal community operated in various regions of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus,” the state prosecutor’s office of the Moscow Region said. “The well-covered activities of the organized criminal group were aimed at systematically committing serious and especially serious crimes related to the illegal trafficking of drugs and psychotropic substances.”

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