VueStar claims that anyone using a an image to link to another page is infringing on their patent.  They are actively sueing just about anyone they feel like over this. See the Slashdot article.

I couldn’t believe it!  We must owe them so much money!  In a hurry, I wrote a little command to see how many times we infringed.

tput sc && wget --wait=1 -qr -O blah.txt http://freeculture.org & tail -f blah.txt |
sed -r ":a /([^<][^\/][^a][^>]|^.{,4})$/N; s/\n//g; ta" | egrep -o "" |
awk '/|<\/img>)/{ct++}{printf("%d", ct)}{system("tput rc")}' && rm blah.txt

It counted 918 times before I killed it! The horror!

The Singaporean firm VueStar’s website claims it “offers to URL owners the opportunity to secure a ‘Licence of Use’ for locating web sites that are using visual images’ pursuant to Patents granted and in existence in several parts of the World.” We’ve heard outlandish claims like this before, and indeed any four-year-old can put up a website asking the world for money, but news articles indicate they are already asking for royalties on these patents from websites, including non-profit websites like Mr. Alvin Koh’s arofanatics.com according to that link.

Using images in web links is pretty much as old as using images on the web at all. Patents are only issuable in the case that there is no “prior art” indicating the invention is already known. In this case, one must imagine both someone so cynical to think the Singaporean patent office would let this patent through as well as a patent examiner who simply has no idea that this is a universal way to use images on the web. As a result, this company could claim we infringed at least 918 times.

In truth, the patent would disappear in court – the prior art is clear as day. But how much money would be spent on lawyers by people defending themselves from VueStar first?

(Please note that using this command may put undue stress on the web server and admin(s).)

FreeCulture.org has always been about getting action on the ground and creating chapters that make an impact in their local communities. But the network that has tied these chapters together, and even inspired them to start, has always been the Internet.

Recently we had the pleasure of unveiling a new website, and as Web Team Leader I want to go one step further: What could freeculture.org’s technology do to make your life of promoting Free Culture easier?  How can we retain volunteers, put them to use, get the right information to them, and respond to the public’s desire to know more about us?

Unfortunately, neither I nor the other volunteers who have contributed technical help have infinite time, so there’s no way we’ll get to every task on the wishlist.  But the only way we can know what you need is if you come by.  So this is an announcement:

Meeting:

• Where: #freeculture (go to our “Contact” page for more info on using IRC, including a web-based chat client)
• When: 5 PM Eastern Time (convert to your time zone) on Sunday 12 August, 2007
• More info: Meeting planning page on our wiki

The meeting’s goal is to help the web team understand what tools would help people already involved with FreeCulture.org activities to grow or improve those activities. That’s anyone from chapter members to bloggers to IRC lurkers. If you want to get involved, then come too and we’ll see if you can help us understand how to keep you involved.

– Asheesh.

FreeCulture.org now has a status blog for our website at fcostatus.wordpress.com (feed), where we will post news about problems with our website, downtime, emergencies, etc. This is in response to the bug about needing an off-site status blog. Check the status blog anytime FreeCulture.org’s website does not seem to be working, and hopefully you’ll find information there to calm your nerves (e.g. “We know about the problem, we’re working on it.”). If we haven’t posted anything indicating that we are aware of the problem, please contact us right away and let us know, as detailed at what to do if the site is down! For the lazy, the contents of that page are pasted here:

What to do if the site is down

Oh no! FreeCulture.org or some portion of it or its related services is broken/unavailable! What do you do now?

1. Check whether we have posted anything on this status blog indicating that we are aware of the problem.
2. If there is no indication that we know of the problem, then please tell us about the problem right away! Jot down a clear description of the problem, then contact FreeCulture.org’s web team in one or more of the following ways:

* E-mail our sysadmin, Asheesh, at asheesh@asheesh.org, and/or
* Pop into our IRC channel at #freeculture on irc.freenode.net, and mention it to people in that chat room. More info about our IRC channel is available on our wiki. If you don’t know what IRC is, skip this step, and/or
* File a bug on our bug tracker on Launchpad.net. (Unfortunately, this requires you to register an account on Launchpad.)

If it’s a real emergency, and you haven’t succeeded in reaching people in any other way, you may call Asheesh personally at +1 (585) 506-8865.

One of the most active parts of the FreeCulture.org community over the years has been the discuss@freeculture.org mailing list. Students, faculty, and non-academics have long discussed Free Culture, software freedom, and related issues there, as well as highlighted web links of interest. We’ve seen subjects range from the Pirate Party through copyrighted laws to Open Access policies for scientific publication.

Three months ago, our old web hosting provider (Leafyhost) suffered a disk failure and didn’t have backups of our data, so we lost our subscribers list. So we want to take this chance to re-invite you all to discuss Free Culture!

Visit our list information page to sign up (or unsubscribe, if you choose). You can read the archives on the web, too.

Notes from the entirety of the FreeCulture.org National Summit 2006 are now available on the wiki. Go find your favorite speaker, or else skip straight to checking up on the State of FreeCulture.org as elaborated by Nelson.

Just in time for the holidays, FC.o members have started compiling gift guides of RIAA-free CDs. This is a great way to get some holiday gift ideas, as well as to support those who oppose the way that the Recording Industry Association of America does business.

A few examples of these lists are:
Gavin’s list (indie pop/rock, electronic) PDF
Karen’s list (indie, blues, random)
Dan’s list (indie)

Here are Gavin’s instructions on making and submitting an RIAA-free CD Holiday Gift Guide

So, if you want to make a list, here’s what to do:

1. Make a list of 10 non-RIAA CDs (check riaaradar.com and the members list on riaa.com — neither list is perfect because the RIAA lies, go figure.)
2. You can have a theme for your list, or not — it’s up to you.
3. Try not to have more than 1 CD by the same band or more than 2 CDs from the same label.
4. Don’t use a CD that somebody else has used.
5. These should be CDs you could reasonably find in a record store or some place like amazon.com.

Not sure where to start? There are some lists on riaaradar.com that might give you some ideas (poke around). “Major” labels that are non-RIAA include Sub Pop, Matador, Merge, and Kill Rock Stars. Two bands I thought about using in my list, but didn’t, are Bloc Party and Mates of State — so there’s 2 ideas right there.

Note that we are listing CDs, not bands — bands often switch labels, sometimes jumping to RIAA members. Occasionally the same CD will be re-released by a RIAA member; make sure you list the non-RIAA release.

Your list should include:
* 10 CDs with artist and title, and if possible, year and label
* a brief description of each CD or why you like it. (these can be wordier than mine)
* your name, age, school (if applicable), and a list of 3 likes OR 3 dislikes — serious or cute
* a 150×150 px photo of you. I can crop and resize if necessary, but if you want it look the way you want, you better do it yourself! jpg preferred, send a link or as attachment

In order to submit a list, email it to freedom@freeculture.org. More information can also be found at freeculture.org/riaafree/.

Despite all of the text on our website, it’s been surprisingly difficult to find out exactly who we are by reading it. But fear not… For those anxious to know more about FreeCulture.org, we now provide an about page! Although we enjoy having an air of mystery, we plan to leak more information about ourselves onto the web in the months to come. Keep your eye on this blog for more updates!

Update: I fixed a few problems on the page. As always, feel free to comment on this entry or contact us to let us if you find the new page useful, suggestions, etc. –Gavin

I updated the WordPress code to version 1.5.1. If anyone sees an issue, let me know.