Copyright group targets web users

29 June 2011 Last updated at 17:22 GMT Jonathan Worth's photograph of blogger and Creative Commons supporter Cory Doctorow A campaign has been launched to help people avoid breaking the law when they post pictures, music and videos online.

Copyright group Creative Commons has published a guide to identifying material that can be used freely without getting sued.

It is also advises individuals how to protect content they have made themselves.

Some legal experts say that the system is a stop-gap measure and want to see copyright laws radically reformed.

Around 500 million pieces of work are currently covered by Creative Commons.

The free-to-use legal licenses add a range of protections to content.

At one end of the scale, a rights holder can chose to share their property with anyone, and let them do what they like with it.

Stricter versions of the licences protect material from being manipulated or used for commercial purposes.

Creative Commons' chief of staff, Lisa Green said that the campaign was partly aimed at combating the myth that it supported "giving everything away for free".

"Rather than giving away, mostly we talk about enabling legal sharing and enabling remix," she told BBC News.

Photographer Jonathan Worth explained that Creative Commons allowed him to sell his work for commercial use while still giving it free to individuals who wanted it for other reasons.

"It is very empowering because I can allow the 14-year-old blogger who has got a fan site for Casey Affleck or Heath Ledger to use the images and she becomes someone that promotes my work.

"She is never going to pay me. She is time rich and cash poor. If I don't allow her to use the images then she is going to find a way to use them anyway," said Mr Worth.

Without such licensing, the young blogger would technically be in breach of copyright law.

Creative Commons licensing terms can be "mixed and matched" to suit the rights holder. Jonathan Worth, for example, uses Attribution + Non-commercial + share alike, meaning he must be named as the creator, the image cannot be used in a commercial venture and it can be shared under the same terms.

Legal changes

While many legal observers have praised the efforts of Creative Commons to make copyright more accessible, they point out that the system is not without its flaws.

"Non-commercial is a good idea in principle, but it is incredibly difficult to define," said Dr David Berry, senior lecturer in digital media at Swansea University.

"When you think of someone putting music onto their blog, often there is lots of embedded advertising. It might only make a few pennies, but that is technically commercial."

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It is very empowering because I can allow the 14-year-old blogger who has got a fan site for Casey Affleck or Heath Ledger to use the images and she becomes someone that promotes my work.”

End Quote Jonathan Worth Photographer Creative Commons has also been criticised as a system which masquerades as creating a common pool of content, while leaving individual rights holders the ability to alter the terms of sharing at will.

Copyright specialist Iain Connor from law firm Pinsent Masons said that any attempt to raise awareness of terms of use was a good thing.

"The general public has no knowledge of copyright. This will probably assist everybody in the creative industry," he said.

However, he added that there remained a need to re-examine all current copyright laws to make them fit for the internet age.

Mr Connor pointed out that the UK lacks an equivalent to the United States' concept of fair use, where individuals enjoy limited legal protection when re-using other people's work.

The recent Hargreaves Review of the UK's intellectual properties laws rejected the idea of replicating the US system.

Without such safeguards, say the proponents of Creative Commons, it is even more important that ordinary web users know where they can find content with easy to understand terms of use.

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Sega hack hits 1.29 million users

19 June 2011 Last updated at 10:47 GMT Sega is the latest games company to be hacked after attacks on Sony, Nintendo and others Sega has confirmed that the personal data of 1.29 million of its customers was stolen in an attack on its systems.

It comes after the computer games firm said on Friday that e-mail addresses and dates of birth stored on the Sega Pass database were accessed by hackers.

However, Sega continues to say that payment information, such as credit card numbers, remained safe.

Sega spokeswoman Yoko Nagasawa said: "We are deeply sorry for causing trouble to our customers."

She added: "We want to work on strengthening security."

Ms Nagasawa added that it was not yet known when the Sega Pass online network could be restarted.

'Investigation'

In an e-mail sent to Sega Pass users on Friday, the company wrote: "Over the last 24 hours we have identified that unauthorised entry was gained to our Sega Pass database.

"We immediately took the appropriate action to protect our consumers' data and isolate the location of the breach. We have launched an investigation into the extent of the breach of our public systems."

Sega explained that it had reset all passwords and urged customers to change their log-on details on other services and websites where they used the same credentials.

It added that password details had not been stored in plain text, suggesting that they may have been secured by some kind of encryption.

Sega is the latest in a line of games companies to suffer hacking and denial of service attacks on their online services.

Nintendo, Sony and several multi-player gaming communities have been hit in recent months.

The hacker group Lulz Security, which has been involved in a number of high profile attacks, including one against Sega rival Nintento, has denied involvement in the Sega case.

Instead it showed some sympathy for the company on its Twitter feed.

"We want to help you destroy the hackers that attacked you. We love the Dreamcast, these people are going down," it said.

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Facebook denies losing users

14 June 2011 Last updated at 11:39 GMT Facebook has said growth is healthy Facebook has denied that it is losing customers, saying it is "pleased" with growth.

Figures from Faceboook monitoring site Inside Facebook suggested that during May, Facebook lost six million users in the US and 100,000 in the UK.

But the social network, which does not usually comment on third party statistics, questioned how it arrived at this figure.

Other net measurement firms said they had seen growth over the same period.

"From time to time, we see stories about Facebook losing users in some regions. Some of these reports use data extracted from our advertising tool, which provides broad estimates on the reach of Facebook ads and isn't designed to be a source for tracking the overall growth of Facebook," the firm said in a statement.

"We are very pleased with our growth and with the way people are engaged with Facebook. More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day," it added.

The figures from Inside Facebook claimed that 1.5 million Canadian users left the social network in May.

But overall it showed that Facebook was growing, to a total of 687 million users worldwide with many new customers coming from countries such as India, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Its figures on customer leakage do not appear to tally with those from net measurement firm comScore.

It told the BBC it had seen a 21% growth for US users on Facebook during May, while the UK gained 368,000 new recruits between February and May.

According to comScore, the average amount of time spent on the site was also up, from 21 minutes per day in December 2009 to 25 minutes per day by December 2010.

Measurement firm Nielsen said its figures also showed growth.

"There are months when figures dip but I'd be very cautious on calling a trend based on two months," said Nielsen spokesman Neil Beston.

The idea of Facebook fatigue, where users desert the social network after a certain period of time has long been talked about by experts but remains unproven.

"In developed countries such as the US and the UK Facebook penetration is hitting 50% and at that level it is inevitable that users will sign up who aren't frequent visitors," said Adrian Drury, lead analyst at research firm Ovum.

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