A reader submitted these comments and a press release: “As many of you have heard by now, strong-arm
tactics used by Sega’s lawyers have attacked several web sites that disseminate
non-copyrighted information regarding the Dreamcast console and its line of
products and forced these sites to close their doors. Among the harrassed, my
site, iSONEWS.com, received numerous
threatening letters from Sega’s attorneys. Because iSONEWS.com could not afford
to fight Sega in a legal battle, we removed our Dreamcast sections.  After
keeping the sections down for five days, we went balls out and re-opened the
Dreamcast section of our web page (9/27). Thankfully, we have retained legal
counsel, and we are preparing to do battle with Sega.  We are the first
such site to take a stance against Sega – the ball is in their court now. 
If you wish to learn more about iSONEWS’ exchanges with Sega’s attorneys, all of
the email conversations, including our official reply from our attorney, can be
found by clicking here.  We have prepared
the following press release to inform the public of Sega’s activities and
iSONEWS.com’s fight for its right to share information.”

On September 27, 2000, www.iSONEWS.com took a stand for freedom and
defied a cease and desist order from attorneys representing Sega of America
Dreamcast, Inc.  Sega, in its
much-publicized war on piracy, demanded that the staff of iSONEWS permanently
remove all content that discussed or commented on the Dreamcast and its
supported line of products.  
Sega’s attorneys accused iSONEWS of contributory, and later, direct
infringment upon the console maker’s line of Dreamcast products.  Despite requests for elaboration and
attempts at cooperation, the attorneys for Sega responded to the staff of
iSONEWS with only threats and shortened deadlines.  While the staff of iSONEWS supports Sega
in its anti-piracy efforts, the strong-arm tactics of Sega’s attorneys barred
all efforts of the iSONEWS staff in coming to a resolution that was acceptable
to the involved parties.  Sega’s
attorneys refused to provide any examples of copyright infringement found at the
iSONEWS.com website but insisted that unless all Dreamcast content was removed,
Sega would take the two-year-old website to court.

www.iSONEWS.com is a
nonprofit news and information site that reports alleged acts of piracy while
providing the Internet public a forum to discuss matters of copyright
infringement with the benefit of current information.  While www.iSONEWS.com contains subject matter that
relates to software piracy, the website does not directly or contributively
infringe upon the copyright interests of others.  The staff of iSONEWS.com does not endorse software piracy
and enforces policies that prohibit such activities.  Despite not being given any examples of
wrongdoing, financial restraints and deadlines from Sega’s attorneys forced the
iSONEWS staff to yield to Sega’s demands until legal counsel could be retained
to represent the website’s interests in a court of law.

 The battle between iSONEWS.com and Sega has little to
do with the videogame giant protecting its copyright interests.  Instead, this fight is a border dispute
over the boundaries of First Amendment protections for speech and press.  The staff of iSONEWS wishes to defend
not only its ability to share information freely but also to protect the civil
liberties of all users who post and share information on the Internet.
–Alkivar

e-week columnist Cameron Sturdevant laments the loss of the eight-hour work day for modern IT workers.

Remember the old Macintosh “portable?” It weighed 25 pounds and cost $10,000. Read about the dinosaurs at SiliconValley.com.

e-stuff uses a lot of e-lectricity; anywhere from three percent to twenty percent of the nation’s total power generation, according to a report at SiliconValley.com.

A Gartner Group study says that 75% of households will have ‘Net access by 2005. Those who don’t risk being labeled illiterate, says this MSNBC report.

Open Paranoia is the name of the project living at Sourceforge.net. The developer writes, “Everyone is asked to provide input. Anyone with spare time is invited (begged!) to join this project. Also needed–a webpage designer for this project. Please write me! Joshua W. Kuebler (Joshua_Kuebler@juno.com) ” –Joshua W. Kuebler

e-Week.com reports that Red Hat will help customers manage Linux systems over the ‘Net with Novell’s help; the announcement came in the midst of rumors about a possible Red Hat takeover of the tech company.

This Salon story discusses the prospects for the peer-to-peer troublemaker who’s going to trial today.

There have been missteps, backpedaling, and kinks to work out with Larry Ellison’s company. So buyers are taking a ‘wait and see’ attitude when it comes to implementing the new 11i suite. From a story at ZDNET.

By Grant Gross

Managing Editor
Giving some props

Here at NewsForge, we’re constantly amazed about the prolific super-Linux programmer Alan Cox, who seems to release a new test version of the kernel every day, if not more often. His latest, unless that changes by the time I finish this column, is 2.218pre14, only his third release over the weekend. When’s this guy sleep?

Speaking of new releases, Linux Planet started its review of SuSE Linux 7.0 with this tasty nugget: “Red Hat 7.0’s recent release was ransacked by the user community, looking for the next Big Thing. The response has been less than overwhelming thus far. But while all the hoopla about Red Hat was going on here in the States, the latest
release from Deutschland has quietly been causing a stir of its own, first in its home country, and now here.” If Mandrake’s more your flavor, Linux Lookup offered a review of Mandrake 7.2 (beta 2).

No props to closed-sourcers Apple, whose lower-than-expect earnings report this week sent the Nasdaq into a bit of a tailspin. Damn that fruit! But hey, you could be the guy who bought Apple stock on Wednesday. On Friday alone, the computer-maker’s shares dropped by more than half. Apparently those cube things aren’t selling so well.

I want my, I want my MP3

This week, MP3.com asked fans of free music (as in free beer) to flood Congress with email supporting the Music Owners’ Listening Rights Act of 2000. More about the “Million Email March” and the act itself at The Standard.

Everything under the Sun

There was lots of coverage of our friends at Sun Microsystems this week, including the release of its UltraSparc III server, complete with technical glitches during the launch event. Our friends at Linux Today questioned Sun’s commitment to Linux, saying the company’s been “somewhat schizoid” in its Linux pronouncements as of late. Also, ZDNet UK reported that Sun may be ditching Linux on its Cobalt Networks server. Check out NewsForge’s own Jack Bryar’s column on Sun’s relationship with Cobalt after its purchase of the company.

Props to itself

Chip-maker and Linus employer Transmeta ruffled a few feathers this week, when an official with the company said its technology was five years ahead of its competitors’ technologies. Later in the week, Transmeta tried to clear the air: Its lead is in its software emulation technology, only. Intel and AMD suddenly were breathing easier.

New at NewsForge

News editor Tina Gasperson examines one company’s claims that it’s the first to release remote network administration software that gives “complete control” of the Linux console. Others say, no way

Our hardware reviewer Jeff Field asks why hardware is still so difficult to install, especially with all these distributions of Linux having different methods of detecting hardware.