Copyrights have always been an issue in Pakistan and were neglected by people. However, a recent step of Geo TV’s Fire Recordings might have changed some people’s minds (though not all).

Fire Recordings have filed a lawsuit against a website managed by three people named Najam Sahar, Zeeshan Alam & Yasir Hayat for sharing copyrighted music albums. Convicts have been presented in a local court in Karachi. Court is being adjourned till March 5th because of absence of FIA (Federal Investigation Agency) prosecutor.

Fire Records Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Akbar Yazdani said “This is the first lawsuit of its kind in Pakistan against Music Piracy & more will follow soon”. He also adds “Copyright violators will not be spared and actions will be taken against them”.

Dr. Akbar Yazdani has also filed a Lawsuit against two other websites providing pirated content.

1)- Apniisp.com

2)- funmaza.com

A written application has been submitted to FIA against the above mentioned websites.

Finally piracy has been considered a Crime in Pakistan but still there is a lot to do. Almost every software is pirated here and no one even thinks about it (even though it benefits public but …)

Watch Geo Television coverage on this issue.

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Last November, Apple filed a complaint in Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) against an individual for the possession of domain names consisting company’s brand names. Apple won the case and on January 6, 2010 all 16 Domain names were transferred to Apple.

Inspired by Apple, earlier this month Microsoft also filed a complaint in ICANN UDRP to acquire 23 domain names containing their brand names. UDRP transferred all 23 names to Microsoft on February 2, 2010.

These 23 domain names were registered in June 2008, to someone distinctively named nonamo, public URDP documents state. 22 of these Domain names were related to Microsoft’s operating system “Windows” and one contained “Xbox” in it.

List of the transferred Domain could be found below:

• windows7addon.com
• windows7antivirus.com
• windows7compatible.com
• windows7features.com
• windows7firewall.com
• windows7freeware.com
• windows7hardware.com
• windows7patch.com
• windows7place.com
• windows7plus.com
• windows7portable.com
• windows7recover.com
• windows7reviews.com
• windows7screensaver.com
• windows7security.com
• windows7servicepack.com
• windows7stuff.com
• windows7virus.com
• windowsforgamers.com
• windowsforgames.com
• windowsvistaplace.com
• windowsvistavirus.com
• xbox362.com

GoogleBuzz.Com Acquired by Google: Google got his hands on “Googlebuzz.com” from buzznews, which failed to respond to the complaint filed by Google. Therefore, letting Google get away with the domain name.
Google will be planning to point their latest product to the acquired domain name sooner or later. Google actually got lucky by owning the domain when they needed it the most.

DECISION

Having established all three elements required under the ICANN Policy, the Panel concludes that relief shall be GRANTED.

Accordingly, it is Ordered that the <googlebuzz.com> domain name be TRANSFERRED from Respondent to Complainant.

People keep on registering trademark domains and company’s keep on filing complaints and things go on like this.

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According to local media of China, the biggest hacker training website has been closed by the police.  Officials also claimed to have arrested three members of the team.

News reporters said that hacking website was closed in September last year and three arrests were made but they failed to answer why this has been kept secret till now.

Official newspaper of the communist party says that Police also investigated Black Hawk Safety Net (another training website) in the central province of Hubei in suspicion of using threatening software. Hacker training website is held responsible to provide the programs for cybercrimes.

Reporters said that arrests are made in response to the revised criminal law. According to this law creation and distribution of hacking tools has been prohibited. This new law was among one of the first of its kind in China which focused on protecting people from cyber crimes. Many arrests were made in China last year after new laws have been implemented.

Black Hawk Safety Net and other related website became very popular in China. They offer hacking training tools, videos and chat forums to members for a nominal fee. Black Hawk supposed to have collected 7 million Yuan (USD 1 Million) from a user base of 180,000.

A while back Google was attacked by Chinese hackers and Google brought global attention to the matter and threatened to stop its’ subsidiary service in China.

Chinese government on the other hand says, they don’t have any part in the attacks and they strongly condemn all cyber crimes. Implementing several cyber laws shows the seriousness of Chinese government.

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PayPal, one of the biggest online money transfer solution for India has recently decided to temporarily stop its’ operations for personal payment in India. This includes payment transfer from & to India; also transfers to banks have been suspended.

However, commercial payments can still be made but withdrawal to Indian banks is not allowed anymore (as off now). No comments from Regional PayPal team have been made about the suspension.

PayPal states: “personal payments to and from India and transfers to local banks in India have been suspended while we work with our business partners and other stakeholders to address questions they have about the service.

During this time, customers can still make commercial payments to India but merchants cannot withdraw funds in Rupees to local Indian banks.”

PayPal on other hand feels sorry for the trouble it might have caused the users in India and is working to fix the issue quickly.

Some websites and bloggers have also reported that payments have been refunded to the senders.

PayPal suspension of its services in India might be associated with Indian Government new rules against money laundering. An anonymous analyst says the new rule requires the identity of clients performing international transfers.

On the other hand, PayPal’s agreement says verifying a client’s documents are very hard on the internet, even though PayPal has the right to ask for verification documents.

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YouTube was completely blocked in Pakistan by PTCL on Sunday without any reason/warning. People must have thought “What is going on?” Even though, YouTube was accessible through proxy websites but it remained blocked for almost 1 hour. ISPs said PTA (Pakistan Telecommunication Authority) is responsible for the ban and they cannot provide any reasons whatsoever.

Later on, YouTube was restored by PTCL and other ISPs. Sigh of relief? But many noticed the reason for the restrictions. You could no longer access President Asif Ali Zardari’s video where he openly asks people to “shut up” during his speech.

This video has been around for a while now and people were watching and promoting it to extreme extent, which surely was embarrassing for the President. Maybe, President didn’t like it afterward and authorities asked PTA to impose a ban on related videos. It’s just an assumption so far. Is it?

YouTube is fully functional as of now with these videos missing. You can search for the video but it won’t work because you won’t be able to open it as you will be welcomed with “This Site is Restricted” message.

Having said that I don’t understand what Government is thinking by banning the video in Pakistan. Literally anyone with small Internet knowledge can access those easily. Also the ban is in Pakistan and Pakistan isn’t the whole world, Global users still have the access to the video.

I tried to access these ‘videos’ on my Wateen connection and these are working fine so, apparently, PTCL is the only ISP banned by PTA so far. Lets wait and see what they are up to. We would however like comments from people using other ISPs whether or not they are able to access these videos.

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Wefollow a public directory of Twitter users launched a year back is the original idea of Digg founder “Kevin Rose”.

We follow requires some permissions to add your Twitter profile to Wefollow. Along with those permissions you would be required to add five tags & choose a city. After completing these steps you will get a personal profile page and could find your profile under the category of your tags.

Everything seems fine, so where the problem persists?

A default setting is the problem here which says something like that: “Update my twitter URL to be my Wefollow Profile”. If you are unable to deselect this, then WeFollow (by default) will change your original URL to Wefollow Profile. Many users’ profiles are pointing to Wefollow without their knowledge.

If you are using WeFollow then don’t forget to un-check the default setting that is mentioned above.

No one would ever want their website URLs replaced with some profile URL when they own a website or Blog. The purpose of using Twitter would completely fail if you don’t have the URL of your own website/blog in your profile.

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Facebook users have played a variety of Zynga’s games like Poker, Mafia Wars and Farmville etc. Zynga’s main focus was on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Tagged etc. For the first time a zynga game could be played on a gaming portal. Zynga is intending to add more games to Msn Gaming Portal as well as Windows Live Messenger.

FarmVille, Zynga’s mega hit could now be played on Msn Games Portal. FarmVille.com was launched in November and Zynga would be moving all other games to their own dedicated portals which would give them better control.

Every Month 75 Million users play FarmVille on Facebook but getting featured on Msn Games would definitely benefit zynga in terms of new players. Msn Games have even changed their default theme to FarmVille to show their anticipation.

One Problem though, people using Chrome or Safari won’t be able to play FarmVille on Msn as IE & Firefox are the required browsers. FarmVille has nothing to do with this because it works fine on almost every browser. Msn Games might be the one responsible for this requirement.

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Many of us have seen the “doodles” on Google.com homepage. 300 doodles have been created by the team of designers in United States but you would be amazed to know that more than 700 have been created internationally.

Google is now launching their 3^rd “Doodle creation” competition in United States. Grade K-12 students from registered schools are eligible to participate in this competition. Winning participant and his/school will be awarded prize money and scholarships. Winning doodle will be placed on Google’s main page for a day.

Schools must be registered to participate in this competition. Last day of registrations for schools is March 17, 2010 and entries should not be delayed by March 31, 2010. Winning doodle will be placed on Google’s homepage on May 27, 2010.

Theme for this competition is “If I could do anything, I would … “

Motive behind this is to encourage kids to think big, dream big and use their imagination.

A Jury consisting of expert illustrators, cartoonists, animators and organizations will be selecting the 40 finalist. They will also be present at the award ceremony to meet the winners.

Details could be found on Doodles homepage: http://www.google.com/doodle4google/index.html

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Facebook, the Social Networking giant is known by almost every individual accessing internet. It wasn’t a global project at start; rather Facebook was designed for the students of Harvard University. Launched in February 4, 2004, it was known as “TheFacebook” and the domain name was “thefacebook.com”.

March Zuckerberg along with his roommates Eduardo Saverin, Dusting Moskovitz and Chris Hughes started this project and came up with an idea of a network site originally meant for the students of Harvard but decided to expand it to other universities, ended up with a social network site for everyone.

Today Facebook has become 6 years old (not for everyone though) but it has made wonderful growth and is the biggest social networking site over the internet. Not everyone reaches such success but its design, lots of applications and easier navigation has made it a huge success.

Happy Birthday Facebook

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eBay the online site has redefined the way ancient artifacts are being sold on the internet.

In a revealing bit of information, Charles “Chip” Stanish an archaeologist from UCLA was taken aback when he found the brisk trade of artifacts being trafficked across international boundaries. This was mentioned by him in the magazine of Archeology, May issue in an article he has written.

eBay being the marketplace of the online world has transformed into a hotbed for these “rare” artifacts, since it was not rare to find stolen objects on the site and even fake ones.

In fact, even thought the internet has innumerable advantages for us, countries where artifacts are found continually like China, Egypt, Mexico and Peru are duplicating them and marketing them as originals. Hence it is quite risky to buy artifacts at eBay due to such rampant practices.

Chip explains that by tracking such items it was found that villagers were engaged in making such articles and selling them to those members on eBay who had contact with them and who would resell them at much higher rates to the online buyers. The only foolproof way to detect such objects was to perform the thermo luminescence test which involved taking a tiny sample of the pottery to analyze. Since the warranty demands that the artifact should not be damaged in any way whatsoever and since the testing of the artifact comes under damage, the warranty lies void just by checking the veracity of the object.

Hence new ways to detect the antiques are available such as laser testing and chemical testing but they cost a bit of money. However authentication is possible but this causes damage to the artifact thereby making the authentication process useless. One can only hope for a better future for artifact trading online.

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