Google, Facebook, Zynga oppose new SOPA copyright bill

Foes of a controversial copyright measure have gained some high-profile allies: Google, Facebook, Twitter, Zynga, and other Web companies have joined the ranks of the bill's opponents.
They sent a letter (PDF) last night to key members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, saying the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, "pose[s] a serious risk to our industry's continued track record of innovation and job creation, as well as to our nation's cybersecurity."
The protest was designed to raise objections in advance of a hearing before the full House Judiciary committee tomorrow at 10 a.m. ET (7 a.m. PT). The letter, also signed by eBay, Mozilla, Yahoo, AOL, and LinkedIn, asks politicians to "consider more targeted ways to combat foreign 'rogue' Web sites."
SOPA, which was introduced last month in the House to the applause of lobbyists for Hollywood and other large content holders, is designed to make allegedly copyright-infringing Web sites, sometimes called "rogue" Web sites, virtually disappear from the Internet.
An announcement of tomorrow's hearing leaves little doubt about where House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, stands. It says SOPA reflects a bipartisan "commitment toward ensuring that law enforcement and job creators have the necessary tools to protect American intellectual property from counterfeiting and piracy."
Not only is Smith SOPA's primary House sponsor, but opponents are outgunned in both congressional chambers. SOPA's backers include the Republican or Democratic heads of all the relevant House and Senate committees, and groups as varied as the Teamsters and the AFL-CIO have embraced it on the theory that it will protect and create U.S. jobs.
Smith pointedly declined to invite any civil-liberties groups that have criticized SOPA, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, to testify before his committee tomorrow. The Motion Picture Association of America did get an invitation, however, as did the AFL-CIO and Pfizer.
Google will be the only dissenting voice, a tactic that may allow SOPA's supporters to characterize corporate opposition as limited, especially because the Mountain View, Calif., company has been enmeshed in so many copyright battles of its own. The Web companies' letter will let Katherine Oyama, Google's policy counsel, demonstrate that opposition is broader than one firm.
In addition, opponents were scheduled to hold a press briefing this morning inside the Capitol Visitors Center complex. They had invited Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) to speak.
SOPA is so controversial--EFF calls it "disastrous"--because it would force changes to the Domain Name System and effectively create a blacklist of Internet domains suspected of intellectual-property violations.
A Senate version of the bill called the Protect IP Act, which a committee approved in May, was broadly supported by film and music industry companies. But Google Chairman Eric Schmidt was sharply critical, as were prominent venture capitalists, civil-liberties groups, and trade associations representing Web companies.
Even pop star Justin Bieber has weighed in.
In a recent radio interview designed to promote his Christmas album, Bieber said, referring to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who sponsored the Senate version: "Whomever she is, she needs to know that I'm saying she needs to be locked up, put away in cuffs... I just think that's ridiculous."
Update, 10:30 a.m. PT: Members of Congress opposed to SOPA have circulated their own letter (PDF), which was signed by Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo, both California Democrats, and Ron Paul, the Republican presidential candidate from Texas, among others. They say SOPA will invite "an explosion of innovation-killing lawsuits and litigation." Lofgren (see CNET's previous report) has been critical of MPAA-backed copyright bills before.
Update, 1:40 p.m. PT: The we-hate-SOPA letters keep flooding in. A few dozen civil-liberties and left-leaning advocacy groups from around the globe now are circulating their own letter (PDF), which says that "through SOPA, the United States is attempting to dominate a shared global resource." Signers include Bits of Freedom in the Netherlands, the Electronic Frontier Finland, Reporters Without Borders, and, in the United States, Free Press and Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. Notably absent are the two biggest such advocacy groups: Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
And another! This letter (PDF) is from a slew of law professors, including Stanford's Mark Lemley, Elon's David Levine, Temple's David Post, and UCLA's Eugene Volokh. They seem even more generous in their criticism than the other letters, warning that SOPA "has grave constitutional infirmities, potentially dangerous consequences for the stability and security of the Internet's addressing system, and will undermine United States foreign policy and strong support of free expression on the Internet around the world

Office 365 By the Numbers: Is It a Good Value?

 
Microsoft has officially launched Office 365--the new cloud-based subscription productivity suite. Inevitably, there are a myriad of head-to-head comparisons and face-offs with the rival Google Apps platform, but those are only valuable for an individual or company that is seriously considering a choice between the two. For an organization that has no intention of dropping Microsoft Office, the question becomes one of which path provides the better value.
Let me start with a caveat. The math behind determining the value of Office 365 vs. simply implementing and managing your own servers and Microsoft Office infrastructure internally are subjective. A lot varies by the number of users involved, or the how spread out offices or workers are geographically. And, you have to say Bill Gates backwards three times, and sacrifice a chicken to understand the voodoo math that goes into Microsoft licensing--so my math may be sWhat would it take for you to build your own 'Office 365'? Let's consider the elements involved:
Server(s).First, you need a server or two. You will need to be able to run Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, and Lync server simultaneously, so you need to consider the number of users involved, and calculate the expected load on the server(s) to figure out how much processing horsepower you really need. A small business with only 50 or so users may be able to run all three on a single physical server, while a massive company might need multiple servers for each of the backend Microsoft products.
Software. To run your own 'Office 365' infrastructure, you have to purchase Exchange Server, and SharePoint Server, and Lync Server--along with all of the associated client licenses. You also have to rely on using Outlook / Exchange through the Outlook Web Access interface, and use the free Office Web Apps, or purchase licensed copies of Microsoft Office for all users.
Personnel. Someone has to administer, and maintain this infrastructure. You need an admin with knowledge of Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync to install, configure, deploy, and update the backend servers. The admin would also need to monitor the server and network hardware to make sure it is performing optimally, troubleshoot any problems, and upgrade or replace hardware as necessary.
A small organization can probably get by on a single physical server--perhaps using Hyper-V and multiple installations of Windows Server 2008 to create separate virtual servers for the different products. It would require a server of sufficient capacity, plus the licenses for Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync, and three licenses for Windows Server 2008.
 We'll assume $5,000 for a comfortably equipped server. You might be able to get by with less, and you could certainly spend a hell of a lot more. Throw in another $5,000 for the server licenses and associated client access licenses (Again--mileage will vary wildly. See note above about voodoo math and sacrificing chickens). Tack on $50,000 a year for a bargain-basement IT admin and you are looking at investing $60,000 just to get started. And, if you also want the actual Microsoft Office 2010 desktop software installed locally on users PCs, you have to add in another couple hundred dollars per user.
Contrast that against $6 per month per user--$72 per year. You need about 850 users just to reach the break even. For organizations of 500 or less, the math in favor of Office 365 seems to be a no-brainer, and also frees the company to focus on business and leave the tedium of maintaining servers and updating software to Microsoft.
Even for massive companies where Office 365 ranges from $10 to $27 per user per month--with the default being the $24 plan--the math may still be compelling. It gets tricky when you start dealing in volume license discounts and such, but a larger organization would also require more servers, more licenses, more client access licenses, and--most importantly--more IT admins and support personnel.
The value proposition will be different for each organization, but it is a worthwhile exercise for IT execs to at least run the numbers and figure out if Office 365 makes sense for their business.

Woodburns in Food Lion postponed

In a decision reserved only for complex cases, the Calvert County Board of License Commissioners, or Liquor Board, deferred a ruling Thursday night on whether to allow the wine and beer license holders of Woodburns Beverages to transfer the license from the closed Woodburns of Solomons to the Lusby Food Lion supermarket chain store.
“It’s been our policy to make a decision immediately following a hearing,” Chairman J. Allen Swann said after hearing almost three hours worth of support and opposition for the transfer. “I think there’s a very good chance of appeal no matter which way it goes. We want to make the best, the properest decision.”
At the start of the hearing, Swann addressed the full house, admitting a decision would not be easy because Maryland’s liquor laws are not always clear-cut. “A lot of things are left up to the discretion of the board. If it was black and white on paper we wouldn’t be here,” he said, adding that Thursday’s hearing was one of the largest crowds he has seen.
After more than 50 years in business, Woodburns closed April 16. Now, Thomas F. McKay, president of Woodburns Food and secretary and treasurer of Woodburns Beverages, plans to open again in the Food Lion in the shopping center off H.G. Trueman Road. The specialty meats and cheeses for which the store is known will be sold along with the other produce in the Food Lion grocery store, and Woodburns Beverages will consist of a cornered-off section of the store where wine and beer will be shelved.
Customers would purchase the alcohol at the Food Lion registers, but McKay, who has owned Woodburns for 20 years, said all of the profits would go to Woodburns, and Lusby Food Lion store manager Mike Wetherald assured the board no one younger than 19 would be able to sell alcohol at the registers. Also, all employees would be required to undergo training and pass a test related to the sale of alcohol and tobacco before the register would allow them access. Self-checkout aisles would not allow alcohol to be scanned without an attendant’s approval. Liquor sale certification training is scheduled for all employees this week, he said.
Wetherald said he never has had any liquor sale violations, and he used to work for Woodburns. Food Lion Director Rick Winningham, who has been in charge of supervising the sale of beer and wine at grocery stores in Virginia and also never has had any violations, said the Woodburns section of the Lusby store would be up and running within a matter of days once the license transfer is approved.Board member Alonzo Barber said he was concerned that while loopholes in the law may allow for this scenario to take place, there are state regulations that prohibit the sale of alcohol in chain stores to protect the smaller liquor businesses around them. Putting wine and beer in a chain store where customers can buy it with their groceries, he said, “that’s like the gold mine.”
Winningham said he believes this specific situation, transfering a small business that sells alcohol and placing it inside a chain supermarket, is a first in Maryland, although Food Lions in Easton, Salisbury and Mitchellville have been granted liquor licenses. This would be a first for Calvert.
McKay’s attorney, Mark Davis, said there would be no change in ownership under the transfer and the stockholders would remain the same, with McKay owning 45 percent of the company, his sister, Elizabeth Johnson, who will continue to supervise the store when it relocates to Food Lion, owning another 45 percent, and Susan Jones of Lusby at 10 percent.
McKay said he believes the transfer is necessary because it is the only alternative for Woodburns to stay in business and, when he took over the company, he promised its former owners, Edgar and Isabel Woodburns, that he would not let the business die.
“I committed to him at the time that we would do everything we could to try and keep Woodburns alive,” he said, showing the board two memorial plaques for Edgar and Isabel that hung outside of the Solomons store and will continue to hang outside of the new location.
However, Leda McKay of Lusby, the Woodburns’ daughter, was among the transfer’s protestors at the hearing.
“I feel very strongly about this issue,” she said, adding that her parents believed in shopping local and that the small businessman was the “backbone” of the community. “This proposal seems to be an underhanded and shady way to do business, and it will open the door for other chain stores to have a liquor license.”
Also among the protestors were Mike and Carolyn Hart of Patuxent Wine & Spirits, who organized a group of opposition to the transfer. With them that night were the owners of Lusby Liquors and Ranch Liquor. Hart has argued that small business owners will suffer from the competition of the chain supermarket in their neighborhood. Carolyn McHugh, president and CEO of the Calvert County Chamber of Commerce, defended the stores, siding against the transfer in a letter to the board and during the hearing.

Google Takeout lets you easily export your data from Circles

 
The Data Liberation Front (DLF), a left-wing guerrilla group of Googlers, has finally launched its first service: Google Takeout. Just sign in, select which Google services you want to back up, and then click Creative Archive. Each of the services will be tidily backed up to a zip file in open formats that can be imported into other, non-Google web services. To start with, Takeout only supports the easy exporting of Buzz, Picasa, your Google Profile, Contacts, and Circles — Google’s recently-launched Facebook competitor — but the eventual plan is to provide easy exporting for every Google service.
If you haven’t heard of them before, the DLF is a group and a website that helps you extract your data from Google’s web services into open, easily-transferable file formats. You can then take your email or docs or RSS feeds and import them into an installed program, or Microsoft or Yahoo’s equivalent web service. Curiously enough, though, the DLF is an engineering team at Google. The idea isn’t that they want you to transfer your data away from Google — they just think it’s important that you can. It’s basically Google’s way of showing that the data it holds in its massive database is yours, and you’re free to do what you like with it; it’s the embodiment of Google’s corporate Don’t Be Evil motto, in other words.
The timing of Google Takeout is highly suspect — but in a good way. Just last night, Google launched Google+, along with its Facebookesque Circles service. Facebook makes it notoriously hard for users to extract their data and photos, while Google Takeout and the Data Liberation Front will ensure that Circles remains very open. Having said that, Facebook recently crossed the 750 million user mark, and scant few have complained about the difficult privacy controls or the inability to export data in open formats. Circles will undoubtedly be popular among certain groups — and Takeout is definitely a juicy sweetener — but whether it can actually draw significant numbers of users away from Facebook remains to be seen.

Google +1 Spreads Around the World

 
Google +1, the social recommendation feature that lets users indicate their favorite pages, is picking up steam. Google is continuing to push the feature – in both its webmaster button form and the social search results connected to +1s – by releasing the feature in numerous additional countries.

+1's Increasing Momentum

The thought that Google +1 was part of a larger social construct has gained both more weight and some contradictory evidence with the release of Google+ – the actual Google social site that we've been bleeding for over the last year (editor's note: check back for more coverage on Google+ later today on Search Engine Watch). While +1s are likely to get an integration with the Google social network, much in the same way that Facebook Likes are integrated with the Facebook news stream, the +1 feature is also meant to stand alone.
The +1 experiment started in March, webmasters got the button to add to their site earlier this month, Google has since added a +1 button to numerous properties (such as product pages and Blogger widgets), +1 counts – some of which are localized – are appearing in search results, and the product is continuing to gain momentum. As part of that snowball effect, Google is spreading +1 around the world.

Google+ social network aims to face down Facebook

Remember way back in February of 2010, when Google introduced a social media service called Google Buzz, and all the bloggers marveled that Google was so boldly taking on Facebook? Well, that didn't work out so well. Now Google is really taking on Facebook, and not just in a half-hearted kind of way. Witness the unveiling of Google+, a full-featured social network that aims to "bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software."
"Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online," Google executive Vic Gundotra wrote in a statement announcing Google+. "Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools. In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it. We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software."

RELATED: With Office 365, Microsoft says, hey, Google, get off of my 'cloud' 

Check the video below for more details, but basically Google+ is a more layered version of Facebook, built around something dubbed "Circles." The idea is simple: You don't have just one kind of friend, and you shouldn't have just one kind of online social circle. So unlike Facebook, Google+ allows you to create a whole bunch of circles – co-workers, for instance, or best friends – and share content and comments specifically with each circle.
Meanwhile, 

Google+ will also get the so-called "Sparks" feature, which is essentially a variation on the Facebook "like" functionality: See something you like, and you can instantly post it to your profile. Of course, since this is Google we're talking, the Sparks button will likely be omnipresent. But have no fear! Google is really stressing the security thing.

"You and over a billion others trust Google, and we don’t take this lightly," Gundotra wrote. "In fact we’ve focused on the user for over a decade: liberating data, working for an open Internet, and respecting people’s freedom to be who they want to be. We realize, however, that Google+ is a different kind of project, requiring a different kind of focus – on you."
That "different focus" comes by way of a dynamic and varied table of security and privacy options – something it took Facebook a long time to do. In fact, Ben Parr writes over at Mashable, just about everything Google+ does is about facing down Facebook.
"The two companies are in heated competition for talent, page views and consumers," Parr writes. "While Google controls the search market and has a strong presence on mobile with Android, it hasn’t been able to crack the social nut. Its most successful social product, YouTube, had to be acquired, and it still ranks as one of the most expensive acquisitions in the company’s history."

Has Google Learned From Social Failure

 
With Google+, it looks like the search giant may have finally built a social product that people will use.
Shortly after Google announced the new social networking service, executives Bradley Horowitz and Vic Gundotra (who are leading the company's social efforts) spoke with Adweek about the lessons they've learned from past failures, both inside and outside Google. The company's most infamous social fumble was its product Google Buzz, which many users saw as a violation of their privacy—as did the Federal Trade Commission. Horowitz said that's symptomatic of of larger problem that he called "overfriending": When you're friends with too many people on a service like Facebook, then you don't want to share anything private. Google+, on the other hand, introduces the idea of Circles. Users divide their connections into categories like "friends" and "acquaintances", then they share things (a comment, say, or a photo) with whichever circle they want.
"We've built a product that's good for a shout and good for a whisper," Horowitz said.
There are other pieces to Google+, like Hangout, a video chat service, and Sparks, where users can find and share content around their interests. And unlike Buzz, Google+ feels easy-to-use and intuitive, rather than overwhelming and confusing—at least judging from an hour or two of poking around. (The service is not yet open to most people, and can only be accessed by those invited to do so; an Adweek editor received a press invite.) Users just drag-and-drop their friends into different circles, then when they're ready to share things, they select the appropriate circle from a menu, or choose to share with everyone.
As people wrap their heads around the Circles concept, there will probably be some confusion. For example, it may not be clear that the relationships aren't reciprocal. You can list someone as a close friend, but that friend might say they're only an acquaintance, or leave you out of their Circles entirely. Still, the system is much simpler than Facebook's rather Byzantine privacy controls.
Here's the bigger question: If people like Google+ as a product, will they switch over even though all their friends are still on Facebook? Gundotra thinks they will—he noted that it's normal to belong to multiple online social services, so people don't have to choose between Facebook or Google. And, he argued, Google+ will become even more useful as new features are added in the coming months, especially as it's integrated with existing Google services.
Integration brings a new set of risks—one reason people freaked out about Buzz was the fact that it was part of Gmail. Gundotra said that gradually inviting users into a "field test" will help Google find the right balance between sharing and privacy.
And, he argued, these kinds of social projects are crucial for Google's future, like it or not.

Aurora man gets 60 years for murdering WW

 
An Aurora-area man was sentenced to 60 years in prison for murdering his elderly neighbor during a 2007 break-in at the house the neighbor built himself after his military service in World War II.

Hector Mauricio, 25, had pleaded guilty last fall to the first-degree murder of Roscoe Ebey. Authorities say he stabbed Ebey more than 30 times and then ransacked his house before placing a gas canister on the victim’s body in an attempt to start a fire.

“It’s over, but it’s not over,” Richard Ebey, the victim’s son, said following the sentencing hearing, which had been suspended late last year while the General Assembly debated outlawing the death penalty in Illinois.

Prior to the state ban on capital punishment, Mauricio had been ruled eligible for death.

With a death sentence off the table, prosecutors Wednesday asked for a natural life sentence, or alternately, for a 63-year prison sentence. Including time already served, that would have seen Mauricio potentially freed at age 83, the same age Ebey was when he died, Kane County First Assistant State’s Atty. Jody Gleason said.

Much of the testimony Wednesday centered on Mauricio’s difficult upbringing.

When Mauricio was 6, his father, who was not part of his life, killed Mauricio’s older brother. Another brother was imprisoned for attempted murder. His sister testified that the four children often had to fend for themselves because of their alcoholic mother.

Before sentencing, Mauricio apologized for his crime and took responsibility, despite his family struggles.

“I could say, ‘Woe is me’ for my upbringing, but I won’t,” Mauricio told Judge Timothy Sheldon.

The judge acknowledged Mauricio’s past, calling him a victim of urban warfare.

“Mr. Mauricio had no chance; his life was ruined by his family,” said Sheldon, who also acknowledged the contributions of the victim.

“Mr. Ebey was a member of the greatest generation,” the judge said. “This court has the utmost respect for his service to this country. He was a good man, there is no doubt about that.”

Richard Ebey said his father personally constructed the family house when he returned home to Aurora after the war.

“He built it out of scrap, whatever he could find,” his son said.

The widower, a former railroad worker, lived in the house 62 years.

Following Ebey’s death, Kane County Sheriff Pat Perez established an annual citizenship award named in Ebey’s honor. After the hearing, Perez said he was hoping for a life sentence for Mauricio.

Guitar Chords: Google Logo is Guitar Tuner in Honor of Les Paul

Guitar chords, eh? The Google homepage logo this morning doesn't look much like the word "Google," but no matter. The Google Doodle today is a stylized guitar in honor of Les Paul, the legendary musician who would have turned 96 today.
And it's playable. Turn up the sound on your computer, move your mouse over the logo, and enjoy the results. You can even record what you play. Click on the black button near the bottom right corner of the logo, strum for up to 30 seconds, and click again. Google will reply with a short URL, or Web address. You can copy that and email it to your friends.
Les Paul -- to say nothing of your friends -- might cover his ears at the cacophony that's been created today. But that's the fun of it. Out of respect for your neighbors, and perhaps your office mates, you may want to keep your computer's volume low.
If you click on the logo, you'll learn that Paul (1915-2009), born in Waukesha, Wis., pioneered the solid-bodied electric guitar, making the sound of modern rock music possible. He married, and performed with, the singer Mary Ford starting in 1949; they divorced in 1963. Paul continued to give concerts until a few weeks before he died of pneumonia at age 94.
Google regularly alters its logo to mark anniversaries, major events or birthdays of notable figures, or sometimes just to be quirky. The so-called Google Doodles have become more ambitious over time; one Friday in April its logo turned out to be a playable version of Pac-Man, the iconic 1980s arcade game.
Even though the doodles are a small part of Google's very big business -- it only has half a dozen artists to do them -- it takes the doodles seriously. In March the firm went so far as to patent them. The U.S. Patent Office awarded Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder and head of technology with Patent # 7,912, 915 for what's known as the doodle.
How to mark Thomas Edison's birthday? The letters that make up "Google" may be formed out of little light bulbs or other Edison inventions. There might be animation. If you click on the word Google, you might hear Edison's voice. The whole thing is considered a Doodle.
It's this method for "enticing" (Google's word) users to its site that the company patented.
Marie Conroy of San Francisco, an inveterate searcher, said she especially liked one celebrating John Lennon's birthday (a drawing that drew itself and evolved as the viewer watched), and another in honor of cartoonist Rube Goldberg (a whimsical machine that on every viewing grew more and more complicated).
But today is Les Paul's day. Strum away.