This Photographer Had His Life Ruined By The Pirate Bay | ||
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A photographer who sued popular image hosting site Imgur for posting 73 of his photos without permission has now had over 20,000 of his copyrighted images uploaded to torrent site The Pirate Bay in retaliation. Christopher Boffoli launched legal action after his photo series "Big Appetites" was uploaded to Imgur without his permission. The photographs show miniature people climbing over food, and the internet liked them enough to download them and share them on sites like Imgur and Reddit. This was a problem because Boffoli earns a living by selling his photos, and he can't do that if everyone just copies them for free. He initially filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice asking Imgur to take down the pictures in February, but nothing happened and the 73 photos remained on the site. In September 2014, Boffoli took Imgur to court, accusing it of copyright infringement. Imgur removed the photos after the legal notice, but it still faces up to $10 million in fines. Angry internet users, dismayed at Boffoli's perceived censorship of his own photos, decided to fight back against his legal action by uploading his life's work to file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. Torrent Freak reports that in October 19, an anonymous Pirate Bay user uploaded 20,754 of his copyrighted images to the site. The torrent contains the entirety of his famous "Big Appetites" series, as well as virtually every other photo that Boffoli has taken in his career. In fact, there are so many images available to download that they had to be compressed to fit them into one torrent file.
Boffoli has often fought to control where his photos are posted online, Torrent Freak reports that he has previously filed lawsuits against Twitter and Google over the use of his photos, but those cases were settled out of court. Some Pirate Bay commenters accuse Boffoli of "copyright trolling," claiming that he uses his lawsuits to raise the profile of his photos, which are exhibited around the world. SEE ALSO: The Pirate Bay Arranges Its Servers In An Ingenious Way To Avoid The Police Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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UK Retail Sales Drop In September | ||
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UK retail sales fell by 0.3% in September from August, the slowest growth seen in 2014, according to the Office of National Statistics. Retailers said that unseasonably warm weather during the fall meant customers pushed off buying clothes for autumn and winter. However, sales were up 2.7% compared with the same month last year, representing the 18th consecutive month of year-on-year growth. Spending was also up 1.3% compared with September 2013. The chart below shows the amount of retail goods bought (sales volume, in red) compared with the amount spent (sales value, in blue).
retail sales grew 1.2% monthly, versus expectations of 0.1%. "Eurozone consumer remains a relative bright spot, but unlikely to last," Claus Vistesen of Pantheon Macro said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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US-led air strikes in Syria 'kill 553 in first month' | ||
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Beirut (AFP) - Air strikes by the US-led coalition in Syria have killed 553 people since their launch a month ago, the vast majority of them jihadists, a monitoring group said on Thursday. The strikes have killed 464 Islamic State group fighters, 57 militants from Al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front and 32 civilians, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Among the civilians killed were six children and five women, said the Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria. The US-led coalition against the Islamic State launched air strikes against IS on September 23, expanding a previous aerial campaign launched against the group in Iraq in August. Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP the "vast majority" of jihadists killed in the strikes were not Syrians but foreign fighters who had joined IS and Nusra in the country.
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Police expand presence in Jerusalem after car attack | ||
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Jerusalem (AFP) - Jerusalem police vowed a "zero tolerance" policy towards violence Thursday after a Palestinian rammed his car into a crowd, killing a baby and triggering clashes across the city's annexed eastern sector. It was the second such deadly incident involving a Palestinian driving a vehicle in three months, and prompted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to order an immediate increase in the police presence across the Holy City. The driver, 21-year-old Abdelrahman Shaludi from the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan, drove his car at high speed into a group of pedestrians, killing a three-month-old girl and injuring six other people. He was shot by police as he tried to flee the scene and later died of his injuries, a hospital spokeswoman said. The early evening incident triggered clashes between stonethrowing youths and police in several east Jerusalem neighbourhoods which lasted late into the night. Police warned they would not tolerate any further unrest, referring to clashes which have gripped the eastern part of the city on an almost daily basis for the past four months. "Jerusalem police emphasises that it will demonstrate zero tolerance towards any incident of violence and will put its hand on anyone who disturbs public order in the city and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law," police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement. Overnight, clashes took place in the districts of Silwan, Issawiya, Shuafat refugee camp, Al-Tur and Ras al-Amud -- all of them flashpoints in Arab east Jerusalem, which was occupied and annexed by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War in a move never recognised by the international community. Stones were also thrown at the light rail in Shuafat, which has repeatedly been a target for local anger in recent months. Police said the train was damaged but nobody was injured. Most of the extra police forces were deployed in areas of friction, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP. He said a number of people had been arrested for stonethrowing overnight but declined to give numbers. "On an operational level, police presence was reinforced with extra border police, a motorcycle unit and other units who specialise in public order," he said, indicating they were deployed in areas such as Wadi Joz, Issawiya and Silwan to prevent any fresh unrest. He said police had activated "a strategic plan" to end the wave of unrest, which would incorporate human resources, technological resources and intelligence.
- US urges calm -
Washington denounced the attack as "despicable" and called for both sides to demonstrate restraint. "We urge all sides to maintain calm and avoid escalating tensions in the wake of this incident," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement, without confirming reports that the infant had US citizenship. Shaludi drove his car at top speed into pedestrians near the Ammunition Hill tram stop on the seamline between west and occupied east Jerusalem. Three-month-old Haya Zissel Braun died of her injuries and was buried on Wednesday evening. Among the six others, one was in serious condition, another was moderately hurt and four sustained light injuries, medics said. Samri described the incident as a "hit and run terror attack" -- the second in the area in just under three months. During the most recent incident in August, a Palestinian man rammed a bus with an excavator, killing one Israeli and injuring five. Police shot the driver dead. Witnesses to Wednesday's attack told AFP the car had ploughed into the crowd "at full speed". Footage posted on YouTube showed a car veering off the main road and cutting down a group of people on the pavement.
- Released from prison -
Family members said Shaludi had been recently released from an Israeli prison where he served 14 months for disturbing the peace, a euphemism for throwing stones or participating in unrest. Silwan, where he came from, is a densely populated Arab neighbourhood on a steep hillside just south of the Old City that has been wracked by unrest in recent years after Jewish hardliners took up residence in the area. It hit the headlines in the past month after settlers acquired another 35 apartments there, triggering a furious reaction from both the Palestinians and the international community. Netanyahu's office alleged that Shaludi was a member of Hamas. Relatives confirmed to AFP that Shaludi was a nephew of senior Hamas bomb-maker Muhi al-Din Sharif who was killed in the West Bank in 1998, but it was not clear whether the 21-year-old was a member of the Islamist movement.
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Canada 'will not be intimidated' by parliament attack | ||
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Ottawa (AFP) - Canada's prime minister vowed the country would "not be intimidated" after a reported Muslim convert killed a soldier and stormed parliament, the nation's second 'terrorist' attack in days. The gunman, whose name was on a terror watch list, attempted to force his way into Canada's parliament Wednesday before the assembly's sergeant-at-arms shot him dead. The attack -- the second this week targeting Canadian military personnel -- came as Canadian jets were to join the US-led bombing campaign against Islamist militants in Iraq. "Canada will never be intimidated," premier Stephen Harper told the nation in a televised address after the shootings on Wednesday. "In fact, this will lead us to strengthen our resolve and redouble our efforts and those of national security agencies to take all necessary steps to identify and counter threats and keep Canada safe," he said. The spectacular security breach came two days after an alleged Islamist ran over two soldiers in Quebec, killing one of them, in what officials branded a terrorist attack. In audio of the attack on parliament, repeated shots could be heard booming through its chambers. The suspect, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau who was said to be a convert to Islam, had a record of drug offences and robbery. Dave Bathurst, who met the 32-year-old Zehaf-Bibeau in a mosque about three years ago, said his friend did not at first appear to have extremist views, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reported. But he said at times he exhibited a disturbing side. "We were having a conversation in a kitchen, and I don’t know how he worded it. He said the devil is after him," Bathurst told the the CBC. He said his friend frequently talked about the presence of Shaytan in the world –- an Arabic term for devils and demons. "I think he must have been mentally ill."
- Shooter was 'high risk' -
Bathurst last saw Zehaf-Bibeau praying in a mosque in the Vancouver area six weeks ago and said he spoke of wanting to go to the Middle East. He insisted he was only going abroad with the intent of learning about Islam and to study Arabic, Bathurst said. Zehaf-Bibeau was considered a "high risk" suspect, according to reports, whose passport had been confiscated to prevent him joining jihadists abroad. He first shot and killed a Canadian soldier who was on ceremonial guard at a war memorial on Parliament Hill in downtown Ottawa, before storming into the nearby parliament building. The slain soldier was named as Corporal Nathan Cirillo. At least three people were admitted to hospital with minor injuries. The attacker was killed, reportedly by a shot fired by the bearer of the House of Commons' ceremonial mace, Sergeant-At-Arms Kevin Vickers, who was hailed as a hero by lawmakers. Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson said it appeared the shooter had acted alone. Lawmakers, staff and reporters, evacuated from the historic building, spoke of intense gunfire inside. Paul Clarke, a builder who was working in parliament at the time, said, "It's just been a nightmare." A member of parliament, Maurice Vellacott, told AFP that House of Commons security had told one of his aides the suspect had been killed inside parliament. "I heard this 'pop, pop' -- possibly 10 shots, I don't really know," Liberal Party member John McKay told reporters outside.
- 'Jihadist sympathies' -
Passers-by told reporters that a bearded man had gunned down the soldier and hijacked a passing vehicle to take him the short distance to parliament. Local media reported that the suspect, raised in Laval, Quebec, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Montreal, had an extensive criminal record, including robbery and drug charges to which he pleaded guilty. A photo of Zehaf-Bibeau circulated in the Canadian media, showing him with a scarf over the lower half of his face aiming a rifle straight ahead. Harper had been scheduled to bestow honorary Canadian citizenship on Nobel Peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who was shot by the Taliban in Pakistan for campaigning for girls' right to education, on Wednesday in Toronto. The ceremony will be rescheduled, his office said. On Monday, 25-year-old Martin Couture-Rouleau mowed down two soldiers near Montreal, killing one of them, before being shot dead by police as he emerged from his wrecked car wielding a knife. Couture-Rouleau was reportedly a supporter of the jihadist Islamic State group operating in Iraq and Syria, and on the same watch list as Zehaf-Bibeau. The two attacks came days after Canadian authorities warned they were tracking 90 suspects, and "intelligence has indicated an individual or group within Canada or abroad has the intent and capability to commit an act of terrorism."
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Schumacher will need years to recover says doctor | ||
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Paris (AFP) - A French doctor treating stricken former Formula One champion Michael Schumacher said Thursday that the German ace was making progress, but will need years to recover. Jean-Francois Payen also praised Schumacher's wife Corinna for the devotion she has shown to the racing driver since his devastating ski accident in December, in which he suffered life-threatening brain injuries. "I have noticed some progress but I would say we will have to give him time," Payen, who treated Schumacher at the Grenoble hospital where Schumacher was taken after the accident, told RTL radio. "It is like for other patients. We are in a time scale of one to three years, so you need patience." After being in a coma for six months, Schumacher is now at his home at Gland in Switzerland and Payen said he still sees the 45-year-old at a hospital in Lausanne and at his home. "It is to see how he progresses and then tell his wife and his children what changes I have observed," the doctor said. "He is in very favourable conditions. His wife is surrounded by excellent advice and has put everything needed in place so that he can advance." The doctor said that Corinna Schumacher had played a key role in her husband's progress. "It is someone very linked to Michael, but who has a lucidity and a desire to make him advance which is an extraordinary point." Payen said that "for years she will do this same work. She is a very good person."
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This Photographer Had His Life Ruined By The Pirate Bay | ||
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A photographer who sued popular image hosting site Imgur for posting 73 of his photos without permission has now had over 20,000 of his copyrighted images uploaded to torrent site The Pirate Bay in retaliation. Christopher Boffoli launched legal action after his photo series "Big Appetites" was uploaded to Imgur without his permission. The photographs show miniature people climbing over food, and the internet liked them enough to download them and share them on sites like Imgur and Reddit. This was a problem because Boffoli earns a living by selling his photos, and he can't do that if everyone just copies them for free. He initially filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice asking Imgur to take down the pictures in February, but nothing happened and the 73 photos remained on the site. In September 2014, Boffoli took Imgur to court, accusing it of copyright infringement. Imgur removed the photos after the legal notice, but it still faces up to $10 million in fines. Angry internet users, dismayed at Boffoli's perceived censorship of his own photos, decided to fight back against his legal action by uploading his life's work to file-sharing site The Pirate Bay. Torrent Freak reports that in October 19, an anonymous Pirate Bay user uploaded 20,754 of his copyrighted images to the site. The torrent contains the entirety of his famous "Big Appetites" series, as well as virtually every other photo that Boffoli has taken in his career. In fact, there are so many images available to download that they had to be compressed to fit them into one torrent file.
Boffoli has often fought to control where his photos are posted online, Torrent Freak reports that he has previously filed lawsuits against Twitter and Google over the use of his photos, but those cases were settled out of court. Some Pirate Bay commenters accuse Boffoli of "copyright trolling," claiming that he uses his lawsuits to raise the profile of his photos, which are exhibited around the world. SEE ALSO: The Pirate Bay Arranges Its Servers In An Ingenious Way To Avoid The Police Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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GEORGE SOROS: 'Wake Up, Europe!' | ||
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Multi-billionaire investor George Soros has issued a warning to Europe's democracies over the threat that a resurgent Russia poses to the continent. In an essay published Thursday in the New York Review of Books, Soros calls for more economic and military support for Ukraine, as well as the abandonment of the eurozone's current austerity programs. Here is his opening few lines [emphasis added]:
Soros is probably a better authority than most to talk about the threat from a divided Europe. In 1944, Soros was 13 years old and living in Hungary when Germany invaded. He goes on:
He ends on a call for the EU to be more "united, flexible and efficient": There must be something wrong with the EU if Putin’s Russia can be so successful even in the short term. The bureaucracy of the EU no longer has a monopoly of power and it has little to be proud of. It should learn to be more united, flexible, and efficient. And Europeans themselves need to take a close look at the new Ukraine. That could help them recapture the original spirit that led to the creation of the European Union. The European Union would save itself by saving Ukraine. Read the whole thing at NY Books >Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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The 10 Things You Need To Know In Advertising This Morning | ||
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2. Facebook is launching a new TV ad in the US and thankful it’s nowhere near as weird as the last one. The cute “Say Love You Better” campaign aims to get Americans using the standalone Messenger app in more creative ways. 3. Adobe has pulled its sponsorship of the tech website Gawker after a writer tweeted a joke about bullying in the gaming industry. Adobe joins the list of companies — which also includes Intel and Mercedes-Benz — distancing themselves from the #GamerGate controversy. 4. The boss of the world’s second largest retailer Tesco has told Marketing Week the brand can still be “great” again, despite reporting a 92% profit slump. Chief executive Dave Lewis says rebuilding trust and transparency in the brand is one of its key priorities. 5. Sir Martin Sorrell, WPP chief, said he is “puzzled” by some of the debate circulating about transparency in the programmatic ad trading market, The Drum reports. Sorrell suggested people criticizing agency networks for not being transparent about their programmatic trading practices would do well to look at Google or Facebook where margins are far higher and few people know exactly how their algorithms work. 6. On that subject, Digiday has explored whether agencies have a transparency problem. Agency trading desks — where agencies are effectively the buyer and seller of digital advertising space to clients — appear to be the dominant issue. 7. Google has a new app called Inbox that it hopes will reinvent email. But the app could be an issue for brands: it doesn’t contain ads, and it bundles up marketing emails into a “Promotions” tab. 8. Econsultancy explores when marketing automation goes wrong. The post recants various snafus from brands such as IBM, Walmart and Shutterfly. 9. Pebble is feeling the halo effect from all the buzz around the Apple Watch, Mobile Marketing Magazine reports. The wearable company’s chief evangelist Myriam Joire says news of Apple’s first smartwatch has boosted its sales. 10. Adweek has decided to spoil its readers with a David Beckham history in ads. It serves as a very visual reminder that he has a hard time keeping his clothes on when he agrees to marketing tie-ups. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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1. Tesco CEO Makes An Extraordinary Admission After Profits Collapse (TSCO) | ||
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When former Unilever executive Dave Lewis took over as Tesco's new CEO in July — three months earlier than expected — he had no idea of the time bomb he was inheriting. In September, the world's second largest retailer announced that it overestimated its first-half profits by £250 million ($408 million), sending shares crashing. The British-based grocery chain swiftly axed four senior executives and hired an independent firm, Delloite, to investigate the accounting scandal. On Thursday, the Delloite review confirmed that Tesco overstated its profits by £263 million, an increase from the initial estimate. The company also announced that Sir Richard Broadbent would step down as chairman. A bunch of other executives have been asked to leave, too. The company also reported a steep fall in sales and revenue, down 4.6% and 4.5%, respectively. Pre-tax profit is down 91.9% from the same period last year to £112 million. In addition to addressing the disastrous results, Lewis discussed in a CEO call how the investigation has been progressing thus far: "The Tesco part of the investigation and the Delloite part of investigation has been focused on identifying around commercial income exactly what the numbers are." Lewis also said that Delloite has prevented the company from continuing its own investigation: "What we can’t do is start an investigation around how those numbers came about and what it was that caused those numbers to be there because there will be an investigation by the regulator and we will be very open and very proactive in our support of their investigation but it’s not for us to start that investigation — that’s something that we have to support them with. So we have to wait for that." What's more, Lewis made the extraordinary admission that he would have taken the executive role even if he had known about Tesco's structural problems before being given the job. It is a surprising statement because it implies that the people who hired him — Broadbent et al — did not tell him about the disaster looming inside Tesco's books until after he arrived. Lewis had some idea that things were sliding at Tesco, of course. When former CEO Philip Clarke stepped down, revenue was tanking. Tesco's problem's were market-related and Lewis, a marketing guru, was probably under the impression he could swoop in and turn things around. But Tesco's problems actually ran much deeper (words like "cover-up" and "whistleblower" are being thrown around), something Lewis was probably not aware of. SEE ALSO: The World's Second Biggest Retailer Is Getting Hammered As Profits Collapse 90% Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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