What's even better -- the vast majority of that information is available absolutely free and some of it is even very high quality.

As someone who is doing a lot of R&D in fields in and outside the IT industry I find this massive resource of free material to be an incredibly valuable aid to my own efforts. Why re-invent the wheel when it only takes a few minutes to check and see whether someone else has already solved the problem you're confronting or has already experimented and produced the data you need?

Microsoft Moves To Scuttle MP3 Format Microsoft and a number of other software companies are pulling out all the stops to move people away from MP3 and onto their own proprietary formats. What is Microsoft's latest move and how could it stop you from recording and storing MP3s on your computer? Find out more at 7amNews/ShockHorrorProbe...

Of course, while much of this information is freely available it should always be remembered that people are not giving it away. Note that there is a very subtle but important distinction there -- a distinction which seems to have escaped some people.

I refer to a whole new business that a growing number of people seem to be latching on to.

These people appear to be spending a day or so interrogating their favourite search engines and identifying a number of really good websites that deal with specific subjects (usually hobbies or interests). They then rape documents, images videos or whatever they can from those sites and create a CD which they then sell on eBay for a healthy profit.

Sure, some of the documents and images harvested by these people are public domain or have expired copyrights -- but it would appear that, at least in some cases, there may well be copyrighted material being reproduced without the permission or knowledge of the copyright holder.

How would you feel if you laboured to build a great website containing a wealth of information on your hobby or interest, only to find that someone had ripped most of it off, burnt it to a CDR and was selling it on eBay for $50 a pop?

Readers Say (updated hourly) From Last Week... NZ Post... - NZ Post Spam... - D Marshall Have Your Say

Of course eBay has a strict policy on copyright infringement -- but the problem is that if you suspect someone has stolen material from your website you have to buy a copy of the CD to find out.

Here's one example of a CDR for sale on eBay that clearly contains information which is readily available on the Internet.

Those US military files can be found here for free and those German military files can be found here.

Also check out the rather striking similarity between the graphic on this page and the one on the CD itself.

It's also worth looking at that seller's other auctions to see that they're offering similar CDs covering other subjects.

Of course this seller isn't the only one taking stuff from the Web and burning to CDR for profit. here's another which appears to have simply rounded up a whole bunch of freely available plans and is selling them for profit.

Now while it could be argued that these people are simply making freely available information available in a more convenient format -- I can't say that I agree if the CDR contains copyrighted material -- whether it's been published on the web or not. What do you think?

For Your Consideration
David Buckingham has written a piece on the proposed new anti-hacking and state surveillance laws currently under consideration here in NZ.

If this subject interests you, why not check it out.

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