Last year, People in politics experimented with to pass a bill that would stop drivers from using mobile devices & texting while traveling Research workers are now publishing new information and facts to the public that calls for a total bar of cell phone use while driving.

Arthur Goodwin, the head research associate of UNC's Highway Safety Research Center, recently briefed state political figures about the threat of driving while making a call.

“Our research is starting to show that cell phone use while driving can increasae your risks by up to 400%”, Goodwin said recently in a phone interview.

What about Gps usage while driving? Ban cell phones whilst driving?

Other study is now indicating that hands-free cell phones are causing identical incidents to those caused by SMS Messaging , and other dangerous habbits.

“Using a telephone while traveling is a very poor idea,” Specialist Goodwin said. “You can't pay attention to two items at once, no one can.”

It's still not clear if the matter would be taken up in the Legislature, but it would in all likelihood not happen in the approaching short session, said Sen. Neal Hunt, R-Wake, who is a member of the Senate Transportation Committee.

NC state law already fines drivers from sending texts and surfing the net while driving. With the new law, individuals must come to a complete stop before they can use their phone to text or electronic mail. Violators may face a hundred dollar fine , not including court costs.

California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Washington and the District of Columbia ban talking on a hand-held unit for all drivers, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association.

Secretary of State Jesse White released final week he projects to recommend a ban on text messaging whilst driving.

The kinks are still being resolved, but any such suggestion already has the backing of police officers.

“I defy you to try to text whilst driving and still have your eyes on the road,” Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart said. “It's horribly dangerous.”

“You know that this is something, if it has not previously triggered numerous mishaps and deaths, will be doing it as it continues to get more popular,” he added.

Dart said it's tough to say how many incidents have been caused by sending text messages although driving, but congress and police agree it's even more harmful than making use of a cell phone. Chicago's ban on utilizing a cell phone although driving began almost three years ago, before the texting craze started in.

Preisvergleich Handy

Larry Lucio, Jr. Over at Amplified Life has the most complete report of the event posted on his blog, including his play-by-play of how the fight broke out :

All of a sudden, I heard Boima's voice get louder and louder. He was yelling to anyone that would listen to “get this — off the stage”. Now if you had been watching Boima all night, you would not have managed to discern whether he was major or joking. Apparently he was heavy. Dead major.

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Then a fight broke out. Boima and this other dude started throwing blows. I took some steps back. Then other people rushed the stage and knocked my papers over along with the HUGE table they were resting on. Again I stepped back. But the stage was filling up…. FAST.

When I saw some dude pick up a bar stool and whip it at my head for NO apparent REASON, I knew this was way beyond a man-to-man fight. Folk were taking the opportunity to act a fool.

Both Lucio and rapper Franz Diego, who was getting ready to take to the stage with Illuminous three when the fight broke out, expressed disappointment in the acts of violence at the show and said that the awards rite was an otherwise relaxed and friendly environment. Diego posted his own take on the events on his Facebook page :

I am so personally hurt by this because I have seen the sweetness of this community, since I entered into it as a young teenager. I have been so welcomed, led and sorted by so many people in this city under the umbrella of hip hop culture that it's a part of me and i want to reciprocate it. We need events like these, we need to grow and celebrate and share and network and show off and have fun, we need that more despairingly now than before. But folks have to comprehend the price of that first and till they do, we will continue to have issues like these.

One of the TC hip hop Awards organizers, DEPth, spoke up in the comments of Franz Diego's Facebook entry :

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And host Boima Freeman has since apologized on his very own Facebook page :
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There has also been a YouTube video circulating thru the blogs of the outbreak ( warning : Contains explicit language ) :

And both Chris Riemenshneider from the Star Tribune and the bloggers at LOL / OMG have reports of the situation. It's unfortunate that the awards ceremony had to be cut short because of the actions of what reduces down to a few people, and we are wishing that the TC Hip-Hop Awards will be able to rally next year and built up more support re PR in the final community.

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Time For A Quick Lesson In Why The DMCA Safe Harbors Are Important And Make Sense

from the back-to-school-time dept

I've been hearing some buzzing in the last few months among folks in lobbyist circles that the entertainment industry is actually hoping to cut back on the DMCA's safe harbors. There have been murmurings along these lines in the past — though, it rarely goes far, since the industry is also afraid that opening up the DMCA at all could lead to edits of all the other parts, which they love. Still, with the recent decision tossing out Universal Music's misguided lawsuit against Veoh, a few folks have been posting opinion pieces suggesting that the DMCA safe harbors are either outdated, or misinterpreted in the Veoh decision, and somehow against Congress's intentions. Neither claim stands up to much scrutiny, but it's worth exploring the issues, and digging in a bit so that people understand the importance and value of the DMCA safe harbors.

Two examples of this type of thinking are represented by Paul Resnikoff, of Digital Music News, who suggests that the Veoh ruling is correct under the law, but the real problem is the DMCA's safe harbors are out-dated and should be done away with (or at least adjusted in favor of copyright holders). Then there's entertainment industry lawyer Chris Castle, who suggests that the ruling itself makes no sense and leaves copyright holders “without a remedy.” Castle, in his usual manner, also spends some time insulting anyone who might disagree with him as well, which is quite charming.

Law professor Peter Friedman, who knows a thing or two (or much more) about copyright, does a nice job debunking Castle's questionable thesis, but I wanted to take things back a step and discuss both why the DMCA safe harbors are smart, exactly what Congress intended, applied correctly, and why that's all a good thing — as opposed to the suggestions of Resnikoff and Castle.

First, you have to go back to one of the reasons why the safe harbors are even in the DMCA. The entire DMCA was basically a love letter to the entertainment industry — giving them yet another massive extension of copyright and the power to control all sorts of things well beyond the Constitutional purpose of copyright (”to promote the progress…”). The most troubling of all was the anti-circumvention clause, which effectively gave copyright holders a veto (or at least a long legal speed bump) on technological device innovation. Equally troubling is the notice-and-takedown provision, which allows for content to be taken down on accusation, rather than actual evidence of infringement.

However, if Congress was going to grant this massive expansion of rights to the entertainment industry, which would allow them to lord over various internet companies, the internet companies wanted to make sure they had one thing: protection against misapplied liability. In an ideal world, such safe harbors wouldn't be needed, because it would be common sense that you don't sue the tool maker for how the tool is used. You don't sue AT&T if someone uses a phone to commit a crime. You don't sue Ford because someone broke the law with a car. Yet, people keep wanting to sue the tools providers on the internet. So, Congress, smartly, added the safe harbors for a single purpose: to make sure liability was properly applied. Liability should be on those who actually infringe the copyrights, not those who provide the tools that were used.

How could that possibly be controversial? Resnikoff's main complaint is that it's “an impossible task” for content holders to police their own works online. To which the only reasonable response is: as opposed to what? If it's an impossible task for copyright holders, it's more than impossible for the service providers. At the very least, the copyright holders know whether or not a use is authorized. The tool provider has no idea. Plenty of smart copyright holders are now releasing content for free on user-generated content sites like YouTube on purpose. Putting the onus on Google to figure out which ones are legit, and which ones are not makes no sense at all. Resnikoff also complains that the safe harbors do not require any sort of proactive effort, such as a filter, but that is a meaningless complaint. Due to so many lawsuits and a made up threat of “contributory infringement,” pretty much all serious UGC companies have installed filters anyway, to help protect themselves against an “inducement” claim. So, that's hardly a complaint.

Castle's suggestion that this acceptance of the basic DMCA safe harbors leaves copyright holders “without a remedy” is a statement wholly without support. Jammie Thomas and Joel Tenenbaum — facing huge awards from infringement trials — might disagree, for example. All the safe harbors have done is say that the “remedy” should be from the party actually infringing, rather than the tool provider. This was exactly as Congress had intended, and not just in-line with the law, but also with basic common sense and common fairness.

So, as you hear stories being spun about how the safe harbors are somehow problematic, take a step back and understand what they're designed to do. Most of the assumptions being used against the DMCA's safe harbors are misunderstanding their purpose, and assuming that the point of the DMCA itself is to give near total control to copyright holders (never an intention of copyright law at any time in history). Instead, the safe harbors were to make sure that liability was applied properly: on those doing the actual infringing. Those complaining about the safe harbors seem to wish for a world where liability is applied to the easiest target, rather than the accurate target. Thankfully, Congress knew better than to allow that to happen.

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I'm really excited about starting to blog and keep up this website. In the next few days I will be posting some great articles and stories on this page.

Be sure to keep this website in your bookmarks or such, and PLEASE add the RSS Feed.