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The Rental Life: What Happens When You Own Nothing and They Own You

In July 2009, Amazon reached into the Kindle devices of thousands of customers and deleted copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm. The company had discovered that the third-party publisher selling those editions lacked the rights to distribute them in the United States. Amazon issued refunds. Then it erased the books. A high school student in Michigan lost his annotated copy mid-assignment. A class-action lawsuit followed. Amazon’s CEO called the decision “stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles.” The company settled and promised not to do it again, unless a court ordered it, or unless the company determined it was necessary to protect consumers from malicious code, or unless the consumer failed to keep paying.

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Did Skechers BOBS Steal from TOMS?

We have been discussing the many facets of creative inspiration versus creative theft and outright theft. My wife and I recently found ourselves face to face with what seemed to us like blatant thievery and I had to bring it to your attention so that you don’t buy the stolen ideas over the original one.

We were walking down Broadway toward Whole Foods to get some nourishing food for our little man when I happened to notice a display of shoes in a shoe store window. I am a fan of vegan accessories including shoes although I try to live as frugally as I can to put aside money for Chaim’s university funding. I was excited because I recognized the shoes from a distance — they were TOMS shoes, a brilliant vegan brand that not only makes simple yet attractive shoes but donates a pair of shoes to a child in need of a pair of shoes. (This is usually in a third world country.)

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Theft By Starbucks

Five years ago, Janna was tutoring one of our ASL students at a Starbucks in New York City’s Greenwich Village.  Starbucks is a great place to meet and learn because they’re everywhere and nicely appointed.  Starbucks, we quickly discovered, is also dangerous.

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Cornell in Crisis

Cornell University
is in trouble. A laptop was stolen containing 22,546 social security
numbers of students — half were alumni — and 22,731 social security
numbers for faculty and staff, including 4,284 retirees.

The
files on the computer containing the names and social security numbers
were not encrypted and the laptop was left in a physically unsecure
environment, which violates University policy, according to Simeon Moss
’73, director of Cornell University Press Relations.

Moss
said that the data on the laptop contained “no other sensitive data
elements” besides names and social security numbers and the University
is “confident” that it has identified everyone whose data was on the
computer.

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What Good is Plagium?

Plagium is a new web service that tracks “Plagiarisms” using the Yahoo! Search API.  I tried Plagium this morning and I was disappointed in its lack of helpful returns and I was disappointed because I always love catching content thieves.  

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The Piracy Speaks

My article yesterday on content theft has sparked some keen conversation here and in my email stream.  One reader — “Robert William King” … I put his name in quotes because he refused to sign in using OpenID to leave a comment confirming his identification — sent me an email that appears to defend the behavior of the pirates stealing my content and I share his thoughts with you now…

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How to Fight Content Theft

I spent my Memorial Day tracking down the jerk who took my hardcopy book — Picture Yourself Learning Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard — and scanned it into a .PDF file for easy downloading on his website.  There are few people who believe this sort of behavior is content theft — but let me assure you what was done to my book is a violation of International Copyright Law, it is pirating — and in giving away something for free that my publisher paid me to write and paid to have distributed as a hardcopy book — only ruins the book publishing economy in its core.  That means fewer books will be published and fewer authors will want to write books that can so easily be stolen.  Here’s a screenshot of the page for my book from the pirate site.  The .PDF file size description was the dead giveaway that this site was not selling my hardcopy book.

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To Cheat to Learn

As we are watched and surveilled by those around us — is cheating in plan sight a clever plan against the purpose of the Panopticon — or do we need to pretend online “study aids” are really helpful to the soul and not deceitful against the mind?
Is Cramster.com a “community of learning” or is it just a chance to cheat better in class at $9.95 a month for access to all the answers?

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Fighting Identity Theft with Debix

Do you protect your good name and your credit from criminal elements?

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Is Stealing Ever Good?

Is there ever a time when stealing is good?

Yes, the inspired stealing of imagination should always be encouraged.

There is no unoriginal theft left.

Some call stealing inspiration, but if you see or experience something and then change or employ those experiences in your life — you have effectively borrowed and stolen the thoughts of others and I wholly encourage that effort.

I am not condoning plagiarism, but I am supporting the opportunity to consider and use ideas that are not your own because there are no original thoughts left in the world.

We are ignited by the shared memories of others and we must honor the covenant of those tendrilous relationships.

The theft confirms the collective genius.