quick start THE BEGINNING OF THE MAGAZINE, WHERE ARTICLES ARE SMALL
12 MA XIMUMPC JUNE 2006
A
class-action lawsuit has been fi led against
game publisher Ubisoft over its use of the con-
troversial copy-protection software Starforce. The
Starforce software has been accused of everything
from destroying optical drives to impregnating gam-
ers with two-headed offspring.
The $5 million suit claims Starforce creates secu-
rity holes in a system, installs without permission,
and is not easily removed.ATI WARMS UP TO OVERCLOCKING
ATI has never allowed its add-in board sellers
to overclock the company’s GPUs from the
factory in the past, but that’s all changed with
the company’s X1000 series of boards. ATI is
now reportedly encouraging resellers to over-
clock its chips, according to internal memos.
ATI noted, however, that any RMAs resulting
from overclocking will be the responsibility of
the vendor, not ATI.MICROSOFT THROWS IN THE
SPYWARE TOWEL
Microsoft has all but given up on trying to fight
malware. In an article in eWeek, a Microsoft
security guru states that the best way to solve
malware issues is to wipe the drive and refor-
mat. “Detection is difficult, and remediation is
often impossible,” he said.SKYPE IN TROUBLE
VOIP provider Skype is facing a huge lawsuit
from long-time rival Streamcast networks,
maker of the once-popular Morpheus P2P soft-
ware (Morpheus competes with Kazaa, which
was developed by Skype’s founders). Streamcast
has filed a complaint requesting $4.1 billion
dollars in damages from Skype, though it has
not filed an actual lawsuit yet. Steamcast claims
Skype stole its core technology from the com-
pany, a claim Skype vigorously denies.APPLE CRANKS IT DOWN
Apple has released an iPod firmware update
that lets users lower the maximum volume of
the device from the “holy
crap” default of 130
decibels to a less-deafen-
ing 100dB. The move by
Apple comes as numerous
reports show that listening
to MP3 players at high
volume can damage your
hearing. Apple also faces
a class-action lawsuit
for not warning people of the dangers of loud
music. Thank goodness, someone’s finally letting
us know that extreme volumes could damage
our hearing.Pirates vs. FUNSIZENEWS
MPAA,
Round 19
The entertainment indus-
try has all but won its war
against P2P software such
as Grokster, Morpheus, and
Kazaa, so now it’s BitTorrent’s
turn to go up against The Man
in court. Of course, because
you can’t sue BitTorrent (it’s
just a technology), and you
can’t sue the users directly
(they all operate indepen-
dently), the MPAA is going
after search engines that
point to fi les for people to
download.
Recently, some of the big-
gest torrent search engines,
including Torrentspy.com and
Isohunt.com, were sued by
the MPAA. Rather than shut-
ting down immediately, like
some other popular tracking
sites, these sites are putting
up a fi ght. The outcome of
the altercation will weigh
heavily on the future of legal
and illegal online fi le trading.
The gist of the MPAA’s
lawsuit is that the sites
are engaging in piracy by
providing links that point
to the illicit material. The
defendants’ response is to
point to none other than the
infamous Grokster case,
where the U.S. Supreme
Court ruled that fi le-sharing
networks can be held liable
for copyright infringement
if they take “affi rmative
steps” to encourage infringe-
ment. The BitTorrent search
engines claim they’re just
running a search engine,
and don’t take any steps to
actively encourage copyright
infringement. Torrentspy.
com has even fi led a motion
to dismiss the suit against
it, claiming it’s just a search
engine similar to Google, and
can’t be held responsible for
what people are searching
for or what they do with the
fi les once found.Ubisoft Sued over Starforce
Memorex FlashDiscs
M
emorex’s FlashDiscs are merely
USB keys dressed up in the
guise of a disc. Memorex boasts that
its FlashDiscs offer users a high-den-
sity alternative to the fl oppy disc. Uh,
hello? Any storage device these days
is a high-density alternative to the archaic fl oppy.
Sold in packs of three, the FlashDiscs sport a lowly
16MB storage capacity, for a whopping $20. Adding insult
to injury, their bulbous shape makes it damn near impos-
sible to plug other USB devices into adjacent ports. For
throwaway data, we’d rather use a $0.25 CD-R.
$20 for a pack of three, http://www.memorex.comStarforce
copy-protec-
tion is wildly
unpopular,
but is it il-
legal? That
question will
be before
the court
soon.for a pack of three, http://www.memorex.com&DIS