ACTA In UK: 10 Years In Jail For A Download?

UK web surfers have caught a grim glimpse of the future with Internet users being threatened with 10 years in jail for "illegal downloading" after a prominent music file-sharing site was shut down shortly after Britain signed the notorious ACTA bill.

It is the first time such a move has been made against Internet users in the UK. The British government introduced regulations in 2009 enabling Internet providers to track users who downloaded illegal content from the web and disable their connection if warning letters had no effect. But signing the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has brought the conflict to a whole new level.

In Europe, people are taking to the streets in protest at the contradictory Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, with some countries refusing to sign it.

After hackers from the activist group Anonymous attacked practically all US government websites in retaliation, the authorities are now considering adopting their own home-grown anti-counterfeiting laws like PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) / SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act).

Download Samuel L. Jackson's Audiobook Version Of Go The F**k To Sleep For Free NSFW

by Sean O'Neal

Adam Mansbach’s Go The Fuck To Sleep is described as “a children’s book for adults,” a satirical pastiche of warm and fuzzy bedtime story tropes rewritten as a commentary on the often-frustrating experiences of being a parent—specifically the ordeal of, yes, trying to get your kids to go the fuck to sleep already. It quickly became a No. 1 hit on Amazon, had its movie rights optioned by Fox 2000, and now it’s an audiobook narrated by Samuel L. Jackson, bard of the F-bomb. And by going to Audible.com, you can download it for free, just in time for Father’s Day. We also have some footage below of Jackson recording his take on the book. Needless to say, don’t share any of this with your kids.

The National Academies Press Makes All Books Free To Download

The National Academies Press Makes All PDF Books Free to Download; More Than 4,000 Titles Now Available Free to All Readers

WASHINGTON -- As of today all PDF versions of books published by the National Academies Press will be downloadable to anyone free of charge.  This includes a current catalog of more than 4,000 books plus future reports produced by the Press.  The mission of the National Academies Press (NAP) -- publisher for the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council -- is to disseminate the institutions' content as widely as possible while maintaining financial sustainability.  To that end, NAP began offering free content online in 1994.  Before today’s announcement, all PDFs were free to download in developing countries, and 65 percent of them were available for free to any user.

"Our business model has evolved so that it is now financially viable to put this content out to the entire world for free," said Barbara Kline Pope, executive director for the National Academies Press.  "This is a wonderful opportunity to make a positive impact by more effectively sharing our knowledge and analyses."

Based on the performance of NAP’s current free PDFs, projections suggest that this change will enhance dissemination of PDF reports from about 700,000 downloads per year to more than 3 million by 2013.

Printed books will continue to be available for purchase through the NAP website and traditional channels.  The free PDFs are available exclusively from the NAP’s website, http://www.nap.edu/, and remain subject to copyright laws.  PDF versions exist for the vast majority of NAP books.  Exceptions include some books that were published before the advent of PDFs; books from the Joseph Henry Press imprint; and in cases where contractually prohibited, such as reference books in the Nutrient Requirements of Domestic Animals series.

Contacts:

Lorin Hancock, Media Relations Associate
Shaquanna Shields, Media Relations Assistant
Office of News and Public Information
202-334-2138; e-mail news@nas.edu 

Additional resources:

Free PDF FAQ [http://www.nap.edu/about/about_pdf.html]
NAP Customer Service 
888-624-8373; e-mail customer_service@nap.edu

Apple’s App Store Poised To Hit 10 Billion Download Mark

Apple confirmed today that it is nearing the 10 billion download milestone for the iOS App Store. The Cupertino company just launched its countdown page and is at approximately 9.7 billion downloads at the writing of this post. As it has done in the past, Apple is sponsoring a giveaway that showers the person who downloads the 10 billionth app with an iTunes gift card worth a whopping $10,000.

If you do not have an iOS device or can’t stand to spend money to join a contest, you can enter for free using Apple’s alternate entry form. Each entrant is limited to 25 entries per day and the contest ends when the magical 10 billion milestone is reached.

Apple’s App Store has grown by leaps and bounds. When it launched in 2008, the App Store recorded over 10 million downloads in its first weekend of operation. Nine months later and the App Store had skyrocketed to over 1 billion downloaded applications. This trend of ever-increasing sales has continued with another billion added to the tally every three to five months. Now, almost two and a half years after launch, Apple is poised to hit the coveted 10,000,000 mark. Given the success of the App Store and the wide distribution of iOS devices, is anyone really surprised by these numbers?