Moscow cops confiscate copies of book outing corrupt authorities

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Sokolova_in.jpgPolice in Moscow have confiscated 3,500 copies of a book written by a Anna Sokolova (shown at left, she's on Twitter), investigative reporter with Forbes Russia, about links between regional authorities and corruption. From the Moscow Times:

The confiscation took place after Deputy Governor Igor Parkhomenko filed a libel complaint with the local police over the book, titled, "Corporation 'Moscow Region': How Russia's Richest Region Was Bankrupted."

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Tracing the pill-trails to America from Russia's e-pharmacy underworld

Security reporter Brian Krebs has a fascinating piece up on Pavel Vrublevsky, founder of Russia's biggest online payment processor, ChronoPay. Krebs reports that this man also co-owns Rx-Promotion, an online pharmacy that sells tens of millions of US dollars worth of controlled pills to Americans each year: Valium, Percocet, Tramadol, Oxycodone, and other substances with high street resale value. — Read the rest

Are images of the early Mickey Mouse still copyrighted?

The LA Times's Joseph Menn has a great, well-researched feature article on the history of the copyright for the image of Mickey Mouse as portrayed in the earliest Disney cartoons — and the theory that Disney made mistakes early on with its copyright registration, placing images of that specific Mickey (not the Mickey we know today) in the public domain. — Read the rest

Striking writers talk of launching web startups

Today in the LA Times, a piece by Joseph Menn on striking WGA members in Hollywood who hope to launch venture-backed online entertainment startups as a way to bypass conventional entertainment economics:

At least seven groups, composed of members of the striking Writers Guild of America, are planning to form Internet-based businesses that, if successful, could create an alternative economic model to the one at the heart of the walkout, now in its seventh week.

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Porn.com domain sells for $9.5 million

The domain escrow firm that handled the transaction says, in a press release,

The sale is the largest all-cash domain transaction in history. It is the second largest domain sale overall after Sex.com, which sold for reportedly US $12 million in cash and stock during a private sale in January 2005.

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