Iowa senator Tom Harkin recently became chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, following the death of Senator Ted Kennedy. On Monday, Harkin vowed to look into the possibilities of cancer risks from mobile phone use. He said he was concerned that nobody was able to definitively prove that mobile phones could not cause cancer.
“I’m reminded of this nation’s experience with cigarettes. Decades passed between the first warnings about smoking tobacco and the final definitive conclusion that cigarettes cause lung cancer,” Harkin said. It is estimated that 4 billion people worldwide use mobile phones regularly.
Harkin called a hearing of the Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, to examine the issue on Monday. “I will pursue this beyond this panel, with the National Institutes of Health,” he said afterward.
However, Harkin should be aware that an enormous amount of research has been conducted already on this issue, and no link has ever been found to prove that mobile phones do cause cancer. Simply saying that nobody has been able to disprove it does not make it more plausible, and it is slightly concerning at least that an elected Senator would pursue something on the grounds that nobody could disprove its existence - but it isn’t surprising.
Of course, there are reports occasionally that do show that there “might” be links in cases, and just recently the Environmental Working Group showed that radio wave emissions vary from one mobile phone brand to the next. Even with this taken into account however, all the research has shown that mobile phones do not emit waves capable of damaging DNA in cells in a human body.
[More]>>
Result for: existence
It has been ten years now since our site, AfterDawn.com, was launched back in June, 1999. To celebrate this event, I went through our extensive collection of news articles from the past ten years and tried to somehow summarize what has happened in the world of “digital entertainment” during our site’s existence — and what has happened to our site during that time. This can be considered as my personal “memoir” of what has happened to our site during the past ten years, and also serves as our “birthday
Result for: existence
RealNetworks has asked a Federal judge for permission to add an antitrust complaint against the MPAA to their existing lawsuit against the the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD-CCA). The suit began as a preemptive strike to establish that their DVD copying software, RealDVD, doesn’t violate their license with the DVD-CCA.
Although the MPAA isn’t directly involved in the licensing of DVD decryption technology, there can be no question they are behind the very existence of CSS encryption, which makes it illegal to rip DVDs in the US.
In their filing, RealNetworks lawyers wrote “The CSS agreement is being used to extend a legally granted monopoly over content into separate markets – to prevent competition from technologies that would allow a copy of content for fair use purposes. But the making of a copy of a studio DVD is authorized fair use under the Copyright Act.”
The biggest hurdle to most fair use arguments is the very nature of fair use. It is not, as many people believe, a right given to the public.
In reality it’s a set of exceptions to the exclusive rights granted copyright holders by law. It’s a subtle, but very important, distinction.
The problem is largely one of vague wording in the fair use clause of US copyright law. Except for the few cases where specific uses are mentioned, judges are compelled to assume it can’t contradict other laws, including the DMCA’s anti-circumvention language.
In other words the DMCA must be interpreted in a way that allows copyright holders to nullify fair use. Ultimately the real question to decide this case will be whether the studios are using their monopoly on movie distribution to stifle legal innovation.
[More]>>
