Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

Stock photography wholesaler iStockPhoto has a new gimmick in its bid to provide the web with a source of affordable decoration: lawsuit immunity. That’s right, any stock photo you purchase will come with guaranteed protection of $10,000 against intellectual property disputes. So you can buy photos from iStockPhoto for $1-$27 per photo, use them according to the terms of use, and be protected from litigation:

iStock is about to offer a new “Legal Guarantee” on its entire collection. On Sept. 16, any video, image or audio file purchased and USED CORRECTLY by the customer, will automatically be guaranteed against any copyright or moral right, trademark and other intellectual property dispute, up to $10,000. Although common for traditional stock houses, a legal guarantee has not been standard in microstock because of the low prices.

Although these situations have always been extremely rare at iStock, if a client really needs added insurance, an Extended Legal Guarantee up to $250,000 in coverage can be purchased for 100 credits.

As the CNET article mentions, a credit will cost around $1-$1.50. The caveat here is that you must carefully follow the license terms, which are complex. For example, for use on the web, you are restricted to a maximum resolution of archaic 800×600 and in a single location (webpage). For items you wish to resell in any way, purchasing an extended license for 125-150 credits is necessary.

For more information, please see CrunchBase’s iStock Photo entry!

I just got a great postcard in the mail. This last year I was charged a $200 early termination fee by T-mobile, after Wendy had to cancel her plan and move back to Shanghai. Now, there’s a class-action lawsuit which is promising to refund $125 of the contract fee! Awesome!!

A proposed Settlement is pending in a class action entitled Milliron v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., No. 08-04149(JLL) (ES) in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The lawsuit alleges that T-Mobile violated state and federal laws by charging customers a flat-rate early termination fee (”ETF”) in its wireless telephone service contracts. You are part of the lawsuit if you are a current or former T-Mobile wireless subscriber who paid or were charged a flat-rate ETF from July 23, 1999 to February 19, 2009, or if your contract for service included a flat-rate ETF from July 23, 1999 to February 19, 2009.

If you can prove you paid a flat-rate ETF, or T-Mobile’s records indicate you paid a flat-rate ETF, you may submit a Claim Form and receive up to $125.

You can go visit ETF-Settlement to read the details, and/or apply for a claim. I already did, as I received a postcard in the mail. However, if you meet the class-action criteria (pretty much anyone screwed by a T-mobile early termination fee), you should also fill out the form.

I was watching the MacWorld 2009 Apple Keynote live when a message appeared in the feed–”STEVE JOBS JUST DIED”–surprising everyone. In a few minutes, the MacRumors feed was full of coordinated hacked spam:

Highlighted is the beginning of the spam

MacRumors apologized for the incident: “Our MacRumorsLive keynote coverage was hacked today, inserting inappropriate content into the text and photo feeds. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to restore our services.” However, it was simply negligence on their part for having a control panel which was publicly accessible rather than some kind of nefarious hack. One of the nicer 4chan readers took this screenshot of it before it was taken offline:

See also When Livestreams Go Wrong and 4chan’s /g board where the chaos originated. Hopefully this will teach bloggers and web startups to pay more attention to the security of their websites, as hacking websites is growing more and more popular with savvy internet pranksters.