French President Nicolas Sarkozy, a backer of tough new piracy laws in that country, comes off as a bit of a hypocrite after being accused of a pair of copyright infringements.

Sarkozy’s “Hadopi” law was passed just last month and features a three-strike policy for illegal down loaders. Unfortunately it would appear that Sarkozy is already down to his last strike, as he has been accused of two misuses—making 400 unauthorized copies of a DVD and copyright infringement related to his use of an MGMT song at a political rally.

The MGMT song misuse cost Sarkozy 30,000 Euros (approximately $44,112 U.S.). More galling may be the fact that the publisher of the DVD allegedly copied by Sarkozy only created 50 copies itself.


Via Boing Boing

Anyone who games online knows that negative comments about gay people are all too common. Compounding the problem, even game companies who treat their GLBT employees well seem to be wrestling with the notion of how deal with the open expression of sexual orientation in games.

The good news is that the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) plans to hold a panel discussion in homophobia in videogame culture on Saturday. EA will host the event, which is open to the public, at its Redwood HQ. Other noteworthy organizations which will participate are Microsoft, Second Life publisher Linden Labs, GayGamer.net and the ESA.

Shacknews reports on the agenda:

Topics will include "how to provide safe spaces for LGBT people online, how to ensure the best policies are in place to prevent virtual attacks against LGBT people and how to educate the users of online communities about the effects of homophobia.

The GLAAD website reports that the panel will be composed of:

• Flynn DeMarco (Alias: Fruite Brute), Founder of GayGamer.net
• Dan Hewitt, Senior Director of Communications & Industry Affairs for the ESA
• Caryl Shaw, Senior Producer in the Maxis Studio
• Cyn Skyberg, VP of Customer Relations at Linden Lab
• Stephen Toulouse (Gamertag: stepto), Program Manager for Policy and Enforcement on Microsoft's XBox LIVE
• Moderator: Justin Cole, Director of Digital & Online Media, GLAAD

Give the creator of this YouTube vid an A for effort as he stretches to pull in patriotic elements to what amounts to video reviews of a pair of NES titles:

• Xenophobe

• Golgo 13

Oddly enough, Obama Girl introduces this (NSFW) E3 parody protest of the Mario Bros. franchise.

GP: Thanks to LaxGamer 34 for the tip!

Via: Kotaku

If you've been up all night playing Resident Evil 5 and you're a little freaked out by the experience and you happen to live in Boston, fear not; the local constabulary has your back. The Boston Police Department has vowed to alert the public to any and all zombie attacks.

That reassuring news comes by way TruTV's Dumb as a Blog, which chronicles an exchange of tweets between @Boston_Police and another Twitter user. Here's how it went down:

Boston_Police:  INJURED OFFICER: Officer from district 4 transported to Beth Israel Hospital, human bite to arm, suspect in custody.

willcady:  @Boston_Police if that was a zombie bite, would you tell us?

Boston_Police:   @willcady Yes, absolutely

Via: The Consumerist