The Electronic Frontier Foundation has managed to convince Michael Crook to stop filing bogus DMCA claims against websites carrying a picture of him that appeared on Fox News. A settlement of the EFF lawsuit requires him to withdraw his complaints, take a copyright law course, and apologize for interfering with the free speech rights of those he targeted.

Wired News will put the phrase, “We are the media,” to the test as it launches its Assignment Zero project. The project will run for two to three months, and offers any willing contributor a chance at being a reporter or editor. Results of the project will be published at NewAssignment.net and Wired. If it works, it would show that a widely separated group of people can report completely and well on news issues.

The next generation of search will be improved for people as it becomes more personalized. Google’s Matt Cutts told Read/Write Web that “personalization has a very high chance of being able to improve search for the average user.” Matt also talked about web spam, and said being able to offer spam free search in any language has been a big trend for Google both last year and this year.

Long-time YouTube critic Mark Cuban weighed in with an opinion on Viacom’s billion-dollar lawsuit against the video sharing site and its owner, Google. Cuban said in a post at his Blog Maverick site that he hopes the lawsuit is not just a negotiating ploy. He sees no downside for Viacom and expects many more suits to follow Viacom’s action.

Google may be softening its stance on net neutrality. GigaOM writer Drew Clark cited recent comments made by Google senior policy counsel
Andrew McLaughlin that ran counter to Google’s publicly stated opposition to quality of service agreements. Although Google distanced themselves from McLaughlin’s comments by calling them his “personal view,” Google did sign an exclusive contract with Verizon to carry YouTube videos in November 2006.

Rumors of a MySpace News site have gained more credibility. Screenshots of the news portal at the social networking site were leaked to Wired News in the form of a sales document. The leaked data discussed how the site will be structured, but a launch date was not included. Previous rumors stated the launch would happen sometime in the second quarter of 2007.

“If social networking sites implemented software to check each stream, they could identify copyrighted subject matter, create a report, negotiate compensation for the value chain and sell targeted advertising for related goods and services.”

Digimarc said the technology relates to what professional photographers and stock photo agencies have done for a decade.

Dell’s Idea-Storm website started rumors of Dell considering presenting customers the option of preinstalled Linux distribution when buying new PC’s from the company. Dell’s growing dissatisfaction with Windows Vista and the appealing price of Linux distributions have guided customers toward the operating system. Ars Technica’s Ryan Paul thinks consumers switching to Linux should do so with caution.

“I’m not saying this because I think that Linux isn’t ready for the desktop. I’m saying this because I don’t think that Dell is capable yet of providing full technical support for desktop Linux. Dell has a hard enough time as it is supporting Windows.”

Dell users may have to make the switch from Windows or OSX operating systems in the future, but right now it seems just speculation.

The Leichtman Research Group conducted a survey to show that 14 percent of adults watched online video once a week as of December 2006. The survey established that the total online video usage has improved, but the time spent watching TV has stayed about the same. A previous LRG study discovered that four percent of adults viewed online videos daily and another eleven percent weekly. TV leads online video with 93 percent of adults viewing around one hour a day. Men from 18 to 34 made up the online video viewers demographics. This demographic also holds true for more than two-thirds of adults who visit YouTube and any other user-generated content site on a daily basis. Only eight percent of online video watchers agreed to watch TV less often.

LRG’s Bruce Leichtman becomes excited about online video.

“Rather than replacing TV, in the near term, emerging video services like online video are best viewed as opportunities to complement and augment traditional TV viewing options.”

Horowitz Associates and Points North Group show 68 percent of online adults have an interest in watching downloaded TV shows on their televisions, but 45 percent would watch longer videos on their computers. EMarketer estimates the online video audience will grow to 157 million people by 2010.