More Fun with Anti-Open Source FUD

One of the oddest aspects of open source is that unlike any comparable computing field that I am aware of, it has been stalked for years by a strange, insubstantial beast going by the name of FUD. Back in 2006, I wrote a short history of the topic, but in the five years since then we've seen plenty more.

On Open Enterprise blog.

ACTA's All-out Assault on the Internet

Michael Geist has some deeply disturbing details about what may well be in the Internet section of ACTA:

1. Baseline obligations inspired by Article 41 of the TRIPs which focuses on the enforcement of intellectual property.

2. A requirement to establish third-party liability for copyright infringement.

3. Restrictions on limitations to 3rd party liability (ie. limited safe harbour rules for ISPs). For example, in order for ISPs to qualify for a safe harbour, they would be required establish policies to deter unauthorized storage and transmission of IP infringing content. Provisions are modeled under the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, namely Article 18.10.30. They include policies to terminate subscribers in appropriate circumstances. Notice-and-takedown, which is not currently the law in Canada nor a requirement under WIPO, would also be an ACTA requirement.

4. Anti-circumvention legislation that establishes a WIPO+ model by adopting both the WIPO Internet Treaties and the language currently found in U.S. free trade agreements that go beyond the WIPO treaty requirements. For example, the U.S.-South Korea free trade agreement specifies the permitted exceptions to anti-circumvention rules. These follow the DMCA model (reverse engineering, computer testing, privacy, etc.) and do not include a fair use/fair dealing exception. Moreover, the free trade agreement clauses also include a requirement to ban the distribution of circumvention devices. The current draft does not include any obligation to ensure interoperability of DRM.

5. Rights Management provisions, also modeled on U.S. free trade treaty language.

This is nothing less than the copyright cartel's last stand against the Internet - a desperate attempt to lock down everything. As Geist observes:

it provides firm confirmation that the treaty is not a counterfeiting trade, but a copyright treaty. These provisions involve copyright policy as no reasonable definition of counterfeiting would include these kinds of provisions.

That is, the Powers-that-Be *lied* to us, as usual. We must fight this, or we will be paying the consequences for years to come.

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Monopoly in the DNA

It seems that Bill Gates' foundation is affected with the same love of monopolies and keeping things closed as its creator:

The chief of the malaria program at the World Health Organization has complained that the growing dominance of malaria research by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation risks stifling a diversity of views among scientists and wiping out the health agency's policy-making function.

In a memorandum, the chief of the malaria program, Arata Kochi, complained to his boss, Margaret Chan, the director general of WHO, that the foundation's money, while crucial, could have "far-reaching, largely unintended consequences."

Many of the world's leading malaria scientists are now "locked up in a 'cartel' with their own research funding being linked to those of others within the group," Kochi wrote. Because "each has a vested interest to safeguard the work of the others," he wrote, getting independent reviews of research proposals "is becoming increasingly difficult."

Amazing: exactly the same dynamics seem to be operating here for research as for software. Must be something in the DNA. (Via Slashdot.)