Latest 'Think Of The Children' Scaremongering: Pirated Films Might 'Disturb' Them

Just last week we heard how Russia has extended its "think of the children" law to include copyright infringement. That was a classic case of function creep, but here's a more direct invocation of "the children" in order to attack unauthorized downloads of files, this time in the UK: 

On Techdirt.

As Russia Expands Its 'Think Of The Children' Laws To Copyright, Agency In Charge Investigated For Infringement

Last week we wrote about how the Russian equivalent of SOPA had been amended in order to ban swearing online. Although that was worth noting for its entertainment value, probably more important is the fact that the same law -- originally brought in to take down sites about drugs, suicide and child pornography -- has also been widened to include copyright infringement, as TechWeekEurope reports: 

On Techdirt.

McAfee Patents System To 'Detect And Prevent Illegal Consumption Of Content On The Internet'

As a post on the French site Numerama reminds us (original in French), the department responsible for implementing the three-strikes plan known as HADOPI was also supposed to provide Internet users with information about technical solutions to reduce infringement. That never happened -- instead, the body has preferred to send out warning messages on a massive scale and to seek convictions, even of those who are innocent. But in the meantime, the US company McAfee seems to have obtained a patent on just the kind of thing the French law originally had in mind: 

On Techdirt.

Israeli Bill Would Allow Secret Courts To Issue Confidential Warrants To Block Web Sites Allegedly Involved In Copyright Infringement

One of the most depressing developments in recent years has been the gradual adoption of legal approaches to tackling copyright infringement that a few years ago would have been regarded as totally unacceptable, and the hallmarks of a tinpot republic run by some ridiculous dictator. Here's another example, this time from Israel, involving secret courts and inscrutable judgments, as Jonathan Klinger explains: 

On Techdirt.

UK Politicians Don't Seem To Mind That Every Web Page You Load Is Copyright Infringement Under Current Law

Last year Techdirt wrote about the almost unbelievable Meltwater decision in the UK, where the courts said that viewing a Web page without the owner's permission was copyright infringement. In November last year, leave was granted to Meltwater to make an appeal against the ruling to the UK's Supreme Court. However, that still leaves the inconvenient matter of the infringement by tens of millions of UK Web users hundreds of times every day in the meantime. 

On Techdirt.

Digital Economy Act Consultation Response

Last week I wrote about the extremely short consultation period for aspects of implementing the Digital Economy Act. Time is running out - the consultation closes tomorrow at 5pm, so I urge you to submit something soon. It doesn't have to be very long. Here, for example, is what I am sending - short, but maybe not so sweet....

On Open Enterprise blog.

What Happens If File Sharing Can Also Be Prosecuted As Trademark Infringement?

In the arguments over ACTA, one criticism seemed widely accepted: that it tries to bundle together two quite different challenges -- tackling counterfeit goods, like fake medicines, and dealing with unauthorized file sharing. One popular suggestion was that ACTA should be split in two in order to handle those separately – for example, David Martin, the politician who played a key role in convincing the European Parliament to reject ACTA this week, supports this approach. 

On Techdirt.

UK's 3-Strikes Plan Continues To Grind Through The System; Still Not In Force, Still Awful

As Techdirt reported in 2010, the passage of the Digital Economy Act was one of the most disgraceful travesties of the UK parliamentary process in recent times; it was badly drafted, hardly revised and then pushed through with almost no debate in the dying moments of the previous government. Since then, two UK ISPs -- BT and TalkTalk -- have challenged the Act in the courts, but lost earlier this year. 

On Techdirt.

GFDL Smackdown: RMS vs. Beijing Underground

Seems like the Beijing underground authorities have infringed on an image from Wikipedia, which uses the GNU Free Documentation Licence: time to call for RMS?

A Subway map, drawn back and uploaded onto the Wikipedia back in 2004, became some kind of hit icon in the more underground part of the Chinese capital, with the map being used by the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall (on the 2nd floor exhibits and in the 4th floor 4D movie hall) — and now, by the Beijing Subway.

...


Obviously, they had no idea what the GFDL meant. Quite frankly, the guy that did the map could sue them — but we’ve never seen a GFDL lawsuit.

Maybe it's time we did....

Patents to Stifle Competition? - Surely Not

Another judge gets it:

A federal judge recently got so infuriated by the conduct of two highly regarded trial attorneys that he overturned a jury's $51 million verdict, then ordered the lawyers to pay the fees and costs of the opposing lawyers, a sum that could total several million dollars.

U.S. District Senior Judge Richard P. Matsch sanctioned attorneys Terrance McMahon and Vera Elson of the firm McDermott, Will and Emery, of Chicago and San Francisco, for "cavalier and abusive" misconduct and for having a "what can I get away with?" attitude during a 13-day patent infringement trial in Denver.

He ruled that the entire trial was "frivolous" and the case filed solely to stifle competition rather than to protect a patent.

(Via Slashdot.)

Patent Abuse

Oh, look. Here's yet another reason to get rid of patents:

Guess what? Radio frequency identification tags are insecure. But don't demonstrate the technology's problems at a security conference. If you do, HID Global, a manufacturer of access-control devices, might sue you for patent infringement.

...

The use of patent law to prevent vulnerability discovery and discussion is bitter irony, because a fundamental purpose of patent law is disclosure: In exchange for the right to exclude others from using, making or selling a novel invention, an inventor agrees to make public all the details. Once issued, patents are a searchable public record, and expire after 20 years.