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It's always heartening to come across new ideas for ways to make
creations more widely available to the public while allowing artists to
benefit. Here's one from the German film director Fred Breinersdorfer, probably best known for his film "Sophie Scholl". In an article that appeared recently on the newspaper site Süddeutsche.de (original in German),
he complains about the fact that searching online for his film throws
up plenty of unauthorized versions, but precious few authorized ones.
On
Techdirt.
A few months back, we wrote about the University of California's plan to lock up
even more knowledge in the form of patents, in the hope that this would
bring in lots of cash. But as Techdirt has reported time and again
over the years, patenting research does not bring in more money to fund further research, in fact it probably doesn't bring in any money
at all, once you allow for the costs of running tech transfer offices.
Moreover, there's evidence that making the results of research freely
available is much better for the wider economy than trying to turn them into intellectual monopolies.
On
Techdirt.
Back in February we reported on a worrying
attempt by the European Commission to reframe the discussion about
modernizing copyright in Europe purely in terms of licensing, reflected
in the name of the initiative, "Licences for Europe". Although originally a series of discussions
were promised to "explore the potential and limits of innovative
licensing and technological solutions in making EU copyright law and
practice fit for the digital age," in practice moderators shut down
discussions of things like exceptions or even Creative Commons
licensing. As far as the Commission was concerned, it seemed the answer
to updating copyright for the modern age was just old-style licensing
and nothing else.
On
Techdirt.
In an implicit acknowledgement that the Europe-wide protests against ACTA indicated that there was a problem with copyright in the digital age, the European Commission announced back in December what it called "an orientation debate on content in the digital economy." This is what that meant, apparently:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
As Techdirt noted last year, France has a regrettable habit of dreaming up really bad ideas
when it comes to the Internet, most famously with the three-strikes
scheme, now known there by the name of the body the oversees it --
Hadopi. Guillaume Champeau points us to a piece in the French newspaper Libération, which contains yet more appalling possibilities (original in French).
On
Techdirt.
Back in March last year, the Indian government announced that it was granting its first compulsory license,
for the anti-cancer drug marketed as Nexavar, whose $70,000 per year
price-tag put it out of reach of practically everyone in India.
Nexavar's manufacturer, the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer, naturally
appealed against that decision, and the hearing before the India
Intellectual Property Appeals Board (IPAB) has now begun. Jamie Love has provided a useful report on the proceedings; here's his summary of what's at stake:
On
Techdirt.
Licenses lie at the heart of open source -- and many other kinds of
"open" too. That's because they are used to define the rights of users,
and to ensure those rights are passed on -- that the intellectual
commons is not enclosed. Their central importance explains in part the
flamewars that erupt periodically over which license is "best" -- many
people have very strong feelings on the subject.
On
Techdirt.
A couple of weeks ago, I pointed out
how a decision in Norway involving cash registers emphasised one of the
advantages of open source - its natural auditability. Here's another
interesting situation that points out a further reason for choosing
openness.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Music collection societies often figure in Techdirt thanks to their
attempts to wring licensing payments from people on absurd grounds, like
trying to make them pay for playing music to horses, or for singing old folk songs.
But in Europe, there's another issue. Because each country has its
own music collection society, digital music startups wishing to operate
across Europe must negotiate not one, but dozens of separate licenses – a
major obstacle to overcome.
On
Techdirt.
As regular readers know, there is a struggle going on between the
free software community that needs open standards to be RF (strictly
speaking "restriction-free", but usually called "royalty-free") and
traditional companies based on proprietary software that are pushing for
FRAND - Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory - not least because it will allow licences like the GNU GPL to
be excluded. The argument is that RF means that any claimed patents
within a standard must be made available at zero cost - and that, the
proponents of FRAND insist, is unworkable, since companies will not be prepared to "sacrifice" their patents in this way.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
A few months ago, I wrote
about the library management program Koha, and how the irruption of
money into the previously tranquil world of open source led to some
painful arguments. Sadly, that's not a unique example, as the recent
case of WURFL demonstrates.
On
The H Open.
Trey Ratcliff is an extremely successful photographer, who specializes in HDR photography. His blog Stuck in Customs is the top travel photography blog on the internet, with over a million views each week.
On
Techdirt.
There have been a number of stories on Techdirt recently about
governments diminishing the public domain - not just by extending
copyright for future works, but also by putting works currently in the
public domain back under copyright, both in the US and EU. Reversing that trend – by pushing back copyright's term closer to the original 14 years, say – will be challenging, to put it mildly.
On
Techdirt.
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