Showing posts with label nigeria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nigeria. Show all posts

23 November 2013

Nigeria Closer To Bringing In Comprehensive Internet And Phone Spying System, Probably Complete With Third-Party Backdoors

One of the unfortunate consequences of the revelations about NSA spying on just about everyone is that it creates a false impression that such activities are really quite normal these days, and nothing much to worry about. This probably encourages nations that don't carry out such comprehensive snooping on their populations to think about doing so. In Nigeria, for example, a proposal is making its way through the legislative process that would grant the Nigerian government wide-ranging surveillance powers, as reported here by Premium Times: 

On Techdirt.

06 January 2013

Booming Nigeria To Adopt One Of The West's Dying Ideas: 'You Must Be A Criminal' Copyright Levies

Recently, we noted that copyright levies in Europe are looking more and more anachronistic for the high-tech world. It seems that Nigeria has not noticed this, since Afro-IP points out to us that the Copyright (Levy of Materials) Order 2012 has been approved there, which will bring them in for a very wide range of goods

On Techdirt.

06 April 2010

Nigeria, India, China: Our Copyright-Free Future

Here is another of Kevin Kelly's brilliant posts, but this time it's not about deep philosophical issues, but something really mundane: "How to Thrive Among Pirates". It is probably the best post I have read on the subject, since it manages to marry fresh anecdotes, a wonderful eye for detail and convincing analysis. Here's the summary (but do read it all):

1) Price your copies near the cost of pirated copies. Maybe 99 cents, like iTunes. Even decent pirated copies are not free; there is some cost to maintain integrity, authenticity, or accessibility to the work.

2) Milk the uncopyable experience of a theater for all that it is worth, using the ubiquitous cheap copies as advertising. In the west, where air-conditioning is not enough to bring people to the theater, Hollywood will turn to convincing 3D projection, state-of-the-art sound, and other immersive sensations as the reward for paying. Theaters become hi-tech showcases always trying to stay one step ahead of ambitious homeowners in offering ultimate viewing experiences, and in turn manufacturing films to be primarily viewed this way.

3) Films, even fine-art films, will migrate to channels were these films are viewed with advertisements and commercials. Like the infinite channels promised for cable TV, the internet is already delivering ad-supported free copies of films.

Which is, of course, pretty much what I and people like Mike Masnick have been saying for a while.

It concludes with another rather good summing-up of what's happening here, and where we are going:

Producing movies in a copyright free environment is theoretically impossible. The economics don’t make sense. But in the digital era, there are many things that are impossible in theory but possible in practice – such as Wikipedia, Flickr, and PatientsLikeMe. Add to this list: filmmaking to an audience of pirates. Contrary to expectations and lamentations, widespread piracy does not kill commercial filmmaking. Existence proof: the largest movie industries on the planet. What they are doing today, we’ll be doing tomorrow. Those far-away lands that ignore copy-right laws are rehearsing our future.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

16 January 2006

OSSS: Open Source Software in Syria

This story about the use of free software in Syria pairs up nicely with the one about Nigeria I discussed a few days ago. The difference is that where those in Nigeria see open source as a better option than proprietary software, Syrian users of free software have no choice. Politics meets programming, yet again.

11 January 2006

In the Vanguard

What is exciting about this piece in the Nigerian newspaper Vanguard (link from Open Access News), is that it puts all the pieces together so well: how open source and open access relate to intellectual property regimes, AIDS, poverty, ecology and - inevitably - global politics.

As the article concludes:

Open the source code of innovation, and we’ll change the planet.

Truly, the way forward.