Norway To Digitize All Norwegian Books, Allowing Domestic IP Addresses To Read All Of Them, Irrespective Of Copyright Status

Here's a pretty amazing story from Norway: 

On Techdirt.

Two New Reports Confirm: Best Way To Reduce Piracy Dramatically Is To Offer Good Legal Alternatives

At the beginning of last year we reported on a Swedish study that showed that streaming services had halved the number of people who were downloading music illegally in Scandinavia. That's a pretty stunning figure, but of course is only one data point, which means that people can always argue that it's not possible to generalize. So it's good that not just one but two new reports confirm and broaden that finding. 

On Techdirt.

Another Reason to Use Open Source: Auditability

The Norwegian Ministry of Finance seems to be taking a bit of stick at the moment. It wants all the existing cash registers in the country thrown out and replaced with new ones, as the Norwegian site E24 reports (via Thomas Steen and Google Translate)

On Open Enterprise blog.

Amazon Wipes Customer's Account, Locks All Ebooks, Says 'Find A New Retailer' When She Asks Why

Techdirt has been warning people for several years that they don't really own the ebooks they have on their Amazon Kindles. The most famous demonstration of this was the sudden disappearance of ebook versions of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm (you can't make this stuff up.) But that's nothing compared to what an Amazon customer in Norway now claims the company has done: shut down her Amazon account permanently and locked her Kindle -- all without explanation. 

On Techdirt.

Norwegian Court Rules Blog Posts Are Not 'Made Public'

It's something of a truism that the courts take time to catch up with technology, especially in the fast-moving world of the Internet, but Thomas Steen points us to a recent court decision in Norway where the gulf between law and life is particularly wide. The case concerns a blogger called Eivind Berge who was arrested recently on account of some statements on his blog that allegedly "glorified and encouraged the killing of policemen" as a report on the Dagbladet newspaper site puts it (Norwegian original.) Moreover: 

On Techdirt.

Student Fined For Providing Free Film And TV Subtitles; Yet Another Business Opportunity Thrown Away By Copyright Industries

Mike recently reminded us that for some people, bizarrely, stopping "piracy" is more important than making money. Here's another example, this time from Norway: 

On Techdirt.

Norwegian Security Service Wants Details Of Citizens' Web Comments Retained For Six Months

Governments around the world are seeking to monitor more and more of their citizens' online activities -- and it's not just the most obviously repressive regimes doing this. In the US, there is CISPA, while the UK is drawing up the Communications Capability Development Programme. Thomas Steen alerts us to a further escalation of this desire to spy on the public, in Norway. The secret service there (known by the acronym PST) want details about comments posted on all Web sites retained (via Google Translate): 

On Techdirt.

New Market Research: Music Streaming Services Halve Illegal Downloads

For a long time, the copyright industries have taken the position that they won't launch new digital music services until piracy is "solved" – or at least punished. The inevitable consequence of that position is obvious to everyone outside the copyright industries – people turn to other, unauthorized sources to satisfy their musical needs. Fortunately, a few startups have launched pioneering digital music offerings and some, like Spotify, look like they might succeed. 

On Techdirt.

Norwegian National Library Inches Forward

Here's an interesting experiment that shows the way for all national libraries:

Kopinor and the National Library of Norway signed a contract regarding a pilot project for digital books on the Internet.

Through the project, called Bokhylla.no (’Bookshelf’), the library will make all Norwegian books from the 1790s, 1890s and 1990s available on the Internet.

All titles from the 1990s and some titles from the 1890s – together approx. 50.000 books – are under copyright. These books will not be prepared for print or download, but will be made available to Norwegian IP-addresses.

There are things to fault - like limiting it to Norwegian IP addresses, and the fact that only some years are available - but it's a useful start.

Norwegians Get the Blues

A little while back I noted a provocative call from IBM for standards bodies to do better – a clear reference to the ISO's handling of OOXML. Here are some other people who are clearly very unhappy with the same: 13 members of the Norwegian technical committee that actually took part in the process....

On Open Enterprise blog.

ISO Appeal: South Africa Rises to the Challenge

On Open Enterprise blog.

Cold Facts About the Norwegian OOXML Scandal

The meeting was a farce and the result was a scandal. But it’s not over yet, and one thing is clear: the “little one” is unfit to represent the interests of Norwegian users. It’s time he was told, “Roll over, roll over…”

Shine the light, shine the light, people...

The Fat Norwegian Lady Sings

Geir goes for it:

We were robbed of victory in ISO by a mere 3 votes.

Without the irregularities in Norway, that would have been just 2 votes. Reports are coming in of similar irregularities in other countries, including France and Denmark. Let's get those non-representative votes changed. Let's throw OOXML out of ISO.

Microsoft thinks it has won this battle, but I say it's not over yet.

It’s never over until the fat lady sings, and this fat lady only just got started.

Pix here. (Via tuxmachines.org.)

Norway's Beautiful Plumage...

...openness:

Regjeringa har vedteke at all informasjon på statlege nettsider skal vere tilgjengeleg i dei opne dokumentformata HTML, PDF eller ODF. Tida der offentlege dokument berre var tilgjengelege i Microsofts Word-format vil med det gå mot slutten.

I particularly liked the last sentence, which is basically a gratuitous kick where it hurts for Microsoft. (Via The Open Sourcerer.)