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Despite the growing evidence
that corporate sovereignty clauses in international treaties pose
considerable risks to nations that sign them, such "investor-state
dispute settlement" (ISDS) mechanisms are present in both TPP and
TAFTA/TTIP -- at least as far as we know: it's hard to be sure given the
obsessive secrecy surrounding them.
On
Techdirt.
Back in June, Mike wrote about the important Myriad Genetics judgment
from the Supreme Court, which said that naturally-occuring genetic
material could not
be patented. However, because of some hedging from the judges, there
were concerns about how much this would block gene patents in practice.
Last week we had an indication that the impact is indeed likely to be significant, as VentureBeat reports:
On
Techdirt.
We noted last week that Japan was bringing in severe new punishments designed to discourage
whistleblowing. That might suggest that following Snowden's leaks,
there will now be a period of repression where potential whistleblowers
lie low to avoid bringing down the wrath of governments on their heads.
One person with a better idea than most about what is really going on
here is Jesselyn Radack. She's employed by the General Accountability
Project (GAP), a leading US whistleblower protection and advocacy
organization. Here's part of her biography on the GAP site:
On
Techdirt.
Earlier this year we wrote about how AbbVie, the pharma company spun out of Abbott Laboratories, had gone to court to stop
the European Medicines Agency (EMA) from releasing clinical trials
information about one of its drugs. Despite what AbbVie claimed, this
was not commercially sensitive in any way, but simply basic data about
safety and efficacy.
On
Techdirt.
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.
One of the many worrying aspects of the Snowden saga is an attempt in
the US to reframe whistleblowing as treason, and to make it harder for
people to reveal information to journalists or the public that might
embarrass the government there. However, things are even worse in other
parts of the world. In Japan, for example, there are plans to bring in a new secrecy law that will make whistleblowing even more risky, as Reuters reports:
On
Techdirt.
Edward Snowden's leaks show that the NSA and GCHQ have been
systematically subverting key technologies that underlie the Internet.
That betrayal of trust has prompted some soul-searching by the Net
engineering community, which realizes that it needs to come up with more
surveillance-resistant approaches. This story from Radio Netherlands
Worldwide (RNW) provides information about the kind of thing they are working on in one key group, the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It reports on a speech given by the IETF's chair, Jari Arkko,
at the recent Internet Governance Forum in Bali, Indonesia.
On
Techdirt.
Bitcoin shares with drones the unhappy distinction of being the subject of almost exclusively negative reports. Just as drones are usually doing bad things to people, so Bitcoins are usually helping people do bad things because of their supposed untraceability. So it makes a pleasant change to come across an upbeat Bitcoin story like this, as told by the Guardian:
On
Techdirt.
VKontakte is not only the largest social networking site in Russia, but
is also one of the biggest unauthorized repositories of copyright music,
thanks to its file-hosting service. Given the moves to clamp down on
copyright infringement in Russia, it seemed only a matter of time before
VKontakte found itself in hot water because of this. And yet, as
Torrent Freak reports, something unexpected has happened:
On
Techdirt.
One of the difficulties of making people aware
of the huge impact that investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS)
clauses in TPP and TAFTA/TTIP are likely to have on their lives, is that
the name is so boring, and so they tend to assume that what it
describes is also boring and not worth worrying about. And yet what
began as an entirely reasonable system for protecting investments in
emerging economies with weak judiciaries, through the use of independent
tribunals, has turned into a monster that now allows companies to place themselves above national laws, as Techdirt has reported before.
On
Techdirt.
The idea that Wikipedia is dying
has become one of the Internet's recurrent stories. Because something
used by so many people every day is completely free and dependent on the
selfless dedication of relatively few individuals, there is perhaps an
underlying fear that it will disappear, and it will be our fault for not
supporting it better. However, alongside major issues like the need for
an influx of new contributors from more diverse backgrounds, one of the
lesser-known challenges Wikipedia faces is the rise of "socking", or
sock puppetry. Here's how Wikipedia defines the term:
On
Techdirt.
One of the most important pieces of legislation wending its way through the European Parliament concerns data protection.
Because of its potential impact on major US companies like Google and
Facebook, this has become one of the most fought-over proposals in the
history of the EU, with lobbyists apparently writing large chunks of suggested amendments more favorable to online services. And all of that was before Snowden's revelations about NSA spying in the EU made data protection an even more politically-sensitive area.
On
Techdirt.
Techdirt has run several stories about the difficulties students in
emerging economies have when it comes to buying expensive study
materials. Back in 2012, Costa Rican students took to the streets
to defend their right to photocopy otherwise unaffordable university
textbooks. Earlier this year, Indian textbook authors asked for a
lawsuit brought by Western publishers against Delhi University and a
nearby photocopying shop over alleged infringements to be dropped.
A common element to those two stories is that students often resort to
making photocopies of books, since they can't afford the originals.
According to this story from Calcutta's The Telegraph, it seems that the Indian government wants to turn the practice into a recognized right:
On
Techdirt.
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