open...

January 18, 2012 may well go down as a pivotal date in the history of the Internet – and of copyright.  For on that day, the English-lang...

Somewhat belatedly (apologies), here is the second part of my analysis of the UK government's Open Standards consultation. As well as...

A few months ago, I wrote about the library management program Koha, and how the irruption of money into the previously tranquil world o...

As Techdirt reported at the time, the UK's Digital Economy Bill was rammed through Parliament, without proper scrutiny or even much ...

A couple of weeks ago the popular ebook portal Library.nu was shut down , apparently voluntarily, after a coalition of book publishers obt...

The governmental body that oversees France's "three-strikes" law, HADOPI, has already been caught once infringing on the co...

It was only yesterday that the European Commissioner Karel de Gucht made the surprise announcement that the European Commission would be ...

The British Journal of Photography (BJP) brings us yet another story of aggressive assertion of copyright wreaking harm on artists -- the...

Last week, we had a story about the IFPI (the international equivalent of the RIAA) saying that the ACTA protests were trying to "s...

One of the widely-recognised problems with ACTA is the lack of transparency surrounding its negotiation. Since I have addressed this issue...

Nicolas Sarkozy, who hopes to be re-elected as French President this year, seems to have little love for the Internet. At best, he regard...

The increasingly heated debates about the traditionally dull area of computer standards is testimony to the rise of open source. For the ...

One of the key problems with ACTA is the lack of transparency during its negotiation. That this is becoming a big issue in Europe is shown...

As Techdirt noted recently, policy-making behind closed doors is no longer acceptable. Until the end of the 20th century, it was hard f...

Although DMCA takedown notices figure quite frequently here on Techdirt -- especially abusive ones that use the system to remove material...

Yesterday I wrote about the unusual aspects of the Serious Organised Crime Agency's take-down of the music site RnBXclusive. As I n...

As sales of its products soar, and its share price continues to climb, Apple has come under increasing scrutiny because of the working co...

Few ideas display a sense of entitlement better than that of private copying levies. For they assume, by definition, that artists' r...

One of the positive outcomes of the debate that has raged around SOPA/PIPA is that more people have looked at the facts, rather than list...

One of the positive outcomes of the debate that has raged around SOPA/PIPA is that more people have looked at the facts, rather than list...

One of the bolder ideas in the UK's Hargreaves report was the suggestion that a Digital Copyright Exchange should be set up. The id...

One telling sign of the widespread concern about SOPA/PIPA was that the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, which oversees the open source Fire...

Yesterday, a disturbing story appeared on the German taz.de site: EU MPs have received thousands of emails from ACTA opponents. But no ...

Open e-textbooks are hardly new: Techdirt has been reporting on the pioneer in this market, Flat World Knowledge , for several years now. ...

Well, here's a turn-up for the books. At a time when the European Commission is insisting that the copyright ratchet should be tighte...