ACTA Update II

Although ACTA is billed as a global treaty, there are only two participants that really matter: the US and the European Union. If either of those dropped out, it would be completely ineffectual. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

If Politicians Pushing SOPA/PIPA Want To Create Jobs, They Should Support The Internet -- And Stop Treating Copyright Companies As Special

A key element of the political rhetoric around SOPA/PIPA was the idea that it was about jobs, and that jobs are so critical in the current economic climate that safeguarding them overrides any other concern the Net world might have about the means being proposed to do that. But then the key question becomes: who are really more important in terms of those jobs - the copyright industries, or companies exploiting the potential of the Internet that would be harmed if the Net were hobbled by new legislation?

On Techdirt.

Why Piracy Is Indispensable For The Survival Of Our Culture

Last Year Techdirt wrote about the case of the huge collection of historic jazz recordings that had been acquired by the US National Jazz Museum. The central problem is that even if the recordings can be digitized before they deteriorate, very few people will hear them because of their complicated copyright status. 

On Techdirt.

Estonia Next In Line To Receive US 'Encouragement' To Adopt Harsher Anti-Piracy Laws

Numerous Wikileaks cables have highlighted the pressure that the US has brought to bear on several foreign governments behind closed doors in an attempt to get the latter to pass maximalist copyright laws. But it's worth noting that plenty of arm twisting takes place openly. Here, for example, is a letter (pdf) from the American Chamber of Commerce in Estonia addressed to the Minister of Justice, and the Minister of Economic Affairs and Communications of that country: 

On Techdirt.

ACTA Update I

Anyone who follows me on Twitter or identi.ca, or on Google+ will have noticed something of a crescendo of posts about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) recently. There are two reasons for this.

On Open Enterprise blog.

iPhone Data Debunks Recording Industry's Report On How French Three Strikes Law Increased Sales

The annual Digital Music Report (pdf) of the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is a curiously conflicted production. On the one hand, it must celebrate "a healthy 8 per cent increase in our digital revenues in 2011 -- the first time the annual growth rate has risen since records began in 2004 "; on the other, it must continue to push the party line about how the industry is being destroyed by piracy. 

On Techdirt.

The End Of The Global Internet? Google's Blogger Starts Using Country-Specific Domains To Permit Local Censorship

Twitter has taken quite a lot of heat for putting in place the capability to block tweets on a geographical basis. This begins to look a little unfair in light of the fact that Google quietly adopted a similar policy before Twitter. That's shown by the answer to a question on Google's Blogger site about blogs being redirected to country-specific URLs, which at the time of writing was last updated on 9 January 2012. Here's what it says: 

On Techdirt.

Another Reason We Need Open Government Data: To Avoid Information Asymmetries

Can the future aggregate actions of people be predicted from relevant sets of data that describe them? That, of course, is what Isaac Asimov's invented mathematical discipline of psychohistory was supposed to do. Some Japanese researchers claim to have made some progress towards that goal: 

On Techdirt.

Will Academics' Boycott Of Elsevier Be The Tipping Point For Open Access -- Or Another Embarrassing Flop?

It's now widely recognized that the extreme demands of SOPA/PIPA catalyzed a new activism within the Net world, epitomized by the blackout effected by sites like Wikipedia on January 18. But as Techdirt has reported, SOPA and PIPA are not the only attacks by the copyright industries on the digital commons: another is the Research Works Act (RWA), which attempts to remove the public's right to read the articles written by tax-funded researchers in open access journals form. 

On Techdirt.

Pandora's Box 2.0: Opening proprietary code

Open source lies at the heart of Google – it runs a modified form of Linux on its vast server farms, and uses many other free software programs in its operations. This makes giving back to the open source community not just the right thing to do but enlightened self-interest: the stronger free software becomes, the more Google can build upon it (cynics would say feed off it).

On The H Open.

FIFA Orders Brazil To Overturn Ban On Selling Beer At World Cup Matches

One of the recurrent themes on Techdirt is the sense of entitlement the owners of various kinds of monopolies display, and their common belief that being able to maximize the profit from those monopolies trumps any other consideration. 

On Techdirt.

Newzbin Lawyer Struck Off For Posting Insulting Tweets During Case -- & Failing To Declare He Owned The Company He Defended

Well, this one's bizarre. Back in March 2010 we wrote about the UK Usenet aggregator Newzbin being found liable for the copyright infringment of its users. A year later, the ISP BT was ordered to block access to Newzbin2, its successor. What amounted to the UK's first Internet censorship order was upheld soon afterwards. 

On Techdirt.

Paulo Coelho On SOPA: 'Pirates Of The World, Unite And Pirate Everything I’ve Ever Written!'

We've written about the hugely-successful Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho many times before, because he is a great example of an artist embracing piracy as a boon not a bane. So it's great to see him offering his thoughts on SOPA: 

On Techdirt.

Computing in Schools: The Great Ctrl-Alt-Del

After years of unforgivable inaction, the education world is finally addressing the continuing disgrace that is computer teaching in this country. A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the UK Education Secretary Michael Gove's comments on this area, and now we have the Royal Society's report on computing in schools.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Subscribe To A Newsapaper, Get An E-reader Free

Well, this was bound to happen. Barnes & Noble is offering big discounts on its Nook e-readers to people taking out subscriptions to digital editions of magazines and newspapers: 

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.

SOPA Stopped: So Back to ACTA

So the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of copyright maximalist legislation, SOPA and PIPA, have been halted in their passage through the US legislative process. Of course, they're not dead, but are sure to return, zombie-like, either as modified versions of the current texts or new ones that turn out to be exactly the same as the old ones at their heart. However, the unprecedented action by the Net world to get the message across that these bills were not fit for purpose does mean that our attention can swivel back to somewhere else where bad things are happening: ACTA.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Blocking The Net 'Not The European Option' -- EU Commissioner Reding

One of the useful side-effects of the groundswell of protest against SOPA and PIPA is that a surprising number of people in positions of power have come out against their approach, notably in Europe. First, we had Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda for Europe, who tweeted: 

On Techdirt.

Adding Your DNA To A Biobank Is A Noble Move -- But Is It A Wise One?

One new approach to teasing apart the complex relationships between genes and common diseases such as cancer, heart disease, asthma and diabetes is by creating huge biobanks of medical data and samples. The idea is that by tracking the health and habits of very large populations across many years, and then examining their DNA, it will be possible to spot factors in common. Here's a major biobank that is shortly opening up its holdings for research: 

On Techdirt.

The Pirate Bay Press Release On SOPA: We Are The New Hollywood

Given its general contempt for the repeated attempts to close it down, you wouldn't expect The Pirate Bay to be particularly worried by SOPA. But in its very own press release on the subject, it goes much further: it flings the ultimate insult at Hollywood by claiming that not only are the two of them spiritual kin, but that The Pirate Bay is the New Hollywood. 

On Techdirt.

Is Using A Piece Of Existing Music In A Film To Underline An Emotion 'Rape' - Or Just The Way Cinema Works?

"The Artist" may have won several Golden Globes, but there's at least one person who apparently hates the film because of some music it uses: 

On Techdirt.

OK, So SOPA And PIPA Are Both On Hold: Where Do We Go From Here?

There is a rather odd atmosphere within the parts of the online community that fought so hard against SOPA this week – relief that all that work seems to have had an effect, mixed with a certain disbelief that for once the outside world sat up and took notice of the tech world's concerns. Amidst all the justified back-patting, there is a temptation to celebrate the fact that both SOPA and PIPA are "delayed", and to move on. 

On Techdirt.

EU Politicians Send Letter To US Congress Warning Of 'Extraterritorial Effects' Of SOPA And PIPA

Since SOPA and PIPA are US bills, the focus has naturally been on the US response to them – notably in the list of major sites that participated in the blackout, or who have otherwise protested against the proposed legislation. But it's important to remember that the whole rationale of these new laws is tackling copyright infringement outside the US. 

On Techdirt.

Welcome to the World of Open Source Domotics

Canonical pulled off something of a coup at the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) when it announced its Ubuntu TV – inevitably dubbed "TV for human beings":

On The H Open.

File Sharing Without The Internet: The Saharan Bluetooth Experience

A couple of months ago, Techdirt wrote about an EU politician's plan to build Internet surveillance into every operating system. As we pointed out then, this could easily be circumvented by using non-Net means for swapping files. It may not be driven by fears about spying, but it seems that communities in Western Africa are using Bluetooth connections between mobile phones to do exactly that: 

On Techdirt.