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Another major milestone has been achieved in the push to get ACTA
rejected by the EU: a fifth parliamentary committee has recommended that
the European Parliament should refuse to ratify it when it is put to
the vote on July 4th, effectively killing it in Europe. The other committees
– on legal affairs, civil liberties, industry and international
development – recommended rejection a few weeks ago, but today's vote by
the international trade committee (INTA) was seen as the most
important.
On
Techdirt.
The computing revolution is not the only one driven by constant
scaling of technologies: the field of genomics -- the study of DNA
sequences -- has also enjoyed rapid falls in basic costs over the last
decade and a half. This means that whereas the first human genome cost
around $3 billion to sequence, we are fast approaching the point where
it will cost first a few thousand, and then a few hundred dollars to
sequence anyone's complete DNA. An interesting post on the Health
Affairs Blog points out that neither the law nor society is ready for this.
On
Techdirt.
On the not-very-scientific basis of several calls to MEPs yesterday, the impression I get is that the right-of-centre ECR group on the INTA committee will be pushing for delay until after the ECR has delivered its judgement. That could be in more than a year's time, and would be a big problem in terms of getting ACTA rejected, since all of the momentum that has built up over the last six months would be lost.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Until recently there has been an unchallenged assumption that the
more copyright, the better. Although people have begun to realize
that's not the case – and that extending copyright diminishes the public
domain because we must all wait longer for works to enter it --
governments around the world continue to make copyright longer, stronger
and broader.
On
Techdirt.
A few months ago we wrote
about a really bad idea that was being floated in Germany: making
companies like Google pay for the use of news snippets in services such
as Google News. Unfortunately, that idea has now been turned into a
concrete proposal for a new law; remarkably, it is even worse than the
original plans.
On
Techdirt.
When the history of modern Brazil comes to be written, a special
place will be reserved for the soybean, the powerful farmers that grow
it -- and the deforestation
it is driving. And at the center of that tale will be Monsanto, with
its patented "Roundup Ready" crop, so called because it has been
genetically modified to withstand the herbicide glyphosate, marketed as
Roundup.
On
Techdirt.
So, we arrive at the penultimate stage of the battle to stop ACTA in
Europe. Before the final plenary vote in the European Parliament in
July, there is a vote in the International Trade committee (INTA) this Thursday. As its home page explains:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Performing rights societies probably don't have the best reputations
here on Techdirt, but just when you think they can't get any more
outrageous in their demands, they do. Here are two stories from the Slovak Republic, both involving SOZA, the Slovak Performing and Mechanical Rights Society:
On
Techdirt.
Net Neutrality has suddenly become a hot topic again. Partly, that's
thanks to some awful ideas about regulating the Internet coming from
the International Telecommunication Union, notably those proposed by the
ETNO -- the European Telecommunications Network Operators Association
-- discussed recently on Techdirt. New information from WCITLeaks Wikileaks (found via the Net neutrality in Europe site) provides us with the following details (pdf):
On
Techdirt.
We knew it was coming, and here it is: the Communications Data Bill (.pdf.). First the good news:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
As expected, the UK government has published its Draft Communications Bill
(pdf) -- better known as the "snooper's charter," since it requires
ISPs to record key information about every email sent and Web site
visited by UK citizens, and mobile phone companies to log all their
calls (landline information is already recorded).
On
Techdirt.
The Belgian EU Commissioner Karel De Gucht is the driving force
behind ACTA, and is apparently really keen to combat crimes like
counterfeiting and piracy. It also seems he has a slight problem with the tax authorities:
On
Techdirt.
In recent months, Techdirt has reported on an important development in the world of medicine, as both India and Brazil
have allowed local companies to produce cheap generic versions of drugs
covered by patents. In an even bigger blow to Western pharmaceutical
companies, it looks like China is following suit:
On
Techdirt.
Since my last ACTA update, quite a lot of good stuff has happened. For a start, all four European Parliament committees have recommended that ACTA should be rejected
when the plenary vote takes place at the beginning of July. That just
leaves one more committee - that for International Trade, or INTA - to make its recommendation, which should take place next week. I'll be writing more about this vote soon.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Recently, an interesting report entitled "The legacy of the BBC Micro" appeared (freely available online).
For those of you too young to remember this trail-blazing UK computing
project from the dawn of microcomputers, here's some background from the
report:
On
The H Open.
Recently, Techdirt wrote
about the increasing number of Web sites that were dumping Google Maps
and turning to OpenStreetMap (OSM) instead. But that's only one aspect
of the increasingly important digital mapping sector: another is for use
with in-car satnav systems. So an obvious question is: how is
OpenStreetMap doing here?
On
Techdirt.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote
about how the ever-increasing storage capacity of portable hard drives
made it unlikely that the sharing of music could ever be stopped. That
was a somewhat theoretical piece based on general trends in technology;
but here's some supporting data from a rather unusual source: North
Korea (aka the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" - DPRK).
On
Techdirt.
Too often we read that the Internet is making us stupid or fat, or destroying
the "fabric of society." Indeed, judging by the all the digital
jeremiads it's a wonder that anybody dares to use it at all, since it's
clearly irredeemably bad in every way. So it's refreshing to come
across an upbeat piece from Lauren Weinstein with the inspiring title "How the Internet Can Save the World." His basic point is this:
On
Techdirt.
Techflaws
alerts us to an announcement by ZPÜ, the organization responsible for
setting the levy on storage media in Germany, that fees will rise rather
significantly (German original).
For a USB stick with a capacity greater than 4 Gbytes, the tax would
increase from 8 eurocents (about 10 cents) to 1.56 euros (about $1.93), a
rise of 1850%; for a memory card bigger than 4 Gbytes, the fee would go
up from 8 eurocents to 1.95 euros (about $2.42), an increase of 2338%.
On
Techdirt.
Since today is a Bank Holidayin the UK, I hope that a few of you might take the opportunity to make a submission to the UK consultation on open standards. This closes at 11.59pm this evening (BST), so you still have time to answer the online questionnaires for chapter 1, chapter 2 and chapter 3. Alternatively (or additionally), you can also submit something directly to openstandards@digital.cabinet-office.gov.uk.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Although the traditional image of a science laboratory typically
consists of a room full of test tubes or microscopes, the reality is
that computers now play a central role there, just as they do for
business and life in general.
On
Techdirt.
Eben Moglen has been battling to defend key digital rights
for the last two decades. A lawyer by training, he helped Phil
Zimmerman fight off the US government's attack on the use of the Pretty
Good Privacy encryption program in the early 1990s, in what became
known as the Crypto Wars. That brought him to the attention of Richard
Stallman, founder of the GNU project, and together they produced version
3 of the GNU GPL, finally released after 12 years' work in 2006.
On
Techdirt.
In a country where the mainstream media is tightly controlled,
Chinese microblogs have provided an invaluable way for millions of
people to find and share unofficial information. That's obviously
problematic for the Chinese authorities, who have been gradually
clamping down on what they term "rumors".
On
Techdirt.
Most people have concentrated on the ITRE, JURI and LIBE committees
(as I did in my previous posts this week). But there's a fourth
committee that is meeting to decide upon its recommendation to INTA: that of Development. Here's how it describes itself on its home page:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
One of the most dishonest aspects of ACTA was its attempt to equate
genuinely dangerous products like fake medicines with totally harmless
ones like unauthorized digital copies. Fortunately, that's such an
absurd equivalence that more and more people have voiced their concerns
over it -- including the Liberals and Democrats in the European
Parliament, who cited it as one reason why they would be voting against ACTA:
On
Techdirt.
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