Could Your Company Survive a Net Block?

As part of the seemingly endless round of consultations (I'm not complaining - this is how it should be done), the UK government is asking about parental internet controls:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Apple's Pyrrhic Patent Victory

The reaction to the jury's decision in the US patent infringement case between Apple and Samsung has been rather remarkable. I've seen it called all kinds of turning and inflection points for the computing/mobile world, as if we are entering some strange new era whose landscape is weird and unknown to us. This is utter nonsense. I don't think Apple's "stunning" or "total" victory - all phrases I've seen bandied about - is particularly stunning, or even a victory. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Googlisation of Surveillance

As promised, here is my submission to the Joint Parliamentary Committee considering the UK government's Draft Communications Bill:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Comment on the UK Government's Snooping Bill

The Draft Communications Bill [.pdf] is one of the most controversial pieces of UK legislation proposed in recent years - not least because it represents a betrayal of election promises by the coalition to roll back state surveillance in the UK. As usual, the government is attempting to claim that current plans are "different" because the databases are distributed, not centralised; but the fact that searches will be possible across all the decentralised holdings means that there is no practical difference. This is quite simply another example of politicians promising one thing to get elected, and then doing its opposite.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Can open source be democratic?

One of the most important messages in the history of free software – and computing – was posted 21 years ago, on 25 August 1991:

On The H Open.

Unleashing the Potential of Open Data

It seems a long while ago now, but June was a pretty hectic month in this neck of the woods, since it saw the final push to get ACTA rejected in the European Parliament. But of course, plenty of other things were happening then, and one in particular that I wanted to cover was the release of this UK Open Data White Paper entitled "Unleashing the Potential". 

On Open Enterprise blog.

Sibelius Users Forced to Face the Music

Although the following is a little outside the mainstream of Open Enterprise, it does have a very clear moral with direct relevance to this blog's readers. It concerns the proprietary program Sibelius, which describes itself as "the world’s best-selling music notation software". It only runs on Windows and Macintosh, and comes with an oppressive DRM that places it about as far away from free software as is possible. Nonetheless, it seems widely-loved by most of its users, presumably because it does what they want it to. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

Exploring Anti-Net Neutrality Arguments

As I noted recently, net neutrality is back in the spotlight, so I thought it would be useful - and maybe entertaining - to look at an anti-net neutrality article for the insights it gives us about how the other side views things. It's called "Pick Up On One and Let The Other One Ride", and appears in the Huffington Post. Here's how it frames the discussion:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Europe Already Has Draft Standard For Real-Time Government Snooping On Services Like Facebook And Gmail

As the old joke goes, standards are wonderful things, that's why we have so many of them. But who would have thought that ETSI, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, has already produced a draft standard on how European governments can snoop on cloud-based services like Facebook and Gmail -- even when encrypted connections are used? 

On Techdirt.

Outdated Compulsory Licensing Means Australian Schools Must Pay Millions To Use Free Internet Materials

Recently we wrote about how copyright rules designed for an analog age were causing problems when transposed without modification to the digital world. Here's another example, this time from Australia, where the Brisbane Times' site reports on an increasingly difficult situation in education as a result of outdated copyright approaches: 

On Techdirt.

Microsoft's Patent Strategy Made Patent

At the end of last year, I wrote about the great service Barnes & Noble had performed by drawing back the curtain on one of Microsoft's patent lawsuits. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

UK Government Censors Copyright Consultation Submission About How Awful Collection Societies Are

When the UK Hargreaves Review of intellectual monopolies in the digital age came out last year, Techdirt noted that one of its innovations was an emphasis on basing policy on evidence. The fact that this was even notable shows how parlous the state of policy-making has become. One important way to gather evidence is through public consultations, and in the wake of the Hargreaves Review, the UK government conducted a major exercise in gathering views and information in this field. 

On Techdirt.

ICANN Continues to Prove It Can't

I have been writing about the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, since its birth in 1998 (see the ICANN entry on Wikipedia for a good summary of how that came about, and the evolution of the organisation since then.) That move was contentious at the time, since it saw the running of the Internet's basic infrastructure taken out of the hands of the geeks, personified by Jon Postel, and put in the hands of the business world. As a fully intended side-effect of that move, it also placed the system fully under the control of the US, rather than allowing a more distributed, global approach to evolve.

On Techdirt.

UK Politicians Don't Seem To Mind That Every Web Page You Load Is Copyright Infringement Under Current Law

Last year Techdirt wrote about the almost unbelievable Meltwater decision in the UK, where the courts said that viewing a Web page without the owner's permission was copyright infringement. In November last year, leave was granted to Meltwater to make an appeal against the ruling to the UK's Supreme Court. However, that still leaves the inconvenient matter of the infringement by tens of millions of UK Web users hundreds of times every day in the meantime. 

On Techdirt.

Consumer Focus and the Digital Economy Act

I've written a couple of articles recently about Ofcom's consultation on the implementation of the Digital Economy Act. That consultation has closed now (it was only open for a month), but I'm conscious that in those posts I was making quite a lot of technical claims about Internet security, an area in which I am certainly no expert. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

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.

UK Net Neutrality Under (Coded) Attack

Yesterday I wrote that I hoped to post here my submission to the important EU consultation on net neutrality that is currently open. However, there have been some important developments in this area that need to be covered first.

On Open Enterprise blog.

NZ Copyright Industry Claims New 'Three Strikes' Law Halved Movie Infringements After One Month: So What?

The implicit justification for various new copyright enforcement laws, such as the "three strikes" approach, is that they will encourage people to buy more authorized digital goods and thus support artists and their works. Naturally, those in favor of this logic like to produce figures that purport to show that it is working. 

On Techdirt.

Digital Economy Act Consultation Response

Last week I wrote about the extremely short consultation period for aspects of implementing the Digital Economy Act. Time is running out - the consultation closes tomorrow at 5pm, so I urge you to submit something soon. It doesn't have to be very long. Here, for example, is what I am sending - short, but maybe not so sweet....

On Open Enterprise blog.

Are The Courts Finally Trying To Bring Some Balance Back To Copyright?

One of the recurrent themes here on Techdirt is the increasing lack of balance in copyright, which is now heavily weighted in favor of creators and their proxies, and against the public. That bias has come about thanks to the rise of the Internet, which has turned the traditionally rather specialist area of copyright law and enforcement into a matter of everyday concern: it affects practically everything we do online, and can criminalize even the most trivial of activities there. 

On Techdirt.

UK Judge Rules Even Archived News Articles Can Be In Contempt Of Court

Last week, the British policeman Simon Harwood was acquitted of killing a man during the 2009 G20 protests in London -- a controversial verdict given the video footage of the incident. In order not to prejudice their views, the jury was not informed that Harwood had been investigated a number of times previously for alleged violence and misconduct. 

On Techdirt.

Time to Fight for Net Neutrality in the EU

Net neutrality is one of those areas that most people are vaguely in favour of, without giving it much thought. Governments take advantage of this to make sympathetic noises while doing precisely nothing to preserve it. For example, following a UK consultation on net neutrality two years ago, Ofcom came out with a very wishy-washy statement that basically said we think net neutrality is a jolly good idea but we won't actually do anything to protect it. 

On Computerworld UK.

Sweded Movies: The Fans Talk Back

One of the defining characteristics of the digital world -- and one of the problems for copyright law, which was conceived in an analog age -- is the importance of being able to build on the work of others not just indirectly, but directly, through mashups or the re-use of existing material. Stig Rudeholm points us to a fascinating feature in the Guardian about "sweded movies": home-made tributes to Hollywood titles that adopt precisely this approach of creative re-interpretation. The name apparently comes from the film "Be Kind Rewind", where DIY imitations of studio favorites are passed off as Swedish editions. 

On Techdirt.

Publishing Execs Arrested, Face Jail Time, Because Book Tells People How To Back Up DVDs

Last month we wrote about a new copyright law in Japan whose punishments seemed so disproportionate it was hard to take it seriously. For example, downloading unauthorized copies or backing up content from a DVD were both subject to criminal penalties. According to this story from Daily Yomiuri Online, it looks like it's no joke: 

On Techdirt.

Australia Wants To Join The Snooper's Club: Why That's Bad For All Of Us

They say that a lie is halfway around the world before the truth has got its boots on, and the same seems to be true about Internet policy: the bad ideas spread like wildfire, while the good ones languish in obscurity. Snooping on the Net activity of an entire population is the latest example: now Australia wants to join the club that currently consists of the US and UK, with Canada waiting in the wings. Here's part of the EFF's excellent summary of what the Australian government is proposing: 

On Techdirt.