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When we talk of free software, we typically think of things like GNU/Linux,
Apache or Firefox. But one aspect that often gets overlooked is that
of multimedia codecs. There's a good reason for this: most of them are
patent-encumbered, which makes using them with free software hard -
well, hard if you want to do it legally. In practice, most people have
employed implementations of dubious legality, and the licensors have
taken the sensible view that they are hardly losing millions from this
kind of activity, and have turned a blind eye.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
As Techdirt reported,
the European Commission is conducting a major consultation on the
"procedures for notifying and acting on illegal content hosted by online
intermediaries" that could radically affect the liability of online
service providers in the European Union. Other parts of the world are
doubtless examining this area too, and one at least -- Chile -- has
already come up with a novel approach.
On
Techdirt.
Despite the absence of credible studies supporting the idea, part of
the copyright maximalist dogma is that the wider the reach of copyright,
and the stricter the application, the better. As a corollary,
copyright exceptions are anathema, which is why the US and EU are still
shamefully resisting
an international treaty that would enable more books covered by
copyright to be produced in versions suitable for the visually impaired,
since it would create a minor exception to help make that happen.
On
Techdirt.
Back in July, I warned
about the imminent threat of software patents sneaking into Europe
thanks to horse-trading over the proposed EU Unitary Patent. Nothing
happened then, but purely because MEPs turned to far more important matters - their summer holidays. Now that those balmy days are over, MEPs are back at work, and the Unitary Patent rears its misbegotten head again.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
For the last year, it seemed like the German Pirate Party could do no wrong. In November 2011, it won 9% of the vote in the Berlin parliamentary elections, then 7.4% in Saarland in March, 8.2% of the vote in Schleswig-Holstein in May, and a similar level in North Rhine-Westphalia shortly afterwards. There was a little pushback from copyright maximalists, but after ACTA's defeat
in July, you might have expected the Pirates to be riding even higher
in the public's favor. A recent article in the German news magazine Der
Spiegel reveals that's far from the case:
On
Techdirt.
The term "open source" was coined back in February 1998, and
initially it applied only to software. But as the power of open,
collaborative development became apparent, other spheres have adopted
the "open" tag along with the underlying approach. Here's the latest
example -- open source planes:
On
Techdirt.
The draft bill of the UK's "Snooper's Charter",
which would require 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, was published back in July. Before it is debated
by politicians, a Joint Committee from both the House of Commons and
House of Lords is conducting "pre-legislative scrutiny."
On
Techdirt.
As long-standing readers will know, alongside ACTA, the other main theme of this blog over the last year or so has been the battle for the soul of open standards,
which culminated in the UK government's consultation on the subject.
We don't yet know what the outcome there will be, but whatever it is,
the issue of open standards will only increase in importance.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
In the UK there is currently a campaign and associated petition from
the organization "Safety Net: Protecting Innocence Online", which calls
for mandatory Net filtering of pornography -- people would need to opt
out of the system if they wanted to view this material. The
justification -- of course -- is the usual "won't someone think of the
children?" Here's the pitch:
On
Techdirt.
The BitTorrent protocol is an extremely efficient way of moving files
around the Internet, especially big ones. That makes it highly popular
with those seeking to download unauthorized copies of music and films,
for example. But the clever approach that enables BitTorrent to do
that, which involves downloading fragments of a file from a shifting
swarm of fellow peers holding some or all of it, is also a weakness from
these users' point of view: it means that downloads take place in
public, rather than as a private transaction from a client to a server
(as with cyber lockers.)
On
Techdirt.
Nathan Myhrvold is trying to rustle up a little positive PR for Intellectual Ventures (IV) by appointing a VP of Global Good
(although it's hard to see how anyone lumbered with such a daft job
title is going to be taken seriously anywhere.) You can gauge just how
touchy Myhrvold is on this topic by his rather waspish response to some
commentary on that move.
On
Techdirt.
This year saw two huge victories for digital activism: against SOPA
in the US, and against ACTA in the EU. The big question is now: what
will be the next moves of those behind SOPA and ACTA as they seek to
regain the initiative? For SOPA, we've had a clue in the call for a "Son of SOPA" from the US Chamber of Commerce. But what about the European Commission?
On
Techdirt.
Even after ACTA was rejected
by the European Parliament on 4 July this year, the European Commission
was still refusing to admit that the treaty was misguided and
dangerous. To this day, it's not clear what it is planning in terms of
trying to bring it back in another form, or by negotiating some kind of ACTA Lite with the other signatories.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
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.
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.
As promised, here is my submission to the Joint Parliamentary
Committee considering the UK government's Draft Communications Bill:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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