German Gov't Inadvertently Reveals Police Monitor Gmail, Skype, Facebook & Use Snooping Malware

Transparency is worth having for itself, since governments often tend to behave a little better when they know that someone is watching. But occasionally, requests for data turn up something big and totally unexpected because someone failed to notice quite what the information provided implies. 

On Techdirt. 

Open source's secret ally: Moore's Law

Linux went from being a cool personal hack in a bedroom to software that would eventually change world just over 21 years ago when Linus sent out his famous "Hello everybody out there using minix" message that invited people to join in. As I noted last month, that open, collaborative approach was really quite new and proved key to the uptake and development of Linux.

On The H Open.

The Philippines' Awful New 'Cybercrime' Law Put On Hold -- For Now

Last week Tim Cushing wrote about the hugely-worrying new "cybercrime" law passed in the Philippines that seemed likely to criminalize all kinds of everyday online activities. As an article on Radio Australia's site reports, the Philippines' highest court has now stepped in after being petitioned to block the legislation: 

On Techdirt.

Before and After ACTA - the Video

In the last year I've written what some might have felt were rather too many thousand words about ACTA. But I'd argue that it was an important moment, not least because of the European Parliament's refusal to ratify the treaty, which was quite unprecedented for an international agreement of this kind.

On Open Enterprise blog.

EU Unitary Patent Vote: It's On, Again, Probably

This is getting silly. Over the last year I've been warning about problems with the EU's plan to bring in a Unitary Patent system, culminating in a call to write to your MEPs a few weeks ago about an imminent vote that was taking place in the crucial JURI committee. That didn't take place, but word is that the committee vote will now take place this Thursday:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Fighting Lack of Transparency And Engagement With Parliamentary Openness

A recurrent theme here on Techdirt is the persistent lack of transparency during the drafting of new laws or the negotiation of new treaties. Most governments, it seems, retain the view that they know best, that the electorate shouldn't worry about all those tiresome details being discussed in secret backroom negotiations, and that since the public will be able to see the result once it's all finished, what's the problem? 

On Techdirt.

Lacking Fair Use Rights, Argentina Tries To Increase Access To Copyright Works, With Mixed Results

If you think copyright is bad in regions like the US or Europe, this post from Intellectual Property Watch points out that things could be much worse: 

On Techdirt.

Creepy Smartphone Malware Re-creates Your Home For Stalkers

It's become something of a cliché that anyone with a mobile phone is carrying a tracking device that provides detailed information about their location. But things are moving on, as researchers (and probably others as well) explore new ways to subvert increasingly-common smartphones to gain other revealing data about their users. Here's a rather clever use of malware to turn your smartphone into a system for taking clandestine photos -- something we've seen before, of course, in other contexts -- but which then goes even further by stitching them together to form a pretty accurate 3D model of your world: 

On Techdirt.

Emerging Countries Take Note: Big Pharma's Losing Patent Battles In India

Techdirt has been following the important story of the kidney and liver cancer drug marketed under the name Nexavar since March, when India granted a compulsory license for the first time since re-instating patents on pharmaceuticals. Naturally, the patent holder, Bayer, fought back, and appealed against that decision. Now we learn from Intellectual Property Watch that Bayer has lost: 

On Techdirt.

German Pirate Party Makes Some Shockingly Unshocking Proposals For Copyright Reform

As Techdirt has reported, after a year of amazing successes, the German Pirate Party is going through something of a bad patch at the moment. One reason is that it seems to spend more time squabbling in public than on crafting policy documents that will win over the public. That makes the recent appearance of proposals for copyright reform particularly significant. 

On Techdirt.

Declaration on Parliamentary Openness

An increasing number of Open Enterprise posts are about moves to open up government in myriad ways. That's not really surprising, since open source clearly is a perfect match for public administrations, as are open standards, and open data is a natural outgrowth of software openness. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

Teenage Engineering: If Our Parts Are Too Expensive, Here's How To Print Your Own

There's plenty of breathless writing about the imminent 3D-printing revolution, but realistically, what is it likely to mean for most people? They probably won't all be printing out their own planes, but they may well be printing out small replacement parts for goods they own. Here's an early example of that from the world of electronics, spotted by the Shapeways site: 

On Techdirt.

California To Commission 50 Open Textbooks For 2013; Finnish Teachers Write One In A Weekend

Techdirt has been following open textbooks for some time now, and 2012 looks to be a bumper year for them. Here, for example, is a major initiative in the US: 

On Techdirt.

European Parliament Committee Calls For Creation Without Copyright To Become EU Policy

The European Union's governmental machine is a complicated beast, with its intertwining of supra-national, national and party-political levels (if you're interested in understanding how it works, the digital rights organization EDRI has put together a useful introduction (pdf).) That makes it quite hard to tell what is going on behind the scenes with this new Opinion of the International Trade Committee on a Digital Freedom Strategy in EU Foreign Policy (pdf.) 

On Techdirt.

Why ECJ Must be Ultimate Arbiter of the Unitary Patent

As I've noted a couple of times, one of the key issues that has yet to be resolved concerning the proposed EU Unitary Patent system is which court will have the final say. Will it be the European Court of Justice (ECJ), or the main Unitary Patent Court? Or, put another way, will Articles 6 to 8 of the Unitary Patent Regulation to be adopted by the Council and the European Parliament be deleted or not? If they are removed, ultimate power rests with the Unitary Patent Court; if they remain, the ECJ has the last word.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Out of Africa: More Microsoft FUD

One of the most heartening developments recently has been Africa's current embrace of computer technology. That includes open source: for example, Nigeria has been running an open source conference for several years now, and the Kenyan government is starting to deploy free software widely. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

EU Copyright Holders Cling To Old Levies, As New Ones Start To Appear On Cloud Storage

Levies on blank storage media are a relic of older times when copying was a new possibility for copyright works. You no longer needed an LP pressing plant, say, you could copy music in the comfort of your own home, first on analog cassette tapes, then later on digital media like CDs and MP3 players. At that time, it was easy to see each of those copies as somehow replacing purchases, and so the argument for levies was born: people should pay indirectly for the "lost" sales their copying caused. 

On Techdirt.

First Open Forum Academy Conference Proceedings

Last week, I mentioned that I attended the Open Forum Europe 2012 conference. Preceeding it was the first meeting of the Open Forum Academy (OFA), of which I am a member. Here's how it describes itself:

On Open Enterprise blog.

EU Open Voluntarism Consultation: Your Views

If you cast your mind back to the heady days of summer, when we were all worried about what ACTA might do, one of the problems was with Article 27, whose third paragraph reads:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Why Everyone Should Care About DRM's Punishment Of The Visually Impaired

Techdirt writes a lot about the problems with DRM, and how inefficient and inconvenient it is. But for millions of visually-impaired people, those "inconveniences" represent something much deeper, and much worse. Somebody who has started writing eloquently about this issue is Rupert Goodwins. He is one of the UK's most respected technology journalists and also, sadly, is losing his sight. As he points out in a powerful new piece, things ought to be getting better for the visually impaired in the Internet age: 

On Techdirt.

Let's Clean up the Clean IT Project

Any EU project called "Clean IT", with all that implies for elements that are regarded as "dirty", is worrying enough. But combined with a stated intention of "reducing the impact of the terrorist use of the Internet", the concerns naturally grow. After all, it is precisely by invoking the vague and emotional threat of "terrorism" that the UK government has sought to short-circuit criticism of many of its most illiberal policies, most recently with the ill thought-out Draft Communications Bill.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Megaupload Farce Stirring Up Backlash Against Copyright Overreach

Just when you think the Megaupload farce can't get any more ridiculous, it does. Following revelations that New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau illegally intercepted communications in the Megaupload case and provided those details to law enforcement authorities, the country's Prime Minister has been forced to apologize personally to Kim Dotcom: "Of course I apologize to Mr Dotcom, and I apologize to New Zealanders." From his position of increasing strength as more and more missteps by the New Zealand authorities come to light, Dotcom graciously accepted those apologies. 

On Techdirt.

Rupert Murdoch Admits Defeat: Now Wants London Times To Appear In Search Results

Remember back in 2009, when Techdirt reported that Rupert Murdoch hated Google so much he had decided to block the search engine from indexing his titles, even though this would inevitably cut down their visibility and online traffic? He obviously thought that he would put this upstart technology in its place, showing that mighty media moguls don't need this Internet thing in order to flourish just like they did 50 years ago. According to this story in paidContent, it seems that strategy hasn't worked out too well: 

On Techdirt.

Neelie Kroes: Passion and Pence for Openness

Neelie Kroes is not your average European Commissioner. Before she became the European Commissioner for Digital Agenda, her current post, she was European Commissioner for Competition, and in that capacity made a speech about open standards in 2008, which included the following statements:

On Open Enterprise blog.

UK Prosecutors Finally Acknowledge The Need For A Real Discussion About Free Speech Online

As Tim Cushing rightly noted earlier this week, the UK's "Free Speech" laws are more about the many things you can't say. As if to back up that view, in the last few days, there's been yet another case of somebody being arrested there for "an offensive Facebook page." 

On Techdirt.