What the EU Pornography Ban is Really About

It began last week, with an article by the Pirate Party MEP Christian Engström, who wrote about a vote that will take place in the European Parliament (possibly tomorrow):

On Open Enterprise blog.

European Parliament Considers Banning All Pornography, Blocks Emails From EU Citizens Protesting Against Censorship

A few weeks ago we wrote about Iceland's thoroughly daft idea of trying to block porn there. Bad proposals for the Internet always seem to spread, and so it should perhaps come as no surprise that the European Parliament will be considering a similarly unworkable proposal, but in a rather more covert way, as the Pirate Party politician Christian Engström noted on his blog: 

On Techdirt.

What Happens To Drones When They Fall Out Of The Skies?

For obvious reasons, stories about drones concentrate on what they can do while they are airborne. But they have to come down at some point, and sometimes emergency landings mean that they cannot return to base. An interesting story from Italy recounts what happened there in these circumstances: 

On Techdirt.

Swedish BitTorrent User Accused Of Sharing Beyonce Album, Hit By $233,000 Lawsuit From Sony

Lots of news regarding file-sharing has come out of Sweden over the years, but as TorrentFreak points out, until now, there's never been a prosecution for alleged unauthorized sharing using BitTorrent. The current case is unusual in a number of other respects: 

On Techdirt.

Is Mozilla "Undermining the Openness of the Internet"?

One of the core areas that Mozilla is working on is user privacy, and one important aspect of this is controlling cookies. Most people are now aware that sites they visit seek to place cookies - small strings of information - on their systems as a way of tracking when and what they visit on that site. What many may not know is that so-called "third-party" cookies are also widely used: these allow people to be tracked as they move from site to site, and effectively enable a detailed picture of their use of the Web to be built up.

On Open Enterprise blog.

EU Copyright Dialogue: The Great Sham(e)

In an implicit acknowledgement that the Europe-wide protests against ACTA indicated that there was a problem with copyright in the digital age, the European Commission announced back in December what it called "an orientation debate on content in the digital economy." This is what that meant, apparently:

On Open Enterprise blog.

If It Comes With A Gagging Clause, It's Not Open Data

One of the richest seams of open data concerns transport. After all, by their very nature, transport systems generate huge amounts of new data every day -- times, routes, travel options. Similarly, huge numbers of people use multiple means of transport, which means there is a big potential audience for analyses of that data. And it's definitely in the interest of transport operators to make that information freely available so that developers can use it in new ways, since that is likely to make traveling easier, and lead to increased custom. 

On Techdirt.

Could Open Source Software Be Put Into The Public Domain Instead?

There are dozens of free software and open source licences -- many would argue rather too many. Different licenses impose different conditions. For example, the best-known and most widely-used is the GNU General Public License, which is designed to ensure that anyone building on GPL'd software and distributing it should make the modified program available under the same license. Others, such as the BSD license simply require the copyright and license notices to be included with any code that is used. 

On Techdirt.

German Newspaper 'Snippet' Law Passes: Watered Down, But Still Stupid

For a year now, Techdirt has been following the sorry saga of Germany's attempt to make search engines and others pay for licenses to show even small excerpts from online newspapers. The main motivation seems to be to take money from Google for being successful, and to give it to the German publishers that are struggling. 

On Techdirt.

Stop ICANN's Plans for Closed Generic Domains

As I noted recently in the context of the BBC inexplicably supporting the introduction of DRM into the HTML5 specification, openness lies at the heart of the Web and the Internet. One of the problems with true openness is that it has to be at every level: if any part of a system is closed, it interferes with the openness of the whole.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Spain Considers Making Digital Copyright Law Worse: Pleasing The US Again?

We wrote a couple of weeks ago how some were arguing that Spain ought to go back on the "naughty" Special 301 list for failing to show any "positive developments" on the copyright front recently. By an interesting coincidence, the Spanish Internet Association has just published a leaked draft of proposals to make digital copyright law in Spain even harsher. Here's how the Web site ADSL Zone describes them (original in Spanish): 

On Techdirt.

Online Polish Loses Some Of Its Polish

If it is to be true to its name, the World Wide Web ought to reflect the planet's full cultural and linguistic diversity. Currently, though, many sites and tools remain optimized for English and its character set, although that's gradually changing as other countries with different languages and writing systems come online in greater numbers. 

On Techdirt.

Top German Police Officer: 'Anyone On The Internet Has Left The Private Sphere'

The Internet as a mass medium is still relatively young, so it's no surprise that its function in society and in our daily lives is still being defined. One important question concerns the nature of our actions online: to what extent are they public? Here's one rather extreme view, expressed by Jürgen Maurer, vice-president of Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office, as reported by Der Spiegel (original in German): 

On Techdirt.

French Politicians Worry That Free Creative Commons Works Devalue 'Legal' Offers

As Techdirt noted last year, France has a regrettable habit of dreaming up really bad ideas when it comes to the Internet, most famously with the three-strikes scheme, now known there by the name of the body the oversees it -- Hadopi. Guillaume Champeau points us to a piece in the French newspaper Libération, which contains yet more appalling possibilities (original in French). 

On Techdirt.

France Considers Operating System-Level Filtering

Long-time readers will remember the appalling way in which the UK's Digital Economy Act was brought in - with no research, no debate, and no democracy. At its heart lies the infamous "three strikes" idea: if you are alleged - not proved, but merely alleged - to have shared files online on three occasions you will be subject to some punishment. Originally that was cutting off your hand, er, your Internet connection, but as the discussions over implementing this unjust and punitive law have dragged on, it's become less clear how it will actually work.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Chinese Junk Patents Flood Into Australia, Allowing Chinese Companies To Strategically Block Innovation

Techdirt has been writing for a while about China's policy of providing incentives to file patents -- regardless of whether those patents have any worth. That's led to a naïve celebration of the large numbers now being granted, as if more patents corresponded to more innovation. 

On Techdirt.

Mozilla to the Rescue, Again?

I've written a number of posts about Mozilla's rise and fall and rise: how it went from saving the open Web and open standards in the face of the stagnation brought about by Internet Explorer 6's long dominance; to losing its way somewhat, with the upstart Chrome threatening to supplant its role as the "other" browser; and finally finding a role once more as it concentrated on what it called Web apps.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Early Lessons From New Zealand's 'Three Strikes' Punishments

New Zealand has the unhappy distinction of being in the vanguard of using the "three strikes" approach of punishment for people accused of sharing unauthorized copies online. As in France and the UK, this was brought in without any preparatory research to ascertain its effectiveness, and without any real thought about the practical implications. That makes a post by Susan Chalmers on the blog of InternetNZ, a "non-profit open membership organisation dedicated to protecting and promoting the Internet in New Zealand", particularly valuable.

On Techdirt.

Select Committee Inquiry into Clinical Trials Data

Back in November last year, I wrote about a particular class of open data - that regarding clinical trials data. I pointed out that of all open data, it is arguably the most important, because it can literally save lives - huge numbers of them. That post was by way of a taster for future columns - like this one - which touch on this area, since I believe it will become one of the most important battlegrounds for openness in the next few years.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Bizarre: Indian Government Orders Censorship Of One Its Own Sites

Techdirt has been tracking for some time the worrying moves in India that have involved censoring the Twitter accounts of journalists and political groups, or blocking sites. But this bizarre story from the Times of India goes beyond these in a number of ways: 

On Techdirt.

Armed UK Police Raid House Over Facebook Picture Showing Toy Weapon In Background

One of the reasons Techdirt rails against exaggerated responses to supposed terrorist threats is that it has caused police forces around the world to lose all sense of proportion -- literally, in the case of this UK story from the Daily Mail. 

On Techdirt.

The Continuing Disaster Of Open Government In Germany

Recently, Techdirt noted that the European "database right" could pose a threat to releasing public data there. But that assumes that central governments are at least trying to open things up. A splendid piece by Sebastian Haselbeck on the Open Gov Germany blog, with the self-explanatory title "German government screws up open data," underlines that things can fail because the government itself sabotages transparency moves. 

On Techdirt.

HADOPI May Be Succeeding -- In Driving French Customers To Dotcom's Mega

Last week, Techdirt reported on the news that falling numbers of P2P users are being trumpeted as a victory for HADOPI's "three strikes" approach in France, but that it is a hollow victory, since sales of recorded music are still dropping in that country. The French site Numerama points out something else interesting happening there (in French), as revealed by the following tweet from Kim Dotcom: 

On Techdirt.

Bhutan's Government: Gross National Happiness, Yes; Sense Of Humor, Not So Much

Aside from its spectacular location up in the Himalayas, the Kingdom of Bhutan is probably best known for eschewing measurements of Gross Domestic Product in favor of Gross National Happiness: 

On Techdirt.

Python Trademark At Risk In Europe: Python Software Foundation Appeals For Help

The open source programming language Python -- named after the British comedy series "Monty Python" -- became popular in the 1990s, along with two other languages beginning with "P": Perl and PHP. Later, they formed a crucial part of the famous "LAMP" stack -- the GNU/Linux operating system + Apache Web server + MySQL database + Python/Perl/PHP as scripting languages -- that underpinned many of the most successful startups from this time. 

On Techdirt.