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As Mike noted a couple of days ago, international trade agreements often have the effect of constraining
the power of national legislatures. Indeed, that's doubtless one of
the reasons why they have become so popular in recent years: they allow
backroom deals between politicians and lobbyists to set the agenda for
law-making around the world, without the need for any of that pesky
democratic oversight nonsense. In particular, the trade agreement
between South Korea and the US is turning out to be a key limiting factor for both TPP and what US politicians might try to do about phone unlocking. This makes two recent moves to loosen South Korea's harsh copyright laws potentially important far beyond that country's borders.
On
Techdirt.
Yesterday I mentioned the important consultation on IPRED, how
it was closing soon, and what a good idea it would be if you applied to
take part immediately. I also noted there's a helpful guide to filling
in the consultation, from EDRI, but I omitted to mention that there is an equally great one from the Pirate Party MEP Amelia Andersdotter, which I thoroughly recommend.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Today is Document Freedom Day:
It is a day for celebrating and raising awareness of Open
Standards and formats which takes place on the last Wednesday in March
each year. On this day people who believe in fair access to
communications technology teach, perform, and demonstrate.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
IPRED is not that well known, even among
the Net-savvy. And yet it's one of the most important EU directives
that affects the online world, and a consultation on its future closes
at the end of this week, on 30 March. Here's the background from EDRI:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Hackers and hacking have been much in the news recently - for all the
wrong reasons, unfortunately. The most dramatic case, perhaps, was the
suicide of Aaron Swartz. He was threatened with 35 years in prison, partly for this:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Techdirt has been following the rapid rise and current problems
of the various Pirate Parties in Europe for some time. Both their
success and difficulties flow in part from the fact that they do not fit
neatly into the traditional political categories. This makes them
attractive to those who are disenchanted with established parties, but
also makes it hard for Pirate Parties to devise a coherent political
program that they can seek to implement, for example through alliances
with others.
On
Techdirt.
As you may have heard, there's been an election in Rome
recently. These kind of events tend to bring out the crowds, and NBC
had the clever idea of finding a couple of pictures showing roughly the same view, but eight years apart.
They look very similar, except for one rather striking detail: in the
first, from 2005, there are a few mobile phones visible; in the second,
taken recently, tiny screens are visible everywhere in the crowd -- it
seems as if practically everyone is using their phone to take a picture.
On
Techdirt.
It would be something of an understatement to say that people have
strong opinions about patents. But as Techdirt has reported, there's a
growing consensus that software patents in particular aren't working -- James Bessen and Michael J. Meurer have written an entire book, "Patent Failure", about how bad things are there, and why it's happening in this area rather than elsewhere.
On
Techdirt.
Although the use of open source by the UK government has an unhappy
history (and one that certainly isn't finished), one ray of hope comes
from Gov.uk, as I've noted before. The driving force behind that site is the Government Digital Service
(GDS), and on its blog there's a particularly interesting post by Mike
Bracken, who rejoices in the splendid title of "Executive Director of
Digital in the Cabinet Office."
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Regular readers of this column will know that I am not overly
enamoured of the European Patent Office, since it has effectively
introduced software patents by the back door, in direct contravention of the will of the European Parliament. No surprise, then, that the EPO's Annual Report has plenty to worry about. For example, in his foreword, the EPO's President writes:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
In 2001, I published a history of free software, called "Rebel Code:
Inside Linux and the Open Source Revolution." One of the people I
interviewed for the book was Eben Moglen,
for many years the General Counsel for the Free Software Foundation,
and one of the main architects of the later versions of the GNU General
Public License. He had the following interesting thoughts on the
delivery of digital media:
On
Techdirt.
Two years ago, Techdirt wrote about the major report "Media Piracy in
Emerging Economies", which explored how media and software piracy in
emerging countries is largely a question of economics:
people and companies there simply cannot afford Western-style pricing,
and resort to alternative sourcing. That hasn't stopped media and
computer companies from demanding that governments around the world
should inflict ever-more harsh punishments on their own people.
On
Techdirt.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote
about how the irony-immune IT department of the European Parliament was
censoring emails complaining about censorship. Now it seems they have a
kindred spirit here in the UK:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
One of the slogans of the copyright industries is that you can't make
money from giving things away. Unfortunately for them, examples just
keep coming up showing that's simply not true. Techdirt wrote about the
interesting case of the London Evening Standard back in 2009, shortly
after its new owner decided to turn it from a (loss-making) paid-for
newspaper, into one that was given away. So, three years later, how did that work out?:
On
Techdirt.
One of the initiatives gaining momentum around the world is open data --
the idea that, for example, non-personal data affecting the public
should be made freely available. That's partly to improve transparency,
so that citizens are more informed about what is happening, and partly
to stimulate new kinds of business that build products and services
based on that data.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Back in January, I wrote about what I called the "Trans-Atlantic Partnership Agreement", by analogy with the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, TPP, whose negotiations have already dragged on for several years. The formal announcement
of what is now variously called the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement
(TAFTA) or Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), took
place just over a month ago, but already Mexico has stated that it wishes to join, and there are rumours Canada might tag along too.
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Over the last few years, Techdirt has been reporting on a steady stream
of victories for open access. Along the way publishers have tried various counter-attacks,
which all proved dismal failures. But there are signs that they have
changed tack, and come up with a more subtle -- and increasingly
successful -- approach.
On
Techdirt.
If you were online late last night - and especially if you were on
Twitter - you may have noted an enormous wave of pain and anger sweeping
across the network. Here's what caused it:
On
Open Enterprise blog.
Most sane human beings have stopped trying to keep up with the interwined legal actions arising out of the smartphone patent wars
between Apple, Google, Motorola, Nokia, Microsoft and all the rest.
The cases, though, are still grinding through the courts, which
periodically throw out their verdicts. According to Florian Mueller, one such decision in Germany is imminent:
On
Techdirt.
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