Digital Economy Act Lurches On; Public Still Shut Out

Remember the Digital Economy Act, surely one of the most disgraceful episodes in recent British political history? It was "passed" back 2010 - I use inverted commas, since it was actually rammed through an almost empty House of Commons in the guttering hours of the previous government, with no scrutiny, riding roughshod over all those pointing out it was both unjust and unworkable.

On Open Enterprise blog.

How Does Prism Change the Way We See Things?

The extraordinary revelations about the NSA's global spying programme Prism have only just started - was it really just last Thursday that things began? So it would be extremely rash to attempt any kind of definitive statement about what is going on. But that doesn't preclude a few preliminary comments, as well as initial thoughts on what action those of us in Europe might take in response.

 
On Open Enterprise blog.

What's the Net Net on Neelie Kroes's EU Net Neutrality?

It's been a while since I wrote about net neutrality, but of course it's never gone away as an important theme. Indeed, it was inevitable that it would start to rear its ugly head again, since so many powerful companies have vested interests in destroying it. For example, in Germany the telecom giant Deutsch Telekom (DT) has already made a move to kill net neutrality by giving preference to its own IPTV platform. This has led to a heated debate about net neutrality in that country (for those who read German, the site hilf-telekom.de offers some hilarious satire of DT on the subject.)

On Open Enterprise blog.

Meeting Mr Firefox: Johnathan Nightingale

Mozilla and its central Firefox project are themes that I have returned to often on this blog. That's not so surprising: Mozilla is one of the oldest free software projects, starting back in 1998 when Netscape stunned the world by announcing that it would open up its key product, Netscape Navigator. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

Open Sourcing the UK's Operating System

"Law is the operating system of our society ... So show me the manual!" Not alas, my witty words, but those found on the site Public.Resource.Org, run by the redoubtable Carl Malamud. The basic idea is simple: that laws can only be obeyed if they are truly public, which means freely available, not hidden behind paywalls. After all, how can the phrase "ignorance of the law is no excuse" have any validity when key documents are only available to those with pockets deep enough to afford them?And not just laws: we need case law and associated government regulations too.

On Open Enterprise blog.

BSA Study Demonstrates Open Source's Economic Advantage

I love the spring. Not, of course, because of the glorious weather, since we don't have any. But because it's time for the annual BSA report on piracy, which is guaranteed to provide me with hours of innocent fun as I go through finding its methodological errors and dodgy data.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Another Reason Why Open Source Wins: Fairness

I've written a number of posts looking at less-familiar advantages of open source over closed source, and here's another one. Proprietary systems can't be forked, which means that it's not possible to change the underlying ethos, for example by tweaking the software or using code on a different platform. But you can with open source, as this interesting example shows.

On Open Enterprise blog.

EU Vote on Clinical Trials Data - Please Contact MEPs Now

I've written a few times about open data in the context of clinical trials - the information that must be provided when new drugs seek approval. As I noted, there is a growing movement to make such basic safety data freely available, the idea being that it could then be analysed by third parties, perhaps finding new applications of drugs, overlooked problems, or even wilful concealing of adverse effects. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

Is Encryption Effective Against Snooping? German Government Says No, Snowden Says Yes

The revelations of Edward Snowden about the NSA's snooping of citizens both inside and outside the US are posing more questions than they answer at the moment. One key area is whether the use of encryption -- for example for email -- is effective against the techniques and raw power available to the NSA (and equivalents in other countries). That's something that has come up before in the context of the UK's Snooper's Charter. When a top official there was asked whether the proposed surveillance technology would be able to cope with encrypted streams, he replied: "it will." Snowden's claims about massive, global spying makes the issue even more pertinent. 

On Techdirt.

First French File-Sharer Sentenced To Disconnection Under Hadopi; But Judgment May Be Unenforceable

As we've noted before, Hadopi has been a colossal failure on just about every metric, and now seems on the way out. But French taxpayers' money is still being wasted on the scheme, which continues to send out huge numbers of warnings. Ironically, given its imminent demise, Hadopi seems to have finally claimed its first disconnection victim, as PC Inpact reports (original in French.) The person involved has been sentenced to disconnection for 15 days, and must pay a €600 fine. Strangely, it seems that he or she shared only a couple of works, so even that brief period seems harsh. However, there is still scope for an appeal, so the sentence is not yet definite. 

On Techdirt.

Google Proposes Clever Video Codec License -- But The Real Problem With Patent Pools Remains

A couple of years back, Techdirt wrote about Google's laudable attempt to open source its VP8 video codec, based around technologies it had acquired with the On2 company in 2009. That was not simply a matter of releasing the code, though, because of claims by some that VP8 infringed on their patents. MPEG-LA, the private company that manages the H.264 patent pool, even went so far as to put out a call for patents that might cover VP8, which in turn led to the US Justice Department investigating whether the move violated anti-trust law. 

On Techdirt.

Do Dutch Spies Also Have Access To PRISM's Data? And If So, Who Else Does?

In the wake of the leaks about NSA's spying activities around the world, one of the interesting subsidiary questions is: who else had access to this stuff? We know that the UK did, and now there are indications the Dutch did as well, according to this report on DutchNews.nl: 

On Techdirt.

Is The US Using Prism To Engage In Commercial Espionage Against Germany And Others?

As we noted last week, one of the key claims following the revelations about the Prism program was that it was aimed at those outside the US, and that US citizens were caught up in it only incidentally. A further leak concerned the Boundless Informant analysis tool, one of whose maps showed which regions of the world were subject to most surveillance. Along with obvious hotspots like Iran and Pakistan, Germany too was among those of particular interest, as was the US (whoops.) A story on reason.com offers a clue as to why that might be. 

On Techdirt.

NSA Spying Revelations Start To Cause Outrage In Europe; China Next?

News that the NSA has unfettered access to most of the leading Internet services inevitably has an international dimension. After all, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google and the rest of the Naughty Nine all operate around the world, so spying on their users means spying on people everywhere. Indeed, as Mike explained earlier today, the NSA is actually trying to quell criticism by selling this news as something that purely concerns non-Americans (although that's clearly rubbish.) 

On Techdirt.

Australia Sets New Overblocking Record: Aims For One Site, Takes Down 250,000

Overblocking is not a new problem -- over two years ago, Techdirt wrote about an instance where Homeland Security took down 84,000 innocent sites at a stroke -- so you might have thought that those employing this blunt instrument would take a little more care these days. However, things seem to be getting worse, not better. In Australia, the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) has just scored a whopper: 

On Techdirt.

People Begin To Wake Up To Massive Dangers Of Investor-State Dispute Resolution

Techdirt has been writing about investor-state dispute resolution (ISDR) mechanisms in international trade treaties like TPP and TAFTA/TTIP for two main reasons. First, because of the scale involved: ISDR allows companies to sue entire countries for huge sums, alleging loss of future profits. And secondly, because few seem aware of this growing threat to the national sovereignty of many countries around the world. That finally seems to be changing, with a number of articles warning about the dangers of ISDR appearing recently. 

On Techdirt.

June 4th: The Struggle Of Memory Against Forgetting

Today is June 4th, a day pretty much like any other day in most parts of the world. But in China, June 4th has a unique significance because of the events that took place in Tiananmen Square on that day in 1989. This has led the Chinese authorities to introduce a range of increasingly repressive measures designed to minimize the ability of people to find out about what happened then, or to commemorate it, as the International Herald Tribune explains: 

On Techdirt.

Art And Copyright In The Age Of Compulsive Looking

We wrote recently about how the rise of mobile phones with built-in cameras has led to an irresistible urge to record our experiences everywhere with a digital picture. But what happens when those experiences include works of art, which may still be under copyright? That's the interesting question an article in Art News explores: 

On Techdirt.

Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter And Yahoo Refuse To Cooperate With UK's 'Snooper's Charter'

A month ago, we wrote about how the UK's infamous "Snooper's Charter" had been scuppered by Nick Clegg, the UK's Deputy Prime Minister. The Guardian now reveals that top Internet companies may have played a key role in this decision: 

On Techdirt.

Australian Spies Want To Hack Tor After Realizing It Routes Around Their Surveillance

One of the key flaws with the data retention schemes being proposed by the UK and elsewhere, supposedly to catch terrorists and serious criminals, is that they won't work. It is trivially easy to avoid surveillance by using encrypted connections, for example those provided by The Onion Router (Tor). This means that the only people who are likely to end up being spied on are innocent members of the public. 

On Techdirt.

EU Mandate For TAFTA Leaked: Includes Investor-State Dispute Resolution For Intellectual Monopolies

One of the concerns about TAFTA/TTIP is that it would repeat the mistakes of ACTA and SOPA as far as intellectual monopolies were concerned. This led to a call by a group of public interest organizations for things like copyright and patents to be excluded from TAFTA (disclosure: I was involved in the drawing up of the text.) Needless to say, no notice was taken of that, and a couple of weeks ago the European Parliament duly passed a resolution on TAFTA that said: 

On Techdirt.

Taiwan's Copyright Proposals Would Combine SOPA With A Dash Of The Great Firewall Of China

You might have hoped that the extensive discussions that took place around SOPA a year or so ago would have warned off governments elsewhere from replicating some of the really bad ideas there, like DNS blocking, but it seems that Taiwan didn't get the message, as Global Voices reports: 

On Techdirt.

Innovators, Public Interest Groups & Open Access Supporters Pull Out Of Talks On EU Copyright In Protest

Back in February we reported on a worrying attempt by the European Commission to reframe the discussion about modernizing copyright in Europe purely in terms of licensing, reflected in the name of the initiative, "Licences for Europe". Although originally a series of discussions were promised to "explore the potential and limits of innovative licensing and technological solutions in making EU copyright law and practice fit for the digital age," in practice moderators shut down discussions of things like exceptions or even Creative Commons licensing. As far as the Commission was concerned, it seemed the answer to updating copyright for the modern age was just old-style licensing and nothing else. 

On Techdirt.

How Long Before A Patent Kills A Hundred Million People?

Recent news that Angelina Jolie underwent a preventive double mastectomy because of her elevated risk of developing breast cancer has drawn attention to the Myriad Genetics case currently before the US Supreme Court, and to the whole area of gene patents. Myriad's monopoly has allowed it to set a high price for its tests -- $3000 -- and this is bound to have acted as a disincentive for those who were unable to afford such a sum. It is therefore quite likely that people have died as a result of Myriad's patents. 

On Techdirt.

Reading Shakespeare: the Next Act of Open Data

As readers of this blog will have noticed, much of the most innovative work in the field of openness is taking place in open data. One of the largest stores of data is held by government, and the argument for opening it up where possible is strong: after all, we, the public, paid for this data, so it is only right that we, the public, should have access to it. 

On Open Enterprise blog.