EU Copyright: The Right to Read and the Right to Mine

A year ago the European Parliament rejected ACTA - a real milestone in the fight to bring some balance to copyright, since it was the first time that a major international treaty was thrown out in this way, largely because of its one-sided and disproportionate approach to that area.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Urgent: Please Contact MEPs Now for Spying/TAFTA Vote

As you will have noticed, European politicians have suddenly become rather interested in the revelations about NSA spying now that it seems that they, too, have been targeted. This led to a three-hour long debate in the European Parliament yesterday, which was striking for the number of speakers calling for the imminents TAFTA/TTIP trade negotiations to be postponed until after the US has responded to the allegations - and promised to behave better in the future.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Latin American Countries Band Together To Fight Growing Problem Of Investor-State Disputes

As Techdirt has observed, investor-state dispute resolution (ISDR) is turning into a major weapon that corporations can deploy against nations in order to claim damages for some alleged loss of future profits as a result of government action -- for example, stricter health or environmental regulations. Last year alone, 62 new investment arbitration cases were initiated against nations, and a record award of $1.77 billion was made against Ecuador. 

On Techdirt.

UK Police's 'Ring Of Steel' Spying On Every Car Entering And Leaving Town Ruled Disproportionate

The UK is famous for its abundant CCTV cameras, but it's also pretty keen on the equally intrusive Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras that can identify cars and hence their owners as they pass. Here, for example, is what's been going on in the town of Royston, whose local police force has just had its knuckles rapped by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for the over-enthusiastic deployment of such ANPR systems there: 

On Techdirt.

What Edward Snowden Has Given Us

When Edward Snowden first revealed himself as the source of the NSA leaks, the Guardian released a short video interview with him in which he made the following confession: 

On Techdirt.

Two New Reports Confirm: Best Way To Reduce Piracy Dramatically Is To Offer Good Legal Alternatives

At the beginning of last year we reported on a Swedish study that showed that streaming services had halved the number of people who were downloading music illegally in Scandinavia. That's a pretty stunning figure, but of course is only one data point, which means that people can always argue that it's not possible to generalize. So it's good that not just one but two new reports confirm and broaden that finding. 

On Techdirt.

Eli Lilly Raises Stakes: Says Canada Now Owes It $500 Million For Not Granting A Patent It Wanted

A few months ago we wrote about the extraordinary -- and worrying -- case of Eli Lilly suing Canada after the latter had refused to grant a pharma patent. Eli Lilly's contention was that by failing to grant its patent (even if it didn't meet the criteria for a patent in Canada), Canada had "expropriated" Eli Lilly's property -- and that it should be paid $100 million as "compensation". 

On Techdirt.

German Minister Calls Security A 'Super Fundamental Right' That Outranks Privacy; German Press Call Him 'Idiot In Charge'

One of the striking features of the Snowden story is that there has been no serious attempt to deny the main claims about massive, global spying. Instead, the fall-back position has become: well, yeah, maybe we did some of that, but look how many lives were saved as a result. For example, the day after the first leaks appeared, it was suggested that PRISM was responsible for stopping a plot to bomb the NYC subways. However, further investigation showed that probably wasn't the case. 

On Techdirt.

Benefits Of Synthetic Blood Could Be Squandered Thanks To Patents

Two of the key arguments during the Myriad Genetics trial were that gene patent monopolies stifle innovation by preventing others from building on and extending key knowledge, and that they can cause unnecessary suffering and even death by driving up prices for medical treatment beyond the reach of many people. Even though the Supreme Court struck down Myriad's key patents, reducing those issues for DNA, a new technology with major ramifications for health runs the risk of suffering from precisely the same problems. 

On Techdirt.

Using Patents To Needlessly Drive Up Healthcare Costs: The Economic Impact Of Evergreening Drugs

One technique in the world of pharma that has started appearing here on Techdirt is "evergreening" -- making small changes to a drug, often about to come off patent, in order to gain a new patent that extends its manufacturer's control over it. The advantages for pharma companies are evident, but what about the public? What economic impact does evergreening have? That's what a fascinating new paper in the open access journal PLoS Medicine seeks to establish: 

On Techdirt.

Leaked EU Policy Papers Show TAFTA/TTIP's Huge Challenges -- And Some Subtle Signals

After last Wednesday's debate, the European Parliament passed a resolution on the subject of NSA surveillance, which included the following mild wrist-slap: 

On Techdirt.

Dutch Libraries Go To Court To Make Sure They Can Lend Ebooks

As we've noted before, many publishers have the crazy attitude that ebooks shouldn't be lent by libraries, and that it should be made harder for people to access literature in these places if it's in a digital form. Over in the Netherlands, public libraries have had enough of this, and are taking legal action over the issue, as an article in Future of Copyright reports: 

On Techdirt.

Merck 'Evergreens' Off-Patent Lipitor By Creating Combination Drug With No Additional Benefit

Big pharma often gets a rather rough ride here on Techdirt, what with its attempts to stop governments granting licenses for life-saving and low-cost generics in emerging countries, engaging in legal action to prevent drug safety information being released, and paying kickbacks to doctors. But sometimes you get the impression that drug companies really go out of their way to be disliked, as this great post by Josh Bloom on the Medical Progress Today site, pointed out to us by John Wilbanks, demonstrates

On Techdirt.

Controversial EU Data Protection Regulation May Be Negotiated In Secret In Breach Of Parliamentary Process

Today, the European Parliament held a three-hour long debate on PRISM, Tempora and what the EU response should be. Many wanted TAFTA/TTIP put on hold; others didn't. But one theme cropped up again and again: the need for strong data protection laws that would offer at least some legal protection against massive and unregulated transfer of Europeans' personal data to the US. 

On Techdirt.

Turkish Police Shoot Down Surveillance Drone During Istanbul Protests

As the growing number of Techdirt stories on the subject testify, drones are becoming a more familiar part of modern life. But their presence can add a new element to situations. An obvious example is during demonstrations, where drones can be used to monitor those taking part -- but also the authorities' reaction. As with cases where members of the public have used smartphones to capture police abuse, so drones offer the possibility of revealing questionable police activity that might in the past have gone unrecorded. 

On Techdirt.

Iran's President-Elect: Net Filtering Doesn't Work... Oh, And By The Way, Human Rights Are Universal

In the past, Iran has provided plenty of light relief here on Techdirt, whether because of plans to build its own Internet, or thanks to weird stuff like this. But it looks like those days are over following the election of a surprisingly-moderate President, Hassan Rouhani. Here, for example, are his thoughts on Net filters, as reported by The Guardian: 

On Techdirt.

Bolivian President's Jet Rerouted On Suspicions Snowden Could Be On Board; Multi-Country Outrage Ensues

The Snowden saga continues to deliver surprising twists and turns that may well have important geopolitical knock-on effects. The latest involves the President of Bolivia, Evo Morales, whose country is rumored to be willing to offer political asylum to Snowden. Here's what happened, as reported by The Guardian: 

On Techdirt.

Germans Want To Give Snowden A Medal, French Want To Give Him Asylum -- And To Call Off TAFTA/TTIP

Although nobody seems to know what Edward Snowden is up to at the moment, there have been plenty of reactions from others to the earlier revelations about US spying in Europe. Alongside the outrage, there is also a certain gratitude towards Snowden in some quarters for providing information about what has been going on. For example, one of the local wings of the German Pirate Party has suggested that he should be awarded a Federal Order of Merit (original in German.) In France, a surprisingly broad spectrum of politicians are calling for him to be offered political asylum according to this report from France 24 : 

On Techdirt.

EU Open Standards: We Want Actions, Not Words

Open standards has been a recurring theme here on Open Enterprise. It's also been the occasion of one of the most disgraceful U-turns by the European Commission. That took place in the wake of the European Interoperability Framework v1, which called for any claimed patents to be licensed irrevocably on a royalty-free basis. But when EIF v2 came out, we found the following:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Turning the Sow's Ear of Surveillance into a Silk Purse

On Wednesday I wrote about the Houses of Parliament deciding to use cloud computing solutions, despite the fact that we now know - not just surmise - that this is like handing your documents to the NSA. As I noted, that may not be problematic if your documents were going to be in the public domain anyway. But of course, that's only the case for a tiny fraction of most companies' documents. And for those, it is clearly the height of irresponsibility to place them with cloud-based systems that are wide open to demands from the US government for any and all data to be handed over, decrypted where possible.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Clear Thinking Needed in a Cloudy World

Last week I wrote about the perils of using proprietary software, where companies regularly hand over zero-day vulnerabilities to the US authorities who then go on to use them to break into foreign systems (and maybe domestic ones, too, but they're not owning up to that, yet....). Of course, cloud-based solutions are even worse, as we've known for some time. There, you are handing over all your data to the keeping of a company that may be on the receiving end of a secret US government order to pass it on to them - perhaps with necessary encryption keys too.

On Open Enterprise blog.

University Of California's Latest Plan: Privatize Knowledge, Take Out Lots Of Patents -- Profit!

At the end of last year, we wrote about an extraordinary attempt by the University of California (UC) to resuscitate the infamous "Eolas" patents that were thrown out earlier by a jury in East Texas. Clearly, the University of California likes patents, and the way that they can be used to extract money from people with very little effort. In fact, it likes them so much it is trying to privatize research produced by taxpayer-funded laboratories so that even more patents can be taken out on the work, and even more money obtained through licensing them. The background to this new approach, implemented via a new entity provisionally entitled "Newco", is described in a fantastic feature by Darwin BondGraham that appears in East Bay Express: 

On Techdirt.

UK Police Routinely Spy On 9000 'Domestic Terrorists' Very Loosely Defined

In the wake of the news that spies at GCHQ -- the UK equivalent of the NSA -- have been tapping into every fiber optic cable that comes into and goes out of the country, downloading and storing phone calls and Internet traffic for up to 30 days, you might think the British authorities have enough information at their disposal, without needing to turn to other sources. But it seems not, according to the latest revelations in The Guardian: 

On Techdirt.

Saudi Arabia Starts Clamping Down On Encrypted VoIP Services; US And UK Strangely Silent On The Moves

Earlier this month, the messaging service Viber was blocked in Saudi Arabia. This was not entirely unexpected, since the authorities had been trying to come to grips with the service and its ability to encrypt messages for a while according to Viber's founder, as a BBC News report explains: 

On Techdirt. 

Jimmy Wales Thinks Snowden Is 'An Innocent Party' And 'A Hero'; Wants To Know If He Ever Edited Wikipedia

A post on Examiner.com points out that Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's co-founder, is interested in Edward Snowden:

On Techdirt.