After ACTA: Trans-Atlantic Partnership Agreement

It's not often that trade agreements make it to the front page of the newspapers, but that's what happened on New Year's Day:

On Open Enterprise blog.

UK Interim Guidelines And Consultation On Prosecuting Cases Involving Social Networks

As we reported a few months back, Keir Starmer, the UK's Director of Public Prosecutions, made the remarkable suggestion that "the time has come for an informed debate about the boundaries of free speech in an age of social media." That debate has now arrived in the form of a UK consultation on "prosecutions involving social media communications," which takes as its starting point a series of interim guidelines for UK prosecutors when they are grappling with the freedom of speech issues raised by such cases. Here's how Starmer describes the initiative: 

On Techdirt.

How Neutral Can Kazakh-Language Wikipedians Be?

Although there has been some sniping about the quality of Wikipedia's entries from time to time, we generally take it for granted that when key articles are missing they will get written, and that if they are unbalanced, they will gradually get better -- all thanks to the open, collaborative editing process that sorts out such problems. But an interesting post on registan.net notes that these dynamics may not apply to some versions of Wikipedia -- for example, the one written in the Kazakh language: 

On Techdirt.

Israeli Bill Would Allow Secret Courts To Issue Confidential Warrants To Block Web Sites Allegedly Involved In Copyright Infringement

One of the most depressing developments in recent years has been the gradual adoption of legal approaches to tackling copyright infringement that a few years ago would have been regarded as totally unacceptable, and the hallmarks of a tinpot republic run by some ridiculous dictator. Here's another example, this time from Israel, involving secret courts and inscrutable judgments, as Jonathan Klinger explains: 

On Techdirt.

European Commission's Low Attack on Open Source

If ACTA was the biggest global story of 2012, more locally there's no doubt that the UK government's consultation on open standards was the key event. As readers will remember, this was the final stage in a long-running saga with many twists and turns, mostly brought about by some uncricket-like behaviour by proprietary software companies who dread a truly level playing-field for government software procurement.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Philippine Government Ignores Public Concerns, Continues To Push Extreme 'Cybercrime' Law

One of the striking -- and depressing -- features of the Internet today is the almost universal desire of governments around the world to rein it in through new laws. We wrote about one such attempt in the Philippines a couple of months ago, where the government is trying to bring in some particularly wide-ranging and troubling legislation. Although the Philippine Supreme Court put a temporary restraining order on the law, the Philippine government is not softening its stance, and has asked the court to lift the order. Its arguments are pretty worrying: 

On Techdirt.

To Avoid Controversy, 'Realtime' Microblogging In China Now Delayed By 7 Days

Despite increasing competition around the world, China remains the leader when it comes to finding ways to censor the online world. A few months ago, the site Tech in Asia listed no less than eight ways in which users of Sina Weibo, China's hugely-popular homegrown microblog service, can be penalized for "inappropriate" tweets. Now it seems it has come up with a ninth: 

On Techdirt.

Proposed Changes To UK Copyright Law Sensible But Require Gov't Request If You Want To Circumvent DRM

Techdirt has been covering the UK's long-running saga of attempted copyright reform for some years. Most recently, we wondered whether even the Hargreaves Review's moderate suggestions would survive in the face of the usual frenzied lobbying from the copyright industry. Rather remarkably, they have, and the UK government has published a list of the legislative changes it proposes to make (pdf). 

On Techdirt.

European Union's Data Retention Law Could Breach Citizens' Fundamental Rights

Back in April 2011, we wrote about the Czech Constitutional Court ruling that the country's data retention plans were illegal. As we noted then, many other EU countries had also run into similar problems trying to implement the European Data Retention Directive. In one of them, Austria, the issue was referred to the country's Constitutional Court, which has now commented on the case, as this story in PC Advisor explains: 

On Techdirt. 

Treaty Shopping: How Companies Tilt The Legal Playing Field For Investor-State Arbitration

Alongside globe-spanning treaties like ACTA and TPP, there are more subtle efforts to limit the power of national governments, through the use of free trade agreements (FTAs) and bilateral investment treaties (BITs). There are now so many of these that it's hard to keep up, although the dedicated site bilaterals.org is a great help here. The confusing multiplicity only adds to their attractiveness for those negotiating them behind close doors, keen as they are to avoid transparency as much as possible. 

On Techdirt.

Classic Function Creep As EU Police May Gain Access To Asylum Seekers Fingerprint Database

As Techdirt readers well know, one of the problems with measures brought in for "exceptional situations" -- be it fighting terrorism or tackling child pornography -- is that once in place, they have a habit of being applied more generally. A case in point is the blocking of Newzbin2 by BT in the UK. That was possible because BT had already installed its "Cleanfeed" system to block child pornography: once in place, this "specialized" censorship system could easily be deployed to block quite different sites. 

On Techdirt.

Happy New Year? UK Copyright Proposals

As readers of this blog well know, copyright reform has been desperately needed in this country for many years. The earlier Gowers Review was almost totally ignored by the government that commissioned it, and there was always the fear that the more recent Hargreaves Review might suffer the same fate. Miraculously, that seems not to be the case. Just before Christmas, the UK government published its response to the consultation on copyright exceptions and clarifying copyright law with details of how it intends to proceed (.pdf), and they are really pretty good.

On Open Enterprise blog.

What ACTA Taught Us in 2012

Last week I wrote a potted history of the defeat of ACTA in the last year. I mentioned that in the original talk, whose slides I embedded in the article, I concluded by trying to draw some wider lessons about fighting attacks on the Internet and broader freedoms. Here's a summary of what I said.

On Open Enterprise blog.

European Court Of Human Rights Reinforces Right To Access Online Content

Back in 2010, Techdirt reported on Turkey's habit of blocking Google over certain holdings on its various sites. Mostly these were YouTube videos it took exception to, but other services were banned too. An earlier case, from 2009, received less attention at the time, but has now led to a precedent-setting ruling from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) that could have a big impact on future cases in Europe, and maybe even beyond. 

On Techdirt.

Mr. Cable: Disconnected from Digital Reality

Rather out of the blue, Business Secretary Vince Cable has made a series of proposals affecting patents, copyright and trade marks:

On Open Enterprise blog.

ACTA in 2012: From Desperation to Inspiration

The European Commission has announced that it is withdrawing its referral of ACTA to the European Court of Justice. If you had forgotten about that particular detail, you're probably not alone: so much happened with ACTA in such a short space of time during the last year, that it's easy to lose track. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Complex Joys Of Music In The Age Of Digital Abundance

A recent issue of The New Yorker had a fine essay by Mike Spies about the joys of discovering and listening to music. But its overall tone is rather melancholic: 

On Techdirt.

Chinese Nobel Prize-Winner Says We Need Censorship Like We Need Airport Security

This year's winner of the Nobel prize in literature, the Chinese writer Mo Yan, was a controversial choice. Some saw him as too close to the Chinese establishment, and thus insufficiently heroic -- unlike the previous Chinese Nobel prize-winner, the imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo. 

On Techdirt.

How To Help Malaria Sufferers Without Using Patents: Crowdsourcing Diagnosis

A little while back we wrote about Nathan Myhrvold's sniffy comment that if you're not doing anything to help people suffering from malaria, you have no right to criticize his patent troll operation, Intellectual Ventures. As we also noted, this argument is rather undermined by the fact that his research involves such deeply impractical solutions as "photonic fences" and using magnets to make mosquitoes explode. 

On Techdirt.

Mayor Of London Says Internet To Blame For British Press Sins

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is something of an institution in the UK, famous for his blond mop of hair and outrageous opinions. He's also been a journalist on and off for two decades, and is close to Rupert Murdoch, so it should perhaps come as no surprise that he's penned a characteristically witty defense of British newspapers. They're currently under threat of having governmental regulation imposed upon them in the wake of the UK's Leveson Inquiry, written in response to years of journalists breaking the law in search of hot stories, as Johnson acknowledges: 

On Techdirt.

Booming Nigeria To Adopt One Of The West's Dying Ideas: 'You Must Be A Criminal' Copyright Levies

Recently, we noted that copyright levies in Europe are looking more and more anachronistic for the high-tech world. It seems that Nigeria has not noticed this, since Afro-IP points out to us that the Copyright (Levy of Materials) Order 2012 has been approved there, which will bring them in for a very wide range of goods: 

On Techdirt.

Mozilla Helped To Stop SOPA In January, Now It's Worried About WCIT

Mike wrote how both Vint Cerf and Sir Tim Berners-Lee were concerned about the outcome of the WCIT talks currently taking place in Dubai. Those aren't the only important voices being raised. Here, for example, is the Mozilla Foundation, the organization behind the Firefox browser and many other free software projects: 

On Techdirt.

Historic Ruling Against First Modern Drug Patent In India

As Techdirt has reported over the last year, the Indian government is becoming increasingly keen on using cheaper, generic versions of important drugs to treat diseases, rather than paying Western-level prices its people can ill afford. Intellectual Property Watch reports on another instance of the Indian authorities easing the way for low-cost versions by striking down a patent granted to Roche for the treatment of Hepatitis C. As the article explains, it's notable for at least two reasons: 

On Techdirt.

Snooper's Charter Down but Not Out

As I mentioned back in October, the Joint Parliamentary Committee that has been considering the Draft Communications Data Bill, aka Snooper's Charter, seemed to be doing a rather splendid job. It asked witnesses extremely perceptive questions, and seemed unwilling simply to accept the UK government's line that we needed these draconian powers because "terrorism"...

On Open Enterprise blog.

Still Time to Avert the EU Unitary Patent Disaster

Today, the European Parliament votes on the Unitary Patent. As I explained yesterday, what is being presented is something of a botch, lashed up at the last moment in a desperate attempt to push this through after years of discussion. This is not the right way to pass good laws, and certainly not acceptable for something that will have a dramatic effect on business in Europe.

On Open Enterprise blog.