Following the deliberations of JURI on software patents, the European Parliament are scheduled to vote on the matter on 30 June, according to this contribution to Slashdot. For those of you who may be concerned enough about this to consider contacting your Member of the European Parliament about this, the UK OFFICE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT have provided a convenient map to allow you to identify your representatives.

Breaking news - the Supreme Court has just posted it's judgement in the CIPA library filtering case, US v ALA. Looks as though they've ruled the Act constitutional. No doubt the legal scholars will be all over this one very soon.

Phillip Greenspun in the Harvard blogosphere is concerned at the privatisation of previously public owned resources. His theory is that in spite of an economic downturn, the stock prices of companies absorbing these commons is going up because of this absorption. It would be really interesting to see some hard evidence of such a direct link, if there is some out there. Larry Lessig has offered some relevant background to the part of the story about Disney flyovers.

Update: Given that the Supreme Court has now ruled CIPA is ok on first amendment grounds, it's interesting to note that Reporters Without Borders have just published their second report on the state of global Net censorship. Vint Cerf has written the foreword. In it he says:
Truth is a powerful solvent. Stone walls melt before its
relentless might. The Internet is one of the most powerful
agents of freedom. It exposes truth to those who wish to see
and hear it. It is no wonder that some governments and
organizations fear the Internet and its ability to make the truth
known. The phrase "freedom of speech" is often used to
characterize a key element of democratic societies : open
communication and especially open government. But freedom
of speech is less than half of the equation. It is also vital that
citizens have the freedom to hear and see. It is the latter area in
which many governments have intervened in an attempt to
prevent citizens from gaining access to information that their
governments wish to withhold from them.