Ed Felten is recommending reading the The 9/11 Commission Report, which he says "was much better than I expected -- much better, really, than a government commission report has any right to be."
As someone who got a copy which I haven't read yet, this gives me a small incentive to do so.
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
UK music lovers fed up with drm
Whadaya know! The BBC are reporting that "UK music lovers are getting frustrated with restrictions placed on digital music tracks once they buy them from online stores, says PC Pro magazine."
Powell lobbies against US choice for UN
Colin Powell is apparently quietly lobbying to block the appointment of President Bush's choice of John Bolton as UN Ambassador.
DRM and the DMCA
Derek Slater has some interesting comments on DRM and DMCA. He reckons DRM critics (like me I guess) are misdirecting their criticism.
"So I don't mean this to be exhaustive - I'm more interested in framing the issue. First, again and again, people in this arena end up discussing banning DRM when the issue is the DMCA. Take the digital music interoperability hearing. Few are seriously suggesting that we ban certain DRM and mandate interoperability. Those who worry about the social welfare decreasing effects of the iPod-iTMS tie see the DMCA, rightly, as the culprit. The usefulness of the DMCA, not DRM, is what we should be questioning.
Second, along with the costs in terms of fair use, innovation, et. al resulting from DRM and the DMCA, we have to take seriously the benefits the DMCA might provide in terms of enabling certain business models and certain consumer choices. To do so, we have to focus more on whether structuring copyright around this "right of access" is really what we want - if we're, for instance, going to view fair use through the lens of market failure."
DRM will eventually become obsolete because people with get fed up with it but we should recognise the importance of interoperability and the potential for big players to distort and lock in market structures, which it will be difficult to dismantle once in place. On his question about building copyright on a "right of access" foundation, that is something I am opposed to. Why? Because people should not be allowed to stake an exclusive permanent property claim to an idea by constructing a digital fence around it. Thomas Jefferson puts it infinitely better than I ever could:
"It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."
"So I don't mean this to be exhaustive - I'm more interested in framing the issue. First, again and again, people in this arena end up discussing banning DRM when the issue is the DMCA. Take the digital music interoperability hearing. Few are seriously suggesting that we ban certain DRM and mandate interoperability. Those who worry about the social welfare decreasing effects of the iPod-iTMS tie see the DMCA, rightly, as the culprit. The usefulness of the DMCA, not DRM, is what we should be questioning.
Second, along with the costs in terms of fair use, innovation, et. al resulting from DRM and the DMCA, we have to take seriously the benefits the DMCA might provide in terms of enabling certain business models and certain consumer choices. To do so, we have to focus more on whether structuring copyright around this "right of access" is really what we want - if we're, for instance, going to view fair use through the lens of market failure."
DRM will eventually become obsolete because people with get fed up with it but we should recognise the importance of interoperability and the potential for big players to distort and lock in market structures, which it will be difficult to dismantle once in place. On his question about building copyright on a "right of access" foundation, that is something I am opposed to. Why? Because people should not be allowed to stake an exclusive permanent property claim to an idea by constructing a digital fence around it. Thomas Jefferson puts it infinitely better than I ever could:
"It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation."
Policy laundering
A collection of civil liberties campaign groups have set up the Policy Laundering Project. From the website:
"The United States and to a lesser extent the European Union are trying to force international institutions as well as less powerful nations to adopt a wide variety of bad policies as part of the so-called “war on terror.” Often this includes trying to push unpopular and regressive policies that the U.S., the EU and its 25 member states cannot get imposed domestically through international organizations as a “back door” means of adoption.
In short, security officials across many nations are increasingly “going global” – not only striking cooperative agreements with each other but also working together to escape domestic legal and political controls by working through international organizations. It is vital that civil liberties organizations, privacy offiicials, and others with an interest in overseeing law enforcement learn to similarly operate at a global level lest officials succed in pushing through out-of-balance security policies that do not reflect other important values such as privacy and fairness.
This Website is intended to serve as a central clearinghouse of information and advocacy materials to help citizens, governments, and civil society groups to monitor international bodies and combat the strategy of policy laundering."
Thanks to Spyblog for the link.
"The United States and to a lesser extent the European Union are trying to force international institutions as well as less powerful nations to adopt a wide variety of bad policies as part of the so-called “war on terror.” Often this includes trying to push unpopular and regressive policies that the U.S., the EU and its 25 member states cannot get imposed domestically through international organizations as a “back door” means of adoption.
In short, security officials across many nations are increasingly “going global” – not only striking cooperative agreements with each other but also working together to escape domestic legal and political controls by working through international organizations. It is vital that civil liberties organizations, privacy offiicials, and others with an interest in overseeing law enforcement learn to similarly operate at a global level lest officials succed in pushing through out-of-balance security policies that do not reflect other important values such as privacy and fairness.
This Website is intended to serve as a central clearinghouse of information and advocacy materials to help citizens, governments, and civil society groups to monitor international bodies and combat the strategy of policy laundering."
Thanks to Spyblog for the link.
Mozcc
Mozcc is a nice add-on to Firefox for creative commons aware websurfers. It installs very quickly and puts a cc logo in the Firefox status bar. Then for suitably tagged webpages offered under a creative commons licence, symbols appear in the status bar showing which licence the page is offered under. Click on the symbol and you get the details of the licence.
My colleague, Tony Hirst, alerted me to Mozcc by telling me that our internet law course does not have the appropriate tags to recognise and make use of it!
Paul Miller of the Common Information Environment clearly approves of this kind of utility.
My colleague, Tony Hirst, alerted me to Mozcc by telling me that our internet law course does not have the appropriate tags to recognise and make use of it!
Paul Miller of the Common Information Environment clearly approves of this kind of utility.
Karlheinz and Kees
I had the pleasure of meeting Karlheinz Brandenburg and Kees Schouhamer Immink at the IEEE International Consumer Electronics Symposium held in Reading last year, two unsung pioneers of the digital entertainment revolution. I've just discovered that the BBC have done a short guide to one of Karlheinz's big contributions - the invention of the MP3 standard.
"However, behind the huge business headlines and ringing cash registers remains a story that has remained mostly untold; the story of a man whose combined knowledge of maths, sound and electronics brought the whole thing about - but, amazingly, for no personal profit.
It is also a tale of how a small scale German government project to explore how music could be fed down a phone line later helped create an Internet music standard which has all the hallmarks of becoming a postfix to stand alongside audio CDs and PAL televisions."
Kees invented CDs (amongst many other things). So well done BBC for recognising Professor Brandenburg's contribution but it could do with updating and let's see a similar tribute to Kees Schouhamer Immink.
"However, behind the huge business headlines and ringing cash registers remains a story that has remained mostly untold; the story of a man whose combined knowledge of maths, sound and electronics brought the whole thing about - but, amazingly, for no personal profit.
It is also a tale of how a small scale German government project to explore how music could be fed down a phone line later helped create an Internet music standard which has all the hallmarks of becoming a postfix to stand alongside audio CDs and PAL televisions."
Kees invented CDs (amongst many other things). So well done BBC for recognising Professor Brandenburg's contribution but it could do with updating and let's see a similar tribute to Kees Schouhamer Immink.
Marxist-Lessigism
Dan Hunter wrote a great piece in Legal Affairs last April about the student "Free Culture" movement being started by the Swarthmore students, who had got into a legal dispute with voting machine manufacturer Diebold Systems. It's hard to believe they've been going for a year already and they now have 10 branches (or chapters) around the US.
Solum on future of copyright
Lawrence Solum has done an extensive review of Larry Lessig's book Free Culture. From the Abstract:
"Sometimes technological change is so profound that it rocks the foundations of an entire body of law. Peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing systems - Napster, Gnutella, KaZaA, Grokster, and Freenet3 - are mere symptoms of a set of technological innovations that have set in motion an ongoing process of fundamental changes in the nature of copyright law. The video tape recorder begat the Sony substantial noninfringing use defense. The digital cassette recorder begat the Audio Home Recording Act. The internet begat the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Napster begat Napster. We see the law morph right in front of our eyes, but its ultimate form is still obscure. As a consequence, the future of copyright is up for grabs. We live in a magical, exhilarating, and frightening time: Many alternative copyfutures shimmer on the horizon, sometimes coming into sharper focus and sometimes fading away.
In this heady atmosphere, the idea slingers are at work. Richard Posner and William Landes have proposed indefinitely renewable copyrights. Neil Netanel, William Fisher, and others propose to legalize P2P filesharing...
No copywarrior is more prominent and influential than Larry Lessig...
This essay examines the ideas in Free Culture in the context of current controversies over the future of copyright."
"Sometimes technological change is so profound that it rocks the foundations of an entire body of law. Peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing systems - Napster, Gnutella, KaZaA, Grokster, and Freenet3 - are mere symptoms of a set of technological innovations that have set in motion an ongoing process of fundamental changes in the nature of copyright law. The video tape recorder begat the Sony substantial noninfringing use defense. The digital cassette recorder begat the Audio Home Recording Act. The internet begat the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Napster begat Napster. We see the law morph right in front of our eyes, but its ultimate form is still obscure. As a consequence, the future of copyright is up for grabs. We live in a magical, exhilarating, and frightening time: Many alternative copyfutures shimmer on the horizon, sometimes coming into sharper focus and sometimes fading away.
In this heady atmosphere, the idea slingers are at work. Richard Posner and William Landes have proposed indefinitely renewable copyrights. Neil Netanel, William Fisher, and others propose to legalize P2P filesharing...
No copywarrior is more prominent and influential than Larry Lessig...
This essay examines the ideas in Free Culture in the context of current controversies over the future of copyright."
US v EU on civil liberties
A journalist in Forbes magazine thinks the "EU has funny ideas about human rights...
...news stories from assorted Old World democracies make a persuasive case that they badly need a First Amendment over there. Not impeded by one, governments engage in a degree of speech suppression unimaginable in the U.S."
Hmmm I'm a big fan of the first amendment in many ways and I also happen to agree that you can drive a coach and horses through the get-out clauses for government (eg in the UK) in human rights legislation, but pots, kettles and black come to mind here, given the systematic dismantling of the US Bill of Rights that has been going on in recent years, as well as the history of the abuse of rights of certain groups in the US...
No political system can guarantee respect for civil rights. Only the constant vigilance and commitment of the people can do that.
...news stories from assorted Old World democracies make a persuasive case that they badly need a First Amendment over there. Not impeded by one, governments engage in a degree of speech suppression unimaginable in the U.S."
Hmmm I'm a big fan of the first amendment in many ways and I also happen to agree that you can drive a coach and horses through the get-out clauses for government (eg in the UK) in human rights legislation, but pots, kettles and black come to mind here, given the systematic dismantling of the US Bill of Rights that has been going on in recent years, as well as the history of the abuse of rights of certain groups in the US...
No political system can guarantee respect for civil rights. Only the constant vigilance and commitment of the people can do that.
Becta promote open source for schools
Are Becta about to get something right by reporting on a study of 15 schools that they could save money by moving to open source?
Monday, April 25, 2005
Thatcher sues BBC
With further thanks to Michael Geist for this link, it seems that former UK Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, has decided to sue the BBC for using her phrase "treachery with a smile on its face" rather too frequently when advertising Thatcher week last year. Rather ironic that the BBC should get sued for advertising.
Senator wants to ban free weather data
Senator Rick Santorum has apparently introduced a bill that would ban the National Weather Service from providing free weather data. (Thanks to Michael Geist for the link).
What an idiotic idea and another example of evidence free law-making proposals so criticised by James Boyle. James actually uses the weather service as an example in the latter example of how the US are currently getting things right:
"Take weather data. The United States makes complete weather data available to anyone at the cost of reproduction. If the superb government websites and data feeds aren’t enough, for the price of a box of blank DVD’s you can have the entire history of weather records across the continental US. European countries, by contrast, typically claim government copyright over weather data and often require the payment of substantial fees. Which approach is better? If I had to suggest one article on this subject it would be the magisterial study by Peter Weiss called “Borders in Cyberspace,” published by the National Academies of Science. Weiss suggests that the US approach generates far more social wealth. True, the information is initially provided for free, but a thriving private weather industry has sprung up which takes the publicly funded data as its raw material and then adds value to it. The US weather risk management industry, for example, is ten times bigger than the European one, employing more people, producing more valuable products, generating more social wealth. Another study estimates that Europe invests €9.5bn in weather data and gets approximately €68bn back in economic value - in everything from more efficient farming and construction decisions, to better holiday planning - a 7-fold multiplier. The United States, by contrast invests twice as much - €19bn - but gets back a return of €750bn, a 39-fold multiplier. Other studies suggest similar patterns in areas ranging from geo-spatial data to traffic patterns and agriculture. “Free” information flow is better at priming the pump of economic activity."
What an idiotic idea and another example of evidence free law-making proposals so criticised by James Boyle. James actually uses the weather service as an example in the latter example of how the US are currently getting things right:
"Take weather data. The United States makes complete weather data available to anyone at the cost of reproduction. If the superb government websites and data feeds aren’t enough, for the price of a box of blank DVD’s you can have the entire history of weather records across the continental US. European countries, by contrast, typically claim government copyright over weather data and often require the payment of substantial fees. Which approach is better? If I had to suggest one article on this subject it would be the magisterial study by Peter Weiss called “Borders in Cyberspace,” published by the National Academies of Science. Weiss suggests that the US approach generates far more social wealth. True, the information is initially provided for free, but a thriving private weather industry has sprung up which takes the publicly funded data as its raw material and then adds value to it. The US weather risk management industry, for example, is ten times bigger than the European one, employing more people, producing more valuable products, generating more social wealth. Another study estimates that Europe invests €9.5bn in weather data and gets approximately €68bn back in economic value - in everything from more efficient farming and construction decisions, to better holiday planning - a 7-fold multiplier. The United States, by contrast invests twice as much - €19bn - but gets back a return of €750bn, a 39-fold multiplier. Other studies suggest similar patterns in areas ranging from geo-spatial data to traffic patterns and agriculture. “Free” information flow is better at priming the pump of economic activity."
Family to sue Sharman after settling with RIAA
A couple in Ohio who got threatened by the RIAA and settled out of court for $3000 have decided to sue the file sharing company that they reckon got them into the mess in the first instance.
"Sally and Jim Wilson were frightened in February when they learned the recording industry had sued them because their two teenage daughters had downloaded 653 songs - and that they could be liable to pay $750 for each...
The Cold Spring couple has agreed to settle for $3,000. Next week, the Wilsons plan to sue an Australian-based company, Sharman Networks Ltd., whose popular peer-to-peer Kazaa software the girls used."
The only thing that really surprises me about this is that it has taken so long for this kind of case to arise. Given the thousands of people subject to file sharing lawsuits who have handed over thousands of dollars to the RIAA I expected this to happen much sooner. It will be an interesting one to watch and though I don't hold out much hope of success for the Wilsons, the outcome of the Grokster supreme court case may have an influence.
"Sally and Jim Wilson were frightened in February when they learned the recording industry had sued them because their two teenage daughters had downloaded 653 songs - and that they could be liable to pay $750 for each...
The Cold Spring couple has agreed to settle for $3,000. Next week, the Wilsons plan to sue an Australian-based company, Sharman Networks Ltd., whose popular peer-to-peer Kazaa software the girls used."
The only thing that really surprises me about this is that it has taken so long for this kind of case to arise. Given the thousands of people subject to file sharing lawsuits who have handed over thousands of dollars to the RIAA I expected this to happen much sooner. It will be an interesting one to watch and though I don't hold out much hope of success for the Wilsons, the outcome of the Grokster supreme court case may have an influence.
Cornell recommendations
I just got some very interesting recommendations on useful law resources on the web from Jean Pajerek at Cornell
"Center for Individual Rights
http://www.cir-usa.org/
The Center for Individual Rights (CIR) is a nonprofit public interest law
firm dedicated to the defense of individual liberties, focusing on the
areas of Civil Rights, Free Expression, Religious Liberty, and
Federalism...
Copyright Management Center
http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/
The Copyright Management Center (CMC) website is a useful guide to
copyright issues specifically affecting teachers, researchers, and
librarians. Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis created CMC
in 1994 to provide its faculty and staff with clear guidelines to
understand the complex world of copyright protection...
Curiae.law.yale.edu: the Curiae Project http://curiae.law.yale.edu/
The Curiae Project, currently in beta testing, provides historic (pre-2000)
Supreme Court case materials free of charge. After selecting a case, the
user can link to the full text of the case (via FindLaw and LII), listen to
audio recordings of oral arguments before the Supreme Court (as available
via Oyez), and view records, briefs, and other printed documents related to
the case (as available via Curiae)...
Frederick K. Cox International Law Center War Crimes Research Portal http://law.case.edu/war-crimes-research-portal/
The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center War Crimes Research Portal
is a product of the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. The
Portal contains over a thousand links to websites related to international
humanitarian law and international criminal tribunals"
Cornell law librarians review and recommend useful web resources as part of their Insite service. The Yale Curiae project is particularly worth a look.
"Center for Individual Rights
http://www.cir-usa.org/
The Center for Individual Rights (CIR) is a nonprofit public interest law
firm dedicated to the defense of individual liberties, focusing on the
areas of Civil Rights, Free Expression, Religious Liberty, and
Federalism...
Copyright Management Center
http://www.copyright.iupui.edu/
The Copyright Management Center (CMC) website is a useful guide to
copyright issues specifically affecting teachers, researchers, and
librarians. Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis created CMC
in 1994 to provide its faculty and staff with clear guidelines to
understand the complex world of copyright protection...
Curiae.law.yale.edu: the Curiae Project http://curiae.law.yale.edu/
The Curiae Project, currently in beta testing, provides historic (pre-2000)
Supreme Court case materials free of charge. After selecting a case, the
user can link to the full text of the case (via FindLaw and LII), listen to
audio recordings of oral arguments before the Supreme Court (as available
via Oyez), and view records, briefs, and other printed documents related to
the case (as available via Curiae)...
Frederick K. Cox International Law Center War Crimes Research Portal http://law.case.edu/war-crimes-research-portal/
The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center War Crimes Research Portal
is a product of the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. The
Portal contains over a thousand links to websites related to international
humanitarian law and international criminal tribunals"
Cornell law librarians review and recommend useful web resources as part of their Insite service. The Yale Curiae project is particularly worth a look.
Boyle deconstructing IP stupidity
James Boyle was in full flow in last Thursday's FT.
"Thomas Macaulay told us copyright law is a tax on readers for the benefit of writers, a tax that shouldn’t last a day longer than necessary. What do we do? We extend the copyright term repeatedly on both sides of the Atlantic. The US goes from fourteen years to the author’s life plus seventy years. We extend protection retrospectively to dead authors, perhaps in the hope they will write from their tombs.
Since only about 4 per cent of copyrighted works more than 20 years old are commercially available, this locks up 96 per cent of 20th century culture to benefit 4 per cent. The harm to the public is huge, the benefit to authors, tiny. In any other field, the officials responsible would be fired. Not here.
It is as if we had signed an international stupidity pact, one that required us to ignore the evidence, to hand out new rights without asking for the simplest assessment of need. If the stakes were trivial, no one would care. But intellectual property (IP) is important. These are the ground rules of the information society. Mistakes hurt us. They have costs to free speech, competition, innovation, and science. Why are we making them...
Let me be clear. IP is a good thing... Not all proposals to extend rights are silly, but if we do not start looking rigorously at evidence, we will never know which."
Wonderful.
It certainly generated some traffic at Slashdot. Frank Field has an insightful take on all this too:
"The power of ideology (which I would define as a simplified explanation of how the world works) is that it generally does work – that’s why it becomes accepted. Developing a good model gives one advantages – the ability to anticipate outcomes and act with confidence upon that expected outcome. However, that success also leads the user to confuse the model of reality with reality itself and, eventually, the ideology disappears – “Why is more copyright protection better? That’s just how things work, stupid.”
As long as the model works, that confusion is not a problem. But when the model starts to fail (as it inevitably must), the dogmatic ideologue is in serious trouble – the explanations for how the world works sudden no longer work, and the easiest response (and most typical) is to argue away (or ignore) the inconsistencies and press on.
That’s where we are now. The inconsistencies cited in Boyle’s article and elsewhere are all around us, but the ideologues just keep repeating their mantra “more control/property/market discipline is better.” The ideology is now visible, at least to those who do not accept it, and the inconsistencies keep piling up – and the non-dogmatists have started to develop a better, more refined model for reality, one that allows them to be more successful, and have started to move on.
The danger lies in spasms of the ideologues whose explanations no longer help, but who still have the power to construct structures that enforce their world-view."
Which nicely takes me back to our Open University course on all this. In there we deal with both the concept of models and the power of ideology and the need to be continually alert to both. We also felt that the power of rhetoric and the invisibility of underlying facts, values and beliefs are so important that we devoted a whole section of the course to this.
"Thomas Macaulay told us copyright law is a tax on readers for the benefit of writers, a tax that shouldn’t last a day longer than necessary. What do we do? We extend the copyright term repeatedly on both sides of the Atlantic. The US goes from fourteen years to the author’s life plus seventy years. We extend protection retrospectively to dead authors, perhaps in the hope they will write from their tombs.
Since only about 4 per cent of copyrighted works more than 20 years old are commercially available, this locks up 96 per cent of 20th century culture to benefit 4 per cent. The harm to the public is huge, the benefit to authors, tiny. In any other field, the officials responsible would be fired. Not here.
It is as if we had signed an international stupidity pact, one that required us to ignore the evidence, to hand out new rights without asking for the simplest assessment of need. If the stakes were trivial, no one would care. But intellectual property (IP) is important. These are the ground rules of the information society. Mistakes hurt us. They have costs to free speech, competition, innovation, and science. Why are we making them...
Let me be clear. IP is a good thing... Not all proposals to extend rights are silly, but if we do not start looking rigorously at evidence, we will never know which."
Wonderful.
It certainly generated some traffic at Slashdot. Frank Field has an insightful take on all this too:
"The power of ideology (which I would define as a simplified explanation of how the world works) is that it generally does work – that’s why it becomes accepted. Developing a good model gives one advantages – the ability to anticipate outcomes and act with confidence upon that expected outcome. However, that success also leads the user to confuse the model of reality with reality itself and, eventually, the ideology disappears – “Why is more copyright protection better? That’s just how things work, stupid.”
As long as the model works, that confusion is not a problem. But when the model starts to fail (as it inevitably must), the dogmatic ideologue is in serious trouble – the explanations for how the world works sudden no longer work, and the easiest response (and most typical) is to argue away (or ignore) the inconsistencies and press on.
That’s where we are now. The inconsistencies cited in Boyle’s article and elsewhere are all around us, but the ideologues just keep repeating their mantra “more control/property/market discipline is better.” The ideology is now visible, at least to those who do not accept it, and the inconsistencies keep piling up – and the non-dogmatists have started to develop a better, more refined model for reality, one that allows them to be more successful, and have started to move on.
The danger lies in spasms of the ideologues whose explanations no longer help, but who still have the power to construct structures that enforce their world-view."
Which nicely takes me back to our Open University course on all this. In there we deal with both the concept of models and the power of ideology and the need to be continually alert to both. We also felt that the power of rhetoric and the invisibility of underlying facts, values and beliefs are so important that we devoted a whole section of the course to this.
Bono misses out
I hadn't noticed that Bono had been proposed, according to Anupam Chandler, as a possible president of the World Bank by the LA Times, prior to the US raliroading through Paul Wolfowitz's appointment.
New HRW Report
Human Rights Watch have called for "a special prosecutor to investigate the culpability of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and ex-CIA Director George Tenet in cases of detainee torture and abuse," in a report issued just prior to the first anniversary of the torture at Abu Ghraib prison coming to light.
On another front, which seems to have long since left the public arena, the Bush administration were criticised for leaking the identity of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame Wilson, the allegation at the time being that the leak was a malicious act arising in response to the administration's frustration at criticism by the agent's diplomat spouse, Joe Wilson.
A special prosecutor has been looking into the circumstances surrounding the leak and John Dean has an update on the investigation over at Findlaw. There are lots of interesting aspects of this case but the one Dean focusses on is the involvement of two journalists with an apparently peripheral involvement in the leak and the special prosecutor's attempts to get them to divulge sources to a grand jury. There is the strong framework of an investigative thriller in all this, when the story finally comes to be told.
On another front, which seems to have long since left the public arena, the Bush administration were criticised for leaking the identity of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame Wilson, the allegation at the time being that the leak was a malicious act arising in response to the administration's frustration at criticism by the agent's diplomat spouse, Joe Wilson.
A special prosecutor has been looking into the circumstances surrounding the leak and John Dean has an update on the investigation over at Findlaw. There are lots of interesting aspects of this case but the one Dean focusses on is the involvement of two journalists with an apparently peripheral involvement in the leak and the special prosecutor's attempts to get them to divulge sources to a grand jury. There is the strong framework of an investigative thriller in all this, when the story finally comes to be told.
Memex mention
John has a terrific column in the Observer this week about the BBC Creative Archive. Introducing it in his online diary, he says:
"My Observer column on the significance of the Creative Archive is here. The Open University, for which I work, is one of the Creative Archive partners, and is currently mulling over how it should contribute to it. In the meantime, one of my colleagues, Ray Corrigan, has released the materials for his course on Law, the Internet and Society under a Creative Commons licence. The course started life as part of my Relevant Knowledge programme, but was dropped when it came to the end of its designated life. It seemed crazy just to bury something that could be useful and interesting to many people simply because the university didn’t have space for it in its curriculum. So now it has a new lease of life, courtesy of the open content movement."
What he doesn't say is that he also wrote part of the course (which along with being highly regarded by experts from universities like Duke, Stanford and Cambridge should give you an idea of the quality of the material) but a mention on Memex 1.1 will, no doubt, have given the site readership a significant boost. Thanks John!
"My Observer column on the significance of the Creative Archive is here. The Open University, for which I work, is one of the Creative Archive partners, and is currently mulling over how it should contribute to it. In the meantime, one of my colleagues, Ray Corrigan, has released the materials for his course on Law, the Internet and Society under a Creative Commons licence. The course started life as part of my Relevant Knowledge programme, but was dropped when it came to the end of its designated life. It seemed crazy just to bury something that could be useful and interesting to many people simply because the university didn’t have space for it in its curriculum. So now it has a new lease of life, courtesy of the open content movement."
What he doesn't say is that he also wrote part of the course (which along with being highly regarded by experts from universities like Duke, Stanford and Cambridge should give you an idea of the quality of the material) but a mention on Memex 1.1 will, no doubt, have given the site readership a significant boost. Thanks John!
Friday, April 22, 2005
Google offer personal serch histories
Privacy advocates are concerned about the implications of Google's move to give people access to their search histories. But one commentator at Forbes, Arik Hesseldahl, thinks they should chill out.
Thursday, April 21, 2005
ISPs ordered to ID file sharers
A UK court, according to the Regsiter, has ordered 5 ISPs to hand over, to the British Phographic Industry, the personal details of 33 customers suspected of engaging in copyright infringement on P2P networks.
Don't place too much credence in the "research" that suggests P2P users would have spent £654m more on music CDs if they had not been downloading. It is currently impossible to tell what proportion of illegal downloads have led to the undermining of a possible purchase. There is a lot of alternative evidence that suggests music sampling on P2P networks has led to an increase in music CD sales. There is just not enough empirical evidence of the complex underlying patterns but there is no direct overall proven single causal link between use of P2P networks and a decrease in CD sales, no matter how intuitive the drawing of such a link might feel.
Don't place too much credence in the "research" that suggests P2P users would have spent £654m more on music CDs if they had not been downloading. It is currently impossible to tell what proportion of illegal downloads have led to the undermining of a possible purchase. There is a lot of alternative evidence that suggests music sampling on P2P networks has led to an increase in music CD sales. There is just not enough empirical evidence of the complex underlying patterns but there is no direct overall proven single causal link between use of P2P networks and a decrease in CD sales, no matter how intuitive the drawing of such a link might feel.
EDRI-gram 3.8
The latest EDRI-gram circular is now available and as usual has news of a range of important developments.
The French are following the UK lead and planning compulsory biometric ID cards. Cue my repetition of the usual questions:
What problem(/s) are they trying to solve?
A: Vague.
What does the architecture of the system look like?
A: Complex and unworkable.
How well do ID cards solve the problem?
A: Not at all.
How many other problems do they cause?
A: Lots.
How much does it cost (in cash and other trade offs)?
A: A lot.
Is it worth it?
A: No!
The French are following the UK lead and planning compulsory biometric ID cards. Cue my repetition of the usual questions:
What problem(/s) are they trying to solve?
A: Vague.
What does the architecture of the system look like?
A: Complex and unworkable.
How well do ID cards solve the problem?
A: Not at all.
How many other problems do they cause?
A: Lots.
How much does it cost (in cash and other trade offs)?
A: A lot.
Is it worth it?
A: No!
Passenger Lists Sought For Flights Over US - WP
The Washington Post has reported that
"The U.S. government plans to force foreign airlines flying over American soil to turn over the names of passengers on board or check the names against U.S. government watch lists in an effort to prevent terrorists from entering U.S. airspace."
Dutch airline KLM have allegedly partly started to comply with this requirement by checking passenger lists against US no fly lists. An airline spokesman said,
"It is not up to an airline to judge the security measures of individual countries"
"The U.S. government plans to force foreign airlines flying over American soil to turn over the names of passengers on board or check the names against U.S. government watch lists in an effort to prevent terrorists from entering U.S. airspace."
Dutch airline KLM have allegedly partly started to comply with this requirement by checking passenger lists against US no fly lists. An airline spokesman said,
"It is not up to an airline to judge the security measures of individual countries"
Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Open University and Creative Commons
The Open University have released our Internet law course, based on Larry Lessig's book, The Future of Ideas, under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.
Unfortunately you need to register to get into the site but otherwise it is openly accessible. Your chosen user ID and verifiable email address will only be used by server administrators to monitor site usage and will not be used for any other purpose.
The course originally formed part of the Relevant Knowledge programme of undergraduate technology short courses at the Open University, but is no longer offered as a credit-bearing option which can count towards an Open Unversity degree.
Given the importance of the ideas of of people like Larry to the future of our information society, however, I'd be keen to see the site widely read. It is pitched at a lay audience and so do encourage friends, family and colleagues to dip into at least some parts of the site. It's worth a look if only for the cartoons!
This is the first Open University course to be made available under a creative commons license but I hope it is the first of many.
Unfortunately you need to register to get into the site but otherwise it is openly accessible. Your chosen user ID and verifiable email address will only be used by server administrators to monitor site usage and will not be used for any other purpose.
The course originally formed part of the Relevant Knowledge programme of undergraduate technology short courses at the Open University, but is no longer offered as a credit-bearing option which can count towards an Open Unversity degree.
Given the importance of the ideas of of people like Larry to the future of our information society, however, I'd be keen to see the site widely read. It is pitched at a lay audience and so do encourage friends, family and colleagues to dip into at least some parts of the site. It's worth a look if only for the cartoons!
This is the first Open University course to be made available under a creative commons license but I hope it is the first of many.
Prison for file swappers
Yet another copyright law is hitting the books in the US. This time it is the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005.
"(Sec. 103) Establishes criminal penalties for willful copyright infringement by the distribution of a computer program, musical work, motion picture or other audiovisual work, or sound recording being prepared for commercial distribution by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if the person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution."
The criminal penalties referred to are 3 years in jail (and there is also the provision for large fines) for any P2P file sharers found offering a single copy of eg a film on pre-release (or "being prepared for commercial distribution").
As Peter Jaszi said: "I don't think this is an approach that is well calculated to create respect for the system." You certainly must question the proportionality of this.
The "family entertainment" bit of the act makes it legal for viewers to edit out gratuitous sex or violence and for commercial entities to create technologies to automatically cut these parts out to facilitate home produced family friendly versions of films. This was in response to the Directors Guild of America suing ClearPlay for making this kind of software, the popularly labelled "clean flicks" case.
"(Sec. 103) Establishes criminal penalties for willful copyright infringement by the distribution of a computer program, musical work, motion picture or other audiovisual work, or sound recording being prepared for commercial distribution by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if the person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution."
The criminal penalties referred to are 3 years in jail (and there is also the provision for large fines) for any P2P file sharers found offering a single copy of eg a film on pre-release (or "being prepared for commercial distribution").
As Peter Jaszi said: "I don't think this is an approach that is well calculated to create respect for the system." You certainly must question the proportionality of this.
The "family entertainment" bit of the act makes it legal for viewers to edit out gratuitous sex or violence and for commercial entities to create technologies to automatically cut these parts out to facilitate home produced family friendly versions of films. This was in response to the Directors Guild of America suing ClearPlay for making this kind of software, the popularly labelled "clean flicks" case.
Monday, April 18, 2005
DRM = Choice
Patrick Ross at IPCentral seems to think DRM = Consumer choice. I'll leave that hanging because I don't know whether he really believes it (though there is a good chance he does) or is just trolling.
Blawg Review
"Welcome to a world where inexperienced editors make articles about the wrong topics worse." - Judge Posner's funny introduction to Blawg Review.
WIPO spin lockout on Development agenda
David Tannenbaum is not pleased at the World Intellectual Property Organisation's media advisory is
"putting some heavy spin on the lock-out of civil society NGOs. The media advisory suggests that while "The WIPO secretariat has taken note of non-accredited NGOs that have requested to participate in the [development agenda meetings], on an ad hoc basis," the secretariat isn't going to do much about these requests. The advisory says, "Any departure from the original General Assembly decision on this question rests firmly within the hands of the member states," and refers to the General Assembly decision that "WIPO-accredited IGOs and NGOs are invited to participate as observers in the meetings."
This media advisory suggests that the General Assembly language binds the secretariat to close out civil society NGOs, but the restrictive gloss on this language is a creation of the secretariat alone."
"putting some heavy spin on the lock-out of civil society NGOs. The media advisory suggests that while "The WIPO secretariat has taken note of non-accredited NGOs that have requested to participate in the [development agenda meetings], on an ad hoc basis," the secretariat isn't going to do much about these requests. The advisory says, "Any departure from the original General Assembly decision on this question rests firmly within the hands of the member states," and refers to the General Assembly decision that "WIPO-accredited IGOs and NGOs are invited to participate as observers in the meetings."
This media advisory suggests that the General Assembly language binds the secretariat to close out civil society NGOs, but the restrictive gloss on this language is a creation of the secretariat alone."
P2P spread the word
The Death in the Afternoon blog has a plan for defending the legitimacy of P2P services.
SCO litigation summary
Martin Keegan posted a nice summary (last November) of the complex SCO litigation.
Stewart Brand reckons "Over the next ten years, I predict, the mainstream of the environmental movement will reverse its opinion and activism in four major areas: population growth, urbanization, genetically engineered organisms, and nuclear power."
He might even be right about GMOs and nuclear power.
He might even be right about GMOs and nuclear power.
Taxonomy of privacy
James Grimmelmann is impressed with Daniel Solove latest law review article, A Taxonomy of Privacy. From Prof. Solove's conclusions:
"Too many courts and policymakers struggle with recognizing privacy problems. Privacy is certainly not an absolute value, but neither are the countervailing interests. Thus protecting privacy requires careful balancing. Unforunately, due to conceptual confusion, courts and legislatures are failing to recognize privacy problems, and if one is not recognized, no balancing takes place. This does not mean that privacy should win in the balance, but it should not simply be dismissed because it is ignored or misconstrued.
When translated into the legal system, privacy is a form of protection against certain harmful or problematic activities. The activities that affect privacy are not necessarily bad or worthy of sanction or prohibition. This fact is what makes addressing privacy issues so complex. In many instances, there is no evil wrongdoer, no villain whose activities have no value or make no social contribution. Instead many privacy problems arise as a result of efficacious activities, much like pollution is an outgrowth of inductrial activity."
The full 61 pages are not for the faint hearted but for those of you with an interest in privacy in our information age, this is better value for your efforts than most law review articles,
"Too many courts and policymakers struggle with recognizing privacy problems. Privacy is certainly not an absolute value, but neither are the countervailing interests. Thus protecting privacy requires careful balancing. Unforunately, due to conceptual confusion, courts and legislatures are failing to recognize privacy problems, and if one is not recognized, no balancing takes place. This does not mean that privacy should win in the balance, but it should not simply be dismissed because it is ignored or misconstrued.
When translated into the legal system, privacy is a form of protection against certain harmful or problematic activities. The activities that affect privacy are not necessarily bad or worthy of sanction or prohibition. This fact is what makes addressing privacy issues so complex. In many instances, there is no evil wrongdoer, no villain whose activities have no value or make no social contribution. Instead many privacy problems arise as a result of efficacious activities, much like pollution is an outgrowth of inductrial activity."
The full 61 pages are not for the faint hearted but for those of you with an interest in privacy in our information age, this is better value for your efforts than most law review articles,
Senate transcript
The transcript of the Senate hearing on "securing electronice personal data", following the recently highly publicised leaks of personal information by companies like ChoicePoint, LexisNexis, Citibank and Bank of America is now available online.
Makes interesting reading. The lawmakers in this instance seem to be moving towards a federal requirement that when there is a security leak of personal data then the company hosting the data should notify people whose personal details have been compromised, as is the case in California.
Makes interesting reading. The lawmakers in this instance seem to be moving towards a federal requirement that when there is a security leak of personal data then the company hosting the data should notify people whose personal details have been compromised, as is the case in California.
Friday, April 15, 2005
Biometrics shift focus from theft to injury
A security system which required the car owner to use his fingerprint to access the car led to the driver losing more than his car, according to a BBC story Bruce Schenier pointed me at.
"Police in Malaysia are hunting for members of a violent gang who chopped off a car owner's finger to get round the vehicle's hi-tech security system.
The car, a Mercedes S-class, was protected by a fingerprint recognition system."
So biometrics in this instance caused the attackers to change tactics - rather than stealing the car they also kidnapped the driver then seriously injured him to deal with the security system.
"Police in Malaysia are hunting for members of a violent gang who chopped off a car owner's finger to get round the vehicle's hi-tech security system.
The car, a Mercedes S-class, was protected by a fingerprint recognition system."
So biometrics in this instance caused the attackers to change tactics - rather than stealing the car they also kidnapped the driver then seriously injured him to deal with the security system.
Mitigating ID thett
Bruce Schneier writes about mitigating identity theft in the latest issue of Crypto-gram, which as usual, is full of common sense advice about security.
"Fraudulent transactions have nothing to do with the legitimate account
holders. Criminals impersonate legitimate users to financial
institutions. That means that any solution can't involve the account
holders. That leaves only one reasonable answer: financial
institutions need to be liable for fraudulent transactions. They need
to be liable for sending erroneous information to credit bureaus based
on fraudulent transactions...
If you think this won't work, look at credit cards. Credit card
companies are liable for all but the first $50 of fraudulent
transactions. They're not hurting for business; and they're not
drowning in fraud, either. They've developed and fielded an array of
security technologies designed to detect and prevent fraudulent
transactions. They've pushed most of the actual costs onto the
merchants. And almost no security centers around trying to
authenticate the cardholder...
That's an important lesson. Identity theft solutions focus much too
much on authenticating the person. Whether it's two-factor
authentication, ID cards, biometrics, or whatever, there's a widespread
myth that authenticating the person is the way to prevent these
crimes. But once you understand that the problem is fraudulent
transactions, you quickly realize that authenticating the person isn't
the way to proceed...
Right now, the economic incentives result in financial institutions
that are so eager to allow transactions -- new credit cards, cash
transfers, whatever -- that they're not paying enough attention to
fraudulent transactions. They've pushed the costs for fraud onto the
merchants. But if they're liable for losses and damages to legitimate
users, they'll pay more attention. And they'll mitigate the
risks. Security can do all sorts of things, once the economic
incentives to apply them are there.
By focusing on the fraudulent use of personal data, I do not mean to
minimize the harm caused by third-party data and violations of
privacy. I believe that the U.S. would be well-served by a
comprehensive Data Protection Act like the European Union. However, I
do not believe that a law of this type would significantly reduce the
risk of fraudulent impersonation. To mitigate that risk, we need to
concentrate on detecting and preventing fraudulent transactions. We
need to make the entity that is in the best position to mitigate the
risk to be responsible for that risk. And that means making the
financial institutions liable for fraudulent transactions."
Identity theft solutions focus too much on authenticating the person? Actually you can probably read this all across to ID cards and translate the last 3 sentences thus, once we all do have ID cards:
To mitigate that risk, we need to concentrate on detecting and preventing [fraudulent transactions] terrorism. We need to make the entity that is in the best position to mitigate the risk to be responsible for that risk. And that means making the [financial institutions] government liable for [fraudulent transactions] terrorism. Ooops, I forgot. That's exactly what the UK government are afraid of. Hence the rush to manage the security theatre public relations battle, the ill thought out developments in law and the soundbite nonsense we hear trotted out in the current election campaign on the subject.
"Fraudulent transactions have nothing to do with the legitimate account
holders. Criminals impersonate legitimate users to financial
institutions. That means that any solution can't involve the account
holders. That leaves only one reasonable answer: financial
institutions need to be liable for fraudulent transactions. They need
to be liable for sending erroneous information to credit bureaus based
on fraudulent transactions...
If you think this won't work, look at credit cards. Credit card
companies are liable for all but the first $50 of fraudulent
transactions. They're not hurting for business; and they're not
drowning in fraud, either. They've developed and fielded an array of
security technologies designed to detect and prevent fraudulent
transactions. They've pushed most of the actual costs onto the
merchants. And almost no security centers around trying to
authenticate the cardholder...
That's an important lesson. Identity theft solutions focus much too
much on authenticating the person. Whether it's two-factor
authentication, ID cards, biometrics, or whatever, there's a widespread
myth that authenticating the person is the way to prevent these
crimes. But once you understand that the problem is fraudulent
transactions, you quickly realize that authenticating the person isn't
the way to proceed...
Right now, the economic incentives result in financial institutions
that are so eager to allow transactions -- new credit cards, cash
transfers, whatever -- that they're not paying enough attention to
fraudulent transactions. They've pushed the costs for fraud onto the
merchants. But if they're liable for losses and damages to legitimate
users, they'll pay more attention. And they'll mitigate the
risks. Security can do all sorts of things, once the economic
incentives to apply them are there.
By focusing on the fraudulent use of personal data, I do not mean to
minimize the harm caused by third-party data and violations of
privacy. I believe that the U.S. would be well-served by a
comprehensive Data Protection Act like the European Union. However, I
do not believe that a law of this type would significantly reduce the
risk of fraudulent impersonation. To mitigate that risk, we need to
concentrate on detecting and preventing fraudulent transactions. We
need to make the entity that is in the best position to mitigate the
risk to be responsible for that risk. And that means making the
financial institutions liable for fraudulent transactions."
Identity theft solutions focus too much on authenticating the person? Actually you can probably read this all across to ID cards and translate the last 3 sentences thus, once we all do have ID cards:
To mitigate that risk, we need to concentrate on detecting and preventing [fraudulent transactions] terrorism. We need to make the entity that is in the best position to mitigate the risk to be responsible for that risk. And that means making the [financial institutions] government liable for [fraudulent transactions] terrorism. Ooops, I forgot. That's exactly what the UK government are afraid of. Hence the rush to manage the security theatre public relations battle, the ill thought out developments in law and the soundbite nonsense we hear trotted out in the current election campaign on the subject.
Comcast sued by RIAA target
A disgruntled Comcast customer has sued them for passing her personal details to the RIAA, as a suspected files sharer. Her lawyer reckons "Comcast should respect the rights of privacy who pay them monthly bills"
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Government silence online discussion of VLEs
The UK government have apparently silenced an online discussion about a hot topic within the higher education sector - "VLEs", that's "virtual learning environments" for the uninitiated. These are the information systems that universities have been (mostly) buying or building for so-called "elearning."
"A JISCMail discussion list on VLEs has really been suspended because it, and others, are apparently perceived as a 'clear and present danger' to the results of the forthcoming UK election. To quote:
"All services provided by non-departmental public bodies (such as Becta) must comply with the General Election Guidance issued by the Cabinet Office.""
As one of the HE anoraks with an interest in VLEs I find this kind of thing really irritating. I'll say no more.
"A JISCMail discussion list on VLEs has really been suspended because it, and others, are apparently perceived as a 'clear and present danger' to the results of the forthcoming UK election. To quote:
"All services provided by non-departmental public bodies (such as Becta) must comply with the General Election Guidance issued by the Cabinet Office.""
As one of the HE anoraks with an interest in VLEs I find this kind of thing really irritating. I'll say no more.
BBC creative archive
The BBC have unveiled their creative archive licence.
The creative commons (England and Wales) licences are also now available, though I haven't had the chance to look at the detail of these yet.
The creative commons (England and Wales) licences are also now available, though I haven't had the chance to look at the detail of these yet.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
BBC creative archive
David Bollier is pleased at the opening of the BBC's creative archive.
"Ah, but what about “piracy”? How’s this for a refreshing response by the BBC: “If we had started at the policing end we'd never have gotten anywhere with this. Where you've got to start from is, how do we make more content available? I believe this can be a win-win. UK license-fee payers get more access to our content, and having it out there also stimulates various commercial sales markets. I don't believe one has to detrimentally affect the other.”
There is a lot of momentum growing behind business models based on open-platform sharing. When will the powers that be recognize that the intellectual property/piracy dichotomy misses the point -- and begin to understand the new paradigm?"
"Ah, but what about “piracy”? How’s this for a refreshing response by the BBC: “If we had started at the policing end we'd never have gotten anywhere with this. Where you've got to start from is, how do we make more content available? I believe this can be a win-win. UK license-fee payers get more access to our content, and having it out there also stimulates various commercial sales markets. I don't believe one has to detrimentally affect the other.”
There is a lot of momentum growing behind business models based on open-platform sharing. When will the powers that be recognize that the intellectual property/piracy dichotomy misses the point -- and begin to understand the new paradigm?"
Radio host sacked for airing public domain piece
Siva is concerned at the firing of a radio show host for airing "a clip of Condoleeza Rice’s nomination questioning" which he apparently recorded from C-SPAN off his own TV.
"The WRPI Executive Committee, which does much of the decision making for WRPI, heard from someone (not C-SPAN) who heard Karius’ Jan.19 show, saying that he improperly used material from C-SPAN. At a meeting of the E-Comm about a week later, the committee voted for his permanent removal as a result of “gross violation of federal copyright law and consequently WRPI’s policy.”...
Karius began contacting his scheduled guests. Then he set to researching copyright law. He is convinced he did not commit any offense by airing the excerpt. National copyright experts, and even C-SPAN’s own policies, say the same...
As long as the material Karius recorded and aired is within the public domain, he is free to use it as a radio host. “He did what any citizen can and may do. C-SPAN is our only source of the sounds of Congress, so we should feel free to use it for reporting and commentary,” Vaidhyanathan said...
Much of the WRPI Executive Committee is composed of RPI students who are not necessarily experts in the field of Federal Copyright Law. Indeed, Kaufman seemed confused about what was specifically violated and how, but said, “It is our interpretation, as well as the interpretation of RPI’s legal counsel and a lawyer specializing in communication, that the material aired by Dennis was a violation of C-SPAN’s intellectual property rights even though we are a public radio station.”
Karius said he understands why E-Comm was hypervigiliant. He said he did not want to damage WRPI’s reputation, and is still a supporter of the station. In Karius’ opinion, the reaction to his show was perhaps caused by the ever-increasing sensitivity of information and copyright issues."
"The WRPI Executive Committee, which does much of the decision making for WRPI, heard from someone (not C-SPAN) who heard Karius’ Jan.19 show, saying that he improperly used material from C-SPAN. At a meeting of the E-Comm about a week later, the committee voted for his permanent removal as a result of “gross violation of federal copyright law and consequently WRPI’s policy.”...
Karius began contacting his scheduled guests. Then he set to researching copyright law. He is convinced he did not commit any offense by airing the excerpt. National copyright experts, and even C-SPAN’s own policies, say the same...
As long as the material Karius recorded and aired is within the public domain, he is free to use it as a radio host. “He did what any citizen can and may do. C-SPAN is our only source of the sounds of Congress, so we should feel free to use it for reporting and commentary,” Vaidhyanathan said...
Much of the WRPI Executive Committee is composed of RPI students who are not necessarily experts in the field of Federal Copyright Law. Indeed, Kaufman seemed confused about what was specifically violated and how, but said, “It is our interpretation, as well as the interpretation of RPI’s legal counsel and a lawyer specializing in communication, that the material aired by Dennis was a violation of C-SPAN’s intellectual property rights even though we are a public radio station.”
Karius said he understands why E-Comm was hypervigiliant. He said he did not want to damage WRPI’s reputation, and is still a supporter of the station. In Karius’ opinion, the reaction to his show was perhaps caused by the ever-increasing sensitivity of information and copyright issues."
Vatican v Hi-tech spies
The Washington Post says the Vatican is concerned about it's ability to protect the priate deliberations of the conclave to elect the new pope from high-tech enabled journalists, snoopers and general mischief makers.
They are right to be concerned. Given the huge incentives of a wide range of people to get the inside story of the conclave and the power of readily available snooping technologies, they will have their work cut out to prevent any leaks.
They are right to be concerned. Given the huge incentives of a wide range of people to get the inside story of the conclave and the power of readily available snooping technologies, they will have their work cut out to prevent any leaks.
The Canadian DMCA and the medics
Michael Geist has been encouraging Canadian medics to take a serious look at the Canadian government's proposals for a new copyright law similar to the US's DMCA and the EU's 2001 copyright directive.
"Consider the potential impact on genetic research. Researchers seeking to obtain access to proprietary genetic databases could be forced to negotiate a licence from the database owner, despite user rights that would otherwise grant the right to access and use selected portions of the database content without prior approval...
The proposals would also harm the use of the Internet as an educational tool within Canada's medical schools. The federal government's copyright proposals contemplate reversing the decade-old policy of avoiding Internet licensing by creating a licensing system for Internet content that would create new restrictions to accessing online content. Although the proposals began with the laudable goal of increasing access while providing creators with appropriate compensation, by proposing a very narrow definition of what can be accessed without compensation, the plan would effectively force millions of Canadian students to pay for access to content that is otherwise publicly available.
Rather than adopting an approach that facilitates the use of the Internet, the government is moving toward a model that will force schools to pay to use Internet materials — contrary to the expectations of many creators. Canadian medical schools, which are struggling with 20th-century budgets to provide a 21st-century education, should call on the federal government to reject the proposal and instead adopt a balanced copyright approach that encourages the use of the Internet in Canadian schools."
"Consider the potential impact on genetic research. Researchers seeking to obtain access to proprietary genetic databases could be forced to negotiate a licence from the database owner, despite user rights that would otherwise grant the right to access and use selected portions of the database content without prior approval...
The proposals would also harm the use of the Internet as an educational tool within Canada's medical schools. The federal government's copyright proposals contemplate reversing the decade-old policy of avoiding Internet licensing by creating a licensing system for Internet content that would create new restrictions to accessing online content. Although the proposals began with the laudable goal of increasing access while providing creators with appropriate compensation, by proposing a very narrow definition of what can be accessed without compensation, the plan would effectively force millions of Canadian students to pay for access to content that is otherwise publicly available.
Rather than adopting an approach that facilitates the use of the Internet, the government is moving toward a model that will force schools to pay to use Internet materials — contrary to the expectations of many creators. Canadian medical schools, which are struggling with 20th-century budgets to provide a 21st-century education, should call on the federal government to reject the proposal and instead adopt a balanced copyright approach that encourages the use of the Internet in Canadian schools."
IFPI sue 963
The IFPI are suing more individuals for uploading music to the Net, this time in Ireland, Japan, Holland, Finland and Iceland.
Preparations for ID card continue without parliament
The UK government are going ahead with the compulsory fingerprinting of passport applicants even without the cover of parliamentary "authority", which with the large Labour majority has been nothing more than a rubber stamp for the wishes of the executive, anyway.
"The home secretary Charles Clarke has authorised the passport service to acquire 70 new passport service offices across the country so that all adult applicants for new documents can be interviewed in person from next year. The service currently has seven offices.
The Home Office admits that the new network could also be used in future as identity card enrolment centres and the introduction of mandatory fingerprinting of passport applicants will form an important "building block" for the future ID card scheme."
So much for the election delaying the progress of the IS card white elephant. Well given the government have more people in the public services working on the non existant not yet approved ID card scheme that they have hi-tech crime unit police offices, I guess they didn't want all those civil servants to be at a loose end whilst the election campaign was going on. The Lib Dems have called the process an abuse of democracy.
"The home secretary Charles Clarke has authorised the passport service to acquire 70 new passport service offices across the country so that all adult applicants for new documents can be interviewed in person from next year. The service currently has seven offices.
The Home Office admits that the new network could also be used in future as identity card enrolment centres and the introduction of mandatory fingerprinting of passport applicants will form an important "building block" for the future ID card scheme."
So much for the election delaying the progress of the IS card white elephant. Well given the government have more people in the public services working on the non existant not yet approved ID card scheme that they have hi-tech crime unit police offices, I guess they didn't want all those civil servants to be at a loose end whilst the election campaign was going on. The Lib Dems have called the process an abuse of democracy.
Monday, April 11, 2005
Copyfighter survey of music services
Derek has been thinking about subscribing to a music download service and has some random observations about what he's seen.
CBC Quirks and Quarks MP3s
Cory is pleased that a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation science and technology show is being made available as MP3s for downloading.
Appeals Court Agrees to Reconsider Decision About French Censorship of U.S. Speech
This one won't lie down. Following a French appeal court ruling that Yahoo and their ex CEO were not criminally liable for selling nazi memorabilia, a US appeal court, according to the Center for Denocracy and Technology, has agreed to " reconsider an earlier decision restricting Yahoo's efforts to protect its lawful US publications from liability under French law. A French court had imposed fines on the U.S.-based Yahoo! for web site content that is lawful in the U.S. but illegal in France. A lower U.S. court held that enforcing the French fines would violate the U.S. First Amendment. An appeals court panel disagreed"
Fiona Apple and schizophrenic Sony
Charles Arthur at the Register ponders the fate of Fiona Apple's third album and how it illustrates the difficulties Sony are having with the digital age in entertainment.
"nobody wins. Fiona Apple's album goes mostly unheard. Sony gets no revenues from its being downloaded. And all because the idea of selling music online has to be made to fit into the strategies used for 90-odd years. You've adapted your job and your business to this interweb thing. But the record labels still think the Net should bow to their thinking.
Oh, and there's a final irony in it all. Sony, the company at the centre of all this, should be celebrating whoever wins that case. For it's arguing on both sides. That's right. Check the dockets at this page (http://washingtonpost.findlaw.com/supreme_court/docket/2004/march.html#04-480) and you'll find that one of the "petitioners" (http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/mpaa/petitioner12405brf.pdf) (379KB PDF) along with MGM is Sony Music.
Look further down at those "supporting respondents" (ie backing Grokster), and you'll find the Consumer Electronics Association's amicus brief (http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/mpaa/cea030105brf.pdf) (273KB PDF). And among the members of the CEA? Sony Electronics."
"nobody wins. Fiona Apple's album goes mostly unheard. Sony gets no revenues from its being downloaded. And all because the idea of selling music online has to be made to fit into the strategies used for 90-odd years. You've adapted your job and your business to this interweb thing. But the record labels still think the Net should bow to their thinking.
Oh, and there's a final irony in it all. Sony, the company at the centre of all this, should be celebrating whoever wins that case. For it's arguing on both sides. That's right. Check the dockets at this page (http://washingtonpost.findlaw.com/supreme_court/docket/2004/march.html#04-480) and you'll find that one of the "petitioners" (http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/mpaa/petitioner12405brf.pdf) (379KB PDF) along with MGM is Sony Music.
Look further down at those "supporting respondents" (ie backing Grokster), and you'll find the Consumer Electronics Association's amicus brief (http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/mpaa/cea030105brf.pdf) (273KB PDF). And among the members of the CEA? Sony Electronics."
Training a new breed of hacker
The BBC have heard about a course in Barcelona that was "set up by the Institute for Security and Open Methodologies (ISECOM), a non-profit computer security outfit that wants to make students streetwise to the hostile neighbourhood the internet can often be."
James Love quantifying WIPO politics
Donna reports that James Love has provided "(1) links to various countries' proposals for interpreting the Development Agenda and (2) a telling "scorecard" of key words in the proposals, providing an at-a-glance analysis of substantive slant."
Piercing P2P myths
Michael Geist has a typically well argued article on P2P in First Monday. Abstract:
"Canada is in the midst of a contentious copyright reform with advocates for stronger copyright protection maintaining that the Internet has led to widespread infringement that has harmed the economic interests of Canadian artists. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has emerged as the leading proponent of copyright reform, claiming that peer–to–peer file sharing has led to billions in lost sales in Canada.
This article examines CRIA’s claims by conducting an analysis of industry figures. It concludes that loss claims have been greatly exaggerated and challenges the contention that recent sales declines are primarily attributable to file–sharing activities. Moreover, the article assesses the financial impact of declining sales on Canadian artists, concluding that revenue collected through a private copying levy system already adequately compensates Canadian artists for the private copying that occurs on peer–to–peer networks."
"Canada is in the midst of a contentious copyright reform with advocates for stronger copyright protection maintaining that the Internet has led to widespread infringement that has harmed the economic interests of Canadian artists. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has emerged as the leading proponent of copyright reform, claiming that peer–to–peer file sharing has led to billions in lost sales in Canada.
This article examines CRIA’s claims by conducting an analysis of industry figures. It concludes that loss claims have been greatly exaggerated and challenges the contention that recent sales declines are primarily attributable to file–sharing activities. Moreover, the article assesses the financial impact of declining sales on Canadian artists, concluding that revenue collected through a private copying levy system already adequately compensates Canadian artists for the private copying that occurs on peer–to–peer networks."
Stop spam
From scambusters, "Stop Spam: 16 Ways Spammers Get Your Email Address ... and How to Stop Them!"
And if you wanted to know how to deal with viruses, trojans and worms and generally protect your PC in addition, you could do a lot worse than sign up for the Open University's 10 week course, T187 Vandalism in Cyberspace: understanding and combating malicious software.
And if you wanted to know how to deal with viruses, trojans and worms and generally protect your PC in addition, you could do a lot worse than sign up for the Open University's 10 week course, T187 Vandalism in Cyberspace: understanding and combating malicious software.
Monsanto v US farmers
According to Jonathan Rowe, Monsanto don't fare too well in a recent report Monsanto v US Farmers produced by the campaigning group Center for Food Safety.
"The report documents the legal thuggery the Monsanto corporation commits upon U.S. farmers – many of them totally innocent and unsuspecting – to enforce the patents on its genetically modified seeds. The company has turned the genetic commons into a corporate police state; and if that sounds inflammatory and extreme, then check out the report."
Interestingly enough, the European Patent Office have just concluded their review of biotech firm Syngenta's and Greenpeace's challenge to Monsanto's patenting of herbicide-resistant seeds on this side of the pond and declared the patents valid.
"The report documents the legal thuggery the Monsanto corporation commits upon U.S. farmers – many of them totally innocent and unsuspecting – to enforce the patents on its genetically modified seeds. The company has turned the genetic commons into a corporate police state; and if that sounds inflammatory and extreme, then check out the report."
Interestingly enough, the European Patent Office have just concluded their review of biotech firm Syngenta's and Greenpeace's challenge to Monsanto's patenting of herbicide-resistant seeds on this side of the pond and declared the patents valid.
Grokster SCOTUS transcript
The transcript of the MGM v Grokster oral arguments before the US Supreme Court is now available online.
I'll drink to that
I liked this:
"P-to-P (peer-to-peer) file-trading enthusiasts like to rant about the draconian steps taken by groups like the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to enforce laws protecting their intellectual property rights, by shutting down distribution systems like the original Napster. But can those enthusiasts be organized into an influential grassroots organizing force?
The founders of CopyNight hope that the answer is "yes," and that social gatherings can ferment political activism."
Another piratical business model built on the blood, sweat and tears of the entertainment industry.
"P-to-P (peer-to-peer) file-trading enthusiasts like to rant about the draconian steps taken by groups like the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to enforce laws protecting their intellectual property rights, by shutting down distribution systems like the original Napster. But can those enthusiasts be organized into an influential grassroots organizing force?
The founders of CopyNight hope that the answer is "yes," and that social gatherings can ferment political activism."
Another piratical business model built on the blood, sweat and tears of the entertainment industry.
Jeffreys calls for world DNA database
Sir Alec Jeffreys, who discovered DNA fingerprinting, has called for the creation of a database which would contain the DNA details of everyone in the world.
"At a lecture on Saturday to mark the 20th anniversary of the discovery of DNA fingerprinting, Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, of Leicester University, said a global DNA database would have been invaluable in attempting to identify victims of the recent tsunami. Instead, investigators faced endless searches through incomplete records, or having to cause further distress to relatives of the victims."
He suggests that access and use of such a database should be strictly controlled and has serious criticisms, for example, of the UK criminal DNA database. If the existing UK scheme, used for limited purposes (law enforcement) and miniscule by comparison with the proposed database, has so many problems, though, how could such a database possibly work in practice?
What problem are you trying to solve?
A: Identifying victims in case of disaster (and other unspecified noble objectives)
What does the system architecture look like?
A: Massive database + decentralised hi tech networked registration centres + remote networked handheld verification devices (or labs on a chip, as Professor Jeffrey's nicely describes them)
How well does it work?
A: Probably not very well
How many other problems can it cause?
Quite a few, similar to the national ID card scheme. Tens of thousands, if not millions of people have to have access to the system and some of them will have malign intentions. How can the database fail naturally (through errors in entries etc) and how can it be made to fail (eg deliberate falsification of records) leading to erroneous identification of victims. Function creep - once such a database exists, the temptation to use it for other things becomes irresistible. How do we know this? Because it already happens
How much does it cost?
Well the UK national Id card scheme is currently pegged at between £3 billion and £11 billion. A database a thousand times as big may cost a thousand times as much again, though economists would, no doubt berate me for making such a simplistic jump, not taking into account economies of scale on the positive side and the negative effects of collating international collaboration on a global scale.
Is is worth it?
Probably not.
"At a lecture on Saturday to mark the 20th anniversary of the discovery of DNA fingerprinting, Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys, of Leicester University, said a global DNA database would have been invaluable in attempting to identify victims of the recent tsunami. Instead, investigators faced endless searches through incomplete records, or having to cause further distress to relatives of the victims."
He suggests that access and use of such a database should be strictly controlled and has serious criticisms, for example, of the UK criminal DNA database. If the existing UK scheme, used for limited purposes (law enforcement) and miniscule by comparison with the proposed database, has so many problems, though, how could such a database possibly work in practice?
What problem are you trying to solve?
A: Identifying victims in case of disaster (and other unspecified noble objectives)
What does the system architecture look like?
A: Massive database + decentralised hi tech networked registration centres + remote networked handheld verification devices (or labs on a chip, as Professor Jeffrey's nicely describes them)
How well does it work?
A: Probably not very well
How many other problems can it cause?
Quite a few, similar to the national ID card scheme. Tens of thousands, if not millions of people have to have access to the system and some of them will have malign intentions. How can the database fail naturally (through errors in entries etc) and how can it be made to fail (eg deliberate falsification of records) leading to erroneous identification of victims. Function creep - once such a database exists, the temptation to use it for other things becomes irresistible. How do we know this? Because it already happens
How much does it cost?
Well the UK national Id card scheme is currently pegged at between £3 billion and £11 billion. A database a thousand times as big may cost a thousand times as much again, though economists would, no doubt berate me for making such a simplistic jump, not taking into account economies of scale on the positive side and the negative effects of collating international collaboration on a global scale.
Is is worth it?
Probably not.
Friday, April 08, 2005
Philadelphia wi-fi plan
There are plans afoot in Philadelphia to "transform its streets and neighborhoods into a gigantic wireless Internet hotspot....
The project highlights the growing trend among cities big and small to build out their own broadband access networks. Claiming their cable and local phone companies were dragging their heels over deploying broadband or charging rates too high for lower-income residents, many municipalities have turned to building high-speed Internet networks themselves."
Good for them. It's a real pity a few municipalities couldn't wake up to the idea on this side of the pond. It was one of the things I called for in my Unfinished wish list for government in the area of education. (Item number 18 on the list). I won't be holding my breath but it might be fun to quiz the election campaigners about it.
The project highlights the growing trend among cities big and small to build out their own broadband access networks. Claiming their cable and local phone companies were dragging their heels over deploying broadband or charging rates too high for lower-income residents, many municipalities have turned to building high-speed Internet networks themselves."
Good for them. It's a real pity a few municipalities couldn't wake up to the idea on this side of the pond. It was one of the things I called for in my Unfinished wish list for government in the area of education. (Item number 18 on the list). I won't be holding my breath but it might be fun to quiz the election campaigners about it.
RIAA in Grokster: ok to copy CDs for personal use
There was an apparently unexpected concession from the music industry lawyer, Donald Verilli, in the MGM v Grokster hearing before the US Supreme Court last week. If you can get hold of the transcript, on page 12 beginning at line 3, he says "The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it on your iPod."
And sure enough if you check the RIAA site now, you can find this:
"What is your stand on MP3?
This is one of those urban myths like alligators in the toilet. MP3 is just a technology and the technology itself never did anything wrong! There are lots of legal MP3s from great artists on many, many online sites. The problem is that some people use MP3 to take one copy of an album and make that copy available on the Internet for hundreds of thousands of people. That's not fair. If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail. But the fact that technology exists to enable unlimited Internet distribution of music copies doesn't make it right. "
In the US it is lawful to make copies for personal use but the entertainment industry have generally been reluctant to concede this in the PR battle that constitutes the copyright wars. I've no idea how long this faq has been on the RIAA site (The Internet Archive suggests since June 2003). As late as November last year, the head of the RIAA legal department, Stan Pierre-Louis, was saying that copying CDs to a computer hard drive and then to an iPod was copyright infringement.
What's fascinating is that many of the smart advocates opposing the music industry were unaware of it too. Just goes to show how the rhetoric can come to dominate and interfere with the process of negotiating a reasonable way forward. With protagonists on both sides focussing on the extremes, the middle ground gets neglected. The cynics, of course, will say that it is the pulling the rabbit out of the hat act on the part of the RIAA – making an apparent concession now in an attempt to demonstrate reasonableness.
Of course this apparent concession to recognise the current state of the law does raise the question of whether the RIAA would think it was "great" to bypass the drm (copy protection) increasingly found on commercial CDs in order to make a personal copy.
And sure enough if you check the RIAA site now, you can find this:
"What is your stand on MP3?
This is one of those urban myths like alligators in the toilet. MP3 is just a technology and the technology itself never did anything wrong! There are lots of legal MP3s from great artists on many, many online sites. The problem is that some people use MP3 to take one copy of an album and make that copy available on the Internet for hundreds of thousands of people. That's not fair. If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail. But the fact that technology exists to enable unlimited Internet distribution of music copies doesn't make it right. "
In the US it is lawful to make copies for personal use but the entertainment industry have generally been reluctant to concede this in the PR battle that constitutes the copyright wars. I've no idea how long this faq has been on the RIAA site (The Internet Archive suggests since June 2003). As late as November last year, the head of the RIAA legal department, Stan Pierre-Louis, was saying that copying CDs to a computer hard drive and then to an iPod was copyright infringement.
What's fascinating is that many of the smart advocates opposing the music industry were unaware of it too. Just goes to show how the rhetoric can come to dominate and interfere with the process of negotiating a reasonable way forward. With protagonists on both sides focussing on the extremes, the middle ground gets neglected. The cynics, of course, will say that it is the pulling the rabbit out of the hat act on the part of the RIAA – making an apparent concession now in an attempt to demonstrate reasonableness.
Of course this apparent concession to recognise the current state of the law does raise the question of whether the RIAA would think it was "great" to bypass the drm (copy protection) increasingly found on commercial CDs in order to make a personal copy.
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Online music interoperability
Looks like the US Congress is finally waking up to the downside of drm. The congressional intellectual property committee held a meeting about the interoperability, or lack of it, of online music services. A quote from one of the politicos:
"This interoperability issue is of concern to me since consumers who bought legal copies of music from Real could not play them on an iPod" The industry are urging the lawmakers to keep their noses out of this particular market. Napster representative, William E. Pence, for example said the government "historically not been a participant in competition between early-stage consumer technologies."
Interoperability will eventually come home to roost on the music industry, Apple, Real et al because people will no accept the daft prospect of having to buy a range of different digital music players to play music sold to them by different companies. The sooner the better.
"This interoperability issue is of concern to me since consumers who bought legal copies of music from Real could not play them on an iPod" The industry are urging the lawmakers to keep their noses out of this particular market. Napster representative, William E. Pence, for example said the government "historically not been a participant in competition between early-stage consumer technologies."
Interoperability will eventually come home to roost on the music industry, Apple, Real et al because people will no accept the daft prospect of having to buy a range of different digital music players to play music sold to them by different companies. The sooner the better.
Machester airport compensate passenger
From the Manchester Evening News, this is interesting.
"A PASSENGER has been awarded £4,000 compensation after Manchester Airport took his photograph without permission.
The landmark pay-out, for breaking data protection rules, could open the floodgates to thousands of other claims. Another passenger has been given £2,000 in an out-of-court settlement and 20 other travellers have begun legal action against the airport. Two claims have been rejected."
"A PASSENGER has been awarded £4,000 compensation after Manchester Airport took his photograph without permission.
The landmark pay-out, for breaking data protection rules, could open the floodgates to thousands of other claims. Another passenger has been given £2,000 in an out-of-court settlement and 20 other travellers have begun legal action against the airport. Two claims have been rejected."
EDRI-gram - Number 3.7, 6 April 2005
EDRI-gram - Number 3.7, 6 April 2005 is full of interesting news as usual.
Contents ============================================================
1. Secret minutes EU data retention meeting
2. No delay for EU biometric passports
3. German court confirms ISP blocking order
4. Rapporteur EU parliament: more liability for ISPs
5. First P2P prosecution case in Sweden
6. ISP self-regulation proposal film industry
7. Bulgarian ISPs ordered to remove websites
8. Germany: meta search engine responsible for hyperlinks
9. EDRI-member nominated in Blog contest
10. Recommended reading: DRM
11. Agenda
12. About
One of the more notable parts is the pointer to Cory Doctorow's "Digital Rights Management: A failure in the developed world, a danger to the developing world" There are very few people who write as clearly and articulately as Cory about DRM. Essential reading.
Contents ============================================================
1. Secret minutes EU data retention meeting
2. No delay for EU biometric passports
3. German court confirms ISP blocking order
4. Rapporteur EU parliament: more liability for ISPs
5. First P2P prosecution case in Sweden
6. ISP self-regulation proposal film industry
7. Bulgarian ISPs ordered to remove websites
8. Germany: meta search engine responsible for hyperlinks
9. EDRI-member nominated in Blog contest
10. Recommended reading: DRM
11. Agenda
12. About
One of the more notable parts is the pointer to Cory Doctorow's "Digital Rights Management: A failure in the developed world, a danger to the developing world" There are very few people who write as clearly and articulately as Cory about DRM. Essential reading.
Privacy protection version 2.0
DANIEL J. SOLOVE and CHRIS JAY HOOFNAGLE have released version 2.0 of their Model Regime of Privacy Protection.
TIA defender new DHS privacy chief
C¦Net News are reporting "The Department of Homeland Security's privacy board chose as its chairman Paul Rosenzweig, a conservative lawyer best known in technology circles for his defense of the Pentagon's Total Information Awareness project."
Jurisdiction again
There is another Internet jurisdiction mess at the moment in relation to a political corruption investigation in Canada.
The retired judge conducting the public enquiry into the popularly labelled "Adscam" affair ordered that the testimony of some witnesses, who are also facing pending criminal proceedings, should be suppressed, with potentially severe penalties for anyone deciding to ignore the ban. Details of the banned testimony, however, have been leaked to a blogger in the US who has published them.
This introduces all kinds of problems for the upcoming criminal cases. Apparently in Canada, witnesses who refuse to answer questions at a public enquiry of this nature can be jailed until they do. The testimony at the public enquiry cannot be used in a subsequent criminal trial, however, because Canadians have the right not to incriminate themselves. So if a prosecuter asks the same question as arose in the public enquiry, the accused would have the right, in the criminal court, to refuse to answer.
With all the gory details now out on the Net, however, how does this affect the accused chances of getting a fair trial? In principle you might think not at all - after all if the details are already part of the proceedings of a public enquiry they are in the public domain.
Why does the Net change things?
Monitoring, recording, processing power, computers, the Internet and very powerful database filtering tools make it possible to find out all sorts of things about people. It is relatively difficult to search and correlate paper data. The number of people who can attend a public enquiry is limited, so that testimony closed to those in attendance will not be widely circulated. But combining the power of computers to do 'clever' things with data is phenomenal, and the Internet to allow data to be searched remotely and merged with data from other places, leaked testimony gains a whole new dimension.
There are no easy jurisdictional or centralised constraints because the data flows don't recognise jurisdictional borders. Data can be collected, processed and used on a scale not previously imagined. What's more, it is cheap to do it and getting cheaper. Hence the integrity of the upcoming criminal trials gets brought into question.
No doubt, in the thick of the rhetoric of the general election campaign on this side of the pond, our main political parties would declare it outrageous that someone, perhaps admitting criminal culpability in a public enquiry, should be allowed to get off in a subsequent criminal trial on a legal technicality. But the law really matters and we cannot apply a variety of standards, based on mob mentality or the right of the few to point accusing fingers, with those who appear to be "obviously" guilty getting less protection than the rest of us. That way lies the conviction of lots of innocent people and as I understood the Irish and British legal systems (though it is arguable in the light of the political rush to be seen to be the toughest on crime), at least, on principle the conviction of the innocent is deemed to be the worst miscarriage of justice.
The retired judge conducting the public enquiry into the popularly labelled "Adscam" affair ordered that the testimony of some witnesses, who are also facing pending criminal proceedings, should be suppressed, with potentially severe penalties for anyone deciding to ignore the ban. Details of the banned testimony, however, have been leaked to a blogger in the US who has published them.
This introduces all kinds of problems for the upcoming criminal cases. Apparently in Canada, witnesses who refuse to answer questions at a public enquiry of this nature can be jailed until they do. The testimony at the public enquiry cannot be used in a subsequent criminal trial, however, because Canadians have the right not to incriminate themselves. So if a prosecuter asks the same question as arose in the public enquiry, the accused would have the right, in the criminal court, to refuse to answer.
With all the gory details now out on the Net, however, how does this affect the accused chances of getting a fair trial? In principle you might think not at all - after all if the details are already part of the proceedings of a public enquiry they are in the public domain.
Why does the Net change things?
Monitoring, recording, processing power, computers, the Internet and very powerful database filtering tools make it possible to find out all sorts of things about people. It is relatively difficult to search and correlate paper data. The number of people who can attend a public enquiry is limited, so that testimony closed to those in attendance will not be widely circulated. But combining the power of computers to do 'clever' things with data is phenomenal, and the Internet to allow data to be searched remotely and merged with data from other places, leaked testimony gains a whole new dimension.
There are no easy jurisdictional or centralised constraints because the data flows don't recognise jurisdictional borders. Data can be collected, processed and used on a scale not previously imagined. What's more, it is cheap to do it and getting cheaper. Hence the integrity of the upcoming criminal trials gets brought into question.
No doubt, in the thick of the rhetoric of the general election campaign on this side of the pond, our main political parties would declare it outrageous that someone, perhaps admitting criminal culpability in a public enquiry, should be allowed to get off in a subsequent criminal trial on a legal technicality. But the law really matters and we cannot apply a variety of standards, based on mob mentality or the right of the few to point accusing fingers, with those who appear to be "obviously" guilty getting less protection than the rest of us. That way lies the conviction of lots of innocent people and as I understood the Irish and British legal systems (though it is arguable in the light of the political rush to be seen to be the toughest on crime), at least, on principle the conviction of the innocent is deemed to be the worst miscarriage of justice.
French appeal court support Yahoo
A French appeal court has ruled in favour of Yahoo in the long running dispute between the company and two groups of anti-semitism campaigners. The latest case was an attempt by the Union of Jewish Students and the International Anti-Racism and Anti-Semitism League to have Yahoo held liable for promoting and selling Nazi memorabilia.
In the original case, which threw up all kinds of fascinating jurisdictional issues, a French court ordered Yahoo to install software filters to block access for French residents to the section of the website offering the Nazi items for sale. This triggered righteous indignant moral outrage in the US about a French court daring to challenge the first amendment rights of a US company. Court cases in the US followed where the courts declared a French court could have no jurisdiction over a US company, operating a server on US soil.
We ended up with a kind of judicial stand off where the US courts said the French had no jurisdiction and the French courts said they did have jurisdiction on the grounds that they had the right to prevent anyone, including a foreign company, offering Nazi memorabilia for sale in France. They had a point too.
Yahoo did have a slight problem, though. The part of the website offering the Nazi items was written in French. So in the thick of all this lawyering, they quietly dropped the Nazi sales, whilst declaring it had nothing to do with the court case and that they would continue on principle to fight through the courts for the right of US companies to operate freely.
In the original case, which threw up all kinds of fascinating jurisdictional issues, a French court ordered Yahoo to install software filters to block access for French residents to the section of the website offering the Nazi items for sale. This triggered righteous indignant moral outrage in the US about a French court daring to challenge the first amendment rights of a US company. Court cases in the US followed where the courts declared a French court could have no jurisdiction over a US company, operating a server on US soil.
We ended up with a kind of judicial stand off where the US courts said the French had no jurisdiction and the French courts said they did have jurisdiction on the grounds that they had the right to prevent anyone, including a foreign company, offering Nazi memorabilia for sale in France. They had a point too.
Yahoo did have a slight problem, though. The part of the website offering the Nazi items was written in French. So in the thick of all this lawyering, they quietly dropped the Nazi sales, whilst declaring it had nothing to do with the court case and that they would continue on principle to fight through the courts for the right of US companies to operate freely.
Wednesday, April 06, 2005
EU parliament move to 2nd reading on sw patents
The EU parliament has dropped its formal objections to the procedural anomalies with the council of ministers' adoption the software patents directive.
""We are now embarking on the 2nd reading," Eva Lichtenberger, a prominent opponent in the Legal Committee to the decision reached by the Council, declared in a talk with heise online. So as to prepare for the vote in the plenary session of parliament Ms. Lichtenberger, who is an Austrian member of the EU Parliament, has demanded from the Council that the supplementary declarations by the eight "dissidents" in this body of representatives of national governments be made available unabridged and in complete translation to the peoples´ representatives."
""We are now embarking on the 2nd reading," Eva Lichtenberger, a prominent opponent in the Legal Committee to the decision reached by the Council, declared in a talk with heise online. So as to prepare for the vote in the plenary session of parliament Ms. Lichtenberger, who is an Austrian member of the EU Parliament, has demanded from the Council that the supplementary declarations by the eight "dissidents" in this body of representatives of national governments be made available unabridged and in complete translation to the peoples´ representatives."
Grokster back again and France declares war
There has been a vast amount of notable activity in cyberprof territory in the past few weeks, when I've not been posting here. Most notably MGM v Grokster reached the US Supreme Court on 29 March.
All the usual suspects covered the story.
I just wanted to draw your attention to the Washington Post article yesterday, though, suggesting that French President, Jacques Chirac, had quietly declared [cultural] war on Google, as a result of their project to digitise famous academic libraries.
"France declared war on the United States three weeks ago.
You didn't notice? Clearly, you're not French.
This war is being fought against one of America's greatest exports. Not rock 'n roll. Not McDonald's or the Disney Co. This time it's Google that the French have in their crosshairs.
Jean-Noel Jeanneney, president of France's Bibliotheque National, or National Library, declared last month that Google's project to create a searchable online database of the world's books constitutes the sunrise of an American hegemony over information and literature.
Jeanneney's call to arms rattled French President Jacques Chirac's saber. Along with French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, announced on March 17 that France would study ways for the European community to embark on a similar project so as to counter Google's thrust into the heartland of Euro-culture."
Great news frmo my perspective. The more that open access becomes a mainstream political issue the better, especially if the competition gets focussed on who can be the most open!
All the usual suspects covered the story.
I just wanted to draw your attention to the Washington Post article yesterday, though, suggesting that French President, Jacques Chirac, had quietly declared [cultural] war on Google, as a result of their project to digitise famous academic libraries.
"France declared war on the United States three weeks ago.
You didn't notice? Clearly, you're not French.
This war is being fought against one of America's greatest exports. Not rock 'n roll. Not McDonald's or the Disney Co. This time it's Google that the French have in their crosshairs.
Jean-Noel Jeanneney, president of France's Bibliotheque National, or National Library, declared last month that Google's project to create a searchable online database of the world's books constitutes the sunrise of an American hegemony over information and literature.
Jeanneney's call to arms rattled French President Jacques Chirac's saber. Along with French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, announced on March 17 that France would study ways for the European community to embark on a similar project so as to counter Google's thrust into the heartland of Euro-culture."
Great news frmo my perspective. The more that open access becomes a mainstream political issue the better, especially if the competition gets focussed on who can be the most open!
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
CC rewrites copyright -Washington Post
The Washington Post has an article suggesting that Creative Commons Is Rewriting Rules of Copyright. Whereas I think we're a long way from that, the project has certainly had a much bigger impact in its short life than I would have originally predicted.
"When Chuck D and the Fine Arts Militia released their latest single, "No Meaning No," several months ago, they didn't try to stop people from circulating free copies on the Internet. They encouraged it.
They posted the entire 3-minute, 12-second song and its various vocal, drum and guitar components online and invited everyone to view, copy, mix, remix, sample, imitate, parody and even criticize it.
The result has been the creation of a flood of derivative work ranging from classical twists on the hip-hop piece to video interpretations of the song. The musicians reveled in the instant fan base. They were so pleased that they recently decided to publish their next entire album, due later this spring, the same way, becoming the first major artists to do so...
So far, more than 10 million other creations -- ranging from the movie "Outfoxed" and songs by the Beastie Boys to the British Broadcasting Corp.'s news footage and the tech support books published under the O'Reilly label -- have been distributed using these licenses. The idea has even won the support of Hilary Rosen, formerly of the Recording Industry Association of America, and Jack Valenti, the past head of the Motion Picture Association of America, who became known for their aggressive pursuit of people who share free, unauthorized copies via the Internet."
"When Chuck D and the Fine Arts Militia released their latest single, "No Meaning No," several months ago, they didn't try to stop people from circulating free copies on the Internet. They encouraged it.
They posted the entire 3-minute, 12-second song and its various vocal, drum and guitar components online and invited everyone to view, copy, mix, remix, sample, imitate, parody and even criticize it.
The result has been the creation of a flood of derivative work ranging from classical twists on the hip-hop piece to video interpretations of the song. The musicians reveled in the instant fan base. They were so pleased that they recently decided to publish their next entire album, due later this spring, the same way, becoming the first major artists to do so...
So far, more than 10 million other creations -- ranging from the movie "Outfoxed" and songs by the Beastie Boys to the British Broadcasting Corp.'s news footage and the tech support books published under the O'Reilly label -- have been distributed using these licenses. The idea has even won the support of Hilary Rosen, formerly of the Recording Industry Association of America, and Jack Valenti, the past head of the Motion Picture Association of America, who became known for their aggressive pursuit of people who share free, unauthorized copies via the Internet."
The French domain name and the US chocolate co
This is a story I'd like to know a lot more about. On the surface it seems as if a small business woman in France has been ordered by a court to sign over her internet domain name www.milka.fr to a US food company, Kraft. The lady's first name, Milka, happens to be the same as a type of chocolate manufactured by Kraft. According to the report the court said Milka Budimir "made unjustified use of the registered trademark Milka that is owned by Kraft Foods."
Puts me in mind of the Bill Wyman case, where music journalist Bill Wyman, got a letter insisting he "cease and desist" from using his own name on his pop music reports because this infringed on the intellectual property rights of the letter writing lawyer's client, Bill Wyman, of ex Rolling Stones fame.
This name game is just one example of what makes intellectual property watching a bit of a surreal experience. As I say in my Open University course, soon to be released under a creative commons licence, now that the UK-England&Wales version of the licences are getting launched this evening, within the confines of the complex world of intellectual property law, this lawyer – this expert – could be considered, by fellow intellectual property specialists, to be acting reasonably in the interests of his client. It seems strange, however, that someone could be threatened with a lawsuit for using their own name. And worse still not only have to stump up the legal fees to defend such a lawsuit but in the end get ordered by a court to sign over their own name.
BTW, Good luck to Christian Ahlert, William Heath and all those involved in the production and launch of the CC licences (and in the ironing out of the last minute details - crucial to get the detail right, as Jonathan Mitchell and Hector MacQueen have consistently pointed out).
Puts me in mind of the Bill Wyman case, where music journalist Bill Wyman, got a letter insisting he "cease and desist" from using his own name on his pop music reports because this infringed on the intellectual property rights of the letter writing lawyer's client, Bill Wyman, of ex Rolling Stones fame.
This name game is just one example of what makes intellectual property watching a bit of a surreal experience. As I say in my Open University course, soon to be released under a creative commons licence, now that the UK-England&Wales version of the licences are getting launched this evening, within the confines of the complex world of intellectual property law, this lawyer – this expert – could be considered, by fellow intellectual property specialists, to be acting reasonably in the interests of his client. It seems strange, however, that someone could be threatened with a lawsuit for using their own name. And worse still not only have to stump up the legal fees to defend such a lawsuit but in the end get ordered by a court to sign over their own name.
BTW, Good luck to Christian Ahlert, William Heath and all those involved in the production and launch of the CC licences (and in the ironing out of the last minute details - crucial to get the detail right, as Jonathan Mitchell and Hector MacQueen have consistently pointed out).
EU Court allows new entrants in Microsoft case
The EU court of first instance in Luxembourg, to which Microsoft is appealing in relation to their antitrust sanctions dished out by the European Commission, have given another 9 organisations permission to intervene in the case. Five of these are on Microsoft's side, four on the Commission's.
Aussie actors group ban creative commons
This is very odd if it's true - the Australian Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), the Australian equivalent of the UK Equity actors union, have banned a film company from using their actors in a film to be released under a creative commons licence.
"MOD Films had sought a dispensation, since early January, to allow professional Australian actors to participate in the short (15 minute) film and had worked with actors agents to communicate the extent of the project before auditions. The cast chosen for Sanctuary had been offered 110% on top of the MEAA award rate to take part in the experiment...
Michela Ledwidge, the director of Sanctuary, and the recipient of the Inventions award that is primarily funding the film, said "Having worked for years to fund this project and bring it back home to Australia to showcase local talent, I'm both dismayed and rather embarrassed by the MEAA position. It is no small irony that the actors and talent agents, who supported our little pilot and our submission to the MEAA, have the most to lose from this decision. We will still make the film but plans for an Australian shoot will have to be revised."
MOD Films is yet to receive a written response to its formal submission to the MEAA."
"MOD Films had sought a dispensation, since early January, to allow professional Australian actors to participate in the short (15 minute) film and had worked with actors agents to communicate the extent of the project before auditions. The cast chosen for Sanctuary had been offered 110% on top of the MEAA award rate to take part in the experiment...
Michela Ledwidge, the director of Sanctuary, and the recipient of the Inventions award that is primarily funding the film, said "Having worked for years to fund this project and bring it back home to Australia to showcase local talent, I'm both dismayed and rather embarrassed by the MEAA position. It is no small irony that the actors and talent agents, who supported our little pilot and our submission to the MEAA, have the most to lose from this decision. We will still make the film but plans for an Australian shoot will have to be revised."
MOD Films is yet to receive a written response to its formal submission to the MEAA."
ID cards to be delayed until after election
The UK government look like they are going to have delay the progression of the ID card bill until after the general election, according to the Guardian. So, if Labour gets voted out there may well be no ID cards.
Monday, March 14, 2005
Blunkett comeback speech
David Blunkett, former Home Secreatary, is giving a comeback speech at the Institute for Public Policy Research on A new England? Identity, citizenship and belonging.
Apple v Real
This CIO story is a little behind the times, since Real launched the "Harmony" service last summer. Apple have since "upgraded" the iPod software so that iPod owners can no longer play Real-purchased songs on their expensive little music players.
PFI information to be available online
The FT says "An online database spelling out who owns what and where in public-private partnerships and private finance initiative projects is about to go live."
Gene patents and extraditing copyright infringers
A study by Illinois Institute of Technology researchers has concluded that the US Patent Office has been approving gene patents when the application don't meet the basic requirements for securing a patent - that it must be useful, not obvious and involve an inventive step.
Meanwhile, Aussie Hew Raymond Griffiths has lost his case against extradition to the US for conspiring to engage in and engaing in " Internet software piracy in the United States in violation of federal criminal copyright laws of that country." Kim Weatherall says "I have no view on the particular acts that Griffiths has engaged in, but extradition to the US for copyright infringement is a truly frightening prospect - particularly given that their penalties are higher. We can only hope that it doesn't become a habit for the US to seek such removal. Surely Australians can be prosecuted here if there is strong evidence of criminal copyright infringement."
Meanwhile, Aussie Hew Raymond Griffiths has lost his case against extradition to the US for conspiring to engage in and engaing in " Internet software piracy in the United States in violation of federal criminal copyright laws of that country." Kim Weatherall says "I have no view on the particular acts that Griffiths has engaged in, but extradition to the US for copyright infringement is a truly frightening prospect - particularly given that their penalties are higher. We can only hope that it doesn't become a habit for the US to seek such removal. Surely Australians can be prosecuted here if there is strong evidence of criminal copyright infringement."
Negativeland v Apple
David Bollier wonders "Who Should Control “U” and “2”? The Plot Thickens"
"First came the legendary legal battle over who should be able to control the letter “U” and the numeral “2” – the rock group U2 or anyone (including the mischievous band Negativland)? Now we have a hilarious sequel that asks, If Apple can sell a “special edition” iPod in honor of U2, can anyone buy an iPod and create their own “special edition” (celebrating Negativland, for example), and sell it on eBay? Apple – the computer company that urges us to “Rip, Mix, Burn,” the company that presents itself as the height of cool and groovy – has bared its stony corporate face and declared: No. You may not make fun of U2, the Apple iPod or its marketing campaign."
Apple will ultimately lose out in the marketplace with this protectionism and bundling, just as they did in the personal computer business when Microsoft came along selling licences for software to generic PC makers.
"First came the legendary legal battle over who should be able to control the letter “U” and the numeral “2” – the rock group U2 or anyone (including the mischievous band Negativland)? Now we have a hilarious sequel that asks, If Apple can sell a “special edition” iPod in honor of U2, can anyone buy an iPod and create their own “special edition” (celebrating Negativland, for example), and sell it on eBay? Apple – the computer company that urges us to “Rip, Mix, Burn,” the company that presents itself as the height of cool and groovy – has bared its stony corporate face and declared: No. You may not make fun of U2, the Apple iPod or its marketing campaign."
Apple will ultimately lose out in the marketplace with this protectionism and bundling, just as they did in the personal computer business when Microsoft came along selling licences for software to generic PC makers.
Buy an EU law
Somebody is sufficiently irritated with the Luxebourg presidency's railroading through of the software patents directive to insult the entire country.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Whose air is it anyway
Jonathan Rowe, On the Commons, ponders the questions of increasingly widespread use of illegal mobile phone jamming devices.
"I love tools. I stop at hardware stores sometimes just to look at them. The utter economy of a screwdriver and hammer feels almost cleansing in a society built upon diseconomy and waste.
Technology is another matter. Technology is what happens when the tool becomes the task, rather than just a means of doing the task. Usually it doesn’t so much solve problems as shift them around and create new ones. Cars, televisions, cell phones – we all could make a list.
Did I say cell phones? They are a prime example, but also the cause of a technology that I am rooting for these days. It is cell phone jammers, which, according to the New York Post, “are selling like hotcakes on the streets of New York.” The headline on the story was a tabloid classic: “Shut the Cell Up.”
It’s not just individuals who are buying the jammers. Restaurants and schools are buying them too (Profs are getting fed up with students who tap away on phones during class.) Catholic priests use them to shut up the ringers during mass...
In a rare display of good sense, the Federal Communications Commission has determined it has bigger fish to fry, and no one has been prosecuted to date. Still, the very existence of the law is instructive, especially the premise that underlies it. The government contends that since telecom corporations have paid money for the spectrum over which the cell phone chatter passes, to silence the phones is to rob these corporations of something they own. They own the air, so they get to fill the air which as much yak as they want. More precisely, their customers do.
But there’s air, and then there’s air. Telecom Inc might “own” the cell phone spectrum, but what about the ambient air that Ms. Bigmouth violates when she screams into her cell phone? What about the spillover from Telecom’s air into ours? In the reasoning of the FCC our air doesn’t count. Ms. Bigmouth can emit all the noise into it she wants. But we can’t send an electronic signal into that same air and fill it with quiet. Noise is important; silence isn’t. The boisterous yammering of one person takes priority over the desire of fifty or a hundred others for a little peace.
This premise goes to the core of the fatuous belief in technology and progress. There was a time when space seemed vast and the challenge was to conquer it and fill it. Now, as space fills up, that dynamic is starting to hit the wall. Sooner or later cell phone jammers are going to force the issue, in this small realm at least. The government is going to have to articulate exactly why noise is more important than quiet, and why one person should be able to ruin the common air for everyone else."
As Heidegger said, technology is often just our way of arranging the world so we don't have to experience it... the mobile phone is merely communications barrier between people sharing the same real world space, a room, a train, a bus.
Rowe's thoughts on an honest tricycle driver are also worth a read.
"One day not long ago Darwin Calvario did have a rider of means. He didn’t know it at the time. But later, on the passenger seat, he found a bag with checks and cash worth 296,000 Philippine pesos, which is about half a year’s middle class income in that country. He normally makes about P150 a day, or about three dollars U.S.
For Mr. Calvario there was a more pressing metric. One of his four sons was born without an anal opening (technically an “imperforate anus”). When he was born 3 years ago the family had to scrounge P100,000 for an operation so that he could wear a colostomy bag. Some of the money came from loan sharks. The bags alone cost P70 a day and the now the child is in desperate need of a second operation before it is too late to have a normal life.
The P296,000 in his passenger seat must have seemed a gift from heaven. Calvario might well have thought about the kleptocracy in his own country, and the moral equivalent in the corporate U.S., and thought, “Why not me?” His fellow drivers urged him to keep the money. As reported in the Philippines Inquirer, he went home that day and brooded. That night he hardly slept. The next day, partly at his wife’s urging, he tracked down the passenger and returned the money."
"I love tools. I stop at hardware stores sometimes just to look at them. The utter economy of a screwdriver and hammer feels almost cleansing in a society built upon diseconomy and waste.
Technology is another matter. Technology is what happens when the tool becomes the task, rather than just a means of doing the task. Usually it doesn’t so much solve problems as shift them around and create new ones. Cars, televisions, cell phones – we all could make a list.
Did I say cell phones? They are a prime example, but also the cause of a technology that I am rooting for these days. It is cell phone jammers, which, according to the New York Post, “are selling like hotcakes on the streets of New York.” The headline on the story was a tabloid classic: “Shut the Cell Up.”
It’s not just individuals who are buying the jammers. Restaurants and schools are buying them too (Profs are getting fed up with students who tap away on phones during class.) Catholic priests use them to shut up the ringers during mass...
In a rare display of good sense, the Federal Communications Commission has determined it has bigger fish to fry, and no one has been prosecuted to date. Still, the very existence of the law is instructive, especially the premise that underlies it. The government contends that since telecom corporations have paid money for the spectrum over which the cell phone chatter passes, to silence the phones is to rob these corporations of something they own. They own the air, so they get to fill the air which as much yak as they want. More precisely, their customers do.
But there’s air, and then there’s air. Telecom Inc might “own” the cell phone spectrum, but what about the ambient air that Ms. Bigmouth violates when she screams into her cell phone? What about the spillover from Telecom’s air into ours? In the reasoning of the FCC our air doesn’t count. Ms. Bigmouth can emit all the noise into it she wants. But we can’t send an electronic signal into that same air and fill it with quiet. Noise is important; silence isn’t. The boisterous yammering of one person takes priority over the desire of fifty or a hundred others for a little peace.
This premise goes to the core of the fatuous belief in technology and progress. There was a time when space seemed vast and the challenge was to conquer it and fill it. Now, as space fills up, that dynamic is starting to hit the wall. Sooner or later cell phone jammers are going to force the issue, in this small realm at least. The government is going to have to articulate exactly why noise is more important than quiet, and why one person should be able to ruin the common air for everyone else."
As Heidegger said, technology is often just our way of arranging the world so we don't have to experience it... the mobile phone is merely communications barrier between people sharing the same real world space, a room, a train, a bus.
Rowe's thoughts on an honest tricycle driver are also worth a read.
"One day not long ago Darwin Calvario did have a rider of means. He didn’t know it at the time. But later, on the passenger seat, he found a bag with checks and cash worth 296,000 Philippine pesos, which is about half a year’s middle class income in that country. He normally makes about P150 a day, or about three dollars U.S.
For Mr. Calvario there was a more pressing metric. One of his four sons was born without an anal opening (technically an “imperforate anus”). When he was born 3 years ago the family had to scrounge P100,000 for an operation so that he could wear a colostomy bag. Some of the money came from loan sharks. The bags alone cost P70 a day and the now the child is in desperate need of a second operation before it is too late to have a normal life.
The P296,000 in his passenger seat must have seemed a gift from heaven. Calvario might well have thought about the kleptocracy in his own country, and the moral equivalent in the corporate U.S., and thought, “Why not me?” His fellow drivers urged him to keep the money. As reported in the Philippines Inquirer, he went home that day and brooded. That night he hardly slept. The next day, partly at his wife’s urging, he tracked down the passenger and returned the money."
Becky Hogge at Open Democracy says the ongoing IP war "is a contest over freedom as well as technology.
"Fights for freedom are not always played out centre-stage. Since 2003, a piece of European Union legislation with the misleadingly arcane title of the “EU Directive on Computer Implemented Innovation” has been slipping unobtrusively through the bureaucratic thickets of Brussels. It has attracted little attention beyond intellectual property (IP) specialists and activists. It is time the interest widened, for the scope of the directive goes to the heart of how knowledge will be produced, consumed, and disseminated in the 21st-century global economy.
The proposed legislation has the potential to lock away information – code – by extending the remit of patent law to cover any piece of code that makes a “significant technical contribution” to the field. The law would bring Europe closer to the United States’s highly promiscuous attitude towards software patents, although how close remains a subject of fierce debate."
"Fights for freedom are not always played out centre-stage. Since 2003, a piece of European Union legislation with the misleadingly arcane title of the “EU Directive on Computer Implemented Innovation” has been slipping unobtrusively through the bureaucratic thickets of Brussels. It has attracted little attention beyond intellectual property (IP) specialists and activists. It is time the interest widened, for the scope of the directive goes to the heart of how knowledge will be produced, consumed, and disseminated in the 21st-century global economy.
The proposed legislation has the potential to lock away information – code – by extending the remit of patent law to cover any piece of code that makes a “significant technical contribution” to the field. The law would bring Europe closer to the United States’s highly promiscuous attitude towards software patents, although how close remains a subject of fierce debate."
French court releases serial film downloader
The French Court of Appeal of Montpellier apparently said yesterday that downloading copyrighted films from the Internet for private use was defensible in France. Yet another French court handed out a big fine for the same activity in January.
INDICARE adds that "Once a work has been disclosed, the author may not prohibit: 2°. copies or reproductions reserved strictly for the private use of the copier and not intended for collective use (...)
This does not mean that the Court has judged that movie downloading is now legal in France on a general basis. Though I have not (yet) seen the judgment, it (probably) gives the indication that private use may be a defense against a claim of copyright infringement for downloading. While this might be called a recognition of the private copying clause in the digital environment, it is not clear if this will hold up. There are currently about 50 comparable criminal cases pending, and in the past users have been sentenced for these acts. It has to be seen if this decision will be followed in the future.
Towards DRMs the private copying clause does not do much good. An earlier French court decision made it clear that private copying should be regarded as a defense and not a right Consequently it cannot be called upon against the rightsholder. If a user cannot make a copy the private use exception will not provide a legal tool to achieve this. The optimists of Audionautes might say that downloading now provides a legal alternative."
INDICARE adds that "Once a work has been disclosed, the author may not prohibit: 2°. copies or reproductions reserved strictly for the private use of the copier and not intended for collective use (...)
This does not mean that the Court has judged that movie downloading is now legal in France on a general basis. Though I have not (yet) seen the judgment, it (probably) gives the indication that private use may be a defense against a claim of copyright infringement for downloading. While this might be called a recognition of the private copying clause in the digital environment, it is not clear if this will hold up. There are currently about 50 comparable criminal cases pending, and in the past users have been sentenced for these acts. It has to be seen if this decision will be followed in the future.
Towards DRMs the private copying clause does not do much good. An earlier French court decision made it clear that private copying should be regarded as a defense and not a right Consequently it cannot be called upon against the rightsholder. If a user cannot make a copy the private use exception will not provide a legal tool to achieve this. The optimists of Audionautes might say that downloading now provides a legal alternative."
Principles for the Internet in the age of terrorism
Cory on Dan Gillmor's working group on terrorism and the Net at the Madrid summit.
"In Madrid, they're honoring the anniversary of the March 11 train-bombing with a summit on Democracy, Security and Terrorism. Dan Gillmor is there, in a working group on terrorism and the Internet, and they've drafted a fantastic set prinxiples for the Internet in the age of terrorism, click the link for the whole thing and a message-board where you can discuss it.
I. The Internet is a foundation of democratic society in the 21st century, because the core values of the Internet and democracy are so closely aligned.
1. The Internet is fundamentally about openness, participation, and freedom of expression for all -- increasing the diversity and reach of information and ideas.
2. The Internet allows people to communicate and collaborate across borders and belief systems.
3. The Internet unites families and cultures in diaspora; it connects people, helping them to form civil societies.
4. The Internet can foster economic development by connecting people to information and markets.
5. The Internet introduces new ideas and views to those who may be isolated and prone to political violence.
6. The Internet is neither above nor below the law. The same legal principles that apply in the physical world also apply to human activities conducted over the Internet.
Link"
"In Madrid, they're honoring the anniversary of the March 11 train-bombing with a summit on Democracy, Security and Terrorism. Dan Gillmor is there, in a working group on terrorism and the Internet, and they've drafted a fantastic set prinxiples for the Internet in the age of terrorism, click the link for the whole thing and a message-board where you can discuss it.
I. The Internet is a foundation of democratic society in the 21st century, because the core values of the Internet and democracy are so closely aligned.
1. The Internet is fundamentally about openness, participation, and freedom of expression for all -- increasing the diversity and reach of information and ideas.
2. The Internet allows people to communicate and collaborate across borders and belief systems.
3. The Internet unites families and cultures in diaspora; it connects people, helping them to form civil societies.
4. The Internet can foster economic development by connecting people to information and markets.
5. The Internet introduces new ideas and views to those who may be isolated and prone to political violence.
6. The Internet is neither above nor below the law. The same legal principles that apply in the physical world also apply to human activities conducted over the Internet.
Link"
Phone ban to stop 'text bullies'
"A secondary school plans to ban its pupils from bringing in mobile phones as a way of stopping bullying via text." According to the BBC.
High Court orders ISPs to identify customers
Th High Court in London has ordered six UK ISPs to identify 31 people who have allegedly uploaded large numbers of copyrighted songs to the Internet. They have 14 days to do so, according to the Register.
Seanchaà Dave Allen dies
One of the great seanchaÃs of Irish comedy, Dave Allen, has died. Much disapproved of by Irish mothers (due to his occasional foul language) and the catholic church (due to his satirical take on that auspicious body), I still remember one of my early encounters with his humour, when he had me in stitches discussing TV adverts for a toilet cleaner, that "kills 99% of all known germs.... dead." Kills them dead says Allen, "...what about the other 1%" and he goes on to relate in hilarious fashion, with bulging eyes and funny faces, the notion of a superbug feeding and thriving on the chemicals from the cleaner.
What made his style so effective was that it was so true to life. He'll be sadly missed.
What made his style so effective was that it was so true to life. He'll be sadly missed.
Cold
Deborah Lipstadt was cold when she went along as part of a US presidential delegation to the 60 year memorial service at Auschwitz last month. When she was there she reflected on the writings of the survivors, like Primo Levi.
"Levi attributed his survival during those difficult last days to the friendship and support of a small group of men who were in the hospital with him. Their only goal, he told Philip Roth years later, was to save "the lives of our sick comrades." On the night of the 26th of January one of them died. Levi and his friends were too cold and exhausted to bury him. There was nothing to do but go back to sleep and wait for the next day. "The Russians arrived while Charles and I were carrying Sómogyi a little distance outside. He was very light. We overturned the stretcher on the gray snow. Charles took off his beret. I regretted not having a beret."
Sixty years later, as darkness fell over Auschwitz, I turned to one of the members of our delegation and said: "It's really cold. I regret not having worn another layer of clothing." Suddenly Levi's words came cascading back on me. I was embarrassed. And then without explaining why, I stood up in silent tribute not just to Sómogyi, but to the countless nameless others who had died there or those, such as Elie Wiesel's father, who died soon after the death march. I also stood for people such as Levi, who survived but bore the terrible wounds of the place for the rest of their lives.
Despite the sharp wind, I took off my hat. After all, I had one."
"Levi attributed his survival during those difficult last days to the friendship and support of a small group of men who were in the hospital with him. Their only goal, he told Philip Roth years later, was to save "the lives of our sick comrades." On the night of the 26th of January one of them died. Levi and his friends were too cold and exhausted to bury him. There was nothing to do but go back to sleep and wait for the next day. "The Russians arrived while Charles and I were carrying Sómogyi a little distance outside. He was very light. We overturned the stretcher on the gray snow. Charles took off his beret. I regretted not having a beret."
Sixty years later, as darkness fell over Auschwitz, I turned to one of the members of our delegation and said: "It's really cold. I regret not having worn another layer of clothing." Suddenly Levi's words came cascading back on me. I was embarrassed. And then without explaining why, I stood up in silent tribute not just to Sómogyi, but to the countless nameless others who had died there or those, such as Elie Wiesel's father, who died soon after the death march. I also stood for people such as Levi, who survived but bore the terrible wounds of the place for the rest of their lives.
Despite the sharp wind, I took off my hat. After all, I had one."
Legitimate use, open source, keep BitTorrent out of court
The MPAA won't be targetting BitTottent according to Jay Lyman at NewsForge:
"In an interview, MPAA Senior Vice President of Worldwide Anti-piracy Operations John Malcolm said the MPAA has no qualms with BitTorrent as a technology.
"I am totally agnostic about the technology that is involved," Malcolm said. "I view innovations as exciting. While they present some piracy problems, there are tons of opportunities for creative people to put content in peoples' hands at a reasonable price."
Malcolm indicated he was not favorable to BitTorrent over any other technology and added the fact that it is open source has little to do with his organization's approach."
"In an interview, MPAA Senior Vice President of Worldwide Anti-piracy Operations John Malcolm said the MPAA has no qualms with BitTorrent as a technology.
"I am totally agnostic about the technology that is involved," Malcolm said. "I view innovations as exciting. While they present some piracy problems, there are tons of opportunities for creative people to put content in peoples' hands at a reasonable price."
Malcolm indicated he was not favorable to BitTorrent over any other technology and added the fact that it is open source has little to do with his organization's approach."
Who Owns What?
From David Morris at Common Dreams, George Bush’s “Ownership Society” Leaves Out the Things We Actually Own — Our Bodies, Our Privacy, Our Dignity, Our Bedrooms.
ID cards may slip through
Rchard Allan, Liberal Democrat MP for Sheffield Hallam, seems to think that, with time running out because of the ongoing farce of the terrorism-ping-pong between the two houses of parliament, the government might do a "Bertie and the boys" job on ID cards and slip them through just before the election without a debate.
I hope he's wrong.
I hope he's wrong.
We are not afraid
This Guardian story says more than the usual media reports about the reality that constitutes the de-stabilized society that is parts of Northern Ireland, a reality that soundbite politicians chasing the next headline will never truly understand.
"Republicanism runs as deep as the river here. The first northern rebel to die in the 1916 Easter Rising was a Short Strand man, killed in faraway County Kerry. But it was to be the events of June 27 1970 that gave Short Strand a unique place in republican mythology and gave the fledgling Provisional IRA its first claim to be the protector of the minority Catholic community.
With the streets around the area thronged with a huge Protestant mob intent on burning the Catholics out, and the British Army and the old RUC apparently content to stand by, a handful of IRA men led by Billy McKee made a stand in the grounds of St Matthew's Church, which has gone down in republican history as the Provo Alamo.
McKee was badly wounded and another IRA volunteer killed in the gun battle, in which three loyalists also died. The battle finally put paid to the bitter Catholic taunt that IRA stood for "I Ran Away"...
In the days after the murder, the family was in shock that the IRA could kill one of their own, an innocent Catholic who voted Sinn Fein because he thought they could deliver peace. They did not immediately speak out. On the Short Strand that was a decision not to be taken lightly. But when they saw that the IRA and Sinn Fein were remaining silent, people began to vent their anger, saying the IRA were out of control, a gang of thugs, paedophiles, rapists and bullies. The once unthinkable graffiti "PIRA scum" appeared on walls. More than 700 came out for a street vigil. Normally when the IRA kill one of their own, few people come to the funeral, but around 1,000 lined the streets as the cortege snaked past. There were 64 death notices in the Irish News...
The family are setting up an office from which to run a Truth and Justice for Robert campaign. It seems an almost inhuman burden for one family to take on. But they say they will keep going. Gerry Adams said this week that the IRA will not be "embarrassed, demonised or repressed out of existence". Nor will the McCartneys."
It is the extraordinary ordinary people, like the McCartney sisters and their murdered brother's fiancee, Bridgeen Hagans, that will ultimately defeat the abuse of terrorism, not the sadly comical and potentially dangerous antics of politicians attempting to show who can stay awake the longest.
Two well worn quotes come to mind,
Edmund Burke said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Ben Franklin said that anyone who would give up a little essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety.
Having got slightly distracted by this story I'd just add a little addendum: anyone with a serious interest in understanding the political situation in Northern Ireland could do a lot worse than start with Tim Pat Coogan's excellent book, The Troubles. A past long time editor of one of Ireland's leading newspapers, The Irish Press, an admittedly republican-leaning publication, Coogan nevertheless brings an analytical historian's perspective to the immediate 30-year backdrop of today's Northern Irish politics.
"Republicanism runs as deep as the river here. The first northern rebel to die in the 1916 Easter Rising was a Short Strand man, killed in faraway County Kerry. But it was to be the events of June 27 1970 that gave Short Strand a unique place in republican mythology and gave the fledgling Provisional IRA its first claim to be the protector of the minority Catholic community.
With the streets around the area thronged with a huge Protestant mob intent on burning the Catholics out, and the British Army and the old RUC apparently content to stand by, a handful of IRA men led by Billy McKee made a stand in the grounds of St Matthew's Church, which has gone down in republican history as the Provo Alamo.
McKee was badly wounded and another IRA volunteer killed in the gun battle, in which three loyalists also died. The battle finally put paid to the bitter Catholic taunt that IRA stood for "I Ran Away"...
In the days after the murder, the family was in shock that the IRA could kill one of their own, an innocent Catholic who voted Sinn Fein because he thought they could deliver peace. They did not immediately speak out. On the Short Strand that was a decision not to be taken lightly. But when they saw that the IRA and Sinn Fein were remaining silent, people began to vent their anger, saying the IRA were out of control, a gang of thugs, paedophiles, rapists and bullies. The once unthinkable graffiti "PIRA scum" appeared on walls. More than 700 came out for a street vigil. Normally when the IRA kill one of their own, few people come to the funeral, but around 1,000 lined the streets as the cortege snaked past. There were 64 death notices in the Irish News...
The family are setting up an office from which to run a Truth and Justice for Robert campaign. It seems an almost inhuman burden for one family to take on. But they say they will keep going. Gerry Adams said this week that the IRA will not be "embarrassed, demonised or repressed out of existence". Nor will the McCartneys."
It is the extraordinary ordinary people, like the McCartney sisters and their murdered brother's fiancee, Bridgeen Hagans, that will ultimately defeat the abuse of terrorism, not the sadly comical and potentially dangerous antics of politicians attempting to show who can stay awake the longest.
Two well worn quotes come to mind,
Edmund Burke said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Ben Franklin said that anyone who would give up a little essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety.
Having got slightly distracted by this story I'd just add a little addendum: anyone with a serious interest in understanding the political situation in Northern Ireland could do a lot worse than start with Tim Pat Coogan's excellent book, The Troubles. A past long time editor of one of Ireland's leading newspapers, The Irish Press, an admittedly republican-leaning publication, Coogan nevertheless brings an analytical historian's perspective to the immediate 30-year backdrop of today's Northern Irish politics.
WIPO comic parody
If you like comics, you'll like this and the WIPO version it is ripping and mixing.
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