Friday, May 20, 2005
Law, the Internet and Society going offline pro tem
My Open University 'Law, the Internet and Society' course, recently released under a creative commons license, is going offline temporarily. If you click on the course link above you'll get the full explanation. We're hoping to be back up again soon but in the meantime please bear with us and apologies for any inconvenience caused.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Welcome trust mandate open access
The Welcome Trust have announced today that
"From 1st October 2005, all papers from new research projects must be deposited in PubMed Central or UK PubMed Central – once it has been formed - within 6 months of publication.
The move comes as part of a drive from the UK’s biggest medical research charity to push forward open access publication of scientific literature, making findings freely available to those who want to see them."
Excellent news.
"From 1st October 2005, all papers from new research projects must be deposited in PubMed Central or UK PubMed Central – once it has been formed - within 6 months of publication.
The move comes as part of a drive from the UK’s biggest medical research charity to push forward open access publication of scientific literature, making findings freely available to those who want to see them."
Excellent news.
Quotes of the day
"The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."
"Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
Both of these are attributed to Mark Twain. Actually, for "member of Congress" you could substitute whoever suits you or even just a suit.
"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it."
Chinese Proverb.
"Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
Both of these are attributed to Mark Twain. Actually, for "member of Congress" you could substitute whoever suits you or even just a suit.
"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it."
Chinese Proverb.
Feynman judging books
Richard Feynman's description of his involvement in California's Curriculum Commission is a damning indictment of the way school text books were chosen at the time.
Gatto's 6 lesson school teacher
John Taylor Gatto's "The Six-Lesson Schoolteacher" is highly recommended.
"Teaching means many different things, but six lessons are common to schoolteaching from Harlem to Hollywood. You pay for these lessons in more ways than you can imagine, so you might as well know what they are:
The first lesson I teach is: "Stay in the class where you belong." I don't know who decides that my kids belong there but that's not my business. The children are numbered so that if any get away they can be returned to the right class. Over the years the variety of ways children are numbered has increased dramatically, until it is hard to see the human being under the burden of the numbers each carries. Numbering children is a big and very profitable business, though what the business is designed to accomplish is elusive..."
"Teaching means many different things, but six lessons are common to schoolteaching from Harlem to Hollywood. You pay for these lessons in more ways than you can imagine, so you might as well know what they are:
The first lesson I teach is: "Stay in the class where you belong." I don't know who decides that my kids belong there but that's not my business. The children are numbered so that if any get away they can be returned to the right class. Over the years the variety of ways children are numbered has increased dramatically, until it is hard to see the human being under the burden of the numbers each carries. Numbering children is a big and very profitable business, though what the business is designed to accomplish is elusive..."
Top 10 things the UN does well
Democracy Arsenal have a list of the top ten things they believe the UN does well.
This is the first time I've come across this blog (thanks to Owen Barder for the link) and I have to admit it only caught my eye because my team are playing in the cup final in a couple of days.
This is the first time I've come across this blog (thanks to Owen Barder for the link) and I have to admit it only caught my eye because my team are playing in the cup final in a couple of days.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
Wired on BBC
Cory is praising the BBC in the latest Wired.
"America's entertainment industry is committing slow, spectacular suicide, while one of Europe's biggest broadcasters -- the BBC -- is rushing headlong to the future, embracing innovation rather than fighting it.
Unlike Hollywood, the BBC is eager and willing to work with a burgeoning group of content providers whose interests are aligned with its own: its audience.
The BBC's news website is the first commercial news-gathering organization in the Western world to solicit and give prominence to photographs and reporting provided by its visitors...
Stef Magdalinski, a hacker-agitator-entrepreneur, responded with a guerrilla project called Wikiproxy, which rips all the news stories coming off the BBC news wire and mixes them by linking every proper noun to its corresponding Wikipedia entry. Of course, this burns to a crisp the old BBC policy against linking to external sites.
Rather than sue, the BBC created BBC Backstage, a service for remixing the Beeb that launched last week.
With Backstage, BBC's online department takes all the goop in its content-management system -- sports scores and TV listings, breaking news and editorials, conferences and weather -- and exposes it as a set of standard programming interfaces. Anyone who can hack a little Perl or Python can mix these into any kind of service they can imagine.
The crowning glory of the Beeb's openness is the Creative Archive. "
"America's entertainment industry is committing slow, spectacular suicide, while one of Europe's biggest broadcasters -- the BBC -- is rushing headlong to the future, embracing innovation rather than fighting it.
Unlike Hollywood, the BBC is eager and willing to work with a burgeoning group of content providers whose interests are aligned with its own: its audience.
The BBC's news website is the first commercial news-gathering organization in the Western world to solicit and give prominence to photographs and reporting provided by its visitors...
Stef Magdalinski, a hacker-agitator-entrepreneur, responded with a guerrilla project called Wikiproxy, which rips all the news stories coming off the BBC news wire and mixes them by linking every proper noun to its corresponding Wikipedia entry. Of course, this burns to a crisp the old BBC policy against linking to external sites.
Rather than sue, the BBC created BBC Backstage, a service for remixing the Beeb that launched last week.
With Backstage, BBC's online department takes all the goop in its content-management system -- sports scores and TV listings, breaking news and editorials, conferences and weather -- and exposes it as a set of standard programming interfaces. Anyone who can hack a little Perl or Python can mix these into any kind of service they can imagine.
The crowning glory of the Beeb's openness is the Creative Archive. "
$5 a month for music to kill the RIAA?
Barry Ritholz and Mark Cuban reckon the RIAA lawsuits against individuals are on the way out.
"Yahoo’s Music Unlimited Service sets the new marketvalue for all the music you can download in a month…5 bucks.
The RIAA can no longer claim that students who are downloading music are costing them thousands of dollars each. They can’t claim much of anything actually. In essence, Yahoo just turned possession of a controlled music substance into a misdemeanor. Payable by a $5 per month fine."
"Yahoo’s Music Unlimited Service sets the new marketvalue for all the music you can download in a month…5 bucks.
The RIAA can no longer claim that students who are downloading music are costing them thousands of dollars each. They can’t claim much of anything actually. In essence, Yahoo just turned possession of a controlled music substance into a misdemeanor. Payable by a $5 per month fine."
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Everything bad is good for you
Cory is enthusiastically recommending Steven Johnson's new book, Everything Bad is Good for You: How today's popular culture is actually making us smarter.
"the beneficial elements of videogames and TV arise not from their subject matter, but from their format, which require that players and viewers winkle out complex storylines and puzzles, getting a "cognitive workout" that teaches the same kind of skills that math problems and chess games impart. As Johnson points out, no one evaluates the benefit of chess based on its storyline or monotonically militaristic subject matter."
This is not a new thesis, of course, and many educators have been aware of the potential of new technologies in education for years.
"the beneficial elements of videogames and TV arise not from their subject matter, but from their format, which require that players and viewers winkle out complex storylines and puzzles, getting a "cognitive workout" that teaches the same kind of skills that math problems and chess games impart. As Johnson points out, no one evaluates the benefit of chess based on its storyline or monotonically militaristic subject matter."
This is not a new thesis, of course, and many educators have been aware of the potential of new technologies in education for years.
Disappearing civil liberties mug
This is funny - a disappearing civil liberties mug.
"The Disappearing Civil Liberties Mug is covered with the complete text of The Bill of Rights. But when you pour in hot liquids, the Rights that are infringed by Ashcroft's Patriot Act vanish before your very eyes!"
Fits with my mood today and some somewhat sad, comical and surreal politics I've been dealing with.
"The Disappearing Civil Liberties Mug is covered with the complete text of The Bill of Rights. But when you pour in hot liquids, the Rights that are infringed by Ashcroft's Patriot Act vanish before your very eyes!"
Fits with my mood today and some somewhat sad, comical and surreal politics I've been dealing with.
Amazon and self publishing
Interesting essay on Kuro5hin.
"Amazon's recent purchase of two companies (Booksurge and Mobipocket) hints at a future business strategy geared not only to the long tail concept but also self-publishing in general."
"Amazon's recent purchase of two companies (Booksurge and Mobipocket) hints at a future business strategy geared not only to the long tail concept but also self-publishing in general."
Monday, May 16, 2005
Technology Review on IP
Identity blog
William Heath on Kim Cameron's recent comments about the UK ID card and the LSE's report on the issue.
"The LSE (London School of Economics) has released The Identity Project - An assessment of the UK Identity Cards Bill & its implications. (Interim Report). Ideal Government says:
It demolishes both the government’s published aims and their proposals.
Should such repeated high profile failures raise questions about the future of the Home Office: Has the current Home Office itself become a major threat to the UK?
I know everyone is busy, but really, take a look at this thoughtful report.
It is a breakthrough piece of work in exploring, in a holistic and all-sided way, the relation between social issues and technologies of identity. I suspect that government technology leaders and policy makers around the globe will pay increasingly more attention to the thinking it represents - if they want to avoid the missteps against which it is a reaction. The report includes a discussion of identity initiatives in France, giving the impression that the French have already transcended many of the problems not addressed in the British Government's proposals."
He's right - it's well worth taking the time to read the LSE report in full.
"The LSE (London School of Economics) has released The Identity Project - An assessment of the UK Identity Cards Bill & its implications. (Interim Report). Ideal Government says:
It demolishes both the government’s published aims and their proposals.
Should such repeated high profile failures raise questions about the future of the Home Office: Has the current Home Office itself become a major threat to the UK?
I know everyone is busy, but really, take a look at this thoughtful report.
It is a breakthrough piece of work in exploring, in a holistic and all-sided way, the relation between social issues and technologies of identity. I suspect that government technology leaders and policy makers around the globe will pay increasingly more attention to the thinking it represents - if they want to avoid the missteps against which it is a reaction. The report includes a discussion of identity initiatives in France, giving the impression that the French have already transcended many of the problems not addressed in the British Government's proposals."
He's right - it's well worth taking the time to read the LSE report in full.
$100 laptops
According to the Industry Standard, MIT's Negroponte expects $100 laptops next year
"The machine won't be available in shops. The company, which has the working title of The $100 Laptop Co., plans to sell laptops in-bulk, directly to government ministries and isn't looking to make a profit. About half the price of a current laptop computer is accounted for by marketing, sales, distribution channels and profit, so removing those aspects will provide big cost savings, Negroponte said.
The remaining half of the laptop's cost is accounted for by the parts and manufacturing, and Negroponte is planning savings there too. Roughly two thirds of this cost is the display panel and associated backlight, but Negroponte's version of the machine will use a projection display system that costs a total of about $30, he said.
"The rest of the cost is there to support an absolutely obese, overweight and unreliable operating system. If you get rid of that and start with a thin, tiny operating system you can do an awful lot," Negroponte said.
The laptop will run Linux"
Sounds like he and John should get together. This and Ndiyo are all about breaking down the barriers to access to the digital communications revolution.
"The machine won't be available in shops. The company, which has the working title of The $100 Laptop Co., plans to sell laptops in-bulk, directly to government ministries and isn't looking to make a profit. About half the price of a current laptop computer is accounted for by marketing, sales, distribution channels and profit, so removing those aspects will provide big cost savings, Negroponte said.
The remaining half of the laptop's cost is accounted for by the parts and manufacturing, and Negroponte is planning savings there too. Roughly two thirds of this cost is the display panel and associated backlight, but Negroponte's version of the machine will use a projection display system that costs a total of about $30, he said.
"The rest of the cost is there to support an absolutely obese, overweight and unreliable operating system. If you get rid of that and start with a thin, tiny operating system you can do an awful lot," Negroponte said.
The laptop will run Linux"
Sounds like he and John should get together. This and Ndiyo are all about breaking down the barriers to access to the digital communications revolution.
Office of Public Sector Information
The UK government now has an "Office of Public Sector Information". Infolaw reports it thus:
"HMSO replaced/rebadged/subsumed by OPSI?
"With the implementation of the EU Directive on the re-use of Public Sector Information in 2005 it was decided that there was a need for a dedicated body to be the principal focal point for advising on and regulating the operation of public sector information re-use. The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) has been established for that purpose. It will be at the heart of information policy, setting standards, providing a practical framework of best practice for opening up and encouraging the use of public sector information.
OPSI is part of the Cabinet Office reporting structure and provides a wide range of services to the public, information industry, government and the wider public sector relating to finding, using, sharing and trading information"
"HMSO replaced/rebadged/subsumed by OPSI?
"With the implementation of the EU Directive on the re-use of Public Sector Information in 2005 it was decided that there was a need for a dedicated body to be the principal focal point for advising on and regulating the operation of public sector information re-use. The Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) has been established for that purpose. It will be at the heart of information policy, setting standards, providing a practical framework of best practice for opening up and encouraging the use of public sector information.
OPSI is part of the Cabinet Office reporting structure and provides a wide range of services to the public, information industry, government and the wider public sector relating to finding, using, sharing and trading information"
Friday, May 13, 2005
JISC and BALII Open law
JISC and BALII are launcing an Open Law project. I hope they don't mind me including their press release of 5th of May in its entirety here but this is excellent news for academia.
"JISC and BAILII agreement will make legal resources openly available to all
5th May, 2005. A major new agreement will digitise thousands of core legal judgments and law reports and for the first time make these freely and openly available electronically. JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and BAILII (British and Irish Legal Information Institute) today announced the Open Law project which has the potential to transform the delivery of legal teaching and public access to legal materials in the UK.
Access to case reports and legislation are central to the teaching of law and the development of legal skills. Open Law will therefore focus on the core needs of staff and students on law courses at all levels. It will include around 200 of the most cited judgments in each of the core areas of the law course syllabus. Other non-core areas will also be covered, so that staff and students dealing with legal issues on non-law courses such as accounting and business, environmental management, planning and social work, will also benefit. The digitisation of these judgments and other reports means that the project will digitise a total over 40,000 pages.
The heavy use of standard legal resources in both print and online form, the restriction of certain materials to reference libraries and their cost have meant that the availability of key materials has always been a challenge for law departments across the country. JISC’s and BAILII’s commitment to open access principles in this project will mean that the general public will also be able to access the most important legal materials for free.
The 36 month project will also work closely with the legal profession, law schools, librarians, and special interest groups such as the Committee of Heads of Law Schools, the Society of Legal Scholars and the Association of Law Teachers to identify these judgment and reports as well shaping the future development of this resource.
Lorraine Estelle, JISC Collections Manager, who negotiated the agreement, called it “the most important development for the provision of online resources in the area of law.” She continued: “The involvement of the key players in legal education and the legal profession will ensure we have a resource that will be tied closely to the needs of our students and the needs of the profession as a whole.”
Professor Philip Leith, a Trustee of BAILII and Professor of Law at Queen's University Belfast, said: "BAILII has developed vigorously in its first five years, providing a system which uses advanced hyperlinking techniques to make access to law easier and more coherent for students. It is usually the speediest publisher of judgments. This JISC-supported next stage is essential to broaden and deepen our collection. We want BAILII to be the first port of call for those in education. We want to provide a real 'National law library'. JISC's support for this Open Law project is a significant step, affecting all who teach and learn in law."
Professor Alan Peterson, President of the Society of Legal Scholars and Professor of Law at the University of Strathclyde, welcomed the announcement, saying: "The project will provide funding for a much needed expansion of a database which is already extensively used by students, researchers and academics at all stages and levels. The more it is possible to digitise the primary resources required for legal education, the more effectively we can introduce innovative teaching strategies as well as carrying out cross-jurisdictional research with much greater ease."
Michael Jefferson, past Chair of the Association of Law Teachers, Senior Lecturer and Director of Teaching for the Department of Law at the University of Sheffield, said: “BAILII has provided a means of access not only to legal materials that are available in many libraries but also to materials which are either not available anywhere else or are available only in selected libraries not easily accessible to all UK staff and students. The extension to the collections on BAILII will further enhance the provision of in particular case law.”
Michael Jefferson continued: “This enhancement is of particular importance to the Association of Law Teachers, some of whose members are in schools and Further Education Colleges where access to legal information is at best problematical. Some members also teach on part-time and distance-learning degrees and again the extension of BAILII's database will significantly improve access to material for students on these courses. The Association of Law Teachers is for these reasons particularly grateful to staff at BAILII and to JISC for this extension to its coverage.”
Paul Darling QC, Chairman of TECBAR, a specialist bar association for barristers, said: "This is an exciting development. BAILII is an invaluable legal research tool fully supported by the practising Bar. The sponsoring of the Open Law project by JISC is very welcome indeed."
Susan Doe, Chair of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians, pledged the support of academic law librarians: "We welcome the Open Law project as an expanded BAILII will enable the creation of direct links to materials in electronic reading lists and course materials, making it easier for students to access cases and legislation. BAILLI's structure means that it should be fully searchable by the portal software that is being introduced by university libraries to provide a seamless interface to all resources, regardless of the format."
For further information:
Philip Pothen (JISC) on 07887 564 006 or p.pothen@jisc.ac.uk
Philip Leith (BAILII) on 028 9097 3867 or p.leith@qub.ac.uk"
"JISC and BAILII agreement will make legal resources openly available to all
5th May, 2005. A major new agreement will digitise thousands of core legal judgments and law reports and for the first time make these freely and openly available electronically. JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) and BAILII (British and Irish Legal Information Institute) today announced the Open Law project which has the potential to transform the delivery of legal teaching and public access to legal materials in the UK.
Access to case reports and legislation are central to the teaching of law and the development of legal skills. Open Law will therefore focus on the core needs of staff and students on law courses at all levels. It will include around 200 of the most cited judgments in each of the core areas of the law course syllabus. Other non-core areas will also be covered, so that staff and students dealing with legal issues on non-law courses such as accounting and business, environmental management, planning and social work, will also benefit. The digitisation of these judgments and other reports means that the project will digitise a total over 40,000 pages.
The heavy use of standard legal resources in both print and online form, the restriction of certain materials to reference libraries and their cost have meant that the availability of key materials has always been a challenge for law departments across the country. JISC’s and BAILII’s commitment to open access principles in this project will mean that the general public will also be able to access the most important legal materials for free.
The 36 month project will also work closely with the legal profession, law schools, librarians, and special interest groups such as the Committee of Heads of Law Schools, the Society of Legal Scholars and the Association of Law Teachers to identify these judgment and reports as well shaping the future development of this resource.
Lorraine Estelle, JISC Collections Manager, who negotiated the agreement, called it “the most important development for the provision of online resources in the area of law.” She continued: “The involvement of the key players in legal education and the legal profession will ensure we have a resource that will be tied closely to the needs of our students and the needs of the profession as a whole.”
Professor Philip Leith, a Trustee of BAILII and Professor of Law at Queen's University Belfast, said: "BAILII has developed vigorously in its first five years, providing a system which uses advanced hyperlinking techniques to make access to law easier and more coherent for students. It is usually the speediest publisher of judgments. This JISC-supported next stage is essential to broaden and deepen our collection. We want BAILII to be the first port of call for those in education. We want to provide a real 'National law library'. JISC's support for this Open Law project is a significant step, affecting all who teach and learn in law."
Professor Alan Peterson, President of the Society of Legal Scholars and Professor of Law at the University of Strathclyde, welcomed the announcement, saying: "The project will provide funding for a much needed expansion of a database which is already extensively used by students, researchers and academics at all stages and levels. The more it is possible to digitise the primary resources required for legal education, the more effectively we can introduce innovative teaching strategies as well as carrying out cross-jurisdictional research with much greater ease."
Michael Jefferson, past Chair of the Association of Law Teachers, Senior Lecturer and Director of Teaching for the Department of Law at the University of Sheffield, said: “BAILII has provided a means of access not only to legal materials that are available in many libraries but also to materials which are either not available anywhere else or are available only in selected libraries not easily accessible to all UK staff and students. The extension to the collections on BAILII will further enhance the provision of in particular case law.”
Michael Jefferson continued: “This enhancement is of particular importance to the Association of Law Teachers, some of whose members are in schools and Further Education Colleges where access to legal information is at best problematical. Some members also teach on part-time and distance-learning degrees and again the extension of BAILII's database will significantly improve access to material for students on these courses. The Association of Law Teachers is for these reasons particularly grateful to staff at BAILII and to JISC for this extension to its coverage.”
Paul Darling QC, Chairman of TECBAR, a specialist bar association for barristers, said: "This is an exciting development. BAILII is an invaluable legal research tool fully supported by the practising Bar. The sponsoring of the Open Law project by JISC is very welcome indeed."
Susan Doe, Chair of the British and Irish Association of Law Librarians, pledged the support of academic law librarians: "We welcome the Open Law project as an expanded BAILII will enable the creation of direct links to materials in electronic reading lists and course materials, making it easier for students to access cases and legislation. BAILLI's structure means that it should be fully searchable by the portal software that is being introduced by university libraries to provide a seamless interface to all resources, regardless of the format."
For further information:
Philip Pothen (JISC) on 07887 564 006 or p.pothen@jisc.ac.uk
Philip Leith (BAILII) on 028 9097 3867 or p.leith@qub.ac.uk"
Germans look to open access
Peter Suber tells of "a proposal by Gerd Hansen of the Max Planck Institute that researchers with publicly-funded research grants should retain the right to self-archive any resulting journal articles within six months of publication."
Shifted librarian on why drm sucks
Jenny Levine bought and downloaded a film from MovieLink. She got 30 days from the downloading date to watch it and once she started watching had to finish within 24 hours. The service seems to have corrupted her laptop and she didn't get to see the movie.
Another classic demonstration of why drm will ultimately fail.
Another classic demonstration of why drm will ultimately fail.
Improving and extending the use of ICT to make the most of Europe’s cultural and audiovisual heritage
Here's the official line from the EU Commission on the 6 EU leaders call to digitise European culture in response to the Google initiative to digitise 5 major academic libraries.
"The European Commission today announced that it is to boost its policy of preserving and exploiting Europe's written and audiovisual heritage. At a time when the internet and the digital technologies available on many technical platforms are an everyday part of the life of European citizens, tapping the potential of our written text, image and sound archives is of major importance in economic terms as much as in cultural terms. The Commission plans to issue a communication by July outlining the stakes involved and identifying the obstacles to using written and audiovisual archives in the European Union. The communication will be accompanied by a proposal for a Recommendation aimed at enlisting all the public players concerned and facilitating public-private partnerships in the task of digitising our heritage."
"The European Commission today announced that it is to boost its policy of preserving and exploiting Europe's written and audiovisual heritage. At a time when the internet and the digital technologies available on many technical platforms are an everyday part of the life of European citizens, tapping the potential of our written text, image and sound archives is of major importance in economic terms as much as in cultural terms. The Commission plans to issue a communication by July outlining the stakes involved and identifying the obstacles to using written and audiovisual archives in the European Union. The communication will be accompanied by a proposal for a Recommendation aimed at enlisting all the public players concerned and facilitating public-private partnerships in the task of digitising our heritage."
As predicted braodcast flag rises again
As predicted, when the Appeal court killed the broadcast flag it's being resurrected in Hollwood's latest efforts to bring a bill before Congress. Cory is scathing.
"Well, they've barely finished hosing the blood off the tile after our total creaming of Hollywood's would-be device-czars in the Broadcast Flag victory (where we got a judge to tell Hollywood that they shouldn't have a veto over new digital television technologies), but it's already back.
Here's the shockingly broad and badly conceived bill that Hollywood is shopping on the Hill, trying to find a Congresscritter so fantastically, suicidally stupid that s/he will actually set out to break America's televisions."
"Well, they've barely finished hosing the blood off the tile after our total creaming of Hollywood's would-be device-czars in the Broadcast Flag victory (where we got a judge to tell Hollywood that they shouldn't have a veto over new digital television technologies), but it's already back.
Here's the shockingly broad and badly conceived bill that Hollywood is shopping on the Hill, trying to find a Congresscritter so fantastically, suicidally stupid that s/he will actually set out to break America's televisions."
Dutch open access initiative
More good news from Holland, where, according to the Register, Dutch academics have launched an open access research website, where 47000 research documents are freely accessible.
LSE Interim Report on UK ID card scheme
The LSE have published their interim report on the UK government's proposals for a national ID card. The summary of conclusions reads:
"The Report concludes that the establishment of a secure national identity system has the potential to create significant, though limited, benefits for society. However, the proposals currently being considered by parliament are neither safe nor appropriate. There was an overwhelming view expressed by the stakehodlers involved in this Report that the proposals are too complex, technically unsafe, overly prescriptive and lack a foundation of public trust and confidence. The current proposals miss key opportunities to establish a secure, trusted and cost-effective identity system and the Report therefore considers alternative models for an identity card scheme that may achieve the goals of the legislation more effectively. The concept of a national identity system is supportable, but the current proposals are not feasible.
Many of the public interest objectives of the Bill would be more effectively achieved by other means. For example, preventing identity theft may be better addressed by giveing individuals more control over the disclosure of their own personal information, while prevention of terrorism may be more effectively managed through strenghtened border patrols and increased presence at borders, or allocating adequate resources for conventional police intelligence work.
The technology envisaged for this scheme is, to a large extent, untested and unreliable. No scheme on this scale has been undertaken anywhere in the world. Smaller and less ambitious schemes have encountered substantial technological and operational problems that are likely to be amplified in a large scale, national system. The use of biometrics gives rise to particular concern because this technology has never been used at such a scale.
Any system that supports critical security funnctions must be robust and resilient to malicious attacks. Because of its size and complexity, the identity system would require security measures at a scale that will result in substantially higher implementation and operational costs than has been estimated. The proposed use of the system for a variety of purposes, and access to it from a large number of private and public sector organisations will require unprecendented attention to security.
All identity systems carry consequestial dangers as well as potential benefits. Depending on the model used, identity systems may create a range of new and unforeseen problems. These include the failure of systems, unforeseen financial costs, increased security threats and unacceptable imposition on citizens. The success of a national identity system depends on a sensitive, cautious and cooperative approach involving all key stakeholder groups including an independent and rolling risk assessment and a regular review of management practices. We are not confident that these conditions have been satisfied in the development of the Identity Cards Bill. The risk of failure in the current proposals is therefore magnified to the point where the scheme should be regarded as a potential danger to the public interest and to the legal right of individuals."
Let me just repeat that last bit, "The risk of failure in the current proposals is therefore magnified to the point where the scheme should be regarded as a potential danger to the public interest and to the legal right of individuals."
"The Report concludes that the establishment of a secure national identity system has the potential to create significant, though limited, benefits for society. However, the proposals currently being considered by parliament are neither safe nor appropriate. There was an overwhelming view expressed by the stakehodlers involved in this Report that the proposals are too complex, technically unsafe, overly prescriptive and lack a foundation of public trust and confidence. The current proposals miss key opportunities to establish a secure, trusted and cost-effective identity system and the Report therefore considers alternative models for an identity card scheme that may achieve the goals of the legislation more effectively. The concept of a national identity system is supportable, but the current proposals are not feasible.
Many of the public interest objectives of the Bill would be more effectively achieved by other means. For example, preventing identity theft may be better addressed by giveing individuals more control over the disclosure of their own personal information, while prevention of terrorism may be more effectively managed through strenghtened border patrols and increased presence at borders, or allocating adequate resources for conventional police intelligence work.
The technology envisaged for this scheme is, to a large extent, untested and unreliable. No scheme on this scale has been undertaken anywhere in the world. Smaller and less ambitious schemes have encountered substantial technological and operational problems that are likely to be amplified in a large scale, national system. The use of biometrics gives rise to particular concern because this technology has never been used at such a scale.
Any system that supports critical security funnctions must be robust and resilient to malicious attacks. Because of its size and complexity, the identity system would require security measures at a scale that will result in substantially higher implementation and operational costs than has been estimated. The proposed use of the system for a variety of purposes, and access to it from a large number of private and public sector organisations will require unprecendented attention to security.
All identity systems carry consequestial dangers as well as potential benefits. Depending on the model used, identity systems may create a range of new and unforeseen problems. These include the failure of systems, unforeseen financial costs, increased security threats and unacceptable imposition on citizens. The success of a national identity system depends on a sensitive, cautious and cooperative approach involving all key stakeholder groups including an independent and rolling risk assessment and a regular review of management practices. We are not confident that these conditions have been satisfied in the development of the Identity Cards Bill. The risk of failure in the current proposals is therefore magnified to the point where the scheme should be regarded as a potential danger to the public interest and to the legal right of individuals."
Let me just repeat that last bit, "The risk of failure in the current proposals is therefore magnified to the point where the scheme should be regarded as a potential danger to the public interest and to the legal right of individuals."
BBC backstage
This is quite something.
"Anyway, backstage.bbc.co.uk isn’t just a result of the unique way the BBC is funded. That it fulfils a requirement of the BBC charter is wholly incidental.3 Although, it’s pretty damn useful too, to be blunt. No. It’s actually a symbol of something much much bigger: it’s laying down the gauntlet for the rest of the world. It highlights the point that on the internet, hiding your content is suicide. It says that you can either open up, and we can all flourish together; or you can remain closed, and die alone."
A major copyright holder is not only giving their material away but providing a tool for others to re-use that material creatively. I wonder how many BBC suits were asked for permission to create and release backstage.
"backstage.bbc.co.uk is the BBC's new developer network, providing content feeds for anyone to build with. Alternatively, share your ideas on new ways to use BBC content. This is your BBC. We want to help you play."
Terrific stuff.
"Anyway, backstage.bbc.co.uk isn’t just a result of the unique way the BBC is funded. That it fulfils a requirement of the BBC charter is wholly incidental.3 Although, it’s pretty damn useful too, to be blunt. No. It’s actually a symbol of something much much bigger: it’s laying down the gauntlet for the rest of the world. It highlights the point that on the internet, hiding your content is suicide. It says that you can either open up, and we can all flourish together; or you can remain closed, and die alone."
A major copyright holder is not only giving their material away but providing a tool for others to re-use that material creatively. I wonder how many BBC suits were asked for permission to create and release backstage.
"backstage.bbc.co.uk is the BBC's new developer network, providing content feeds for anyone to build with. Alternatively, share your ideas on new ways to use BBC content. This is your BBC. We want to help you play."
Terrific stuff.
Dutch ISPs sue BREIN
Five Dutch ISPs are suing the Protection Rights Entertainment Industry Netherlands (BREIN), as a pre-emptive strike because BREIN are intending to sue the ISPs to get them to identify suspected file sharers.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Real ID battle begins
The battle over the passage of the Real ID Act has begun, according to Wired.
"The National Governors Association is threatening lawsuits to fight the legislation. And some states are threatening to ignore the legislation because they say it will cost up to $700 million for states to comply and will place a heavy burden on Department of Motor Vehicles workers."
And a raft of civil liberties groups are also mobilizing against the legislation.
"The National Governors Association is threatening lawsuits to fight the legislation. And some states are threatening to ignore the legislation because they say it will cost up to $700 million for states to comply and will place a heavy burden on Department of Motor Vehicles workers."
And a raft of civil liberties groups are also mobilizing against the legislation.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
T-Online AG sued over data storage
A German ISP, T-Online, have been sued over their data storage practices.
This comes not long after it emerged that the EU Commission's data retention proposals have been declared, by the Commission's lawyers, to be at least partly illegal.
This comes not long after it emerged that the EU Commission's data retention proposals have been declared, by the Commission's lawyers, to be at least partly illegal.
Senate pass Real ID Act
The US Senate has passed the Real ID Act without any dissenting voices. Sponsor, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner, said
"The Real ID is vital to preventing foreign terrorists from hiding in plain sight while conducting their operations and planning attacks. By targeting terrorist travel, the Real ID will assist in our war-on-terror efforts to disrupt terrorist operations and help secure our borders."
Sadly he is completely wrong. Someone really should give these people introductory security lessons or at the very least introduce them to people who do know about security like Bruce Schneier.
It is a little unfair to say there were no dissenting voices in the Senate because one Democrat did speak against it but ended up voting in favour of of it because it was attached to a spending package on Iraq, Afghanistan and the tsunami.
You can expect the Real ID Act to be formally challenged before George W. Bush's signature is dry on it.
"The Real ID is vital to preventing foreign terrorists from hiding in plain sight while conducting their operations and planning attacks. By targeting terrorist travel, the Real ID will assist in our war-on-terror efforts to disrupt terrorist operations and help secure our borders."
Sadly he is completely wrong. Someone really should give these people introductory security lessons or at the very least introduce them to people who do know about security like Bruce Schneier.
It is a little unfair to say there were no dissenting voices in the Senate because one Democrat did speak against it but ended up voting in favour of of it because it was attached to a spending package on Iraq, Afghanistan and the tsunami.
You can expect the Real ID Act to be formally challenged before George W. Bush's signature is dry on it.
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Brits sued over BitTorrent
The Register has a story about two British men getting a "summons to appear before the US District Court of New Jersey, where MPAA members Paramount, Warner, Universal and 20th Century Fox are attempting to identify and therefore sue individuals they alleged shared their film and TV content without authorisation." The studios have offered to settle for a generous $7million.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Felton's view from DMP world
Ed Felton has a wonderful post on his blog about the "View from DMP World", DMP being the Digital Media Project.
"The "6th General Assembly of the Digital Media Project" recently released a set of documents "providing an Interoperable DRM Platform". I've written before about the self-contradictory nature of their goal (A Perfectly Compatible Form of Incompatibility). Now we get to see how they plan to achieve the goal. And I have to say, the documents are a real piece of work. I could blog for a month just dissecting them; but I won't subject you to that. Instead, just a small sample or two.
The documents describe a world unlike the one we actually live in. They do this, mostly, by redefining words that we all understand, creating improved versions that are distinguished typographically by capitalization. (There is a whole document devoted to definitions.) When you enter DMP-World, you give up your rights; they are replaced by Rights. And unlike ordinary rights, which you may possess simply by virtue of being a human being, Rights have to be Granted to you, and they can be Withdrawn by a Creator. In DMP-World, you can't buy devices; all you can get are Devices. You don't whistle a tune; you execute Functions on Governed Content. The goal of all of this is to achieve Trust: "a state where Users, Devices, or Content Data enable Users to execute Functions on Governed Content"."
It must be bad if it gets someone as calm and rational as Ed Felton so worked up.
"The "6th General Assembly of the Digital Media Project" recently released a set of documents "providing an Interoperable DRM Platform". I've written before about the self-contradictory nature of their goal (A Perfectly Compatible Form of Incompatibility). Now we get to see how they plan to achieve the goal. And I have to say, the documents are a real piece of work. I could blog for a month just dissecting them; but I won't subject you to that. Instead, just a small sample or two.
The documents describe a world unlike the one we actually live in. They do this, mostly, by redefining words that we all understand, creating improved versions that are distinguished typographically by capitalization. (There is a whole document devoted to definitions.) When you enter DMP-World, you give up your rights; they are replaced by Rights. And unlike ordinary rights, which you may possess simply by virtue of being a human being, Rights have to be Granted to you, and they can be Withdrawn by a Creator. In DMP-World, you can't buy devices; all you can get are Devices. You don't whistle a tune; you execute Functions on Governed Content. The goal of all of this is to achieve Trust: "a state where Users, Devices, or Content Data enable Users to execute Functions on Governed Content"."
It must be bad if it gets someone as calm and rational as Ed Felton so worked up.
In business
BBC radio 4 had a nice introductory discussion on broadcasting via the Internet last night, which covered a range of issues from satellite digital radio through to podcasting. Available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/inbusiness/ram/inbusiness_current.ram
Thanks to Chris Bird for the link.
Thanks to Chris Bird for the link.
Geist on US IP bully
Michael Geist is calling for the creation of an "IP Bullied List" to counteract the US's bullying tactics in linking international trade to intellectual property policies.
"After years of calling on Canada to implement the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Internet treaties, the U.S.’s true interests have been revealed. Implementing the treaties is now not good enough. Rather, the U.S. wants us to implement its version of the treaties, which extend well beyond international requirements.
Even more troubling is the way U.S. pressure against Canada has become part of a much larger global campaign to leverage its economic power by tying trade agreements with greater intellectual property protection. This was not always the case – when Canada negotiated the free trade agreement with the United States in the 1980s, intellectual property issues constituted only a small part of the agreement. Similar U.S. agreements with Israel as well as the subsequent North American Free Trade Agreement also referred to intellectual property but did not make it a focal point.
Today the U.S. is negotiating trade agreements with dozens of countries. The intellectual property provisions within those agreements are sometimes at least 40 pages in length, specifying international intellectual property agreements that must be implemented and including specific provisions to govern domain name disputes, patent protection, and copyright law. The copyright provisions inevitably go beyond even those found in the U.S., since they include requirements for an extension of the term of copyright, new protections for TPMs, and ISP liability requirements. They do not, however, feature any balancing provisions for user interests."
"After years of calling on Canada to implement the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Internet treaties, the U.S.’s true interests have been revealed. Implementing the treaties is now not good enough. Rather, the U.S. wants us to implement its version of the treaties, which extend well beyond international requirements.
Even more troubling is the way U.S. pressure against Canada has become part of a much larger global campaign to leverage its economic power by tying trade agreements with greater intellectual property protection. This was not always the case – when Canada negotiated the free trade agreement with the United States in the 1980s, intellectual property issues constituted only a small part of the agreement. Similar U.S. agreements with Israel as well as the subsequent North American Free Trade Agreement also referred to intellectual property but did not make it a focal point.
Today the U.S. is negotiating trade agreements with dozens of countries. The intellectual property provisions within those agreements are sometimes at least 40 pages in length, specifying international intellectual property agreements that must be implemented and including specific provisions to govern domain name disputes, patent protection, and copyright law. The copyright provisions inevitably go beyond even those found in the U.S., since they include requirements for an extension of the term of copyright, new protections for TPMs, and ISP liability requirements. They do not, however, feature any balancing provisions for user interests."
Teens and the web CFP
There was a great session at the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference in Seattle last week with group of teenagers. Wired has an edited transcript of the discussion. Teenagers are a much maligned group. We should give kids the credit for being the smart sensible people that most of them are.
Thanks for the link Ley!
Thanks for the link Ley!
FCC exceeded authority with broadcast flag
A US court of appeal has put a dent in the FCC's madating of the broadcast flag.
The full decision is available online. The conclusion is pretty scathing about the FCC acting outside their authority:
"The FCC argues that the Commission has “discretion” to exercise “broad authority” over equipment used in connection with radio and wire transmissions, “when the need arises, even if it has not previously regulated in a particular area.” FCC Br.
at 17. This is an extraordinary proposition. “The [Commission’s] position in this case amounts to the bare suggestion that it possesses plenary authority to act within a given area simply because Congress has endowed it with some authority to act in that area. We categorically reject that suggestion. Agencies owe their capacity to act to the delegation of authority” from Congress. See Ry. Labor Executives’ Ass’n,
29 F.3d at 670. The FCC, like other federal agencies, “literally has no power to act . . . unless and until Congress confers power upon it.” La. Pub. Serv. Comm’n v. FCC, 476 U.S. 355, 374 (1986). In this case, all relevant materials concerning the FCC’s
jurisdiction – including the words of the Communications Act of 1934, its legislative history, subsequent legislation, relevant case law, and Commission practice – confirm that the FCC has no authority to regulate consumer electronic devices that can be
used for receipt of wire or radio communication when those devices are not engaged in the process of radio or wire transmission.
Because the Commission exceeded the scope of its delegated authority, we grant the petition for review, and reverse and vacate the Flag Order insofar as it requires demodulator products manufactured on or after July 1, 2005 to recognize and give effect to the broadcast flag.
So ordered."
That's what I'd call a pretty conclusive victory for the Amercian Library Association (ALA) and others who brought the case.
The film, broadcasting and cable industry lobbyists will now be relishing a further lucrative opportunity to convince US lawmakers to introduce the flag via a different route.
Declan also has the story.
Update (Thanks to Michael Geist for the links): The NYT also have a couple of readable stories on the issue and ask whether the broadcasters threat to pull HDTV broadcasts will now be followed through.
"In 2002, Mel Karmazin, then president of Viacom, threatened to withdraw high-definition versions of programming from the airwaves if the flag technology was not adopted, a threat echoed by other broadcasters and movie studios.
"Now we will see if threats to pull broadcasts from CBS and others are real or not," said Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and HDNet, an all-HDTV channel available through cable and satellite, and an opponent of the broadcast flag.
Those measures are unlikely to be taken any time soon. First, advocates of the flag technology will try to circumvent the court's ruling through Congressional legislation. And despite the industry's alarm bells, Internet video piracy still is very much a nascent issue. At today's transmission speeds, it would take about 24 hours to send a one-hour show broadcast in HDTV over the Internet."
The full decision is available online. The conclusion is pretty scathing about the FCC acting outside their authority:
"The FCC argues that the Commission has “discretion” to exercise “broad authority” over equipment used in connection with radio and wire transmissions, “when the need arises, even if it has not previously regulated in a particular area.” FCC Br.
at 17. This is an extraordinary proposition. “The [Commission’s] position in this case amounts to the bare suggestion that it possesses plenary authority to act within a given area simply because Congress has endowed it with some authority to act in that area. We categorically reject that suggestion. Agencies owe their capacity to act to the delegation of authority” from Congress. See Ry. Labor Executives’ Ass’n,
29 F.3d at 670. The FCC, like other federal agencies, “literally has no power to act . . . unless and until Congress confers power upon it.” La. Pub. Serv. Comm’n v. FCC, 476 U.S. 355, 374 (1986). In this case, all relevant materials concerning the FCC’s
jurisdiction – including the words of the Communications Act of 1934, its legislative history, subsequent legislation, relevant case law, and Commission practice – confirm that the FCC has no authority to regulate consumer electronic devices that can be
used for receipt of wire or radio communication when those devices are not engaged in the process of radio or wire transmission.
Because the Commission exceeded the scope of its delegated authority, we grant the petition for review, and reverse and vacate the Flag Order insofar as it requires demodulator products manufactured on or after July 1, 2005 to recognize and give effect to the broadcast flag.
So ordered."
That's what I'd call a pretty conclusive victory for the Amercian Library Association (ALA) and others who brought the case.
The film, broadcasting and cable industry lobbyists will now be relishing a further lucrative opportunity to convince US lawmakers to introduce the flag via a different route.
Declan also has the story.
Update (Thanks to Michael Geist for the links): The NYT also have a couple of readable stories on the issue and ask whether the broadcasters threat to pull HDTV broadcasts will now be followed through.
"In 2002, Mel Karmazin, then president of Viacom, threatened to withdraw high-definition versions of programming from the airwaves if the flag technology was not adopted, a threat echoed by other broadcasters and movie studios.
"Now we will see if threats to pull broadcasts from CBS and others are real or not," said Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and HDNet, an all-HDTV channel available through cable and satellite, and an opponent of the broadcast flag.
Those measures are unlikely to be taken any time soon. First, advocates of the flag technology will try to circumvent the court's ruling through Congressional legislation. And despite the industry's alarm bells, Internet video piracy still is very much a nascent issue. At today's transmission speeds, it would take about 24 hours to send a one-hour show broadcast in HDTV over the Internet."
Real ID act slipped through
The republicans have been taking some lessons from Bertie and the boys and have slipped the Real ID Act through the house with a massive majority and no debate, on the back of a tsunami aid package. Only one Democrat appears to be making a fuss about it.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
EDRI-gram - Number 3.9, 4 May 2005
The latest edition of European Digital Rights' excellent EDRI-gram is now available, containing, as usual, a string of important stories and a nice recommendation to read my Open University internet law course, which is available openly under creative commons licence.
Real ID act extra territorial
The US Real ID Act could directly reach beyond US borders, according to James Plummer, Policy Director of the Liberty Coalition. That's something I had not appreciated previously.
"Title II of the REAL ID Act repeals the Senate-crafted language concerning state driver's licenses from the last Congress' intelligence reform package in favor of even more troubling anti-privacy provisions. The first troubling aspect of the license provisions is the requirement that states link their identity databases and join something called the "Driver License Agreement." That agreement, a proposed interstate compact, has been drafted by AAMVA, the Association of American Motor Vehicle Administrators - a kind of trade association of DMV bureaucrats. The compact, which no state has voluntarily joined, would also allow the states and provinces of Mexico and Canada to join into this database system - without further input from state elected officials.
Making Americans' sensitive identity information available to foreign government officials is not a sensible or coherent method for making Americans safe...
...the design requirement for "physical security features designed to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or duplication of the document for fraudulent purposes" is so broad that Homeland Secretary may read it to include fingerprints, scans of the iris or retina of the eye, or even DNA.
Thus, without further input from Congress or others, Homeland Secretary could mandate such supremely sensitive data be in a database system accessible to foreign governments."
"Title II of the REAL ID Act repeals the Senate-crafted language concerning state driver's licenses from the last Congress' intelligence reform package in favor of even more troubling anti-privacy provisions. The first troubling aspect of the license provisions is the requirement that states link their identity databases and join something called the "Driver License Agreement." That agreement, a proposed interstate compact, has been drafted by AAMVA, the Association of American Motor Vehicle Administrators - a kind of trade association of DMV bureaucrats. The compact, which no state has voluntarily joined, would also allow the states and provinces of Mexico and Canada to join into this database system - without further input from state elected officials.
Making Americans' sensitive identity information available to foreign government officials is not a sensible or coherent method for making Americans safe...
...the design requirement for "physical security features designed to prevent tampering, counterfeiting, or duplication of the document for fraudulent purposes" is so broad that Homeland Secretary may read it to include fingerprints, scans of the iris or retina of the eye, or even DNA.
Thus, without further input from Congress or others, Homeland Secretary could mandate such supremely sensitive data be in a database system accessible to foreign governments."
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Real ID Act about to become real
Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has emailed Declan to say:
"Congressional passage of the "Real ID" legislation is now all but a done
deal, House and Senate conferees having agreed to inclusion of language
in an appropriations bill that is all but certain to pass."
And he's not happy:
" In the days after 9/11, President Bush and others proclaimed that we must not let the terrorists change American life. It is now clear that - despite its lack of effectiveness against actual terrorism - we have allowed our security agencies push us into making a deep, far-reaching change to the character of American life."
He makes some important practical points about the scheme in his email and it is worth reading in its entirety.
"Congressional passage of the "Real ID" legislation is now all but a done
deal, House and Senate conferees having agreed to inclusion of language
in an appropriations bill that is all but certain to pass."
And he's not happy:
" In the days after 9/11, President Bush and others proclaimed that we must not let the terrorists change American life. It is now clear that - despite its lack of effectiveness against actual terrorism - we have allowed our security agencies push us into making a deep, far-reaching change to the character of American life."
He makes some important practical points about the scheme in his email and it is worth reading in its entirety.
Security at the Register
The Register have done a series of really good stories on security recently:
Backup tapes are backdoor for ID thieves
Fight fraud not ID theft
Privacy watchdog warns job seekers to beware
Database misuse: who watches the watchers?
Backup tapes are backdoor for ID thieves
Fight fraud not ID theft
Privacy watchdog warns job seekers to beware
Database misuse: who watches the watchers?
DRM illegal in France
Susan Crawford is not convinced that the recent decision of a French appeal court to outlaw drm access controls on DVDs is likely to do any real damage to the widespread deployment of such drm.
"The US content industry often cites the success of DVDs as evidence that consumers don't expect to make their own copies of this format -- and don't seem to care that they can't. The DVD closed-circle, chain-of-licenses story is told over and over again in this country. "See?" the industry says, "People just want to be entertained."
But in France, Germany, and Spain (three reasonable countries), people do apparently expect to be able to make private copies of things they take home with them -- and the law supports this understanding. If this decision takes hold (and I can only imagine the resources being devoted right now to make sure that it is deep-sixed and tagged as downright un-European by some more captive law-making body), and is joined with some other European precedents on the consumer-unfriendliness of DRM, it might just cause a little wrinkle of change.
But I have to say I'm not sanguine about this. I'm sure there are treaties being whipped up that will enshrine DRM as a human right ("consumers require choices of content; such choices can only be made available if adequate legal controls are in place; private copying is in derogation of the Rights of Man" -- something like that), and those French people wanting to make copies for maman will be sent meekly back to the store to buy again. "
"The US content industry often cites the success of DVDs as evidence that consumers don't expect to make their own copies of this format -- and don't seem to care that they can't. The DVD closed-circle, chain-of-licenses story is told over and over again in this country. "See?" the industry says, "People just want to be entertained."
But in France, Germany, and Spain (three reasonable countries), people do apparently expect to be able to make private copies of things they take home with them -- and the law supports this understanding. If this decision takes hold (and I can only imagine the resources being devoted right now to make sure that it is deep-sixed and tagged as downright un-European by some more captive law-making body), and is joined with some other European precedents on the consumer-unfriendliness of DRM, it might just cause a little wrinkle of change.
But I have to say I'm not sanguine about this. I'm sure there are treaties being whipped up that will enshrine DRM as a human right ("consumers require choices of content; such choices can only be made available if adequate legal controls are in place; private copying is in derogation of the Rights of Man" -- something like that), and those French people wanting to make copies for maman will be sent meekly back to the store to buy again. "
A toast to Dave Winer
Dan Gillmor offers a toast to Dave Winer on his 50th birthday for seeing the future.
"I still remember the moment I saw a big piece of the future. It was mid-1999, and Dave Winer called to say there was something I had to see.
He showed me a web page. I don’t remember what the page contained except for one button. It said, "Edit This Page" -- and, for me, nothing was ever the same again...
What Dave and the other early blog pioneers did was a breakthrough. They said the Web needed to be writeable, not just readable, and they were determined to make doing so dead simple.
Thus, the read/write Web was truly born again. We could all write, not just read, in ways never before possible. For the first time in history, at least in the developed world, anyone with a computer and Internet connection could own a press...
Dave just celebrated his 50th birthday, and has been feted by many for that milestone. I add my good wishes here, with my certainty that he has many more years and achievements yet to come."
"I still remember the moment I saw a big piece of the future. It was mid-1999, and Dave Winer called to say there was something I had to see.
He showed me a web page. I don’t remember what the page contained except for one button. It said, "Edit This Page" -- and, for me, nothing was ever the same again...
What Dave and the other early blog pioneers did was a breakthrough. They said the Web needed to be writeable, not just readable, and they were determined to make doing so dead simple.
Thus, the read/write Web was truly born again. We could all write, not just read, in ways never before possible. For the first time in history, at least in the developed world, anyone with a computer and Internet connection could own a press...
Dave just celebrated his 50th birthday, and has been feted by many for that milestone. I add my good wishes here, with my certainty that he has many more years and achievements yet to come."
Edgar Allan Poe's lesson for Telcos
OfcomWatch also have some reflections on the future of the big telcos, which could have come straight from David Isenberg, arising from James Enck's presentation at the "Marcus Evans conference on Strategic Pricing for Telecom Content and Services in London."
"I saw the program, and noticed that there didn't appear to be much in the way of disruptive stuff on the agenda. I got the sense that it was going to be largely business as usual, and this was just the inspiration I needed. I could have talked about a variety of issues (believe me, I wanted to), but in the end decided to try to hit the audience (and organizers) where they live, and devote my entire presentation to Skype...
One slide of my introduction contained a quote from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death". For those who haven't read it, basically the idea is that a decadent regime is hiding behind thick castle walls from a plague which is devastating everyone outside, diverting itself by having a masqued ball. Just keep dancing and we'll be fine. An interloper appears, and the king demands that he be unmasked, but the intruder (whether he is merely a carrier of the disease, or embodies some karmic revenge, is unclear) turns out to be the harbinger of doom, already among them. Okay, my use of it was partially tongue-in-cheek, but I had a serious point to make: your assassin is probably already inside the castle walls and you may not even know it."
"I saw the program, and noticed that there didn't appear to be much in the way of disruptive stuff on the agenda. I got the sense that it was going to be largely business as usual, and this was just the inspiration I needed. I could have talked about a variety of issues (believe me, I wanted to), but in the end decided to try to hit the audience (and organizers) where they live, and devote my entire presentation to Skype...
One slide of my introduction contained a quote from Edgar Allan Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death". For those who haven't read it, basically the idea is that a decadent regime is hiding behind thick castle walls from a plague which is devastating everyone outside, diverting itself by having a masqued ball. Just keep dancing and we'll be fine. An interloper appears, and the king demands that he be unmasked, but the intruder (whether he is merely a carrier of the disease, or embodies some karmic revenge, is unclear) turns out to be the harbinger of doom, already among them. Okay, my use of it was partially tongue-in-cheek, but I had a serious point to make: your assassin is probably already inside the castle walls and you may not even know it."
Ofcom interviews
Ofcom watch has been interviewing some senior people at Ofcom, Tim Suter who is Ofcom’s Partner for Content and Standards, and Matt Peacock who is Ofcom's Director of Communications. Interesting.
Fair use and orphan works
Kim Weatherall has been thinking about the problem of orphan copyright works with the aid of the writings of Richard Posner and William Patry.
"In further thoughts on fair use, I was just flicking through an article by Richard Posner and William Patry on fair use in the wake of Eldred (William A. Patry and Richard A. Posner, 'Fair Use and Statutory Reform in the Wake of Eldred' (2004) 92 Cal L Rev 1639)...
Patry and Posner do two things I like in this paper. First, they tell some great fair use/copyright overclaiming stories. Since I can't resist, here's a quote:
'Recently the New York Review of Books published a newly discovered notebook entry by Virginia Woolf, and a note at the end of the article states: "Copyright © 2003 by the Estate of Virginia Woolf. No part of this text may be reproduced without the express prior consent of Hesperus Press." No part? That is ridiculous. A journalist, biographer, literary critic, or historian writing about Virginia Woolf would be entitled by the fair use doctrine to quote a brief passage from the article. The note is pure bluff, but a public-domain publisher threatened by a lawyer representing Hesperus Press with legal action would think twice about publishing even the briefest passage without consent...In Margaret Atwood's recent novel Oryx and Crake, the author thanks "John Calder Publications and Grove Atlantic for permission to quote eight words from Samuel Beckett's novel, Mercier and Camier." Eight words? Please."
OK, light amusement aside, there is a serious point to Patry and Posner's article. The second thing that Patry and Posner do is suggest that we deal with the orphan work problem (the problem of old works, where we can't find the copyright owner, and so can't get permission to use a work) using a 'fair use' argument. They argue this could be done simply by interpretation of the existing, inclusive definition in the US Act, as follows:
'The correct balance is struck, ...by imposing a duty of reasonable inquiry on the would-be copier. The satisfaction of that duty would require him to determine, as by hiring a reputable service that specializes in tracing people, whether the person indicated on the copyright page or in other records known to or readily available to the would-be copier as the owner of the copyright was, if an individual, still living, and, if a firm or other organization, still in existence. The would-be copier would be required to seek a license from that individual or entity unless the search, though properly conducted, had turned up nothing--had failed to discover a copyright owner from whom the would-be copier might try to negotiate a license--in which event the copying of the work would be deemed a fair use.'
Not only would this solve the problem of the old works. It would also, they argue, provide incentives for the creation of a proper registry, where people wanting to claim fees for use of their material would have incentives to register themselves"
"In further thoughts on fair use, I was just flicking through an article by Richard Posner and William Patry on fair use in the wake of Eldred (William A. Patry and Richard A. Posner, 'Fair Use and Statutory Reform in the Wake of Eldred' (2004) 92 Cal L Rev 1639)...
Patry and Posner do two things I like in this paper. First, they tell some great fair use/copyright overclaiming stories. Since I can't resist, here's a quote:
'Recently the New York Review of Books published a newly discovered notebook entry by Virginia Woolf, and a note at the end of the article states: "Copyright © 2003 by the Estate of Virginia Woolf. No part of this text may be reproduced without the express prior consent of Hesperus Press." No part? That is ridiculous. A journalist, biographer, literary critic, or historian writing about Virginia Woolf would be entitled by the fair use doctrine to quote a brief passage from the article. The note is pure bluff, but a public-domain publisher threatened by a lawyer representing Hesperus Press with legal action would think twice about publishing even the briefest passage without consent...In Margaret Atwood's recent novel Oryx and Crake, the author thanks "John Calder Publications and Grove Atlantic for permission to quote eight words from Samuel Beckett's novel, Mercier and Camier." Eight words? Please."
OK, light amusement aside, there is a serious point to Patry and Posner's article. The second thing that Patry and Posner do is suggest that we deal with the orphan work problem (the problem of old works, where we can't find the copyright owner, and so can't get permission to use a work) using a 'fair use' argument. They argue this could be done simply by interpretation of the existing, inclusive definition in the US Act, as follows:
'The correct balance is struck, ...by imposing a duty of reasonable inquiry on the would-be copier. The satisfaction of that duty would require him to determine, as by hiring a reputable service that specializes in tracing people, whether the person indicated on the copyright page or in other records known to or readily available to the would-be copier as the owner of the copyright was, if an individual, still living, and, if a firm or other organization, still in existence. The would-be copier would be required to seek a license from that individual or entity unless the search, though properly conducted, had turned up nothing--had failed to discover a copyright owner from whom the would-be copier might try to negotiate a license--in which event the copying of the work would be deemed a fair use.'
Not only would this solve the problem of the old works. It would also, they argue, provide incentives for the creation of a proper registry, where people wanting to claim fees for use of their material would have incentives to register themselves"
RIAA watch
If you ever wondered whether anyone was keeping an accurate count of all those RIAA lawsuits against individual P2P file sharers, wonder no longer. RIAA Watch says the total is now 10037.
"The total number of file sharers sued has now broken the five-digit barrier, coming in at 10,037 people sued by the RIAA since September 2003. This is an astounding figure. I just checked the Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics and found that this one wave of litigation represents 2.3% of all civil cased filed in federal court. (The average number of civil lawsuits filed per month for 2003 and 2004 was 21,363; in the 20 months since the RIAA began suing file sharers, the recording industry filed 502 lawsuits on average each month.) And given the news reports of $3,000 average settlements, this means the RIAA's probably collected over $30 million from individual file sharers."
"The total number of file sharers sued has now broken the five-digit barrier, coming in at 10,037 people sued by the RIAA since September 2003. This is an astounding figure. I just checked the Federal Judicial Caseload Statistics and found that this one wave of litigation represents 2.3% of all civil cased filed in federal court. (The average number of civil lawsuits filed per month for 2003 and 2004 was 21,363; in the 20 months since the RIAA began suing file sharers, the recording industry filed 502 lawsuits on average each month.) And given the news reports of $3,000 average settlements, this means the RIAA's probably collected over $30 million from individual file sharers."
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
War on the P2P front
Susan Crawford has been moderating a discussion on P2P at the NY Bar Association and reports that "It really is war out there."
"RIAA: Copyright law is about control. Other Guys: Copyright law is about encouraging innovation.
RIAA: Copyright infringement is immoral and is destroying small songwriters. Other Guys: The content industries should embrace online business models."
"RIAA: Copyright law is about control. Other Guys: Copyright law is about encouraging innovation.
RIAA: Copyright infringement is immoral and is destroying small songwriters. Other Guys: The content industries should embrace online business models."
Canada in the bad books
Canada has been put on the US intellectual property watch list after rejecting proposals for a law which would constitute the Canadian equivalent of the DMCA.
Boy scout badge in IP
The Motion Picture Association and the Hong Kong government have apparently convinced the Hong Kong Scout Association to offer a merit badge in copyright, according to Declan McCullagh.
US Economics lesson
Jonathan Rowe at On the Commons has a cutting essay on what he considers to be the "state of arrested psycho-emotional development" that US economics finds itself in.
"There is an infatuation with mechanisms and statistics – trucks and baseball cards – with little interest in the human realities and complexities that lie beneath them. There is also a solipsistic concern for the self and its desires, to the exclusion of everyone else.
That self-concern is embodied in the hypothetical person who inhabits the economics texts. It is homo economicus, the economic man, who lives according to a closed and relentless calculus of personal loss and gain. Economic man is a slug like Adam in the Garden of Eden, except that he is better at math. He has no conscience and no sense of right and wrong, only a capacity to respond to external “incentives.” His god is self-gratification; and his myopic self-seeking is what the economist calls “rationality.”
Thus a person who drives a Hummer regardless of the consequences for others is deemed “rational” provided the price of gas is cheap. “Developmentally challenged” would be a more accurate term."
Well worth a read.
"There is an infatuation with mechanisms and statistics – trucks and baseball cards – with little interest in the human realities and complexities that lie beneath them. There is also a solipsistic concern for the self and its desires, to the exclusion of everyone else.
That self-concern is embodied in the hypothetical person who inhabits the economics texts. It is homo economicus, the economic man, who lives according to a closed and relentless calculus of personal loss and gain. Economic man is a slug like Adam in the Garden of Eden, except that he is better at math. He has no conscience and no sense of right and wrong, only a capacity to respond to external “incentives.” His god is self-gratification; and his myopic self-seeking is what the economist calls “rationality.”
Thus a person who drives a Hummer regardless of the consequences for others is deemed “rational” provided the price of gas is cheap. “Developmentally challenged” would be a more accurate term."
Well worth a read.
EU win US Supreme Court
EU Law Web Log reports The European Community has won a "Stunning victory in US Supreme Court" You don't see headlines like that every day.
EU Copyright Head pro drm
According to CoCo the European Commission's new copyright chief is in favour of drm. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. He wouldn't have got the job otherwise.
Also from CoCo, an EU Commission discussion apparently predicted the collapse of broadband unless ISPs police their networks for copyright infringement. Entertainment industry PR swallowed hook, line and sinker.
Also from CoCo, an EU Commission discussion apparently predicted the collapse of broadband unless ISPs police their networks for copyright infringement. Entertainment industry PR swallowed hook, line and sinker.
Open Democracy on dirty tricks at WIPO
Open Democracy have an article by Becky Hogge, mainly informed by Cory, of the parnoia-inducing shenanigans that have occasionally gone on at WIPO over the development agenda. Well written and gives an nice overview of the story.
European Libraries want to Google digitise too
More news is coming out on the proposed European libraries project to counter or compliment (depending on how you look at it) Google's plan to digitise the contents of some major UK and US academic libraries.
"The European project will be an alternative to Google's online library
In a stand against a deal struck by five of the world's top libraries and Google to digitize millions of books, 19 European libraries have agreed to back a similar European project to safeguard literature.
Nineteen European national libraries have joined forces against a planned communications revolution by Internet search giant Google to create a global virtual library, organizers said Wednesday. The 19 libraries are backing instead a multi-million euro counter-offensive by European nations to put European literature online."
I'm not really sure why it has to be a competition. Isn't it just a good idea?
Thanks to Cory and Richard Swetenham for the links.
Now combine that with John Naughton's plan to change the world as explained by his colleague, Dr Seb Wills, in this BBC article, and you've got a real story.
"The European project will be an alternative to Google's online library
In a stand against a deal struck by five of the world's top libraries and Google to digitize millions of books, 19 European libraries have agreed to back a similar European project to safeguard literature.
Nineteen European national libraries have joined forces against a planned communications revolution by Internet search giant Google to create a global virtual library, organizers said Wednesday. The 19 libraries are backing instead a multi-million euro counter-offensive by European nations to put European literature online."
I'm not really sure why it has to be a competition. Isn't it just a good idea?
Thanks to Cory and Richard Swetenham for the links.
Now combine that with John Naughton's plan to change the world as explained by his colleague, Dr Seb Wills, in this BBC article, and you've got a real story.
Patents R Us
The NYT has a story on NTP, the patent holding company that recently succeeded in getting Research In Motion to pay them a large sum in damages for alleged patent infringement involving their Blackberry portable emailer.
Land of the free market on broadband
We hear a lot about public private partnerships on this side of the pond but a fascinating battle on publicly funded versus privately funded broadband networks is playing out unexpectedly in the land of the free market. I've briefly mentioned this issue before of local government in the US funding the construction of local broadband citywide networks and the notion of perceving insurance of widespread access to such networks as a public service. News.com had a nice summary of the story yesterday.
School kids film copyright row
The Manchester Evening News has a story about an award winning documentary made by school children, which is being threatened by a copyright row over a song by REM, which the kids didn't get permission to use. Shame but that's the nature of modern copyright. You can't expect kids to understand the complex intricacies of IP law and neither can you expect entertainment lawyers acting for a popular music group to say 'ok, go ahead' when someone wants to use currently commercially valuable creative material.
Friday, April 29, 2005
Digitising libraries Euro style
There are two stories which seem to have been triggered by Google's plans to digitise major academic libraries.
The first from an Aussie paper, the Sydney Morning Herald (which unfortuantely requires registration) says that 19 European libraries have decided to collaborate to put some of their contents on the Web.
The second, from SV.COM, says 6 EU leaders have proposed a European digital library. The latter effort is probably at teh behest of French President Jacques Chirac, who was worried that Google's project was just another form of US imperialism being visited upon world culture.
As I said when I first heard his reaction to the Google project, even if he doesn't understand what's going on, it does wonders for publicising the need for open access.
The first from an Aussie paper, the Sydney Morning Herald (which unfortuantely requires registration) says that 19 European libraries have decided to collaborate to put some of their contents on the Web.
The second, from SV.COM, says 6 EU leaders have proposed a European digital library. The latter effort is probably at teh behest of French President Jacques Chirac, who was worried that Google's project was just another form of US imperialism being visited upon world culture.
As I said when I first heard his reaction to the Google project, even if he doesn't understand what's going on, it does wonders for publicising the need for open access.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Publicly display able venom
CE Petit is angry at what he considers to be the "whitewash over command responsibility at Abu Gh'raib."
"Phil Carter, over at Intel Dump, has penned a remarkably even-tempered (if ultimately condemning) response to the whitewash over command responsibility at Abu Gh'raib. In his first update, he concludes:
Despite these generals' findings, none of the officers responsible for facilitating these abuses will face criminal charges. Or, put another way, the Army IG has wholly disregarded the record evidence before him to arrive at an arbitrary and capricious decision that the senior Army leaders involved should face no legal consequences for their actions. What kind of message does that send to our junior military leaders? What kind of message does that send to the world?
This is a lot more generous than I would have been. It's taken me three days to keep the venom in this message to a publicly displayable level."
"Phil Carter, over at Intel Dump, has penned a remarkably even-tempered (if ultimately condemning) response to the whitewash over command responsibility at Abu Gh'raib. In his first update, he concludes:
Despite these generals' findings, none of the officers responsible for facilitating these abuses will face criminal charges. Or, put another way, the Army IG has wholly disregarded the record evidence before him to arrive at an arbitrary and capricious decision that the senior Army leaders involved should face no legal consequences for their actions. What kind of message does that send to our junior military leaders? What kind of message does that send to the world?
This is a lot more generous than I would have been. It's taken me three days to keep the venom in this message to a publicly displayable level."
Check the pilot won't take over the plane
Bob Frankston's "favorite story from what I think of as the T.S.A. Follies...
...A uniformed pilot waits impatiently at a checkpoint for 10 minutes while two screeners from the Transportation Security Administration scrutinize every item in his carry-on bag. After he was allowed to go on his way, he explained why it took so long. “They told me they had to make sure I wasn’t carrying anything that would allow me to take over an airplane,” he said, rolling his eyes."
Wonderful.
Thanks to Michael Froomkin for the link.
...A uniformed pilot waits impatiently at a checkpoint for 10 minutes while two screeners from the Transportation Security Administration scrutinize every item in his carry-on bag. After he was allowed to go on his way, he explained why it took so long. “They told me they had to make sure I wasn’t carrying anything that would allow me to take over an airplane,” he said, rolling his eyes."
Wonderful.
Thanks to Michael Froomkin for the link.
Cites and Insights
Walt Crawford has an essay on the recent Family Entertainment and Copyright Act in his latest Cites and Insights.
"By now, you’ve probably heard that the bill passed in mid-April. You may have heard that Public Knowledge and other pro-balance forces were not outraged by this bill.
Neither am I. I believe the provisions of this bill are all worthwhile (although one of them should not be necessary) and that its passage may relieve pressure to pass seriously defective copyright legislation. Maybe it’s my optimistic nature, but I see this as a case where a tweaking of copyright balance may stall serious unbalance. Some other people who I consider thoughtful and reasonable disagree."
"By now, you’ve probably heard that the bill passed in mid-April. You may have heard that Public Knowledge and other pro-balance forces were not outraged by this bill.
Neither am I. I believe the provisions of this bill are all worthwhile (although one of them should not be necessary) and that its passage may relieve pressure to pass seriously defective copyright legislation. Maybe it’s my optimistic nature, but I see this as a case where a tweaking of copyright balance may stall serious unbalance. Some other people who I consider thoughtful and reasonable disagree."
Discovery, transparency and antitrust enforcement.
EU Law Web Log has an important story about a European Court of First Instance case. It's probably one mainly for the legal junkies but has important knock on effects for private actions against large organisations.
An Austrian consumer advocacy group asked the Commission for access to documents regarding their 2002 ruling that 8 Austrian banks operated a cartel prohibited by EU regulations. They wanted these details to re-enforce a case against one of the banks which they were pursuing through the Austrian courts. The Commission, as is the first reaction of many administrators, refused access to the documents. The Court of first instance, however, has just ruled that they were wrong to do so and ordered them to hand over the documents.
The more I hear about the actual operation of the European Commission, the more concerned I become about how many general sound governing principles can be overlooked or deliberately compromised in its day to day operations.
It's not primarily that officials set out with the intent of undermining principles - most of them would be horrified at the thought that they might be doing so. But in any complex administrative infrastructure (i.e. this is not exclusive to the EU and will also apply to any large commercial organisation) billions of activities have to take place at the microscopic day to day level and people administer and work with these [organisationally] microscopic activities in ways that enable them to do their day to day jobs.
The trouble is that collections of organisationally systematic, logical and sensible activities/or decisions within the context of those microscopic systems can add to to macroscopic systemic chaos for the organisation as a whole. This is compounded by the fact that many of the administrative systems are contradictory and mutually exclusive or incompatible and yet officials are still obliged to somehow make them work. Remarkably they usually manage this with commendable ingenuity and efficiency because people are very clever at finding practical ways to make systems work...
But you end up, as in this instance, with the European Commissioner declaring that the Commission sees private litigation as a key complement of public enforcement of EU competition rules, and yet when someone does pursue such private litigation, Commission officials refuse to cooperate and release key information for pursuing the case; and these officials have logical and defensible reasons within the context of their own work practices and systems for refusing to disclose the documents.
The consumer organisation are then forced into further litigation at a European level to get access to documents the Commissioner has implicitly suggested that should have been available to them as a matter of principle.
I see parallels here with degree to which professionals can set thinking traps within the context of their own professions. It might seem perfectly reasonable, for example, to a group of intellectual property lawyers that a colleague sends out a cease and desist letter warning someone that they should not use their own name because it happens to be the same name as a famous client she represents. If IP rules are written in such as way as to allow her to do this then she is acting perfectly reasonably within the context of those rules to protect the interests of her client. Most ordinary folks, however, would think it completely ridiculous that someone could be sued for using their own name.
There's probably an academic paper, if not a book, in this line of thought but I'll leave it there for the moment!
An Austrian consumer advocacy group asked the Commission for access to documents regarding their 2002 ruling that 8 Austrian banks operated a cartel prohibited by EU regulations. They wanted these details to re-enforce a case against one of the banks which they were pursuing through the Austrian courts. The Commission, as is the first reaction of many administrators, refused access to the documents. The Court of first instance, however, has just ruled that they were wrong to do so and ordered them to hand over the documents.
The more I hear about the actual operation of the European Commission, the more concerned I become about how many general sound governing principles can be overlooked or deliberately compromised in its day to day operations.
It's not primarily that officials set out with the intent of undermining principles - most of them would be horrified at the thought that they might be doing so. But in any complex administrative infrastructure (i.e. this is not exclusive to the EU and will also apply to any large commercial organisation) billions of activities have to take place at the microscopic day to day level and people administer and work with these [organisationally] microscopic activities in ways that enable them to do their day to day jobs.
The trouble is that collections of organisationally systematic, logical and sensible activities/or decisions within the context of those microscopic systems can add to to macroscopic systemic chaos for the organisation as a whole. This is compounded by the fact that many of the administrative systems are contradictory and mutually exclusive or incompatible and yet officials are still obliged to somehow make them work. Remarkably they usually manage this with commendable ingenuity and efficiency because people are very clever at finding practical ways to make systems work...
But you end up, as in this instance, with the European Commissioner declaring that the Commission sees private litigation as a key complement of public enforcement of EU competition rules, and yet when someone does pursue such private litigation, Commission officials refuse to cooperate and release key information for pursuing the case; and these officials have logical and defensible reasons within the context of their own work practices and systems for refusing to disclose the documents.
The consumer organisation are then forced into further litigation at a European level to get access to documents the Commissioner has implicitly suggested that should have been available to them as a matter of principle.
I see parallels here with degree to which professionals can set thinking traps within the context of their own professions. It might seem perfectly reasonable, for example, to a group of intellectual property lawyers that a colleague sends out a cease and desist letter warning someone that they should not use their own name because it happens to be the same name as a famous client she represents. If IP rules are written in such as way as to allow her to do this then she is acting perfectly reasonably within the context of those rules to protect the interests of her client. Most ordinary folks, however, would think it completely ridiculous that someone could be sued for using their own name.
There's probably an academic paper, if not a book, in this line of thought but I'll leave it there for the moment!
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
EU order Microsoft to comply with ruling
The EU's new competition Commissioner, Neelie Kroes, apparently told Steve Balmer yesterday that Microsoft was not doing enough to comply with the sanctions applied last year over the company's breach of EU antitrust regulations. A Commission spokesman told the BBC that "Ms Kroes said that the Commission expects the decision adopted in March 2004 to be complied with urgently and in full, and she added that unless this was the case that the Commission would be obliged to take formal steps to ensure compliance."
Celera to stop selling human genome info
Celera, the company which raced the public Human Genome project to sequence human DNA, have decided to stop selling subscriptions to its genome database.
John Sulston, nobel prize winner and the head of the Human Genome Project in the UK co-wrote a wonderful book with Georgina Ferry about the whole story and was quite scathing about the attempts to privatise what he saw as our shared human heritage. He worked tirelessly and passionately with many colleagues to ensure the sequence would be freely available and will no doubt view this latest development with quiet satisfaction.
John Sulston, nobel prize winner and the head of the Human Genome Project in the UK co-wrote a wonderful book with Georgina Ferry about the whole story and was quite scathing about the attempts to privatise what he saw as our shared human heritage. He worked tirelessly and passionately with many colleagues to ensure the sequence would be freely available and will no doubt view this latest development with quiet satisfaction.
New open tech journal
I like the sound of this.
"Human Technology: Investigating the human role in existing and emerging technologies is a new peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. The inaugural issue appeared this month."
Jenny Levine and Michael Madison, given their recent ruminations, might be interested in an article in the first issue by Dorothy E. Salonius-Pastenak of the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media. Abstract:
"Most research on electronic play has focused on its possible negative effects for children and adolescents, and contextual factors such as socioeconomic status (SES) and culture are rarely considered. This article considers the potential benefits of electronic play from a psychological perspective, as well as individual and contextual factors that may shape the influence of electronic play for children and adolescents. Demographics of players and the games themselves are presented, and recommendations for research and policy are discussed."
This actually covers some similar ground to the John Beck interview mentioned by Jenny, where he makes quite a lot of sense about the positive benefits of games. If they don't already know each other, Dorothy E. Salonius-Pastenak and John Beck would do well to talk about their shared interests.
"Human Technology: Investigating the human role in existing and emerging technologies is a new peer-reviewed, open-access journal published by the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. The inaugural issue appeared this month."
Jenny Levine and Michael Madison, given their recent ruminations, might be interested in an article in the first issue by Dorothy E. Salonius-Pastenak of the Harvard Medical School Center for Mental Health and Media. Abstract:
"Most research on electronic play has focused on its possible negative effects for children and adolescents, and contextual factors such as socioeconomic status (SES) and culture are rarely considered. This article considers the potential benefits of electronic play from a psychological perspective, as well as individual and contextual factors that may shape the influence of electronic play for children and adolescents. Demographics of players and the games themselves are presented, and recommendations for research and policy are discussed."
This actually covers some similar ground to the John Beck interview mentioned by Jenny, where he makes quite a lot of sense about the positive benefits of games. If they don't already know each other, Dorothy E. Salonius-Pastenak and John Beck would do well to talk about their shared interests.
RealNetworks try giving music away free
RealNetworks have hit on a new business model, according to the NYT. They've decided to give some music away free in an attempt to attract customers.
"Yesterday, Real introduced a version of its Rhapsody music service that allows nonsubscribers to listen to 25 songs free each month. Users are welcome to listen to one song 25 times or any 25 songs from its million-song library once, or any combination. Real hopes that making it as easy to try its service as it is to obtain songs illicitly through a file-sharing network like Kazaa will draw new paying customers."
They've also apparently re-ignited the drm arms race with Apple over providing songs for the iPod.
"Yesterday, Real introduced a version of its Rhapsody music service that allows nonsubscribers to listen to 25 songs free each month. Users are welcome to listen to one song 25 times or any 25 songs from its million-song library once, or any combination. Real hopes that making it as easy to try its service as it is to obtain songs illicitly through a file-sharing network like Kazaa will draw new paying customers."
They've also apparently re-ignited the drm arms race with Apple over providing songs for the iPod.
Free to air
In a follow up to Senator Rick Santorum's idea of banning the US National Weather Service from providing free weather data, Ann Bartow draws our attention to a lovely satircal take on the idea at Whiskey bar.
"A bill introduced Monday by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) would prohibit the lungs of U.S. citizens from competing with companies such as Air Products Inc., which sell compressed oxygen to hospitals, clinics and other medical institutions. Under the proposed law, Americans would be required to purchase the air they breathe from a commercial vendor rather than inhaling it naturally from the earth's atmosphere."
"A bill introduced Monday by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Penn.) would prohibit the lungs of U.S. citizens from competing with companies such as Air Products Inc., which sell compressed oxygen to hospitals, clinics and other medical institutions. Under the proposed law, Americans would be required to purchase the air they breathe from a commercial vendor rather than inhaling it naturally from the earth's atmosphere."
Posner on plagiarism
Richard Posner has recently been writing about plagiarism:
"Recent “scandals” involving charges of plagiarism by professors and other writers treat plagiarism as (1) a well-defined concept that (2) is unequivocally deserving of condemnation. It is neither. Take the second point first. The idea that copying another person’s ideas or expression (the form of words in which the idea is encapsulated), without the person’s authorization and without explicit acknowledgment of the copying, is reprehensible is, in general, clearly false. Think of the remarkable series of “plagiarisms” that links Ovid’s Pyramus and Thisbe with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. Think of James Joyce’s Ulysses and of contemporary parodies, which invariably copy extensively from the original—otherwise the reader or viewer would not recognize the parody as a parody. Most judicial opinions nowadays are written by law clerks but signed by judges, without acknowledgment of the clerks’ authorship. This is a general characteristic of government documents, CEO’s speeches, and books by celebrities.
When unauthorized copying is not disapproved, it isn’t called “plagiarism.” Which means that the word, rather than denoting a definite, well-recognized category of conduct, is a label attached to instances of unauthorized copying of which the society, or some influential group within it, disapproves."
"Recent “scandals” involving charges of plagiarism by professors and other writers treat plagiarism as (1) a well-defined concept that (2) is unequivocally deserving of condemnation. It is neither. Take the second point first. The idea that copying another person’s ideas or expression (the form of words in which the idea is encapsulated), without the person’s authorization and without explicit acknowledgment of the copying, is reprehensible is, in general, clearly false. Think of the remarkable series of “plagiarisms” that links Ovid’s Pyramus and Thisbe with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. Think of James Joyce’s Ulysses and of contemporary parodies, which invariably copy extensively from the original—otherwise the reader or viewer would not recognize the parody as a parody. Most judicial opinions nowadays are written by law clerks but signed by judges, without acknowledgment of the clerks’ authorship. This is a general characteristic of government documents, CEO’s speeches, and books by celebrities.
When unauthorized copying is not disapproved, it isn’t called “plagiarism.” Which means that the word, rather than denoting a definite, well-recognized category of conduct, is a label attached to instances of unauthorized copying of which the society, or some influential group within it, disapproves."
Sony v Beatallica
Jason Shultz has witnessed what he calls a "fabulous presentation (9MB MP3)on the band's legal run-in with Sony over the composition rights to the Beatles songs they parodied and how Lars Ulrich redeemed himself from the dark days of fighting Napster by defending the band's fair use. "
Elsewhere Denise Howell says listen to Cory: "Cory Doctorow on the Chris Pirillo Show. Required listening for every IP and/or technology lawyer drawing breath. Be prepared to rewind often, laugh, and marvel."
Elsewhere Denise Howell says listen to Cory: "Cory Doctorow on the Chris Pirillo Show. Required listening for every IP and/or technology lawyer drawing breath. Be prepared to rewind often, laugh, and marvel."
Salon pay for play article
I just got a pointer to a fascinating Salon article from March 2001 called Pay for Play on the relationship between record labels and radio stations in the US.
Learning through doing
Michael Madison has been pondering the value of reading and playing as learning methods.
" My take is that the “rules” that we learn via reading are broadly applicable, well beyond the world of literature, and well beyond the world of creating art on our own...
Does playing work at those same broader levels, or does the feedback from playing teach players (merely) the rules of the games themselves? That’s a genuine question, though what little gaming I’ve done over the last 30 years hasn’t taught me too much that I can use outside the world of games. I do, however, have pretty good hand/eye coordination. My students tend to be gamers, not readers, and they tend to have a very difficult time seeing or constructing narratives in the law."
Playing shouldn't be set against reading any more than privacy should be set against security and Michael himself says that "The dichotomy between “reading” and “playing” is a false one." Both have their merits. His thoughts have been triggered by a satirical extract from Steven Johnson's book "Everything is Bad for You", where he wonders what would have been the reaction to books if computer games had pre-dated them.
Update: It seems that Jenny Levine aka the Shifted Librarian has also been thinking about games.
"I’m late to the whole gaming and how it affects libraries thing, but I’m a total convert now and it’s something I’m going to actively track from now on. At first I thought it was just interesting, and while I did like the idea of bringing tweens and teens into the library using gaming as a social carrot, I’m gaining a totally different perspective for the way we can use the characteristics, expectations, and interplay of gaming and gamers in a “tipping point” kind of way.
The latest catalyst for this round of “gaming on my brain” is Moira Gunn’s interview with John Beck for IT Conversations. I’ve listened to the podcast of it twice in the last three days, and a couple of his points really resonate with me."
" My take is that the “rules” that we learn via reading are broadly applicable, well beyond the world of literature, and well beyond the world of creating art on our own...
Does playing work at those same broader levels, or does the feedback from playing teach players (merely) the rules of the games themselves? That’s a genuine question, though what little gaming I’ve done over the last 30 years hasn’t taught me too much that I can use outside the world of games. I do, however, have pretty good hand/eye coordination. My students tend to be gamers, not readers, and they tend to have a very difficult time seeing or constructing narratives in the law."
Playing shouldn't be set against reading any more than privacy should be set against security and Michael himself says that "The dichotomy between “reading” and “playing” is a false one." Both have their merits. His thoughts have been triggered by a satirical extract from Steven Johnson's book "Everything is Bad for You", where he wonders what would have been the reaction to books if computer games had pre-dated them.
Update: It seems that Jenny Levine aka the Shifted Librarian has also been thinking about games.
"I’m late to the whole gaming and how it affects libraries thing, but I’m a total convert now and it’s something I’m going to actively track from now on. At first I thought it was just interesting, and while I did like the idea of bringing tweens and teens into the library using gaming as a social carrot, I’m gaining a totally different perspective for the way we can use the characteristics, expectations, and interplay of gaming and gamers in a “tipping point” kind of way.
The latest catalyst for this round of “gaming on my brain” is Moira Gunn’s interview with John Beck for IT Conversations. I’ve listened to the podcast of it twice in the last three days, and a couple of his points really resonate with me."
Israeli says filtering spam illegal
An Israeli man sued by Microsoft for allegedly breaching US anti-spam laws has hit back claiming that Microsoft software in filtering his emails, engages in illegal interception.
Thanks to Michael Geist for the link.
Thanks to Michael Geist for the link.
French court ban drm
From Findlaw, "A French court has ordered DVD vendors to pull copies of the David Lynch film "Mulholland Drive" off store shelves in France as part of an unprecedented ruling against copy protection techniques."
Tuesday, April 26, 2005
Recommended 9/11 Commission Report
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.
As someone who got a copy which I haven't read yet, this gives me a small incentive to do so.
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!
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