JK Rowling loses court fight to ban publication of son's picture

JK Rowling has lost a court case which she pursued in an effort to ban the publication of a photograph of her and her son.

""I have considerable sympathy for the claimant's parents and anyone else who wishes to shield their children from intrusive media attention," Paten said.

But he said the law does not allow them to "carve out a press-free zone for their children concerning absolutely everything they choose to do."

The judge granted Rowling and Murray the right to appeal and continued a temporary ban on publication of the picture in the meantime."

And you thought ContactPoint was bad?

From ARCH and I hope they don't mind me quoting them in full:

"The government has delivered an astounding parting shot as it heads off for the long summer holidays. Hard on the heels of the ContactPoint database comes the announcement that eCAF will also be a national database.

If you don’t know what eCAF is, go and read all about it to understand just how serious this is.

It is despicable that the announcement was made in a written ministerial statement the day before recess. The plans were not mentioned in any of the debates on the regulations for ContactPoint last week.

Suddenly ContactPoint looks positively benign. Those 330,000 users will now have access to the full, in-depth assessments of up to 6 million children and their families, all held on an inevitably insecure national database. It simply beggars belief, and knocks on the head any faint hope that the Brown regime might offer relief from spin and deceit."

The Frodo Franchise

Henry Jenkins has done a fascinating interview (the first of three) with Dr. Kristin Thompson about her research for her new book, Frodo Franchise: The "Lord of the Rings" and Modern Hollywood. Dr Thompson, through a combination of scholarly reputation, good fortune and decent people involved in the production of the Lord of the Rings films seems to have got unprecedented access to the processes involved in the creation of a modern movie blockbuster.

"I started out not knowing any of the people involved directly or indirectly with the films. My assumption was that I would have to get in touch with one of the key people. There were only three of them who seemed powerful enough to make the decision to cooperate with my project: Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Barrie Osborne.

In late 2002 I was still wondering if I could manage that. Fortunately I happened to be at a film conference in Adelaide, Australia, and met a film editor named Annabelle Sheehan. She was familiar with my work, and she said she could put me in touch with Barrie...

I won't go into the lengthy negotiation process that I went through with New Line, but it lasted from February to August, scotching my chances of being in Wellington during pickups. In late August I got the word that New Line was probably going to cooperate. That was enough for me to decide to go to New Zealand if possible, and witness some of the post-production, tour the facilities, interview people, whatever. I contacted Barrie about it, and he said I could come down. I booked my flights, bought a really good digital audio recorder, and by the end of September I was in Wellington.

Those two moments--Barrie's decisions to cooperate and to let me come down before the film was finished--were the crucial points, and I must give Barrie enormous credit for trusting and supporting me. I doubt that the book would exist if I hadn't had that support...

Barrie assigned me a point person, Melissa Booth, the main publicist at that time. She and I sat down on my first day, and she was terrific. She picked up right away on what I needed and made up a list of people and made the first appointments for me. After that I had the contact information and mainly made the appointments myself. Basically, once Barrie had made it known that I was doing the book, virtually everyone involved in the filmmaking whom I wanted to interview cooperated and indeed were very friendly and open about the whole thing.

I think it was really only after the first trip to New Zealand that I started trying to think of any comparable book that had appeared: a study of an entire film by a film historian, as opposed to a journalist. I couldn't think of any.

Now that the book is coming out, I can see why. I look back and think that getting the access I needed for my research was so close to impossible that I wonder if another such book can ever be written. The thing depended so much on some incredibly lucky coincidences, on dogged determination, on Kiwi friendliness and hospitality, and certainly on Barrie's support. That complex set of circumstances is so unlikely to come together again. I'm convinced that if I had tried to undertake a comparable project relating to one of the big franchises that are made in Hollywood or London, it wouldn't have gotten to square one.

On the other hand, if people in the industry read The Frodo Franchise, maybe some will recognize that it's really great publicity for them. I would like to think that it would inspire studio officials to give greater access to bona fide scholars. It would be somewhat like the studios' learning curve on how to deal with fans on the internet, I suppose."

Update: Other recetn Jenkins blog posts worth a read is 'Oh, Those Russians!': The (Not So) Mysterious Ways of Russian-language Harry Potter Fandom and 'Oh, Those Russians!': The (Not So) Mysterious Ways of Russian-language Harry Potter Fandom (Part One)

Evoting decertified in California

Well the Secretary of State for California, Debra Bowen, has, following the review of the state's evoting machines, decertified (or withdrawn approval and instigated re-approval conditioned on important changes, including full source code disclosure) the voting machines supplied by the four biggest evoting vendors in the US.

This is a pretty big deal for the evoting systems in the US and it will be really interesting to see how California copes with what comes next.

Update: The Washington Post has the story.

Digital content wants to be free...

Martin has been postulating:

"Through the various projects I've been involved in recently (openlearn, broadcast strategy review, Flosscom), I've come to the realisation that something very significant has happened to the nature of content. It can be summarised thus:

"Digital content wants to be free, and will seek the path to maximum access."

Let's call it the content law...

The content law may seem simple, but it has enormous implications. Let's try a thought experiment: imagine a matter transporter has been invented. The implications for transport industries, car manufacturers, holidays, property prices, retail etc would be enormous. The physical (including people) becomes digital content as it were, so there is no need to live near your place of work (or even to have a 'place of work').

The internet is a matter transporter for digital content. If you are working in any sector where the content can be digitised (broadcast, music, newspapers, movies, and er, education) then you should repeat the content law to yourself everyday, because it means you have to find alternative revenue streams for when your content achieves its nirvanic state of free and available to everyone. There may be some content which can survive this law, but you are probably going to do your organisation a bigger service if you assume the content law is true for you also and instead of trying to find ways to combat it, you seek ways to build new models around it."

This deserves a much more thoughtful response than I currently have the time to [virtually] pen because I think Martin is partly though not totally right. I say only partly right because digital content is never 'free as in free beer' and no less an authority than Larry Lessig has just completed a 10-year world lecture tour and a couple of books articulating the opposite point of view - that digital content is and will become the most controlled form of content ever. There will always be energy costs, technology/gadget/s costs and utility/connection costs and the trick for the commercial and public sectors, as Martin says, is to work out the business models to support the profit making ventures as well as the public goods infrastructure to sustain the production, hosting and universal access to the digital content. There is definitely an enrichment of the Gartner technology boom-bust-mainstream integration cycle



to be worked out here on the basis of Martin's proposed law but we shouldn't underestimate the potential of the existing money/political power brokers to distort the process. Then again maybe this should be the central theme of Martin's next book?

Quote of the day

"A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution." James Madison at the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

Thanks to Hipparchia for the link.

Assault on liberty

The Daily Telegraph's Philip Johnston won this year's Charles Douglas-Home Memorial Trust Award for an essay on Nu Labour's ten-year assault on civil liberites.


"IN his first statement to Parliament as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown said that “Britain is rightly proud to be the pioneer of the modern liberties of the individual.” Little noticed among the cascade of pronouncements about constitutional reform, was a promise to reconsider the ban on unlicensed political protest in the vicinity of the Palace of Westminster. Mr Brown implied that when it came to balancing the need for public order with the right to public dissent, this was a law too far.

A commitment to personal liberty is only to be expected from a British prime minister, and especially from a son of the manse brought up in Adam Smith’s home town. Yet Mr Brown sat in a Cabinet that did more than any other in recent years to alter the balance in the relationship between the State and the individual.

If Clement Attlee is remembered for post-war welfare provision and the NHS, Harold Wilson for Sixties optimism, Edward Heath for joining Europe, James Callaghan for the Winter of Discontent, Margaret Thatcher for reducing the size of government and John Major, however unfairly, for sleaze then we will look back on the past ten years as marking a serial assault by the State on the civil liberties of the citizen.

To be sure, the State always wants to limit the liberties of its people. But it is normally restrained by an executive that understands the limits of illiberalism or is contained by a parliament that considers itself to be a guardian of freedoms.

For a number of reasons, neither of these brakes was applied under Tony Blair’s premiership. The huge Commons majority he enjoyed, the craven pusillanimity of his party, the implosion of the Conservatives and the consequent absence of opposition, other than in the Lords ¬ and, to an extent, in the courts – conspired with a genuine, though irrational, fear of terrorism and rising street crime to let the State take greater control over the citizen than it has enjoyed in modern peacetime...

This assault on freedom has come from all directions. Surveillance of a sophistication never dreamt of in Orwell’s worst nightmares; the gradual dismantling of the judicial protections afforded to defendants in criminal cases, even to the point of questioning the presumption of innocence; the criminalisation of dozens of activities that would never previously have been considered immoral; the limits on freedom of speech; restrictions on movement and detention without trial or even charge; and the creation of databases containing information on us all and which will track the movements of our children and theirs from cradle to grave.

Taken singly, each one of these might be considered justifiable. For instance, the removal of the double jeopardy rule in trials, whereby a suspect found innocent cannot be tried again for the same offence, may seem sensible given the advances in DNA technology. But when this is combined with proposals to give police greater summary powers or attempts are made to limit, or even to dispense with, trial by jury then the sum of the parts appears far less benign...

are we a free country any longer? Were we ever? It is said, though less often now than it used to be, that the basis of English liberty is the rule of law, under which everything is allowed unless specifically prohibited. According to AV Dicey, the 19th-century constitutionalist, this was one of the features that distinguished England from its continental counterparts, where people were subject to the exercise of arbitrary power and actions that were not specifically authorised were proscribed...

The proliferation of state databases, again very much a recent occurrence, has also rendered the concept of the private individual a thing of the past, and from the earliest age. From next year, the children’s database will go online, containing confidential details on every child in the land, including a record of school achievements, police and social services records and home address. Each child will be assigned an identifying number so that the authorities can access his or her records. This database, known as the Integrated Children’s System, is being developed ostensibly to curb child abuse, but it goes much farther than the Child Protection Register, which holds information about children considered to be “at risk”. One reason all children are to be included is to avoid “stigmatisation”. Astonishingly, this plan has attracted little public hostility, though the Joint Parliamentary Select Committee on Human Rights pointed out: “The information which may be included on the database about a child goes beyond purely objective facts about a child, such as name, address and date of birth. It includes information, such as contact details of persons providing services including health services, which may reveal very sensitive information, such as the fact that a 17-year-old girl has been referred to family planning services.”

It also includes “the existence of any cause for concern” about a child, “an extremely subjective and open-ended phrase which is almost bound to include very sensitive information.” How long will this information remain on the database? Will it be erased when the children turn 18 or will some youthful, even childish, transgression return to haunt them in adulthood? We do not know...

But we have not yet got to the main event, the ultimate weapon of state control: the national identity system. This is something that the State qua State, as opposed to an individual minister or government, has long sought to introduce. When it comes to softening up the country for an ID card, the Home Office has been prepared to play a very long game. Officials have presented every home secretary for the past 50 years with a proposal for an ID scheme."

Highly recommended and thanks to the good folks at NO2ID for the pointer.

Out of the Theater, Into the Courtroom

From the Washington Post: A teenager is facing a year in jail and a $2500 fine for recording a 20 second clip of a film in a cinema, in order to get her brother hyped up to go and see it too. Some of the folk in the entertainment business certainly know how to overreact. Personally I can't see how it can be good business practice to terrorise a long term loyal customer who was interested in promoting your product.

Tech industry complain to FTC re content cos overreaching on copyright

Here's an interesting development:

"The Computer and Communications Industry Association, which includes Google, Microsoft, and other major tech companies, has filed a complaint in the U.S. with the Federal Trade Commission over the copyright notices used by sports leagues (the NFL and MLB are named), broadcasters, movie studios, and publishers. The gist of the complaint is that these industries use notices or warnings to misrepresent consumer rights with regard to copyright law as they often warn of significant liability for copying with no mention of fair use rights."

California evoting machine audit shows vunerabilities

Bruce Schneier and Ed Felten have been considering the University of California reports on the review of California's evoting machines.

Schneier:

"This was a serious review, with real security researchers getting access to the source code. The report was issued last week, and the researchers were able to compromise all three machines -- by Diebold Election Systems, Hart Intercivic, and Sequoia Voting Systems -- multiple ways. (They said they could probably find more ways, if they had more time.)...

This is no surprise, really. The notion that electronic voting machines were somehow more secure every other computer system ever built was ridiculous from the start. And the claims by machine manufacturers that releasing their source code would hurt the security of the machine was -- like all these sorts of claims -- really an attempt to prevent embarrassment to the company.

Not everyone gets this, unfortunately. And not everyone involved in voting:
Letting the hackers have the source codes, operating manuals and unlimited access to the voting machines "is like giving a burglar the keys to your house,'' said Steve Weir, clerk-recorder of Contra Costa County and head of the state Association of Clerks and Election Officials.

No. It's like giving burglars the schematics, installation manuals, and unlimited access to your front door lock. If your lock is good, it will survive the burglar having that information. If your lock isn't good, the burglar will get in."

Felten:

"So far only the red team (and accessibility) reports have been released, which makes one wonder what is in the remaining reports...

The bottom-line paragraph from the red team overview says this (section 6.4):

The red teams demonstrated that the security mechanisms provided for all systems analyzed were inadequate to ensure accuracy and integrity of the election results and of the systems that provide those results.

The red teams all reported having inadequate time to fully plumb the systems’ vulnerabilities (section 4.0):

The short time allocated to this study has several implications. The key one is that the results presented in this study should be seen as a “lower bound”; all team members felt that they lacked sufficient time to conduct a thorough examination, and consequently may have missed other serious vulnerabilities...

Despite the limited time, the teams found ways to breach the physical security of all three systems using only “ordinary objects” (presumably paper clips, coins, pencil erasers, and the like); they found ways to modify or overwrite the basic control software in all three voting machines; and they were able to penetrate the backend tabulator system and manipulate election records."

Update: I also should have said there was a parallel study going on in Florida. A study by Florida State University has reported that Florida's optical scan machines are still flawed despite efforts to fix them. Further information on the study available at http://www.sait.fsu.edu/news/2007-03-05-essr.shtml

Update 2: The evoting machine vendors have attacked the California study, saying all it proves is that all computer systems are vulnerable.

Candian Supreme Court and the chocolate case

The Canadian Supreme Court recently ruled in the Euro-Excellence v. Kraft Foods case that copyright cannot be used as a technical legal barrier to the parallel importing of chocolate. Michael Geist tells the story better than I can.

Of course in the EU, IP holders don't need to resort to such copyright trickery. The protectionism... er... complications of the free market...

Interestingly and rarely for a copyright case the question of economic interests was central to the key opinions penned by the majority justices. Justice Bastarache wrote:

"sometimes a substantial reproduction of a copyrighted work will not be an infringement, because copyright protection is limited to protection of legitimate economic interests which are the result of an exercise of skill and judgment, and that protection must not be extended beyond its proper limits. The CCH decision thus confirms that in order to protect the essential balance which lies at the heart of copyright law, care must be taken to ensure that copyright protection is not allowed to extend beyond the legitimate interests of a copyright holder... once copyright is granted in a given work, the protection that it provides must not be extended beyond its natural limits, and must take proper account of user rights such as the right to deal fairly with a copyrighted work."

Nurses have reseravations about NHS NPfIT

From William Heath's KableNet: Nurses have strong reservations about the benefits of electronic patient records, a survey for the Royal College of Nursing has found

Photoleap

Photleap seems like a good idea - apparently it "makes it easy to send photos and videos to your friends and family."

Given the limit on the size of files that can be attached to emails it's only a matter of time before they get bypassed by something more useful. I haven't looked at how Photoleap works - utility, privacy issues etc. - but it sounds promising.

Lucasfilm's Phantom Menace

Lessig in the Washington Post:

"In May, Lucasfilm announced plans to enable fans of the "Star Wars" series to "remix" "Star Wars" video clips with their own creative work...

A careful reading of Lucasfilm's terms of use show that in exchange for the right to remix Lucasfilm's creativity, the remixer has to give up all rights to what he produces. In particular, the remixer grants to Lucasfilm the "exclusive right" to the remix -- including any commercial rights -- for free. To any content the remixer uploads to the site, he grants to Lucasfilm a perpetual non-exclusive right, again including commercial rights and again for free.

Upload a remix and George Lucas, and only Lucas, is free to include it on his Web site or in his next movie, with no compensation to the creator. You are not even permitted to post it on YouTube. Upload a particularly good image as part of your remix, and Lucas is free to use it commercially with no compensation to the creator. The remixer is allowed to work, but the product of his work is not his. Put in terms appropriately (for Hollywood) over the top: The remixer becomes the sharecropper of the digital age."

Brown trying to look tough on terror

Gordon Brown is showing no signs of backing away from his predecessor's predisposition to do things that made look superficially tough on terror. He's pushing his demands to extend detention without charge period beyond the already very long 28 days and now he's keen to deploy a border force (originally a Conservative party plan) to look tough on immigration. They're all going to get uniforms you know.

In only November last year Immigration minister Liam Byrne was ridiculing the border force plan:

"The chaos of a damaging, distracting and disruptive reorganisation of three agencies on the front line into a single border force. That idea is outdated and is rooted in a concept of a frontier that is long past.

It is simplistic and dangerous in the disruption that it poses. The number of people who seek to come to this country might double in the next 10 to 15 years, and I simply cannot think of a worse use of time than to consume front-line staff in the process of reapplying for their own jobs in a reorganisation, the benefits of which we are already achieving by equipping different agencies with the powers to do each other's jobs"

I guess he didn't realise his soon to be leader liked the idea.

Senators to abandon '08 e-voting paper trail mandate

Anne Broache reports that

"Democratic senators on Wednesday made another push for banning electronic voting machines that lack paper trails, but they've backed away from doing so in time for next year's presidential election.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chief sponsor of a contentious bill called the Ballot Integrity Act that proposes such changes, said she fears requiring all states to employ so-called voter-verified paper records in their systems, with some primaries only six months away, "could be an invitation to chaos." Earlier this year, she called for enacting such changes by 2008."

This 'it will cause chaos because we haven't got enough time before the next election' argument has been bandied about round the evoting debate for a long time now. The US are always going to be within two years of a major election. The evoting infratructure and the other structural problems with the US electoral system are going to take longer than two years to sort out. Yes it is a major systemic mess that will need major surgery but the ultimate conclusion of the 'it's going to cause chaos' argument is that 'we can't do anything about it so we shouldn't try'.

A change of mind about evoting

David Evans has had a change of heart about evoting.

"In a recent article, I suggested that e-voting as it currently stands might be a bad idea. This also echoes an article from some time ago from Jason Kitkat, who is the in-house expert on e-voting for the Open Rights Group that goes a bit further.

However, I recant on my previous opinion. I've always thought it would be nice to be an MP. Decent salary, excellent pension, and if you do it right you could end up on the board of something cushy like a private equity company. The only issue is that wretched electoral accountability. It makes for rather a tough and demanding life; the MPs I've met have to work very hard, and it isn't easy.

With e-voting, it doesn't need to be this way. Every constituency can be a rotten borough. Every vote counts, and mine can really count! Rather than having to undertake a very high risk operation to change even a few hundred votes in a 50,000 vote election, I can do it all in software; untraceable, undetectable. The doors have been opened to electronic electoral success! Voter turnout at 200%, and may the best hacker win!"

Funny.

A Behind-The-Scenes Look At How DRM Becomes Law

Cory: A Behind-The-Scenes Look At How DRM Becomes Law. Brilliant.

House of Lords on Children's Index

The House of Lords Select Committee on the Merits of Statutory Instruments are very critical of the government's plans for the Children's Index database, now called ContactPoint, which was mandated by the Children Act 2004.

"Summary: We are in no doubt about the importance of these Regulations. They set out the details of the "ContactPoint" database which will hold basic identifying information on all 11 million children in England under the age of 18, and which will be accessible to over 300,000 users. The Government have shown a thoroughgoing commitment to preparing for the national operation of the scheme, through large-scale expenditure and wide-ranging engagement with all interested parties. However, the Government have not in our view conclusively demonstrated that a universal database is a proportionate response to the problem being addressed. While the Government have taken the need for security seriously, the scale and importance of the scheme increase the risk that any accidental or inadvertent breach of security, or any deliberate misuse of the data, would be likely to bring the whole scheme into disrepute."

EFF sues Universal over 'fair use' of song in YouTube video

Via Michael Geist: EFF sues Universal over 'fair use' of song in YouTube video Michael says:

"The EFF has filed a lawsuit against the Universal Music
Publishing Group after the company asked that a home video
be removed due to copyright infringement. The video features
an 18-month old Holden Lenz dancing to Prince's Let's Get
Crazy and runs for a total of 29 seconds. Following
Universal's complaint the video was removed by You Tube and
remained offline until recently."

The EFF say:

"Universal's takedown notice doesn't even pass the laugh test," said EFF Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry. "Copyright holders should be held accountable when they undermine non-infringing, fair uses like this video."

Last May, UMPG's parent company, Universal Music Group, sent a baseless copyright takedown demand to YouTube for a video podcast by political blogger Michelle Malkin. That video was quickly reposted after Malkin fought back.

"Copyright abuse can shut down online artists, political analysts, or -- as in this case -- ordinary families who simply want to share snippets of their day-to-day lives," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "Universal must stop making groundless infringement claims that trample on fair use and free speech."

The lawsuit asks for a declaratory judgment that Lenz's home video does not infringe any Universal copyright, as well as damages and injunctive relief restraining Universal from bringing further copyright claims in connection with the video.

This lawsuit is part of EFF's ongoing work to protect online free speech in the face of bogus copyright claims. EFF is currently working with Stanford's Fair Use Project to develop a set of "best practices" for proper takedowns under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

For the video (since reposted):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KfJHFWlhQ

For the full complaint:
http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/lenz_v_universal/lenz_complaint_final.pdf

For more on DMCA abuse and free speech:
http://www.eff.org/IP/freespeech/

BBC Trust backs calls for Linux iPlayer

From the Register: BBC Trust backs calls for Linux iPlayer

"The BBC Trust met with the Open Source Consortium (OSC) yesterday to discuss the controversy raised by the BBC's iPlayer, which will only work on Windows XP.

The Trust expressed surprise at the strength of feeling raised by the issue and promised to take it up with senior BBC management."

Congress: P2P networks harm national security

From News.com Congress: P2P networks harm national security

The Open Library Project

The Open Library project has opened its virtual demo doors.

"What if there was a library which held every book? Not every book on sale, or every important book, or even every book in English, but simply every book—a key part of our planet's cultural legacy.

First, the library must be on the Internet. No physical space could be as big or as universally accessible as a public web site. The site would be like Wikipedia—a public resource that anyone in any country could access and that others could rework into different formats.

Second, it must be grandly comprehensive. It would take catalog entries from every library and publisher and random Internet user who is willing to donate them. It would link to places where each book could be bought, borrowed, or downloaded. It would collect reviews and references and discussions and every other piece of data about the book it could get its hands on.

But most importantly, such a library must be fully open. Not simply "free to the people," as the grand banner across the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh proclaims, but a product of the people: letting them create and curate its catalog, contribute to its content, participate in its governance, and have full, free access to its data. In an era where library data and Internet databases are being run by money-seeking companies behind closed doors, it's more important than ever to be open.

So let us do just that: let us build the Open Library.

Earlier this year, a small group of people gathered at Internet Archive's San Francisco office to discuss whether this was possible. Could we build something so grand? We concluded that we could. We located a copy of the Library of Congress card catalog, phoned publishers and asked them for their data, created a brand new database infrastructure for handling millions of dynamic records, wrote a new type of wiki that lets users enter structured data, set up a search engine to look through it all, and made the resulting site look good.

We hooked it up to the Internet Archive's book scanning project, so that you can read the full text of all the out-of-copyright books they've made available. And we hope to add a print-on-demand feature, so that you can get nice paper copies of these scanned books, as well as a scan-on-demand feature, so you can fund the scanning of that out-of-copyright book you've always loved.

But we can only do so much on our own. Hopefully we've done enough to make it clear that this project is for real—not simply another pie-in-the-sky idea—but we need your help to make it a reality. So we're opening up the demo we've built so far, opening up the source code, opening up the mailing lists, and hoping you'll join us in building Open Library. It sure is going to be a fun ride."

Keen vs. Weinberger

Keen v Weinberger in the WSJ. Essential reading for Web 2.0 enthusiasts and detractors.

Given the clarion call in my book for access to knowledge and the need to get ordinary people involved in decision making process surrounding the development, deployment and regulation of large information systems I particularly liked Weinberger's closing comments:

"For example, you're right that we're in the middle of a disruption of the professional media "ecosystem," as you aptly call it. Some of our professional media are faltering before we have built their online replacements. It's frightening, especially if you're delighted with the existing mass media. But, the transition is hardly over. If these institutions have value, then providing that value on line is an opportunity that may well be addressed by the market (have faith, Andrew!) or by the new economics of cooperative social production expounded in Yochai Benkler's seminal "The Wealth of Networks" (which is available, of course, in its entirety for free online). Further, these newly fashioned mechanisms for delivering old-fashioned value will have their own advantages, as well as the weaknesses you note. Wikipedia, if nothing else, is more complete and current than printed encyclopedias -- and we can quote it at length without getting sued. iTunes enables some worthy musicians to find their own small audiences. Open access scientific journals have made far more research (including peer reviewed papers) available to scientists than ever before -- a good example of what I think of as the power of making information miscellaneous. In fact, amateurs and professionals are getting "miscellanized" so that their influence is proportional not to their status but to the value they contribute...and our understanding of the professionals is being enhanced by their revealing more of their amateur, personal side in their blogs.

Most of all, a serious discussion of amateurism has to be able to admit that it may have some benefits. For example:

(1) Some amateurs are uncredentialed experts from whom we can learn.
(2) Amateurs often bring points of view to the table that the orthodoxy has missed, sometimes even challenging the authority of institutions whose belief systems have been corrupted by power.
(3) Professional and expert ideas are often refined by being brought into conversation with amateurs.
(4) There can be value in amateur work despite its lack of professionalism: A local blogger's description of a news story happening around her may lack grammar but provide facts and feelings that add to -- or reveal -- the truth.
(5) The rise of amateurism creates a new ecology in which personal relationships can add value to the experience: That a sister-in-law is singing in the local chorus may make the performance thoroughly enjoyable, and that I've gotten to know a blogger through her blog makes her posts more meaningful to me.
(6) Collections of amateurs can do things that professionals cannot. Jay Rosen, for example, has amateur citizens out gathering distributed data beyond the scope of any professional news organization.
(7) Amateur work helps us get over the alienation built into the mainstream media. The mainstream is theirs. The Web is ours.
(8) That amateur work is refreshingly human -- flawed and fallible -- can inspire us, and not just seduce us into braying like chimps.

Yes, Andrew, we are amateurs on the Web, although there's plenty of room for professionals as well. But we are not replicating the mainstream media. We're building something new. We're doing it together. Its fundamental elements are not bricks of content but the mortar of links, and links are connections of meaning and involvement. We're creating an infrastructure of meaning, miscellaneous but dripping with potential for finding and understanding what matters to us. We're building this for one another. We're doing it by and large for free, for the love of it, and for the joy of creating with others. That makes us amateurs. And that's also what makes the Web our culture's hope."

Thanks to the Berkman blog for the pointer.

Facebook site faces fraud claim

From the BBC: Facebook site faces fraud claim

"Three founders of ConnectU say Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea for the site while at Harvard.

Facebook has become a global phenomenon with about 31 million users, compared with ConnectU's 70,000.

A Federal case accuses Mr Zuckerberg of fraud and misappropriation of trade secrets, and asks for ConnectU to be given ownership of Facebook."

Bush Alters Rules for CIA Interrogations

From the Washington Post: Bush Alters Rules for CIA Interrogations

"President Bush breathed new life into the CIA's terror interrogation program Friday in an executive order that would allow harsh questioning of suspects, limited in public only by a vaguely worded ban on cruel and inhuman treatment.

The order bars some practices such as sexual abuse, part of an effort to quell international criticism of some of the CIA's most sensitive and debated work. It does not say what practices would be allowed...

Bush's order requires that CIA detainees "receive the basic necessities of life, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extremes of heat and cold, and essential medical care."

A senior intelligence official would not comment directly when asked if waterboarding would be allowed under the new order and under related _ but classified _ legal documents drafted by the Justice Department.

However, the official said, "It would be wrong to assume the program of the past transfers to the future."

A second senior administration official acknowledged sleep is not among the basic necessities outlined in the order."

Marty Lederman at Balkanization is not surprised and has an in-depth analysis.

Patent Pirates

From Forbes: Hedge funds and institutional investors are financing the latest wave of IP lawsuits.

"DeepNines is a tiny Dallas software maker that protects corporate computer networks from hackers and other threats. But in August it became an attacker, filing a lawsuit against McAfee (nyse: MFE - news - people ). The suit alleges that the security-software giant infringed on a DeepNines patent, one that combines an intrusion detection and prevention system with a firewall, in a single device. McAfee denies the charge, saying the patent relies on previously known technology, and is gearing up for a long and costly fight.

But DeepNines has found a way to fund its burgeoning legal bills. In January it sold an $8 million zero coupon note to Altitude Capital Partners, a New York City private equity firm, promising in return a cut of any winnings stemming from the lawsuit. The payout is based on a formula that grants Altitude a percentage that decreases with a bigger award.

This deal was dreamed up by Robert Kramer, who founded Altitude in 2005, raising $250 million from hedge funds and others to invest in intellectual property. So far Kramer has put $100 million to work in nine investments. He's got plenty of company in this new game. Coller Capital, a London private equity firm with a $2.6 billion fund, quietly formed Coller IP Capital with an eye toward investing $200 million a year. Rembrandt IP Management, a Bala Cynwyd, Pa. firm, has raised $150 million, and Northwater Capital, a $9 billion Toronto manager of funds of hedge funds, put together NW Patent Funding last year. Both exist solely to exploit patent lawsuits in the U.S...

Says Daniel McCurdy, a patent consultant in Warren, N.J., "They are the arms merchants in the new patent wars."

The threat of war is having an impact. Ebay subpoenaed Altitude in federal court in Virginia to figure out what Kramer is up to with one of his investments, MercExchange, whose main asset is a $25 million patent infringement verdict against the online auctioneer. The six-year-old suit claims Ebay's "Buy It Now" feature infringes on MercExchange's patents. Last year the case produced the Supreme Court decision that made it more difficult to get injunctions."

Gene Koo Director of Online Training at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School (and believer in the pedagogic value of podcasting) interviewed Elizabeth Townsend Gard recently about her experiment in using Second Life to teach first year students about property law. She notes

"All property is made up, and students came to understand how our property laws came into being through a combination of the laws of physics and custom. (For example, Second Life obviates the need for laws regarding misplaced property because it is coded to return your items to you after a set period of time -- a "law of physics" absent in our real world)."

The good professor and her research assistant Rachel Goda blogged about the experience earlier in the year at Terra Nova.

"To begin, I should explain how I came to this project. This year I am a visiting assistant professor at Seattle University School of Law, teaching intellectual property and property. What this translates to is that my field is copyright, and as part of my teaching package, I was also assigned to teach a year-long first year property course for the first time. A bit daunting with the traditional concepts of first in time, adverse possessions, estates and future interests, landlord-tenant, communal property, easements, nuisance, eminent domain, to name a few. I knew I wanted to include some intellectual property concepts into the mix—our casebook already did in a small way. And I had been encouraged by some to rely on my European history background (a Ph.D. from UCLA) to focus on the historical links and connections that formed the common law traditions upon which property still rests. But, for me, I found the roots of history often made students feel even more disconnected from a subject—it made a difficult subject seem even less immediate. Then, while at the IP Scholars conference at Berkeley, I found the theme that would eventually take us on a journey involving an avatar named Fizzy Soderberg.

At one of the sessions, Tyler Ochoa from Santa Clara University’s School of Law was presenting on his recent work on avatars. A Berkeley student from the back asked a question about what laws govern property within the Second Life? Did property concepts translate into the new virtual environment? How did property and contract laws relate? It was a question I had been thinking throughout the presentation as well. I had been reading about Second Life and virtual property—in various news stories here and there. But I didn’t know much. What I did know, however, started to intrigue me—especially for my property course…

The imagined project took many forms over the Fall semester—I thought of having each student create an avatar. I thought of groups that would work with an avatar over the semester and interact with each other. I came, however, to choose a very different model. We have one avatar – Fizzy Soderberg (named by the first group) and fourteen groups of seven to nine students. We would have a pet hamster, so to speak. We would follow Fizzy’s journey through the semester. Each group would be given ONE week to explore Second Life with Fizzy, gather the latest news, and most importantly, research a key concept in property law. At the end of the week, the students record a screencasting in my office. The PowerPoint is prepared by the self-appointed group leader. Each student creates their own portion of the script. Then, the 15-20 minute presentation is presented to the class, as well as being posted at Fizzy’s Second Life (www.fizzysecondlife.blogspot.com) and iTunes."

Managing IPRs in Digital Learning Materials

TrustDR and Managing IPR in Digital Learning Materials: A Development Pack for Institutional Repositories looks like an interesting set of resources I should spend some time on.

"The largest UK Higher Education funding council HEFCE issued guidance to the senior management of higher education institutions about IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) in e-learning. A key points was:

“Every HEI needs to establish a clear, preferably plain English, IPR policy and disseminate it widely across the organisation, including IT guidelines and codes of practice for staff and students.”

Intellectual Property Rights in E-learning Programmes: good practice for senior managers , HEFCE, 2006

The objective of this institutional development pack is to empower people to undertake this task and help them put in place the necessary supporting measures in their institutions. To do this we have been working across a very broad front that takes in educational factors, culture and organisational issues, technology, the law, the commercial environment and policy development.

Background to the production of this pack

This institutional development pack is part of the outcomes of the work of the TrustDR project (Trust in Digital Repositories) funded by the JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) the UK government body responsible for supporting education and research by promoting innovation in new technologies and by the central support of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) services.

The TrustDR project was a partnership between the University of Ulster and UHI Millennium Institute and operated between June 2005 and August 2007 as part of the JISC Digital Repositories Programme...

The main part of the pack NB in Draft (Word - 1.5Mb)

This institutional development pack for managing IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) in e-learning is intended to support those who wish to update and clarify their institutional policies and infrastructures to help get the best out of using technology to support teaching and learning. Confusion, lack of awareness, poor practice, contradictory policy and risk aversion currently dominate thinking about this subject at all levels – particularly amongst senior management. This is presenting a major obstacle to the effective uptake of e-learning in our tertiary education system. In this pack we explicitly link the task of overhauling the IPR regimes in our institutions to the organisational and professional ‘process change' that is required to make effective use of e-learning – especially in relation to the introduction and extension of flexible learning delivery."

Joe Wilson's war

Long time Bush administration critic and former Nixon White House counsel, John Dean, has been reviewing the impact of the Valerie Plame affair. Worth a read for anyone interested in US politics. For those not familiar with the case, Bush administration officials leaked CIA operative Plame's identity to the press in apparent retaliation for her husband Joseph Wilson's public criticism relating to claims that Sadam Hussain had been importing nuclear materials from Niger. The only person who was prosecuted and convicted over the affair - and that for lying and obstructing the special prosecutor's investigation - was Dick Cheney's former chief of staff Scooter Libby. President Bush subsequently commuted his jail sentence so he didn't have to spend any time in jail.

"Former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, lost their lawsuit seeking to hold a number of defendants responsible for the personal damage they caused when they revealed her CIA covert status, but they won the battle to get to the truth. Joe Wilson has exposed much more than the bogus claim underlying the efforts to justify an invasion of Iraq. In the larger picture, the ruling dismissing their lawsuit is of little long-term historical significance, compared to the information the Wilsons have forced to the surface. It is only unfortunate that the Wilsons had to pay dearly in order to speak the truth.

Dismissal of the Wilsons' lawsuit, in fact, illuminates yet another oft-forgotten truth: Officials like Vice President Cheney, his former top aide Scooter Libby, White House political adviser Karl Rove, and former State Department official Richard Armitage can easily escape civil legal liability for even highly irresponsible conduct. U.S. District Court Judge John Bates's ruling reminds us that the federal judiciary today, under the dictates of a conservative Supreme Court majority, has a remarkable array of technical rules it can invoke to prevent anyone from holding high-level federal officials civilly responsible for irresponsible or illegal behavior."

7 year old on terrorist watch list

Via Findlaw: 7-year-old Florida boy's name on terrorist no-fly list

"For the third time in his young life, a 7-year-old Florida boy recently had to check in with an airline agent before flying because his name is on the no-fly list.

Michael Martin appears to share a moniker with a suspected or known terrorist, a mix-up that has snared several other children around the U.S. as well as high-profile officials including California congresswoman Loretta Sanchez."

Remember these are the folks the EU is trusting with EU airline passenger data detailing everything from religion to sexual preference, home address and credit card numbers.

UK Government reject call for copyright term extension

Looks like the government has got something right for a change. According to the good folks at ORG, the government has rejected calls from the music industry and the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee to extend the term of copyright on sound recordings. The full response to the select committee's 'Report into New Media and the Creative Industries Cm 7186' is worth a read (it runs to about 18 (12 substantive) pages of pdf). The relevant bit is the govenrment's response to item 28 right at the end:

"28. We recommend that the Government should press the European Commission to bring forward proposals for an extension of copyright term for sound recordings to at least 70 years, to provide reasonable certainty that an artist will be able to derive benefit from a recording throughout his or her lifetime. (Paragraph 236)

The Government appreciates the work of the Committee and the deliberation it has given to thissubject. As the Committee noted, the independent Gowers Review also considered this issue in detail and recommended that the European Commission retain a term of protection for sound recordings and performers of 50 years. The Review undertook a detailed analysis of all the arguments put forward, including the moral arguments regarding the treatment of performers. It concluded that an extension would not benefit the majority of performers, most of whom have contractual relationships requiring their royalties be paid back to the record label. It also concluded that an extension would have a negative impact on the balance of trade and that it would not increase incentives to create new works. Furthermore, it considered not just the impact on the music industry but on the economy as a whole, and concluded that an extension would lead to increased costs to industry, such as those who use music – whether to provide ambience in a shop or restaurant or for TV or radio broadcasting – and to consumers who would have to pay royalties for longer. In reaching such conclusions, the Review took account of the question of parity with other countries such as the US, and concluded that, although royalties were payable for longer there, the total amount was likely to be similar – or possibly less – as there were fewer revenue streams available under the US system.

“An independent report, commissioned by the European Commission as part of its ongoing work in reviewing the copyright acquis, also considered the issue of term. It reached the same overall conclusion on this matter as the Gowers Review.

“Taking account of the findings of these reports, which carefully considered the impact on the economy as a whole, and without further substantive evidence to the contrary, it does not seem appropriate for the Government to press the Commission for action at this stage."

The IFPI and BPI have responded by saying they'll now take their fight to the EU.

California test evote systems

Michael Geist also points to a report about California Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, facilitating "testing for vulnerabilities in touch-screen voting machines ... part of an unprecedented "top-to-bottom" review ... to ensure that the state's voting systems are secure - and whether they should be certified for use.

She is expected to report Aug. 3 - six months before the Feb. 5 presidential primaries, a timeline that is making election officials nervous.

Bowen is fulfilling what her supporters and voting security advocates consider to be the mandate she received from last year's election, in which she clashed with her predecessor, Bruce McPherson, over how much scrutiny the state's electronic voting and tabulations systems needed. She won in November amid a national outcry over fears of hacking, vote flipping and election rigging with suspicions squarely aimed at touch-screen voting systems.

"Voting machine companies are quaking in their boots," said Brad Friedman, the author of BradBlog.com, which is devoted to voting security. "She's doing exactly what she was elected to do. I will be stunned if they find systems that don't have enormous, gaping vulnerabilities."

Three vendors - Diebold Election Systems of Texas, Sequoia Voting Systems of Oakland and Hart InterCivic of Texas - are awaiting the outcome of the review, as are county registrars, who worry that any decertification could lead to chaos on Election Day."

Court clears law firm of hacking rivals via Internet Archive

Via Michael Geist: Federal Judge Clears Law Firm Accused of Hacking Opponents' Web Archives

"Although the archived pages were supposed to be shielded from public view, the protections failed and lawyers at Harding Earley Follmer & Frailey in Valley Forge, Pa., did not hack their way in, Eastern District of Pennsylvania Judge Robert Kelly Jr. ruled last week on summary judgment.

"They did not 'pick the lock' and avoid or bypass the protective measure, because there was no lock to pick," Kelly wrote in Healthcare Advocates Inc. v. Harding Earley Follmer & Frailey, No. 05-3524. "Nor did the Harding firm steal passwords to get around a protective barrier. ... The Harding firm could not 'avoid' or 'bypass' a digital wall that was not there."

The ruling, if it stands, wards off a potential judgment of $3 million in damages a patients' advocacy company sought from the firm."

Nobel laureates' letter to Congress on A2K

I learn from Peter Suber that 26 nobel laureates have written an open letter to Congress supporting open access to reports funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

"July 8, 2007

Dear Members of Congress:

As scientists and Nobel laureates, we are writing to express our strong support for the House and Senate Appropriations Committees’ recent directives to the NIH to enact a mandatory policy that allows public access to published reports of work supported by the agency. We believe that the time is now for Congress to enact this enlightened policy to ensure that the results of research conducted by NIH can be more readily accessed, shared and built upon ­ to maximize the return on our collective investment in science and to further the public good.

As we noted in a letter to Congress urging action on this policy nearly three years ago, we object to barriers that hinder, delay or block the spread of scientific knowledge supported by federal tax dollars ­ including our own works. Thanks to the internet, we can transform the speed and ease with which the results of research can be shared and built upon. However, to our great frustration, the results of NIH-supported medical research continue to be largely inaccessible to taxpayers who have already paid for it.

Despite best intentions, the voluntary policy enacted by NIH over two years ago has simply not improved public access significantly. As active scientists, it does not surprise us that a request ­ with neither incentives nor consequences attached ­ to submit our articles so that they are freely available simply does not make the lengthy “to-do” lists of our colleagues. We firmly agree with NIH Director Elias Zerhouni, who indicated in his testimony to the Senate LHHS Appropriations Subcommittee this year that only a mandatory policy will be an effective policy. Requiring compliance is not a punitive measure, but rather a simple step to ensure that everyone, including scientists themselves, will reap the benefits that public access can provide. We have seen this amply demonstrated in other innovative efforts within the NIH ­ most notably with the database that contains the outcome of the Human Genome Project.

The public at large also has a significant stake in seeing that this research is made more widely available. When a woman goes online to find what treatment options are available to battle breast cancer, she will find many opinions, but peer-reviewed research of the highest quality often remains behind a high-fee barrier. Families seeking clinical trial updates for a loved one with Huntington's disease search in vain because they do not have a journal subscription. Librarians, physicians, health care workers, students, journalists, and investigators at thousands of academic institutions and companies are currently hindered by unnecessary costs and delays in gaining access to publicly funded research results.

Over the past three years, public access to work produced in other countries has been greatly expanded. Both government and philanthropic funding agencies in several nations, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Brazil, France, and Australia have outpaced the U.S. in advancing policies for sharing the results of their funded research, with rules that are more stringent than those now employed by the NIH. In the United Kingdom alone, 5 of the 8 Research Councils and the leading foundations that support science have enacted mandatory public access policies; it is now estimated that 90% of the biomedical research funded in the U.K. is covered by a mandatory enhanced- or open-access policy. Enhanced public access, will not, of course, mean the end of medical and scientific journals at all. They will continue to exercise peer-review over submitted papers as the basis for deciding which papers to accept for publication, just as they do now. The experience of dozens of publishers has shown that even with embargo periods of 6 months (or shorter), journals continue to thrive. In addition, since this policy will apply only to NIH-funded research; journals will contain significant numbers of articles not covered by this requirement as well as other articles and commentary invaluable to the science community. Journals will continue to be the hallmark of achievement in scientific research, and we will depend on them.

The NIH, with Congress’ direction, has the means today to promote enhanced access to taxpayer-funded research through the National Library of Medicine. NIH grantees should be required to provide to the NLM an electronic copy of the final version of all manuscripts accepted for publication by legitimate medical and scientific journals, after peer review. As soon as possible after the time of publication, NIH should make these reports freely available to all through their digital archive, PubMed Central (PMC).

We strongly encourage you to realize this overdue reform by adopting language in the FY08 Appropriations measure that requires the NIH Public Access Policy to be made mandatory.

Signed by 26 Nobel Laureates:

Peter Agre, Chemistry, 2003
Sidney Altman, Chemistry, 1989
Paul Berg, Chemistry, 1980
Michael Bishop, Physiology or Medicine, 1989
Baruch Blumberg, Physiology or Medicine, 1976
Gunter Blobel, Physiology or Medicine, 1999
Paul Boyer, Chemistry, 1997
Sydney Brenner, Physiology or Medicine, 2002
Johann Deisenhofer, Chemistry, 1988
Edmond Fischer, Physiology or Medicine, 1992
Paul Greengard, Physiology or Medicine, 2000
Leland Hartwell, Physiology or Medicine, 2001
Robert Horvitz, Physiology or Medicine, 2002
Eric Kandel, Physiology or Medicine, 2000
Arthur Kornberg, Physiology or Medicine, 1959
Harold Kroto, Chemistry, 1996
Roderick MacKinnon, Chemistry, 2003
Kary Mullis, Chemistry, 1993
Ferid Murad, Physiology or Medicine, 1998
Joseph Murray, Physiology or Medicine, 1990
Marshall Nirenberg, Physiology or Medicine, 1968
Stanley Prusiner, Physiology or Medicine, 1997
Richard Roberts, Physiology or Medicine, 1993
Hamilton Smith, Physiology or Medicine, 1978
Harold Varmus, Physiology or Medicine, 1989
James Watson, Physiology or Medicine, 1962"

EU US Passenger data sharing deal

The broadsheets have finally caught up with the new deal that has been done between the US and EU on the sharing of airline passenger data. The Observer report seems to suggest that the agreement taking the information sharing way beyond the current interim agreement (and the previous agreement which caused a few problems last year after the ECJ declared the transfer of the data technically illegal)

The Observer report doesn't mention that European negotiators have claimed to have strengthened protections for the data by including a provision in the agreement that any abuses could be challenged through the US courts under US privacy laws. Though as Simon Davies and Tony Bunyan say, if the Europeans have given the US authorities an absolute right to pass the data on to any third parties, then they have lost control of the data and can have absolutely no guarantees about how the data will be used.

Now I realise that this kind of thing is mainly of interest to civil liberties geeks since the average person in the street is not going to worry too much about it. But that's the thing about the erosion of liberties. It often doesn't appear dangerous to an individual until they become the subject of an injustice directly facilitated by the absence of a protection which no longer exists.

Another book?

I've often threatened to write a book about my time in industry, particularly the nearly seven years I spent in aerospace development. For an inkling of the kind of stories it might include, take a look at “Sarge, Is This Another Bug Hunt?" by Michael John Smith.

"The hardest thing about bug impact testing is dealing with the crickets. It was not too difficult modifying an air gun with top useful speed of three hundred miles per hour to operate at five to six hundred miles per hour. All it took was replacing the old solenoid valve with a larger one, upping the operating pressure from twenty or thirty psi. to one hundred and fifty psi., making Styrofoam sabots, developing a compressed Styrofoam wad for stopping up the chamber, and making custom tools for packing the chamber. All pretty standard stuff. And it is not as if the crickets are physically difficult to work with. They fit in the 1/4² barrel nicely. Their weight is not such that the gun has a hard time pushing them. They take special care to use, being delicate and all, but that is no big deal. No, the part I did not like was killing them. Even though they are just bugs and I put them out painlessly with cold before they knew what they were in for, I just did not like it. So I was not disappointed when it turned out that even at speeds in excess of five hundred and fifty miles per hour they do not damage an F-18 windshield. For that, I had to call in a stunt double...

Everyone has been under a lot of pressure over this bug thing. It is this month¹s big emergency. Even the head salesman for the F-18, Chuck Seagle, has come into to town to add his personal touch. Chuck is a Texan, and loud of it. The chemists have been getting a little tense lately. Fortunately for me, I just have a hard time taking bug impact testing seriously.

With crickets out of the running for bug damage simulation I had to cast about for a replacement. Obviously, the impact part of the bug damage (if any) is caused by hard bodied insects like flying beetles instead of soft bodied insects like crickets. I decided to try one of my very first ideas which I had discarded in favor of crickets. So on Monday morning on my way to work I opened up the Kellogg¹s Raisin Bran and sifted out five raisins. The way I figure it, raisins are squishy like a bug, but not bouncy like rubber or silly putty. They are not hard on the outside, but I did not have any Raisin-Nut-Flakes, so there you go. (Raisin-Nut-Flakes have raisins which are coated with chopped up nuts.) However, they do hold together a lot better than soft bodied insects.

I went to work with my raisins early in the day. My air gun is loaded at the breach end through a hole in the side of the barrel. To get fast shots I shove the projectile down into the barrel from the chamber, and then pack in compressed Styrofoam behind it. The Styrofoam holds back the in-rushing air just long enough to get really high pressure, then disintegrates and flows easily down the barrel. (Now don¹t go stealing my techniques. As someone pointed out, I am probably the only person in the world working on this problem right now, and I don¹t want to be scooped.)"

Thanks to my old colleagues Bernie and Wayne for the pointer. We didn't ever get round to firing bugs or raisins at our windscreen (and other structural) test pieces but we did fire a range of other things including hand-crafted hailstones in a variety of sizes...

Libertarian market extremism and health care in the US

Andrew Koppelman at Balkanization:

"I’m writing today in a foul mood, having learned from an old friend with whom I’ve recently reestablished contact that he is going to be moving to Canada because he’s quite ill, has no medical insurance, and will not receive the extended treatment he needs if he stays in the United States...

A frequent trope that the libertarians used, in our conversations, was the invocation of the terrible abuses that existed under Soviet communism. The idea that these exhaust the options on the table is weird. The following is an attempt to explain the weirdness.

Think about the question of treatment of illness – just on the individual level, as the individual decides what to do about his disease. One can imagine analogues to the communist and libertarian offering him advice. One advisor, let’s call him Dr. Frankenstein, suggests the following: “The problem with your body is that it operates by chance natural processes, without human direction. What you need to do is let me completely dismantle your body and put it together again in a completely different way, following a logic that I have carefully worked out, sitting here at my desk.” The other advisor, Christian Scientist, responds: “Your problem is that you haven’t got enough faith in the natural processes in your body. No intervention of any kind is appropriate, other than the prevention of basic physical trauma and starvation. Your body is a wonderfully self-regulating mechanism, which obviously takes care of itself most of the time without any medical intervention at all. It’s a mistake ever to try to interfere with its natural operation.”

Both Frankenstein and Christian Scientist are, not to put too fine a point on it, insane. The person needs medical intervention. The hard question is what kind of intervention he needs. There are sane presumptions that bear a family resemblance to both of these crazies: one can think that illness is evidence that intervention is appropriate, and one can also notice that, given the body’s capacities for self-regulation, intervention can sometimes do more harm than good. But both of these presumptions must await empirical testing, and each can be convincingly refuted in particular cases.

The communist and the libertarian are both loony for similar reasons. Economies are, for the most part, self-regulating, and the desire to micromanage them is crazy for the same reasons that Frankenstein is crazy. But the libertarian is no better. Our free market in medical care has created a state of affairs in which a large chunk of our population is vulnerable to easily preventable diseases, and in which the United States has become uninhabitable for some of its citizens, as my friend’s case illustrates. The faith that the market will fix this is as daft as the faith that prayer will cure my appendicitis."

Calm rationality in the fight against terrorism

Brian Tamanaha has been discussing the war on terror with academics outside the US.

"Several related points stood out in these discussions:

First, everyone takes the threat of terrorism quite seriously, although a few remarked that on a relative scale there are perhaps greater threats.

Second, most people reject the notion that the fight against terrorism is properly characterized as a “war” (notwithstanding the above named conference). Rather, it is a significant threat to public safety, one which promises to be with us for some time.

Third, following from the second, there is a broad consensus that the response to terrorism should be conducted within standard legal mechanisms, much like any other kind of criminal proceeding, although particular accommodations might be necessary to handle classified information.

Fourth, the use of torture (or “alternative procedures”) in interrogation is unacceptable for moral, symbolic, and practical reasons.

Finally, the people who spoke obviously cherish and take pride in their legal traditions and legal principles, and have a strong conviction that these must not be sacrificed in the fight against terrorism.

We have much to learn from this more sober, but no less serious and determined response to the threat of terrorism. The several British speakers, all too aware of the manifest threat of terrorism, were especially impressive in their measured approach to the problem.

Our government's response to 9/11 was to come out with guns blazing and a "whatever it takes" attitude that too often saw the law as a hindrance. But the law is one of our great strengths. It is time to draw on this strength and normalize the fight against terrorism."

Well said.

Inmates Accused in Name Copyright Scheme

Only in the US?:

"What's in a name? How about a scheme to get out of prison? Four federal inmates were indicted Tuesday on allegations that they copyrighted their names, then demanded millions of dollars from prison officials for using the names without authorization."

Reminds me of Leo Stoller who claimed to have trademarked the word "stealth" and the phrase "freedom of expression" amongst others. On the latter, Kimbrew McLeod got there before him. Another guy with the surname Brilliant did likewise, copyrighting pithy phrases and aphorisms and deriving a tidy sum from sending nastygrams to people who innocently used these propertised collections of words threatening legal action unless they paid up. The one I remember off the top of my head is a publisher who paid him off relating to a TV presenter's autobiography "Everyone is entitled to my opinion.

Apparently these guys in prison went even further though, allegedly hiring someone to seize the warden's house and possessions and change the locks. Then when they thought their hired hand had completed his activities they told the warden he could have his house back if he let them out of prison. The craziness rating of IP stories is showing no signs of letting up.

Lee Strickland 1950 - 2007

Former CIA officer and professor of information policy, Lee Strickland died recently. Mary Minow of the Library Law Blog has this tribute:

"I thought I saw Lee Strickland out of the corner of my eye last week, a couple of times at the American Library Association conference in D.C. last week.

I know he was there, smiling, saying “I told you so,” when Foreign Intelligence Court Judge Royce Lamberth blasted the administration’s use of warrantless wiretaps. Lee was the only library school professor I know who had been a long time Senior Intelligence Officer for the CIA.

I called him years ago to ask about national security letters (NSLs), and he told me that if a library came to him with one, he’d likely recommend the library challenge it. So he would have been proud to hear Peter Chase and Barbara Bailey speak at the ALA conference June 24th, as they described their journey to do just that. They were served an NSL by the FBI, and told that they couldn’t tell anyone besides their lawyer about it. Not their colleagues, their staffs, not their families. They were not willing to turn over records without a court order, and they weren’t willing to stay gagged for eternity about their experience, particularly since Patriot Act Reauthorization hearings were happening, and people were saying that the FBI did not ask for library records.

Lee taught librarians about the inner workings of intelligence orders, and hopefully his teachings and writings helped the librarians and their lawyers in this ultimately successful quest.

I learned a lot from Lee, and he graciously (thankfully!) took on the lion’s share of the work in an article I coauthored with him and Tomas Lipinski, Patriot in the Library: Management Approaches When Demands for Information are Received from Law Enforcement and Intelligence Agencies, 30 J. of College and Univ. Law 2004 42pp. Karen, his wife, did much of the extensive research.

Lee wrote many many other articles on intelligence information, all a great contribution to the library community. I’m sad as can be that his voice is gone, especially now when we need his inside experience and generous spirit more than ever."

Joyce, Shloss and the freedom of scholars

Tim Cavanaugh of the LA Times had an interesting round up (way back ion early June) of the Carol Shloss v Stephen Joyce case.

"On Friday, a San Jose federal judge awarded attorney fees to a Stanford University English professor whose suit against the estate of James Joyce was settled recently. The awarding of fees in an out-of-court settlement, while not typical, is not unprecedented; and since settled cases don't establish legal precedent, this case is unlikely to become required reading at any law schools. But Carol Loeb Shloss' suit against the Joyce estate sheds light on an ironic, and maybe inevitable, trend in intellectual property: As copyright becomes harder to defend, many copyright holders are becoming less realistic about the limitations of their ownership.

Shloss' suit, which was launched by the Stanford Law School's Fair Use Project and argued by intellectual property expert Lawrence Lessig, charged the Joyce estate, (consisting of Stephen James Joyce, the author's grandson and sole living heir, and Sean Sweeney, a trustee), with unreasonably preventing Shloss from making fair use of the author's published works or quoting from Joyce family letters for her biography Lucia Joyce: To Dance In the Wake. It also charged the estate with a variety of copyright "misuses"—trying to prevent Shloss from using materials (such as medical records) whose copyright the estate did not own, intimidating the owners of the physical papers on which its copyrighted material is written and repeatedly refusing reasonable fair-use requests from others. It also took some steps to chip away at the presumed copyright on some of Joyce's published works...

Can we learn anything from this trip through the deep weeds of intellectual property? First, there may be a point here about the problems of endless copyright protection. Joyce's last novel was published in 1939, and much of this wrangling hinges on books that were written before many of our parents were born. If it's absurd to be arguing about these ancient works, how strange will it be in some futuristic, Jetsons-worthy era when somebody wants to do a smellivision version of SpongBob Sqarepants but the descendants of Viacom won't let that happen?

It also may be the case that estates are rarely the best or smartest stewards of literary works. Stephen Joyce, whatever his enemies in the Joyce scholarly community may think of him, is honestly committed to maintaining his grandfather's legacy. That doesn't mean he's especially smart in his efforts, which essentially amount to policing the culture for work he considers substandard. Adaptations and studies may be good, bad or indifferent (I have argued that almost all Joyce adaptations have been pretty lousy), but common sense dictates that even a sub-par adaptation generates more reader interest in the original work."

Music file-sharers get boost in top EU court

Via Reuters: Music file-sharers get boost in top EU court

"Telecoms companies in Europe are not required to hand over information on clients believed to be running music-sharing websites in civil cases, an adviser to the European Union's top court said on Wednesday.

The case was brought by a Spanish music and audiovisual association after telecoms provider Telefonica refused to hand over the names and addresses of its Internet clients suspected of running illegal file sharing sites."

A Patent Is Worth Having, Right?

From the NYT: A Patent Is Worth Having, Right? Well, Maybe Not

"two researchers have analyzed data from 1976 to 1999, the most recent year with complete data. They found that starting in the late 1990s, publicly traded companies saw patent litigation costs outstrip patent profits. Specifically, they estimate that about $8.4 billion in global profits came directly from patents held by publicly traded United States companies in 1997, rising to about $9.3 billion in 1999, with two-thirds of the profits going to chemical and pharmaceutical companies. Domestic litigation costs alone, meanwhile, soared to $16 billion in 1999 from $8 billion in 1997."

HPANA cripplessite functionality to avoid spoilers

The Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator site folks have decided to cripple the functionality of their own website in order to avoid spoilers of the 7th book in the series getting posted there.

"we've implemented a comprehensive set of protection policies for Deathly Hallows, which are now live.

Unfortunately they are rather strict and cripple much of the site's functionality, but we would like to err on the side of caution rather than convenience. As such, members who joined after July 1st, 2007 or who have less than 100 points will not be able to post in HPANA's forums at all, effective immediately. External images and links have been disabled until after the book release, and the Wizard Wire Service on HPANA's home page has been temporarily removed.

We hope these and other minor changes will help ensure a spoiler-free experience on the site for the next several days before the release of book 7. Following its publication, HPANA will close almost completely for approximately 48 hours.

Please don't hesitate to contact one of the moderators if you find something spoilery anywhere on the site.

Also note that any spoilers (scans of the book, chapter or plot summaries or elements) prior to its official release at 12:01 a.m. on July 21 will be removed and the poster's details, including IP address, will be forwarded to the Harry Potter publishers and JK Rowling's office. (Not to mention, banned from HPANA.)"

Harry Potter and the latest copyright case

Interested as I am in Harry Potter copyright cases (see for example chapter 3 of my book), I wasn't surprised to find one about the latest book (due out in a few days, midnight on the 21st to be precise). The publishers are trying to identify the person who allegedly scanned and posted some or all pages of the new book online. From AP via CNN:

"On Tuesday, digital images of what may be the entire text of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," including 36 chapters and a seven-page epilogue, were circulating among Web users. The book was apparently photographed as it lay on a carpet speckled with green and red, a hand at the bottom holding down the pages."

From the FT:

" Bloomsbury, Ms Rowling’s UK publishers, refused to confirm or deny that the download was genuine, saying: “People go to extraordinary lengths to copy these books and they have done it before.

“There are people who spend their lives doing nothing but copying the books and maybe this is what this is.”"

Government threatens data sharing onslaught

Via Becky Hogge at ORG: Government threatens data sharing onslaught

"Prime minister Gordon Brown has included increased data sharing powers in three of the bills announced in his draft legislative programme – with one measure that would hand HM Revenue and Customs data to private firms...

Brown’s measures are included in planned legislation that is not focused on welfare or improving public services.

Instead, the draft legislative programme – a departure from the tradition of announcing government bills in the queen’s speech – includes increased data sharing powers in proposed new laws on terrorism, education and skills and the sale of student loans."

7 Ways To Ruin A Technological Revolution

I've just got round to listening to James Boyle's talk at Google, 7 Ways To Ruin A Technological Revolution. Astute and entertaining as ever he makes most of the key points about intellectual property policy in the space of little more than half an hour (followed by a Q&A session):

• The making of IP policy is disproportionately driven by emotive appeals by wealthy artists and industries. WIPO has no economists or empiricists on the payroll and policymakers worldview, shaped by IP maximalist lobbyists dictates that errors can only be made in one direction - over protection. (He relates an amusing conversation with a staff member of one of the collecting societies where on asking about whether singing in the shower should be monetised, he was told "That's just a problem of monitoring.")
  
• There is a complete failure to recognise the reality that every creator's inputs are someone else's outputs. The focus is only on protecting the outputs
• Whenever technology is factored into the debate the entire focus is on the negative effects of the technology - the ability to copy easily leading to piracy, rather than the vast new cheap distribution networks and markets it opens up.
• We are very bad in the West at understanding the benefits of openness
• We ignore creativeness that does not involve property rights - if Tim Berners-Lee was trying to release the Web as a set of open protocols today he'd be considered a complete nutcase. We ignore the benefits of technologies like the web and the end to end Net. So the computer as a general purpose machine becomes a bad thing and we have to move to controlled or trusted systems
• For IP maximalists it is important for policy to be made internationally. It helps keep the NGOs out and then harmonisation upwards can be managed sequentially. Germany has life plus seventy copyright term then the rest of the EU harmonises up. Then US harmonises up to match EU. Mexico is now on life plus 100 years... Also in almost every international IP treaty, rights are mandatory and exceptions optional
  
• It is important that opponents fail to engage with the political process and there is no community like the techno-geeks for that. James reckons we bring self marginalisation to the level of an Olympic sport, which is really hard to do given we have all the good arguments on our side. Apathy on the part of geeks is incredibly useful to maximalists - geeks say that law is stupid and therefore deny that reality. Not a good tactic for getting politicos on your side

James reckons one of the good things he does now is turn out graduates who know by rote: "IF that were illegal, Google would be illegal."

As usual with his talks there are a number of priceless one-liners too.

"I was talking to the French senate about the Internet... They were against it." One of the French politicians was very indignant when he was finished and lambasted him about reducing such a sacred thing as creative culture to the realm of property. He fiercely told James: "There are two points - it has nothing to do with money and the author must get paid!"

On patents he singles out the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for particular criticism for ignoring the test of non-obviousness - due to their misunderstanding of the technologies - in considering whether to uphold patent claims, especially in the area of genetic engineering and computer software. HE suggests their ignorance of biology is down to treating it as "chemistry with longer molecules" and since none of the biotech stuff was around when they were at school in the 1960s then it must be complicated; which has led to a whole load of things getting patent protection that high school students now do as a matter of routine. He also reckons the Supreme court don't like the federal circuit appeal court because they have an 'uncanny ability to piss them off by saying things like: "they will probably defer to us because we are the specialists"'; and that he expects SCOTUS to dish out "several ritual canings of the court of appeals for the federal circuit in the next three years." Apparently they nearly did in the recent Metaboli case but chose to dodge the issue of whether you could patent the idea of having a thesis, testing it in the world, figuring out whether the results confirmed or denied it etc. Jamie's fear is that in dishing out their lesson to the appeals court SCOTUS will pick on arcane little things rather than the substantive stuff they really need to tackle.

In the Q&A he accepts the point that gathering and analysing empirical evidence in order to determine where the IP balance point should be is a really difficult task. OR it would be an enormously difficult question for people of good will at least. Luckily for him the boundaries of IP are actually so far out that he can come up with a number of decent empirical arguments e.g. when extending copyright terms don't extend them for dead people - no matter how much more incentive you provide the dead person is unlikely to create any more. Secondly despite harmonisation moves there is often a time delay in one jurisdiction catching up with a parallel one. So on the EU database directive which covers an IP right not available in the US the database markets in the EU and US can be compared. On every measure the US market out performs the EU market since the database protection was brought into force in the EU.

Also "Ninety-something % of all Western culture produced in the last 100 years is (a) under copyright and (b) has no identifiable copyright owner" So it is all locked up and providing no benefit. It would be more efficient to pay Disney and the like corporate welfare out of tax revenues to keep all the films they want to keep copyrighted forever and let all the rest pass into the public domain after 25 years. Just give the content companies corporate welfare directly because that is what they are getting from the IP system as currently constituted anyway but "at the cost of destroying access to 20th century culture in any fixed form."

Great stuff.