The music industry have taken their first direct action against an ISP for copyright infringement in Australia.

The CDT have released a report on their concerns about the broadcast flag and how to make it work. Ernie Miller has already taken them to task over it. Donna, as usual, has lots of interesting links on the subject. One of which is to Cory Doctorow, who is really annoyed at a sloppy piece in Wired News on the subject.

A group of students have launched a campaign against Diebold over their attempts to silence the websites providing links to the companies embarrassing internal memos. This one is going to run and run. Ernest Miller likens the students' approach to a game of whack the mole.

A small Texas company, Bluecurrent, has apparently got a US patent on installing software over the internet. Do I see another Microsoft v Eolas on the horizon?

Finally for this evening, yet another member of Congress demonstrates she just does not get the importance of the end to end architecture of the net in freeing up innovation. Congresswoman Diana DeGette accuses a group of companies she calls "the Microsoft crew" of "seeking to dumb-down the heart of the network in order to strengthen" their own power. Now I'm under no illusions that the Microsofts of this world are primarily interested in their own bottom line, but the Congresswoman's belief that you can facilitate freedom by building control into the "heart of the network" is naive at best. I wonder which of the "broadband providers ... teaming with other companies to offer consumers joint products and services" stem from her own district of Colorado?

I mentioned Ross Anderson's and Bill Cornish's objections to the EU intellectual property enforcement directive on Monday. I neglected to mention that the UK Patent Office have launched a public consultation exercise on the proposal.

A federal judge has told Disney that they can go ahead and release 'George of the Jungle 2' on DVD. Caterpillar Inc. had been claiming trademark infringement because the bad guys "drive bright-yellow Caterpillars in a big battle, and Caterpillar argued its reputation would be tarnished by association." The judge found the argument "unpersuasive". You just couldn't make some of these stories up.

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) have hit the panic button on the likelihood of the Council of Ministers overturning the European Parliament's stance on software patents and adopting a draft text from November last year. The ministers' meeting scheduled for 10th November is to be "negotiated" at a meeting of senior patent officials from across Europe tomorrow, Thursday 23rd October.

FFII want anyone with concerns about the issue to write to their MP immediately.

I can only echo Tim O'Reilly that it defies belief that just because something, which is otherwise obvious, can be done on a computer, that it can be considered new or to involve an inventive step. Yet that is what the proposals from last November would facilitate. Again this is slightly academic because the European Patent Office have been granting these kind of patents since about the mid 1990s. FFII, however, are keen to have any formal EU wide legislation on this firmly put a spoke in that particular works.

They've been very successful lobbying the EU parliament in that regard. They may find it harder to outmanoeuvre the patent officials and the Council of Ministers.

In the New York Times "Students Find $100 Textbooks Cost $50, Purchased Overseas"

The EU are getting in on the ID card game now, with ministers agreeing on a scheme to introduce "an EU-wide health identity card able to store a range of biometric and personal data on a microchip by 2008."

Wired had a slightly shorter story on electronic voting on Monday than the one I posted earlier. The voting machine companies want to spend money on a PR campaign to convince people their machines are sound, though they are apparently also considering introducing some version of the paper audit trails their critics have been asking for. David Dill said: "The voting machine industry doesn't have a PR problem. It has a technology problem. It is impossible to determine whether their machines, in their current form, can be trusted with our elections."

NewFactor are reporting that Massachusetts has directed the state's chief technology officer to choose open-source and open-standards technologies whenever possible. That's likely to have a bigger impact on Microsoft than all the battles the state has fought on the antitrust front. Massachusetts is the lone state still fighting the Microsoft antitrust settlement, so that is likely to have influenced their decision.

As a colleague recently commented, this story has been hijacked by the open source and the closed source camps.

The original idea was the state should encourage open formats not just open source code. Open formats would mean user access to source code, whether the software was proprietary or not. I guess this is slightly academic because arguably the only really open format software is open source at the moment.

Speaking of Microsoft a report at the weekend suggested that the music buying feature in Windows XP might well violate the company's antitrust settlement of 2001. The company has also launched a PR campaign aimed at Australian MPs, "in the wake of Democrat Bills in the South Australian and federal parliament, that would require governments to give preference to open-source software over proprietary applications."

In the New York Times "Students Find $100 Textbooks Cost $50, Purchased Overseas"

The EU are getting in on the ID card game now, with ministers agreeing on a scheme to introduce "an EU-wide health identity card able to store a range of biometric and personal data on a microchip by 2008."

Wired had a slightly shorter story on electronic voting on Monday than the one I posted earlier. The voting machine companies want to spend money on a PR campaign to convince people their machines are sound, though they are apparently also considering introducing some version of the paper audit trails their critics have been asking for. David Dill said: "The voting machine industry doesn't have a PR problem. It has a technology problem. It is impossible to determine whether their machines, in their current form, can be trusted with our elections."

If you've been following the electronic voting machine problems in the US, then William Rivers Pitt's interview with Barbara Simmons, David Dill and Rebecca Mecuri is as terrific insight into the issues.

" DD: You know, being an engineer involves making choices about the appropriate use
of technology. It is not using the highest tech solution to every problem, whether it's
appropriate or not. It's focused on solving the problem by the best means that are
available. The best engineers will use the best means that are available even if they
don't involve any significant technology at all. I think it's the responsibility of everybody
in technology to weigh in with their opinions about the appropriate use of technology
and the inappropriate use of technology. And I think it's particularly important for
academics and educators to do that. I think part of our job in universities is to try to
advise the rest of society, and the policy makers, of what the right things to do are.
And to share our expertise and that's really what we're trying to do.

My greatest worry is really an erosion of confidence in the elections. When people
can no longer trust the elections I think that that will undermine the legitimacy of
everybody in government and I wouldn't like to see that happen.

BS: The confidence is very important. I also fear that if there is the capability of
undermining elections sooner or later. Somebody will exploit this technology to steal an
election. And to me, our democracy and our right to vote and our right to choose the
people who run this country is fundamental and if I feel we've lost that then what makes
this country special is gone.

RM: My feeling is that it is a bamboozling of the American public. We're trading away
a lot of the checks and balances that we have always had in elections. We're trading
this off for high-tech, for faster returns, and it's not true, what we're being told is not
the full truth about what is actually going on and I think that we're giving away much
more than we're getting. We're giving the opportunity to have an entire election stolen,
just because of bad code, not even stolen, just screwed up, fouled up.

DD: We're driving too fast along the side of a mountain road with no guardrail. And
maybe you won't go over the side or maybe you will. Do you want to risk it? If you do it
long enough you'll eventually go off the mountain. "

Frank Field is highlighting a McGill University (Canadian) development studies student's objection to having US company TurnItIn.com vetting all his assignments for plagiarism. Might be interesting to keep tabs on that one.

Derek Slater has pointed me to Pam Samuelson's review of Jessica Litman's book, Digital Copyright. Both the review and the book are well worth a read. Actually, virtually anything by these two formidable scholars of intellectual property is worth a read, if you really want to get to grips with the lie of the IP landscape.

The Digital Imprimatur: How Big Brother and Big Media Can Put the Internet Genie Back in the Bottle by John Walker, who created AutoCAD. He's come round to agreeing with Larry Lessig on the future of the Net, having previously been an optimist on the subject.

Also recommended is Walker's Unicard essay on privacy from 1994.

There have been a number of interesting articles published recently on the subject of protecting children from inappropriate content on the Internet. Angela M. Xenakis argues in the North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology that the answer is in technology and not regulation.

Christopher Scott Maravilla in the West Virginia Journal of Law & Technology also suggests the answer might be in zoning and filtering technologies. But, for example, that these should be mandated by government regulation requiring virtual red light district domain names to be used for pornography.

Edgar Burch looks at censoring hate speech also in the North Carolina Journal of Law & Technology. He argues that hate speech on the Net presents real dangers in the wake of the tragedy of 11th September 2001. He concludes:

"The First Amendment and the peripheral rights that it embodies severely restrict the government’s ability to regulate hate speech... calls for implementation of legislation (regulation of Internet-based hate speech) or private procedures
(use of filtering systems) to protect youth who lack the sophistication to truly carry out the marketplace of ideas concept...
If the September 11th attacks on America have not conveyed any other message, they have reminded
people that some rights we have come to value may have to be limited to maintain safety and order in this nation."

I disagree on many fronts but probably most importantly in relation to his notion that young people are incapable of negotiating the marketplace of ideas. Give young people freedom and responsibility and they will amaze you.

Dawn S. Conrad in the Richmond Journal of Law & Technology says that "joint efforts by the government, consumers, parents, law
enforcement, the technology industry, and the adult Internet industry will be required."

Robert Chalmers argues for education not censorship in the Murdoch University Electronic Journal of Law.

Finally (for now) the BBC are highlighting an LSE report on Children on the Internet

"While the industry, government, schools and parents should continue to
highlight risks, there are also some exciting opportunities being missed for
engaging with young people online. "

The New York Times is reporting on the EU's plans for an intellectual property enforcement directive. And if you thought the EUCD and the DMCA were bad, you should see this.

"Lawyers who have studied a draft of the proposed law say that not only could a teenager who downloaded a music file be sent
to jail under it; so too could managers of the Internet service provider that the teenager happened to use, whether they knew
what the teenager was doing or not."

I had not previously appreciated that the lady in charge of shepherding the directive through, Janelly Fourtou, a French member of the European Parliament, is married to the chief executive of Vivendi Universal, Jean-René Fourtou. She doesn't believe she faces a conflict of interest.

FIPR and Ross Anderson in particular have been warning us about this for months.

And world renowned intellectual property specialists such as Bill Cornish, Josef Drexel, Rito Hilty, Annette Kur and others have just published a article seriously criticising the proposals.

Courtesy of Donna, who in her turn got it from Lawrence Solum, I learn of an excellent paper by Professor Joseph Liu at Boston College, The DMCA and the Regulation of Scientific Research. From the abstract:

"This Article analyzes the impact of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA) on academic encryption research. In this Article, I argue that for
both legal and practical reasons academic encryption researchers should be
able to conduct and publish certain types of research without significant
fear of liability under the DMCA. However, the DMCA will have a
non-trivial impact on the conditions under which such research takes place,
and this impact can be expected to have several undesirable effects. More
broadly, this impact highlights the problematic way in which the DMCA
regulates scientific research in furtherance of intellectual property rights.
The Article concludes with a number of suggestions for mitigating some of
these negative effects. "

From the paper:

"Specifically, the DMCA: imposes additional hurdles,
which researchers must overcome before engaging in
and publishing their research; limits the universe of
individuals with whom researchers can freely
communicate about their research; requires disclosure of
the intention to engage in research to third-parties;
affects the content of academic research papers; and
limits avenues for publication of the research. "

There has been a flurry of blogging about the FCC's apparent willingness to adopt the broadcast flag. Donna has many of the interesting links. Nice to see Senator McCain getting back into Larry Lessig's good books with his letter to FCC Chairman, Michael Powell, on the issue. He's concerned about the impact on consumers.

Brad Templeton's new pledge of allegiance is amusing:

"I pledge Allegiance to the Flag
of the prohibition of copying
and to the monopoly for which it stands
One protocol, under Valenti*, innovation-free,
without liberty or fair use for all.

*Unlike God, there is no dispute over whether Valenti's
name can appear in the pledge."

Andrew McLaughlin at the Berkman Center has a new weblog.

Ernie Miller is taking an idea from Mary Hodder at the Berkeley intellectual property weblog and running with it. The idea?

"The Piracy Meter: if I pirated movies, this is how I'd rate them, as to what's worth clogging my dsl connection
for 24-36 hours to get one."

Prof Miller's expansion:

"he details of the meter aren't quite clear, but might I suggest the following rankings (from worst to best)?:

CAM - Who cares if the movie was recorded in a cinema with a consumer-quality camcorder and/or where the audience can
be seen or heard? The movie is simply not worth the effort of getting a quality copy. Download only when desparate.

Telesync - Better than CAM, still recorded in a cinema, but usually with professional-level equipment and a separate audio
source (so the audience cannot be heard). Getting better, but download only if you're not going to be using your broadband for
a day or so, like during a weekend trip.

Screener - Generally recorded from promotional videotapes or DVDs which have been sent to film critics, marketing firms,
Academy voters, etc. This ranking has been discontinued until further notice upon request of the MPAA.

LD/DVD Rip - Accomplished simply by copying a LaserDisc or DVD. Picture and audio quality are generally very good.
Good movie and definitely worth renting on DVD, but who wants to make the trip to the local Blockbuster? Go ahead and
download, unless you're too busy grabbing MP3s.

Telecine - A high quality copy taken directly from the film reel. Popular with professional pirating operations. Great movie - go
ahead and download even if it makes surfing unbearably slow and then burn to DVD-R."

The RIAA have sent warning letters to 204 more individuals suggesting they might like to settle out of court before they get sued.

I had vaguely registered but in the thick of other things not thought to blog the story about Diebold sending out dozens of cease and desist letters to ISPs, until the EFF alerted me to it again over the weekend. They are embarrassed about the internal memos which suggested they knew about the problems with their voing machines but were not concerned about them. So they are claiming copyright on the memos and copyright infringement against the Independent Media Center (IndyMedia) website which has published links to the memos. As far as the EFF know, every ISP apart from the non profit Online Policy Group (OPG) have taken down the 'offending' page.

"The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) passed by Congress in 1998 provides a "safe harbor" as an incentive for ISPs
to take down user-posted content when they receive cease-and-desist letters such as the ones sent by Diebold. By removing
the content, or forcing the user to do so, for a minimum of 10 days, an ISP can take itself out of the middle of any copyright
claim. As a result, few ISPs have tested whether they would face any liability for such user activity in the first place."

I've said before I'm a great believer in the cock up rather than the conspiracy theory of history and it seems that is what is going on here as well. There is absolutely no evidence to suggest that any funny business has been going on in the way of rigging elections. It is just that the Diebold machines are insecure and sometimes faulty. Rather than trying to close the stable door now the horse has bolted, they should be acting to secure their systems. Computer scientists, such as David Dill at Stanford, don't believe that it is too difficult a task - there is no rocket science involved, just plenty of legwork. Trying to hide the problems gives the impression of cover up, which in turn suggests they have some seriously dark skeletons in the cupboard. Conspiracy theorists get hold of that and they've got the makings of an exciting crime thriller. Somebody is probably already writing it.

Ubersoft is quite funny on the subject of the RIAA's amnesty for music downloaders.

The RIAA have apparently sent out a new pile of letters threatening lawsuits. AT the same time the EFF have released a cartoon on the subject. Amusing.

DanGilmore is concerned that the broadcast flag mandate is about to come to fruition. He makes a strong case. And, as Ernest Miller says, "Any rule that mandates DRM is giving too much control to the entertainment industry."