New proposals on anti terrorism laws

The media feeding frenzy has temporarily died down on the Home Secretary's proposals to address the government's House of Lords defeat on the Anti-terrorism Crime and Secutity Act. It will be another important story to monitor, though.

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Whos said:

"I believe that the requirement of an internal passport is more objectionable than an external passport, and that citizens ought to be allowed to move about freely without running the risk of being accosted by a policeman or anyone else, and asked to produce proof of identity"

It was government spokesman Aneurin Bevan MP, in 1947 when there was a debate in parliament about the ID cards that had been introduced on the outbreak of World War II.

Monday, 21 February 2005, is the 53rd anniversary of the abolition of those ID cards by the government of Winston Churchill.

JURI buck Commission on SW Patents

The EU parliament's legal affairs committee (JURI)has asked the Commission to start from scratch with their software patents proposal. FFII are pleased but they should be careful about getting too excited. It may be an important statement on behalf of the EU parliament, which has had serious concerns about the software patent proposals for some time. The commission are still at liberty to ignore these concerns, however, and have shown no signs that they are prepared to take the parliament seriously on the issue, with two recent attempts to slip the directive through on the agenda of agriculture and fisheries meetings.

Report of Human Rights Committee on ID cards

The report I mentioned yesterday of the parliamentary human rights committee, which criticises the UK government's ID card bill is now available.

SBC get direct dial VoIP phone numbers

In an obscure decision allowing SBC access to direct phone numbers for VoIP Internet telephony, the FCC taken another step to encourage the emerging market. David Isenberg will be pleased.

Human rights committee ID cards concern

It looks as though the parliamentary human rights committee, chaired by Labour MP Jean Corston, does not share her opinion of ID cards.

The committee says the government's plans raise serious concerns and

"also sharply criticised ministers for claiming that their ID card legislation is compatible with human rights conventions without giving any explanation to support the claim."

The Home Office have dismissed the committee's concerns and said they'll "respond in due course" ie when they feel like it and slipped into the midst of a busy news day or in an obscure place in a low level report. Given that Ms Corston is in favour of ID cards, you can be sure the Home Office had plenty of notice that the committee had taken a negative perspective and were well prepared to spin the news.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record yet again:

1. What problem does your proposed solution (ID cards) solve?
A: Lots allegedly - terrorism, immigration, benefit fraud, social cohesion etc - all ill defined.
2. What architecture has your proposed solution got - what does it look like?
A: Complicated - high tech cards, massive database which no computer scientist in the world could secure, decentralised networked registration centres, huge numbers of decentralised verification devices for police, GPs etc.
3. How well does it solve your problem(/s)?
A: Not at all and indeed, if it is security we're concerned about, it can actually make us less secure by creating the illusion of security without backing it up with real security. If we think we've solved a problem, we will fail to take the action really needed to solve that problem.
4. How can it fail and what other problems does it create?
A: It can fail in many ways and cause lots of other problems - errors in database, failure of remote verification and registration devices, unreliable biometric technology etc etc. As Bruce Schneier says, "What matters is how the system might fail when used by someone intent on subverting that system: how it fails naturally, how it can be made to fail, and how failures might be exploited."
5. How much does it cost?
A: Billions of pounds.
6. Is it worth it?
A: No, the money could be more effectively spent on [well trained] extra police, security service, customs and immigration staff.

Teacher threatened with lawsuit

A teacher has been threatened with a lawsuit if he shows a documentary film, Eyes on the Prize, about civil rights to his students and members of the local community.

Eyes on the Prize is a documentary which used lot of licenced clips from other films but the licences were only granted for a limited period, which ran out some years ago. So, unless the documentary maker wants to re-licence the offending clips then they can't show or sell [etc] the film.

And anyone downloading it from Downhill Battle is also infringing copyright. Copyright law provides a defence for use in an educational context but the rules are complicated and didn't stop this teacher being threatened, nor, if he had decided to go ahead (which he didn't) do they gaurantee he would win any court case arising as a result.

I was just talking to a trusted friend and colleague about the impact of intellectual property in education this afternoon...

Heise gets circumvention cease and desist

Heise Online are not impressed at receiving a cease and desist letter from music industry lawyers.

"On behalf of several major firms in the music industry (BMG, edel, EMI, Sony Music, Universal Music and Warner Music), the Waldorf law firm of Munich sent Heise Zeitschriften Verlag a dissuasion this Friday. Among other things, the letter accuses the publisher of violating § 95a of the German Copyright Act (UrhG) in an article in the news ticker heise online (AnyDVD überwindet Kopierschutz von "Un-DVDs"). In addition, heise stands accused of spreading illegal "devices to get around anti-piracy measures". This law forbids, among other things, the manufacture, import, dissemination, sale, rental, and advertising of such software and hardware that circumvents copy protection measures.


According to the music industry, simply providing a link to the start page of the web site of a copying software manufacturer constitutes a violation of this law."

Here we go again with the legality of linking debate.

The new copyright maths

The MPAA's PR page on copyright points to http://www.copyrightkids.org/teachrentframes.htm, which is a "Parent-Teacher Resource Page" to provide:

"an educational tool to define, explain, and apply copyright issues in language understandable to Middle School students.
an educational resource on copyright issues for teachers and parents of 5th - 8th graders who are engaged in a creative process.
instructions about how to protect your own creations by registering them with the U.S. Copyright Office in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C."

In their copyright basics page there is a section on term of copyright, which perhaps explains why there is so much confusion over the actual length of time a copyright lasts for:

"How Long Does Copyright Protection Last?

Copyrights do not last forever, but they do last a pretty long time. Under the current laws, copyright protection starts from the moment of creation of the work and continues until 70 years after the death of the author or artist. That means that if someone who is 15 in the year 2001 writes a story that year and dies when he is 85 in the year 2086, the copyright will not expire until 70 years after 2086 -- in the year 2156, which is 130 years away."

I had a wry grin at this. The PR folk don't appear to be able to count. A 15 year old writes a story and dies 85 years later at the age of 85 (lost a few birthdays along the way no doubt); it also seems that there are only 130 years between 2001 and 2156;and potentially,that 70+85=130 rather than 155 and 70+70=130 rather than 140. Copyright propaganda is not only creating a whole new reality, it's creating a whole new area of mathematics. Mind you, 2086+70=2156, so they do have the requisite partial contact with the real world.

Parents, teachers and children are supposed to take this seriously?

Microsoft EULA v crimes against humanity

James Grimmelmann is tipping his hat to the Microsoft lawyers who wrote the terms of use for the Xbox. Specifically:

"You agree that . . . you will not . . . [p]ublish, post, upload, distribute or disseminate any topic, name, material or information that incites discrimination, hate or violence towards one person or a group because of their belonging to a race, a religion or a nation, or that insults the victims of crimes against humanity by contesting the existence of those crimes."

UK man arrested for using non standard browser

According to Cory, who doesn't post such stories lightly, a man in the UK has apparently been arrested by armed police for using a non standard browser to make a tsunami aid donation. Misunderstandings about technology can lead to quite scary situations. No details available yet, so it's probably a more complicated story than it appears at first sight.

Funny piracy cartoon

Tony Esteves has a funny cartoon at Cigarro & Cerveja no pirating cookie recipes from the Web. :-)

Ofcom chairman talks about regulating Net content

"The blurring of boundaries between TV and the internet raises questions of regulation, watchdog Ofcom has said." says the BBC.

"Content on TV and the internet is set to move closer this year as TV-quality video online becomes a norm.

At a debate in Westminster, the net industry considered the options.

Lord Currie, chairman of super-regulator Ofcom, told the panel that protecting audiences would always have to be a primary concern for the watchdog.

Despite having no remit for the regulation of net content, disquiet has increased among internet service providers as speeches made by Ofcom in recent months hinted that regulation might be an option.

At the debate, organised by the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA), Lord Currie did not rule out the possibility of regulation.

"The challenge will arise when boundaries between TV and the internet truly blur and then there is a balance to be struck between protecting consumers and allowing them to assess the risks themselves," he said. "

There is another gem part way through this article:

"Richard Ayers, portal director at Tiscali, said there was little point trying to regulate the internet because it would be impossible."

I thought this kind of libertarian idealism was well and truly buried now but apparently not. Even John Perry Barlow, author of "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" has accepted the Lessig 'code is law' message:

"Any time you engage with information, the reality that you extract from that information is shaped by the tools that deliver it. Microsoft’s information presentation is such a monoculture that it edits out a lot of other realities. So you have a new kind of monopoly that affects the way people think in ways that are invisible to them. It’s a very dangerous form of monopoly, especially now that they are talking about the "trusted computing" model, where it will be very difficult for you to save and then pass on documents on systems without identifying yourself.

That system is supposed to be designed to help control digital rights management. By its nature it will be great for political rights management, because it’s an enormously penetrative surveillance tool, and it makes it hard to do anything anonymously involving a computer."

Simply put, the the technology of the Internet is artificially created. It may have started with an open, difficult to regulate "end to end" architecture but this has been changing because it can be changed. Change the technology and centralised regulation becomes possible. The "it's impossible to regulate the Internet" rhetoric no longer holds water.

The head of BT's entertainment division has much more interesting and controversial things to say, than the man from Tiscali:

"If content is on-demand, consumers have pulled it up rather than had pushed to them, then it is the consumers' choice to watch it. There is no watershed on the net"

That could set a few hares running. We're have significant potential for a broadcatching rather than a broadcasting model the technologies continue to merge. The evolution towards that potential will be a fascinating story to watch.

WP Canada and the Balckberry

The Washington Post had a story on Tuesday about the Canadian government objecting to the extra-territorial patent claim implications of the decision in the RIM v NTP patent infringement case.

"RIM claims its BlackBerry relay server - through which all e-mails pass - is based in Waterloo, Ontario, so U.S. patent laws have no jurisdiction, even though most of its 2 million subscribers are below the 49th parallel."

And the Canadian government agree with them.

The Struggle for Affordable Drugs

News of an incredibly important development from David Bollier, author of the excellent "Silent Theft:the private plunder of our common wealth" and the just published "Brand Name Bullies:the quest to own and control culture", (which I've been waiting for Amazon to deliver for several weeks):

"Big Pharma is such a hard-driving, seemingly invincible player in global markets and policymaking that it often appears impossible to counter its influence. Now comes a fascinating new proposal that could radically change how the nations of the world could finance medical research for new drugs. Jamie Love, the brilliant strategist and director of the Consumer Project on Technology, working with dozens of influential scientists, public health officials and lawyers, has announced a new paradigm for trade policy on medical R&D.

For decades, under the current patent and trade regime, drug companies have ratcheted up the price and scope of their patent protections even though that is precisely what makes it harder to treat AIDS, malaria and many other diseases proliferating around the world, especially in developing countries. But how to get beyond this paradigm? After more than two years of discussion with an impressive list of global players, Love and others have developed a proposed medical R&D treaty that would make it easier to finance medical research on significant health problems. It would also reduce the prices of drugs that ultimately result from that research...

The working draft of the new treaty that the group proposes would try to create a global market in producing public goods -- namely, medically significant new drug research and treatments. Rather than financing such work through patent protection and high prices -- which are palpably not developing the necessary research or end-products at affordable prices -- the treaty would require signatory countries to spend an agreed-upon percentage of their Gross Domestic Product on qualified forms of R&D. Countries could meet their obligations through direct public funding of drug research, tax credits, philanthropic spending, innovation prizes, among other techniques. Strong patent protections would not be the only acceptable approach.

The treaty would serve to diversify the types of research being done; focus it on the most urgent public health problems; and decentralize control of R&D spending. The whole R&D expenditures process would be transparent and subject to independently verifiable measurement."

Copyfight on Grokster amicus briefs

Copyfight, as usual, has some really useful links on the Grokster filings to the Supreme Court.

German library allowed to crack copy protection

From the excellent EDRI-gram:

"The German national library (Deutsche Bibliothek) has negiotated a license with rightholders to legally circumvent copy protection mechanisms on CD-roms, videos, software and E-books. It seems this is the first library in Europe to have managed a voluntary agreement on the strict new anti-circumvention rules prescribed by the EU copyright directive of 2001 (2001/29/EC). Article 6 of the EUCD prohibits acts of circumvention, as well as the distribution of tools and technologies used for circumvention of access control or copy protection measures. Member States could choose between penal or civil sanctions for infringement. Germany has chosen penal sanctions, with large fines or a 3 year prison sentence for circumvention for a commercial purpose...

The German Federation of the Phonographic Industry and the German Booksellers and Publishers Association have agreed to allow the library to fulfil its legal obligation to collect and make available material for long-term archiving purposes. The agreement also allows the library to break digital locks on books and music for scientific purposes of users, for collections for school or educational purposes, for instruction and research as well as on works that are out of print. These duplications are subjected to a fee and possibly a digital watermark. Rightholders may either supply a lock-free copy of a work, but if not, the library may circumvent the protection."

From an education perspective this is a positive step, though I'm not familiar with the small print of the agreement, so there's still a caveat.

The report in the same issue that Rena Tangens from the German privacy-organisation FoeBuD is calling on all fans to boycott the World Championship because "the World Cup is being abused by sponsors and the surveillance industry to introduce snooping-technology and to spy on the fans" is a real concern. Unwelcome though this development is I don't hold out much hope of a boycott. And really that's the crux of the issue. If most of us are prepared to hand over sensitive personal data to anyone who asks for it and allow ourselves to be subject to detailed surveillance without question then we deserve what we get in terms of the consequences of loss of privacy. Not enough people really care. I won't be going to any of the matches in Germany but if Ireland happened to make it to the final...?

'Father of PlayStation' says Sony blew it on media players

'Father of PlayStation' says Sony blew it on media players

"Sony missed out on potential sales from MP3 players and other gadgets because it was overly proprietary about music and entertainment content, the head of Sony Corp.'s video-game unit acknowledged Thursday.

Ken Kutaragi, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., said he and other Sony employees have been frustrated for years with management's reluctance to introduce products like Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod, mainly because the Tokyo company had music and movie units that were worried about content rights."

You don't often see that kind of admission from the senior management of the tech cos but their employees have been bashing their heads against the internal brick wall on this for many years. One told me at a conference last year, when I gave a talk with a similar to message to Cory on drm, (though not nearly as elegant), that I had been saying the kinds of things the engineers in her organisation had been wanting to say for years but were too scared to do so.

Copyfight

Donna has been very busy recently because she's been working at the EFF on an endagered gizmos campaign, where they have generated a list of technologies in three categories - extinct, endangered and saved - and given a background on each. Nice idea. The things that originally got me interested in intellectual property was the RIAA's attempts to get a digital music player called the Rio outlawed in the late 1990s.

I was irritated at the time that the music industry wanted to ban a neat bit of technology and hadn't given any thought to the complexity of the issues surrounding intellectual property and the anxieties induced in the industry by the evolution of digital tehnologies.

I started to look into what exactly was going on with that case and nearly 6 years later I'm still absorbed. It's a fascinating and crucially important area for the future of our information society and as an added bonus, you come across all kinds of interesting people and ideas. And just looking at an extract from one of those links, Cory on drm again:

"But counterfeiting gangs who engage in "illegal copying" and
"piracy" -- that is, the sophisticated criminal enterprises that
operate in the former USSR and elsewhere to stamp out billions of
fake CDs and DVDs -- are unfazed by these systems, because they
are, in fact, sophisticated attackers. They are, in fact, not
average users. This commercial piracy is the only activity that
clearly displaces sales to the studios and the labels, and it is
precisely this kind of piracy that DRM cannot prevent.

As to average users engaged in file-sharing, they, too, won't be
foiled by this. Rather, they will be able to avail themselves of
songs, movies and other media that have had their DRM removed by
sophisticated users. They need not know how to hack the DRM
wrappers off their music, they merely need to know how to search
Google for copies where this has already happened.

And that is exactly what they will do: they will bring home
lawfully purchased CDs and DVDs and try to do something normal,
like watch it on their laptop, or move the music to their iPod,
and they will discover that the media that they have bought has
DRM systems in place to prevent exactly this sort of activity,
because the studios and labels perceive an opportunity to sell
you your media again and again -- the iPod version, the auto
version, the American and UK version, the ringtone version, und
zo weiter. Customers who try to buy legitimate media rather than
downloading the unfettered DRM-free versions will be punished for
their commitment to enriching the entertainment companies. That
commitment will falter as a consequence.

Finally, these systems are *never* limited to "illegal copying
and piracy" -- rather, they contain measures to enforce
non-copyright restrictions like region-coding (movies bought in
the US can't be watched on UK DVD players) and restrictions on
backup and format-shifting. These activities are *not* illegal or
piracy, but they are just as readily restricted by these systems
as indiscriminate file-sharing."

Special constable fined

A special constable in Dorset has been fined £1000 for using the police criminal records database to check out people she worked with at a petrol station.

A study by academics at the university of York says that using hands free kits can reduce the radiation exposure from mobile phones to the head by 47%. They're not saying mobiles are unsafe, just that if anyone is concerned then it would be sensible to use the hands free kit, or as they say, take the precautionary approach. This follows the Britain's National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) recomendation in early January that children should take care when using mobiles, use the phones for as short a time as possible when talking, preferably use them for text rather than speech and use phones with low "specific absorption rates."

There is due to be a conference on 'Children and Young People's Use of Mobile Phones' in London on 8 February.