The mainstream press has discovered Web 2.0. Here is an interesting piece in the BBC about what they claim is a growing phenomenon amongst busy people, hiring someone to attend your online presence via blogs and social networking. To be honest, I found the premise for the article rather thin, Read more…
(via BoingBoing) This is an amazing image charting the Web As We Know It (circa 2007), using the Tokyo underground as a reference. There are some interesting relations implied in the chart, for example, PirateBay is listed as one of the main sites, just as LastFM, YouTube, CraigList and OpenID, Read more…
Last week I was reading New Scientist (as you do), and I came across an extremely interesting article on the race to produce synthetic life. The article claims that scientists are on the verge of producing an entirely new type of life from scratch, a prospect that scares the bejeebus Read more…
The Times Online reports on the use of Facebook to enforce some of Oxford University’s strict regulations on post-exam celebrations. I have it on good authority that students post pictures of drunken shenanigans on Facebook, some of which fall foul of existing rules. Staff have used those pictures to warn Read more…
There are many of us interested in the software patent debate, but the EPO seems not to be one of those. The EPO held a one-day conference attended by parliamentarians, industry, NGO and experts to discuss what has happened since the dismissal of the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive two years Read more…
(via Rebecca Kahn) The Icommons mailing list has been discussing another potential Creative Commons enforcement case, this time in Australia. Virgin Mobile Australia has started an advertising campaign called “Are you with us or what?“, which has been collecting images from Flickr released under a CC-BY licence, which allows commercial Read more…
SCRIPTed is looking for reviewers for three books. These are: Roger Cullis, Patents, Inventions and the Dynamics of Innovation: A Multidisciplinary Study. Charlotte Waelde, Hector MacQueen (eds), Intellectual Property: The Many Faces of the Public Domain. Tarleton Gillespie, Wired Shut: Copyright and the Shape of Digital Culture. If you’re interested, Read more…
Internet news websites have been commenting on a copyright infringement case involving sex toys in Second Life. With spectacular titles like “Sex Toy IP Scandal Rocks Second Life“, one would imagine thousands of depressed avatars shocked by the news of a lawsuit involving sex toys. The lawsuit involves something called Read more…
I guess I’m not the only person to have noticed the ridiculously over-the-top anti-piracy commercials in cinemas. Besides ‘Knock-off Nigel‘, there’s the utterly awful crime ad. You know, because pirates are also drug-dealers, arms tradesmen and people smugglers.
Those following free trade agreements and TRIPS-plus agreements will be familiar with the tortuous approval process of the Dominican Republic and Central American Free Trade Agreement in Costa Rica (DR-CAFTA). While all other signatory states have already approved the agreement, Costa Rica is still in the process of passing it Read more…