Mick Hucknall, of Simply Red fame, has written an unintentionally comical apology of copyright extension for sound recordings. Mr Hucknall tells us that copyright fulfills socialist ideals because anyone can create something and obtain a property right over their creation. It seems like 50 years of profits are not enough Read more…
Common sense tells us that the Internet is for porn, but latest research does not reflect this. A report from Berkley statistician Philip B. Stark on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice indicates that only 1% of websites searchable by Google are porn, and that search engine filters manage Read more…
The Californian Supreme Court has ruled on the case of Barrett v Rosenthal. The case was brought by two doctors who operated a website that exposed health frauds. The defendant is one Ilena Rosenthal, who hosts an online forum and discussion group. The two plaintiffs alleged that Rosenthal and others Read more…
We have already written about the agreement between Microsoft and Novell, in which the open source developer has obtained a patent infringement “get out of jail free” card from the Redmond company. As expected, this has now created several replies from the free and open source community. Firstly, Samba developers Read more…
(Cue organ music and evil laughter). The first Zune players have now been released in the United States. Microsoft’s answer to the iPod has been controversial from the start, not only because it follows on Microsoft’s well and tested method of coming late into a market and using its comprehensive Read more…
Karen Mc Cullagh has requested that I publicise this survey on privacy expectations of bloggers. If you blog, click on the link and take the survey. Karen says: What this study is about…? I’m conducting an online survey to explore the privacy attitudes and expectations of bloggers as part of Read more…
The GPL does not contravene American antitrust law, according to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeal case is Wallace v IBM, Red Hat and Novell, in which one Mr Daniel Wallace claimed that he would like to compete against the Linux operating system by selling derivatives or writing Read more…
(via Out-Law) The Police And Justice Act 2006 has been passed yesterday. This new Act contains criminal sanctions for those who access a computer with the intent of impairing its operation, to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held on it, or to impair the operation of Read more…
I’ll be attending a symposium next Friday at Case Western Reserve Law School in Cleveland entitled “The 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaties: 10 Years Later“. There will be a webcast of the event for those interested.
According to an article from Oz, the Australian Institute of Criminology will soon publish research that warns that piracy figures quoted by software, movie and music industries are absurd, inflated, and what they call “self-serving hyperbole”. Really? Colour me surprised! A quote from the yet unpublished report says: “It is Read more…