A Spanish court in Pontevedra has ruled in favour of the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE) against a café named Direccion000. SGAE initiated action against the cafe to claim royalties for de public performance of music in the locale, while the owners claimed that they did not have Read more…
In the age of broadband, Blackberries, 3G and wireless, we have come to expect 24/7 online access all the time. But what happens when the Internet breaks? Costa Rica and the rest of Central America are connected to the Internet through two fibre optic cables: Maya-1 and most importantly Arcos-1. Read more…
The Central American Free Trade Agreement is the multilateral treaty signed between the United States, the Domenican Republic and several countries in Central America. As it happens with most free trade agreements negotiated by the Bush administration, there is a requirement to impose heavy protection of intellectual property rights in Read more…
I’m on my way to the land of Imperial, gallo pinto and lovely beaches. I will still be posting regularly from home.
This week the IP and Technology blogosphere has been set aflame by the report from the BBC stating that copyright terms for sound recordings will be left as they are. From IPKat to Copyfight, everyone seems to find this is a delightful outcome to the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property Read more…
(via Lilian Edwards) What do you give to a geek who has everything? Why not try ideas from the Open Source Gift Guide? From tools for building your own robot,through Ubuntu distros, to a device that will turn your iPod into the loudest player in the world, you can have Read more…
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…