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 A quote from the yet unpublished report says: “It is Read more…
As we spend more and more time online, we are (wittingly and unwittingly) leaving behind vast amounts of personal information. Dodgy poems, bad pictures, posts in the Pokémon forum, that Céline Dion fan website… you may have several things rattling online of which you’re not particularly proud. Personally, I do Read more…
(Thanks to Amy Terry Sheehan for link) Microsoft and Novell have signed an agreement by which the software giant will not assert its software patent rights for technology that can be used in SuSE Linux distributions. The agreement also provides Microsoft users with the possibility of obtaining support for dual-boot Read more…
Free Public Workshop – 13 November 2006 The first in a series of free public workshops is to be held Monday, 13 November 2006, 6pm (followed by drinks). Criminal Enforcement Directive and Patent LawLet the Punishment Fit the Crime? The workshop will be held in the seminar room of the Read more…
I’ve finished reading Aerotel v Telco Holdings, and I have to say that I have been impressed with a lot of the excellent reasoning displayed by Lord Justice Jacob in the ruling. I have selected some quotes: “[…] despite the fact that such patents have been granted for some time Read more…
“If you upload a video to YouTube you are a legitimate target for legal action in the same way the music industry is suing MP3 users […] Most of the clips uploaded to the site will be infringing copyright in some way.” That is an inaccurate statement. While most of Read more…
There are 200 gambling websites operating from Costa Rica employing a calculated 10,000 people. There was serious concern that the sites would be seriously affected by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. I will not be ashamed to admit that I’m considerably worried about the law’s impact on Costa Rican Read more…