Now to one of my favourite blogging subjects, the broken American patent system. Every time I get comfortable and think that it could not get any sillier, a new patent comes along that is so mind-boggingly ludicrous that leaves me gasping for breath. Let me introduce U.S. patent 6,960,975, which Read more…
Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent, has come out in a press conference against movie downloads with the head of the MPAA. It would seem like the MPAA has made an offer that he could not refuse and he has had to agree to a number of demands, including the Read more…
The geek invasion of Tunis has moved on, all of the bloggers have gone home, and the WSIS has concluded. The World Summit of the Information Society has left us with two documents, the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society and the Tunis Commitment. After several years of preparatory meetings, Read more…
Besides having the support of Tom Cruise and John Travolta, Scientology is famous for suing websites that distribute their holy scriptures (which you must have paid handsomely to obtain), and show people what they actually believe. If you don’t know what Scientology is about, here is an example from Wikipedia: Read more…
(Thanks to Nadja for the link) This has been a great week for copyfighters, digital advocates and other internet pundits who dislike, loathe, hate or plainly distrust DRM. The Sony DRM debacle has done more for the cause against DRM than any rousing speech. When people are faced with a Read more…
In the first agreement to come out of the WSIS, the United States has kept control of ICANN. At least that is what has been reported so far, there was never really any doubt that the U.S. would keep their control. For those unfamiliar with this institution, ICANN “is responsible Read more…
I have been looking at a very interesting proposal from fellow Costarican Jaco Aizenman about something called “Virtual Rights”. The idea is to create a set of rights that apply to all citizens, who will have the right to have (or to choose not to have) a virtual personality. This Read more…
(Thanks to Jo Gibson for the link) The news wires are replete with stories of the death of a Chinese MMORPG player apparently due to exhaustion after playing non-stop for 3 straight days in World of Warcraft (the news has made it even to Metro). The story comes with calls Read more…
patentingLIVES Law, Culture, Development 1-2 December 2005 London, United Kingdom Clore Management Centre, 25–27 Torrington Square, London WC1 A 2 day international and interdisciplinary conference on life patents An exploration of the ethical, cultural, social, legal, and scientific questions 1 December 2005 Opening Session: Tony Howard, UK Patent Office Human Read more…
2005 will probably be remembered as the year of the Grokster and KaZaa cases, but there is something more important happening. It is the year of the DRM wars. Digital Rights Management has always been a controversial subject, with a very outspoken camp against it (and it has even been Read more…