I have been noticing a resurrection of the “open” vs “free” debate in several lists, particularly in discussions about Creative Commons. This is rather disheartening, because I have been hoping that Creative Commons could stay away from the quasi-religious debates that have been affecting the Free/Open Source camps for years. Read more…
This has been a long way in the making, but I just found out about it due to some discussions in a couple of mailing lists and because of some research I’m conducting on software patents. I am afraid that this may be the first shot in the oncoming patent Read more…
Very interesting note about data protection and hunting for IP addresses of P2P file-sharing users. For a while now it has been felt that the efforts to gather data from P2P users could have adverse privacy implications and may infringe data protection. Now there is an official declaration from the Read more…
Earlier this week there was a report that the UK may be considering extending copyright terms for sound recordings from 50 years to 90. The Wired article makes it clear that the UK project may be part of a wider strategy from the IFPI and the music industry to push Read more…
I always thought that the entertainment industry was supposed to be based on making things fun. We pay lots of money to one of the most profitable industries in the planet so that they can entertain us, make us laugh, cry and sometimes even make us think. But where has Read more…
The blogosphere has been set alight (don’t you just love the word blogosphere?) by a report that first appeared in ZDNet about how iTunes is catching up with the “illegal” P2P networks. The report states that iTunes now has a total 1.7 million users, as much as the 2nd place Read more…
Microsoft has lost a patent infringement suit in California in a case brought by Guatemalan inventor Carlos Amado, who has obtained $9 million USD (not nearly as much as the $500 million USD that he had asked for). The claim deals with U.S Patent 5,701,400, a patent that protects a Read more…
This is part of the Science Commons project that encourages the adoption of open access principles in legal publishing. It seems like legal academics should be at the forefront of the open access debate by practicing those principles and negotiating harder with publishers to retain copyright and be able to Read more…
(via Andrea Matwyshyn and Lilian Edwards). This is quite an ironic problem for an anti-spam site. The Anti-Spam Research Group (ASRG) of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) used to have a wiki, until it had to be shut down due to continuous abuse by spammers. Yes, wikis are well-known Read more…