When did Google join the Dark Side? It is difficult to say. One could argue that they took the first step with GMail, but I think that it happened when it became the de-facto internet search engine and obliterated its competition. Now Google has a new service that should send Read more…
This is probably not a Nigerian scam, but I don’t know how else to call it. I received it yesterday, and was struck by the change of tactics from scam writers. People are now better informed and will instantly be suspicious of any offer from dodgy bank officials from Ouagadougou, Read more…
Colleagues Charlotte Waelde and Lilian Edwards were the keynote speakers at WIPO’s Seminar on Copyright and Internet Intermediaries. The preliminary reports from the seminar are quite interesting. For example, EDRI-Gram has a comprehensive review of the proceedings (not online yet at the time of writing this), but it has a Read more…
This is a call to arms to all of those who have ever downloaded content from the internet not to buy any music or movies during the last week of April (25-30 April). The intended outcome is to demonstrate that music downloaders are a powerful buying force, and that if Read more…
(N.Y. Times article, you know what to do). This article deals with the making of Tho Fan, a new language created specifically for the computer game Jade Empire. The language joins Klingon and Elvish (sorry, Quenya, Sindarin and Telarin) as one of the growing number of invented languages created to Read more…
The advertisement of the Creative Archive has raised a bit of a stink amongst certain circles. There are some neutral reports, like this one in Wired, or the one in The Guardian. The CC-UK list has given the licence a lukewarm reception, with downright negative vibes coming from the Friends Read more…
There are several links that I want to highlight about open source software in general. First there is the ongoing “A history of Free and Open Source by Peter H. Salus, who is serialising the book in Groklaw. Here is the introduction. Then there is a good article about the Read more…
There have been claims by the music industry that suing users works, and that there has been a decrease in P2P use. This is not supported by the facts. According to a new study, P2P network traffic rivals normal web browsing, and the P2P traffic in North America has been Read more…
The Creative Archive Licence(CAL) is now online. This is an open licence from the BBC, the BFI, the Open University and Channel 4, and it covers a large amount of works owned by those four institutions which are offered for the purpose of reuse and adaptation, in other words, they Read more…
(NY Times link, remember to use Bugmenot). IBM is opening up its intellectual property. Yes, this is similar to the much publicised legally binding promise of non-enforcement issued last January, but it goes further, and it provides a serious philosophical shift about how companies should use their intellectual property. IBM Read more…