Press gag orders in the UK have a deservedly bad reputation, they are some of the worst examples of repression of freedom of speech through draconian legal measures. While one could argue that they may be justified in some cases Read more…
Nowadays I am very sceptical about reading government consultation reports. After all, recent events would lead us to believe that consultation and evidence-based advice appears to be systematically ignored by decision-makers, and that the commercial interest will always prevail. So Read more…
Tom Watson MP is fast becoming one of the heroes of social media circles. He has a blog, has a Twitter account, and is generally considered “one of us”, he clearly gets the online environment, and most importantly, I think Read more…
I recently bought a Blu-ray DVD player for my home PC. I didn’t really need a Blu-ray player as the PS3 does the job admirably, but I was looking for a fast CD ripper and decided to go for the Read more…
Last night I attended the event organised by the Scottish Society of Computers and the Law entitled Copyright law and market economics: who does the dancing and who calls the tune? with Will Page, chief economist for PRS, and Niklas Read more…
Bizarre piece of news. Myspace is being sued by five families who claim that their children were sexually assaulted by men they met in the web space. Details are sketchy, but apparently five teenage girls have joined forces in order Read more…
If one was to chart the tags used in this blog, it would be easy to get a sense of shift in interests through time. From early interest in P2P, passing through software patents, sprinklings of DRM and virtual worlds, Read more…
I have always had a love/hate relationship with email… I love to hate it. This always comes as a surprise to people, who assume that techies are all in love with messaging and gadgetry. The truth is that I have Read more…
I have been following with growing interest the online debate between Lily Allen and Techdirt with regards to file-sharing and three-strikes. If you are unfamiliar with the debate, here is a brief introduction. You may have heard that Lord Mandelson Read more…
For quite a while the knives have been out for the Google Book Settlement (a brief introduction to the agreement by yours truly can be found here). The European Union for example has been particularly interested in the implications of Read more…