When talking about the spread of information and communication technologies, I often hear well-intentioned objections to the generalised use and inception of these technologies. “The newspaper will soon be dead”; “everyone will be using iPhones/iPads/insert-shiny-gadget”; “everyone should have broadband”. These general statements undoubtedly require caveats, not everyone in the world Read more…
There are various sources of information dealing with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) online, but there is one point that seems to be covered less. Why is the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) being negotiated at all as a multilateral trade agreement? In other words, why is this not being negotiated Read more…
So, the text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has been released. Much of what I’ve read so far brings me back to an earlier comment I made regarding one of the early drafts. If you don’t feel like reading the link, the gist of what I said is that Read more…
(via Ars Technica) Just a couple of weeks ago yours truly was bemoaning the preposterous abuse of statistics in order to produce a set of dodgy figures about the cost of piracy to the European economy. Now a U.S. government institution has produced a report that pretty much tells us Read more…
If you follow technology news services and blogs that are vaguely interested in digital rights issues, you must already have heard about ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. This is a multilateral trade agreement between the EU, the US, Mexico, Canada, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand and a few others, currently Read more…
Just when I am feeling like some people in the copyright industry are getting their act together, there are news that make me rethink my patient and measured approach to the issue of global intellectual property. The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has submitted this year’s Special 301 recommendation list Read more…
I recently wrote about a story that appeared in BoingBong and Michael Geist’s blog about Costa Rica being forced by the United States to pass maximalist IP legislation through the imposition of sugar import restrictions. Diego Delfino of the excellent site 89 Decibleles has posted a response to my claims. Read more…
As far as incendiary headlines go, this one in BoingBong is near the top when it comes to flammability: US to Costa Rica: you want sugar markets? We want maximal copyright. It has everything, a large and powerful country threatens a small unarmed trading partner with retaliatory sanctions if they Read more…
Bilateral and multilateral trade agreements are strange beasts. They are usually drafted to get two countries or regions to open up their markets, therefore contain all sorts of harmonising provisions which will bring the contracting parties’ laws closer to one another in order to ease trade. One of the topics Read more…
During the early years of the decade, the topic of the digital divide received more coverage than it does now. As the Internet took off in Western developed nations, there was a deep preoccupation that developing countries would be left behind in the digital environment, condemning these economies to an Read more…