20 July 2013

Double Blow Against Freedom Of Speech For Twitter Users In Turkey

Techdirt has written a few times about Turkey's difficult relationship with new technology. Unfortunately, it looks like that now includes Twitter, as two troubling decisions against users have been handed down recently. Here's the first, as reported by the Turkish Web site Hürriyet Daily News

On Techdirt.

'Pay For Delay' Drug Deals Under Scrutiny In US, EU And UK

The last time Techdirt wrote about "pay for delay" deals, whereby a big pharma company essentially buys off manufacturers of generics so that the former can continue to enjoy monopoly pricing long after its patents have expired, things didn't look too good. Back in 2010, the Second Circuit had refused to re-hear a case on the issue after dismissing a lawsuit arguing these deals were anti-competitive. But now things seem very different, and not just in the US. 

On Techdirt.

Australian Census Data Released Under CC License, But Official Site Tries To Make It Hard To Download

The whole point about adopting Creative Commons licenses is to make it easier for people to share and use works released under them. Sometimes, though, you get the impression that certain organizations adopting these licenses would rather that didn't happen, as in the following case from Australia, reported by IT News: 

On Techdirt.

Leading Italian Film Producer Calls For $16 Billion Lawsuit Against Italian State For Alleged Inaction Against Piracy

Last year we wrote about EMI suing the Irish government for having the temerity not to pass a SOPA-Like censorship law. That truly extraordinary sense of entitlement seemed to be a one-off, but The Hollywood Reporter now brings us another (via @LifeinSicily): 

On Techdirt.

Why Public Interest Trumps Trade Secrecy

Most companies have a natural tendency to keep details of their activities secret -- the fear being that competitors might be able to exploit for commercial advantage the information that they obtain. But it may be in the public interest for some details to be released, even if this might prove inconvenient for the company concerned. That's the background to a letter sent by ten law professors, including Larry Lessig, to the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, pointed out to us by infojustice.org. 

On Techdirt.

Lithuania And Estonia Use Google Maps Street View To Catch Tax Cheats

As we've noted before, the information captured by Google's Street View has been put to some surprising uses, and the Boston Globe has come across a further fascinating example from Lithuania

On Techdirt.

Cambodian Activists Explain Why The EU-India FTA Is A Matter Of Life And Death

One of the many problems with the secretive nature of trade agreements is that it insulates negotiators from the real-world consequences of their actions. That's particularly true for the FTA talks between the EU and India, currently taking place behind closed doors. One of the key issues for the EU side is India's role as a supplier of generic medicines to the world, and India's tough stance on issues like the evergreening of pharma patents. From the various leaks that we have, it seems that the EU is demanding that India toe the line on drug patents, and cut back its supply of low-cost generics to emerging countries. 

On Techdirt.

The Free, Open Web: 20 Years of RF Licensing

As regular readers of this column know, there's still a battle going on over whether standards should be FRAND or restriction/royalty-free (RF). The folly of allowing standards to contain FRAND-licensed elements is shown most clearly by the current bickering between Microsoft and Google. What makes that argument such a waste of time and money is the fact that for 20 years we have had the most stunning demonstration of the power of RF:
 

European Commission Replies to My IPRED Letter

Earlier this month I wrote a couple of posts about a letter I sent off to the European Commission concerning my appalling experience with the IPRED consultation. Well, I now have a reply, which I reproduce below:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Please Write to MEPs *Now* about TAFTA/TTIP

Sorry to trouble you again this week, but there's an important vote in INTA today (25 April) on the transatlantic trade agreement (TAFTA/TTIP), and there are some crucial issues that you might like to convey to your MEP, especially if they are on the INTA committee. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

Please Write to Your MPs About Snooper's Charter

It seems that the UK government will be deciding what to do about the Snooper's Charter this week. It is already under huge pressure as more and more problems with the plans become evident. I urge you to write to your MP (perhaps using WriteToThem.com) to express your own concerns.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Clinical Trials Must be Open Data: Please Contact MEPs

Back in February, I noted that the UK's investigation into making clinical trial data freely available was somewhat subsidiary to the EU's major initiative on the same subject. The battle there between those who wish to keep clinical trials data secret, for fear that it might show pharma companies in a bad light, and those who believe that it must be released to save money and - more importantly - save lives is now increasingly fierce.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Software Patents Storming Up the Agenda Again

As regular readers of this column will know, software patents have never really gone away, even though the European Patent Convention forbids them, and the European Parliament explicitly rejected them again in 2005. Fans of intellectual monopolies just keep coming back with new ways of getting around those bans, which means that the battle to stop them crippling the European software industry has to be fought again and again.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Why CISPA Shows We Need Strong EU Data Protection

It seems hard to believe that it was only a little over a year ago that the threat from the US SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) was averted (and that ACTA was still with us in the EU). But of course the war is never won: new threats to freedom and openness on the Internet just keep on coming. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Future of Commercial Open Source: Foundations

Remember MySQL? Most famous for being part of the LAMP stack, and thus powering the bulk of the innovative work done in the field of ecommerce for a decade or more, it's rather fallen off the radar recently. It's not hard to see why: Oracle's acquisition of Sun, which had earlier bought MySQL for the not inconsiderable sum of $1 billion, meant that one of the key hacker projects was now run by the archetypal big-business mogul, Larry Ellison. So it was natural that people were unsure about MySQL's future, and started looking for alternatives.

On Open Enterprise blog.

'Intellectual Bulwark' Of Austerity Economics Collapses Because Of Three Major Errors

Amongst economists and those who draw on their thinking, the names Reinhart and Rogoff are well known for work published under the title "Growth in a Time of Debt," which sought to establish the relationship between public debt and GDP growth. The key result, that median growth rates for countries with public debt over 90% of GDP are about one percent lower than otherwise, and that the mean growth rate is much lower still, has been cited many times, and invoked frequently to justify austerity economics -- the idea being that if the public debt is not reduce, growth is likely to suffer badly. 

On Techdirt.

UK Supreme Court Says Unauthorized Browsing Of Copyright Material Online Is OK, But Asks European Court Of Justice Just In Case

The lawsuits brought against the media monitoring firm Meltwater in both the US and the UK have not turned out too well for the company so far. In the US, the district court handed down a summary judgment against Meltwater, while in the UK, two courts came to a particularly worrying conclusion: that simply viewing copyright material online without a license amounted to infringement. 

On Techdirt.

Argentine Judge Says Community Rights To Access Works Can Outweigh Creator's Moral Rights

Even though they don't figure much in the US legal landscape, moral (non-economic) rights such as the right of attribution are an important aspect of copyright law in many other countries. Intellectual Property Watch has a fascinating account of a case from Argentina, where a judge decided that an individual's moral rights could be overridden by the rights of the community

On Techdirt.

Western Publishers Sue Delhi University Over Photocopied Textbooks; Students And Authors Fight Back

Back in October last year, we wrote about Costa Rican students taking to the streets to defend their right to photocopy otherwise unaffordable university textbooks. Of course, that's not just a problem in Costa Rica: in many parts of the world, high prices act as a significant barrier to education, and it will come as no surprise that photocopying is an accepted practice in many countries. 

On Techdirt.

Investor-State Dispute Resolution: The Monster Lurking Inside Free Trade Agreements

We wrote recently about how multilateral trade agreements have become a convenient way to circumvent democratic decision making. One of the important features of such treaties is the inclusion of an investor-state dispute resolution mechanism, which Techdirt discussed last year. The Huffington Post has a great article about how this measure is almost certain to be part of the imminent TAFTA negotiations, as it already is for TPP, and why that is deeply problematic: 

On Techdirt.

When Is An Image 'Manipulated Enough' To Become An Original Creation?

Images manipulated using programs like Photoshop or the GIMP are a familiar sight online. Indeed, the ease with which images can be modified has led to an amazing flowering of this new branch of the visual arts. But like much in the digital world, this brings with it problems. Here, for example, is the interesting case of a competition on the MINI Space site, which is run by BMW as an oblique form of marketing for its Mini car. An article on the PetaPixel photography blog explains what happened when the site invited submissions on the theme of "check-mate" (pointed out to us by @copyrightgirl). Here's "PapiloChessBoard", the photomanipulated image that gained the winner a MacBook Pro laptop: 

On Techdirt.

http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2013/04/italys-big-leap-forward-for-openness/index.htm

A few weeks ago, I wrote of the continuing progress on the central Gov.uk site, which is a showcase of open technologies, as well as being the place to start when interacting with central government in the UK. Looks like I'm not the only one who is impressed by their work, since the site has just been chosen as Design of the Year in the Design Museum's

On Open Enterprise blog.

Italy's Great Leap Forward for Openness?

Different countries are moving at different speeds in terms of governmental adoption of free software, open data and openness in general. I wrote a year ago about Iceland, which seemed to be making particularly rapid progress at the time. Now it looks like it's Italy's turn. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

How Big Agribusiness Is Heading Off The Threat From Seed Generics -- And Failing To Keep The Patent Bargain

Recently we wrote about how pharmaceutical companies use "evergreening" to extend their control over drugs as the patents expire. But this is also an issue for the world of agribusiness: a number of key patents, particularly for traits of genetically-engineered (GE) organisms, will be entering the public domain soon, and leading companies like Bayer, BASF, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta are naturally coming up with their own "evergreening" methods. 

On Techdirt.

05 July 2013

Birth of a Meme: the Tweetlog

As some of you may know, alongside this blog here - a slightly empty place at the moment, for which apologies - I run something called rather grandly "Moody's Microblog Daily Digest".  This is simply a collection of most of my tweets for each day - discarding the ephemeral ones that are replies etc.

It's mainly so that I have a readily-accessible store of them that is independent of Twitter, and that I can search through easily since Twitter's search is pretty feeble (hint, hint...).

Now I see that Björn Brembs has started doing the same on his blog.  He's dubbed it a "tweetlog", which seems a pretty good description.  What do people think?  Is this the birth of meme?