That the Trans Pacific Partnership was negotiated in total secrecy should be enough to give one pause, but now, a single chapter was leaked by Wikileaks. This is the chapter on Intellectual Property Rights, which controls copyrights, the internet, medicines, and biological patents. In almost every way, this chapter alone would be a complete disaster. […]
Techdirt has a stunning article showing how corrupt we have become. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) was trying to force Google’s search engine to stop linking to content that MPAA didn’t like. Search engines are supposed to search for websites, but the MPAA wanted the power to make sites they don’t like simply […]
Cory Doctorow has a must-read article for anyone interested in copyrights and DRM (which officially stands for Digital Rights Management, but is more like Digital Restrictions Management). He points out something that should be obvious to everyone who owns a computer: DRM makes our computers less secure. DRM treats you (the owner of a computer) […]
A fascinating story unfolded this week, as Yale University went to war against a website that scraped the Yale University website. But first a quick history. Years ago, some students at Yale built a website that presented information about Yale courses. It did this by scraping the University’s official course website, but presented this information […]
As some of you know, The Pirate Party is a real political party in Sweden, which is loosely associated with the file sharing site The Pirate Bay. But right now, Sweden is cracking down on copyright violations, subjecting file sharers to massive fines and even imprisonment. So it will not surprise anyone here to read […]
In a 6 to 3, non-ideological and bi-partisan decision, the Supreme Court has upheld the “first sale doctrine”; a decision which will have far reaching implications. The “first sale doctrine” basically says that if you legally buy something, then you own it and can do what you wish with it. It is what allows libraries […]
© Matt Bors Way too easy. If you thought SOPA and PIPA were bad, meet ACTA. The fundamental problem is that the movie, recording, drug, and other industries have way more money and political influence than the people who benefit from legitimate fair use. I hope that technology companies, who have been reluctant to exercise […]
© Daryl Cagle I just couldn’t resist posting (and “stealing”) this ironic comic. But Cagle does have a good point — there are lots of people who depend on licensing intellectual property for their livelihood and they should be protected. The question is what is the best way to do that, and balance their rights […]
© Brian McFadden The real joke is probably going to be on us. At the same time the Internet was protesting SOPA and PIPA, Hollywood was already pivoting to support ACTA, the Anti-Conterfeiting Trade Agreement. The entertainment industry has the money, time, and political power to keep pushing these bills until they get what they […]
The battle between old media and new media is becoming interesting. Y Combinator, the famous firm that invests in early stage companies, has issued an RFS (Request for Startup) that they are looking to fund companies that can help (in their words) kill Hollywood: Hollywood appears to have peaked. If it were an ordinary industry […]
© Drew Sheneman I can’t blame politicians and corporations for having the desire to control the internet. If they succeed in sneaking these laws past us, we have only ourselves to blame. Interestingly enough, it seems like support for SOPA and PIPA — at least prior to Wednesday — was one of the few things […]
© Jerry Holbert I’d like this comic even better if the money bags sitting behind the Congress character was the money thrown at Congresscritters by lobbyists (like all the money they get from the MPAA, the Chamber of Commerce, and other organizations pushing the SOPA and PIPA bills). To their credit, most Internet companies have […]
On Wednesday, several major internet sites are going on strike. So if you try to access Wikipedia, Reddit, Craigslist, The Oatmeal, Boing Boing, Mozilla, MoveOn, or hundreds of other sites, you may be out of luck. Some sites, including Google, ArsTechnica, TechCrunch, WordPress, and Wired, have a notice on their main page, but will allow […]
Everyone downloads copyrighted files. Everyone. A new website tracks what files have been downloaded using bittorrent by you (or any other user, by IP address). Just click on the link, and it will tell you if you (or someone at the same IP address) has been naughty. Now the hypocritical part. The same data has […]
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I am a strong Obama supporter. But that doesn’t mean I give him a pass when he makes a mistake, even one as stupid as this one. Obama announced Monday that he is appointing Donald Verrilli to be solicitor general, the government’s top lawyer […]
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