Public Patent Foundation, a little-known public interest group, last week asked the US government to revoke a Microsoft patent that covers the company’s Windows file system
The Australian Greens have renewed their call for the voting age to be reduced from 18 to 16 but with non-compulsory voting for those under 18 years
The recent US-Australia Free
Trade Agreement Chapter 17 (IP) locks Australia into our existing DMCA-style laws and extends them further: banning access control
circumvention, extending copyright, guaranteeing penalties greater than actual damages for deliberate copyright infringement, committing us to recognising patents whether a product or process, in all fields of technology
, etc. Linux Australia has produced a draft position paper (rough HTML version), has a how to help page, and started a petition
Dotcom entrepreneur Karl Suleman will spend at least 12 months behind bars after NSW District Court Judge Peter Berman sentenced him to 21 months in jail for fraud
You are engaged in a chat session with some friends and colleagues, when one of them makes a witty remark or imparts a pithy bit of information. You hit CTRL-A and select the conversation, then copy it to a document that you save. Under a little-noticed decision in a New Hampshire Superior Court in late February, these actions may just land you in jail
Remember how online music stores were going to route around the music industry? The pigopolists have barely got their feet under the table and already demanding more. The Wall Street Journal reports that the major five labels think that 99 cents per song is too cheap, and are discussing a price hike that would increase the tariff to $1.25 up to $2.99 per song
By the year 2010, file-sharers could be swapping news rather than music, eliminating censorship of any kind. This is the view of the man who helped kickstart the concept of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing, Cambridge University‘s Professor Ross Anderson. In his vision, people around the world would post stories via anonymous P2P services like those used to swap songs. They would cover issues currently ignored by the major news services
Scotland’s adoption laws are set to be radically overhauled in a bid to cut the record numbers of children currently in foster care who need a permanent home. Ministers are poised to introduce measures next year which will, for the first time, allow unmarried and same-sex couples to adopt. They are also expected to make major changes to the law in the hope of streamlining the tortuous adoption process, which is blamed for deterring many parents from signing up
Those clever folks at RCA have apparently designed a DVD player that automatically scans movies and censors them to make them kosher, as it were. That means none of the naughty bits and none of those bad words either. It will be sold by Walmart for the price of $79, and what with the recent Janet Jackson ‘wardrobe malfunction’ this product will likely be lauded by the FCC and moralists everywhere, though Hollywood is already complaining
A proposed California law that would have significantly broadened the scope of an existing state identity theft law has been quietly amended in what appears to be a concession to groups opposing it
The film industry is fighting rampant piracy in Russia with a new tactic: cutting prices. To fight piracy in Russia, where 9 out of 10 DVDs are illegal copies, Columbia TriStar, a division of Sony, will price discs at no more than 299 rubles, or just over US$10, less than half of the current price. Warner Home Video, a division of Time Warner, has already cut its prices in Russia to the equivalent of US$15
Canada’s Federal Court has delivered a blow to the recording industry’s bid to crack down on web sites which offer free music
on the internet for users to download. A Federal Court judge ruled in Toronto that ISPs could not be forced to name 29 people who had allowed their music files to be uploaded by other enthusiasts
The American Family Association is trying to orchestrate a campaign of complaints about an episode of That ’70s Show which had a big, grown-up wanking joke in it. To this end, they have provided a link to send the complaints to the relevant authority. Of course, anyone can use it, so Larry did:
Dear FCC Commissioners,
I want to say that the AFA does not understand the import of the first amendment. Furthermore, I am tired of people trying to protect me from things that they don’t want their children to see. I am opposed to censorship in any and all forms, especially the ridiculous crackdown that has recently been implemented by the FCC.
If you want to fulfil your mandate and improve the utilisation of the electromagnetic spectrum to the benefit of the people of the United States, then break up the broadcasting monopolies and encourage diversity in radio and TV programming.
Go on, give it a try, you know you want to — via Pagan Prattle
ZMag are hosting Noam Chomsky’s blog, Turning the Tide. It will include brief comments on diverse topics of concern in our time. They will sometimes come from the ZNet Sustainer Forum System where Noam interacts through a forum of his own, sometimes from direct submissions, sometimes culled from mail and other outlets — always from Noam Chomsky — via Die Puny Humans
Greens MP and justice spokesperson Lee Rhiannon has called for a review of the use of capsicum spray by police after a group of up to 20 students were sprayed today while protesting against fee increases at Sydney’s University of Technology. People have a right to protest in our society and the use of capsicum spray by police today on students should be condemned,
said Ms Rhiannon
NSW will outlaw unauthorised cybersnooping on employees using technology including video cameras, email and tracking devices. The new laws would make it a criminal offence to undertake any form of covert surveillance unless an employer could show a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing by an employee
Congress appears to be preparing assaults against peer-to-peer technology on multiple fronts. A draft bill recently circulated among members of the House judiciary committee would make it much easier for the Justice Department to pursue criminal prosecutions against file sharers by lowering the burden of proof and would also would seek penalties of fines and prison time of up to ten years for file sharing. They dubbed the bill Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation Act of 2004
, or the Pirate Act
Pet owners in the US city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, may soon be required to provide seat belts for pets if the city council approves new rules. Under the proposed regulations, animals travelling in the open beds of cars and trucks would have to be tethered
Despite President Bush’s pledge that homosexuals ought to have the same rights
as all other people, his Administration this week ruled that homosexuals can now be fired from the federal workforce because of their sexual orientation
The New Zealand government is about to define a small part of the rights assumed by the fair use
clause in the Copyright Act 1994. Essentially they are going to protect the consumers’ rights to convert media from one format to another for personal use, making it clearly legal to transfer tracks from a commercial CD to a mix-CD, MP3 player, PDA, PC, 8-track, or tuned array of hummingbirds. NZ law already makes it clear that gifting or reselling items includes a transfer all of rights, including copyright, warrantee, and licencing agreements, so providing your original is the genuine article you’re not a criminal
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