The IFPI and mediocre artists around the world are rubbing their hands in glee, after a proposal to extend copyright in the EU for another 45 years. The proposal, intended to benefit musicians
, comes up for a vote on Wednesday. On the plus side, at the same time collecting societies are going to have their practices scrutinised
The Pirate Bay have embarked on a project to encrypt all internet traffic, probably by means of an OS-level wrapper around all network connections, which would fall back to an unencrypted connection when the other end is not similarly equipped. The move has been prompted by a recent change in Swedish law, allowing the authorities to snoop on network traffic. This will be a boon to filesharers and anyone else concerned about authorities and trade groups’ recent moves towards ‘policing’ network traffic at the ISP level — via Slashdot
An Australian living in East Africa has brought new meaning to the phrase keeping the bastards honest
. In the past year-and-a-half, Julian Assange and his band of online dissidents have helped swing the Kenyan presidential election, embarrassed the US Government and sparked international scandal. His site, Wikileaks, provides a safe haven for whistleblowers to anonymously upload confidential documents and, after 18 months of operation, Assange says no source has ever been exposed and no document — now more than 1.2 million and counting — has ever been censored or removed. Now the site is expanding its focus on despotic regimes and shady corporate dealings to include religion and even the cult of celebrity
Rant all you want in a public park. A police officer generally won’t eject you for your remarks alone, however unpopular or provocative. Say it on the Internet, and you’ll find that free speech and other constitutional rights are anything but guaranteed. Companies in charge of seemingly public spaces online wipe out content that’s controversial but otherwise legal. Service providers write their own rules for users worldwide and set foreign policy when they cooperate with regimes like China. They serve as prosecutor, judge and jury in handling disputes behind closed doors
After a frustrating few months of searching for a solution to the audio problems he encountered while ripping on-screen video with his Dell laptop, a ripten editor discovered that others were experiencing the same issue — and that the problem was not confined to Dell laptops. Apparently, the lack of a sound card Stereo Mix recording option is to blame — and numerous forum threads have suggested that the RIAA has put pressure on laptop manufacturers like Dell, Gateway and Pac Bell to remove it — via Gizmodo
When it comes to politicians taking a stand against anti-piracy bills
, such as the three-strikes legislation that’s being backdoored in Europe at the moment, the mind generally goes Swedish, to Rick Falkvinge for example. The mind doesn’t tend to think of North American politicians, but there is an exception, in Canada’s Charlie Angus
Virgin Media, plagued by a recent flurry of bad publicity thanks to its policy of working with the music industry to warn file-sharers, has announced today that there is absolutely no possibility
that it will disconnect its users from the Internet or hand over their details to the music industry
In his talks about the history of Apple, Steve Wozniak has often recounted how the 1971 Esquire article Secrets of the Little Blue Box
set him on the road to phone phreaking. Now someone has obtained the FBI file of one of the phreaks, Joe Engressia (who later changed his name to Joybubbles), via Freedom of Information requests. The file reveals that Engressia was illegally wiretapped by the FBI and the phone company back in 1969. J Edgar Hoover considered the blind college student a national security risk and wrote a memo about him to John Ehrlichman — via Slashdot
In an response to the new wiretapping law that was introduced in Sweden this week, The Pirate Bay will ask international ISPs to block traffic to Sweden, to protect their customers. In addition, the BitTorrent tracker will add SSL encryption to their site, and roll out a new VPN service
A British journalist won a legal test case over the confidentiality of reporters’ contacts Thursday, after judges ruled against a court order seeking all his notes for a biography of a former Islamist radical. Civil liberties campaigners had feared the so-called production order
, obtained by the Greater Manchester Police under anti-terrorism laws, could undermine the future of UK journalism
Sweden has adopted legislation that will give military intelligence sweeping powers to eavesdrop on all crossborder e-mail and telephone communications. After heated debate and last-minute changes late Wednesday, lawmakers approved the bill, which has outraged some lawmakers and prompted protesters to hand out copies of George Orwell’s novel 1984
outside Parliament. Lawmakers approved the bill in a 143-to-138 vote Wednesday. One lawmaker abstained. The bill will become law in January
Anyone who persists in illicit downloading of music or films will be barred from broadband access under a controversial new law that makes France a pioneer in combating internet piracy. Under a cross-industry agreement, ISPs must cut off access for up to a year for third-time offenders
Amazon, the online retailing giant with a fast-rising share of the consumer book market, has adopted the literary equivalent of a nuclear option for rebellious publishers who balk at its demands. In the latest in a series of disputes over the division of revenue from online sales, Amazon has disabled the buy now with 1 click
icon on its British Web site for hundreds of books published by Hachette Livre UK
At the request of theatrical film makers, the FCC on Friday quietly launched a proceeding on whether to let video program distributors remotely block consumers from recording recently released movies on their DVRs. The technology that does this is called Selectable Output Control, but the FCC restricts its use. The MPAA wants a waiver on that restriction in the case of high-definition movies broadcast prior to their release as DVDs
An appeals court has overturned a lower court ruling and has now said that mod chips do not violate copyright laws. The case involved a mod chip seller, who imported mod chips for the XBox from Hong Kong and would sell the chips or mod the Xbox’s himself. He was charged with copyright infringement and found guilty by a lower court. The appeals court has dismissed all charges, however — via Slashdot
Canada, one of the shining lights in the copyright and intellectual property world, has a shadow approaching that may dim that for all. The name of that shadow? Bill c-61, which was formally introduced by Industry minister Jim Prentice an hour or two ago. One of the highlights
is the abolition of court’s flexibility in statutory damages, fixing it at CA$500
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has narrowly won a House of Commons vote on extending the maximum time police can hold terror suspects to 42 days. Thirty-six Labour MPs joined forces with Conservatives and Lib Dems to vote against the proposals. But that was not enough to defeat them — although the government still faces a battle in the House of Lords
The Pentagon’s non-lethal weapons division is looking for technologies that could disable
aircraft, before they can take off from a runway — or block the planes from flying over a given city or stretch of land. The Directorate’s program managers don’t mention how engineers might pull off such a kill switch. But, however it’s done, they’d like to have a similar system for boats, as well. They’re looking for a device that can, from 100 metres away, safely stop or significantly impede the movement
of vessels up to 40 feet long, with minimal collateral damage
— via Slashdot
This Sunday, the Swedish Left Party voted in favour of a motion calling for the legalisation of sharing copyrighted files for personal use. The party, which currently holds 22 seats in the Swedish parliament, sees piracy as something positive, much like public libraries
Comcast may have agreed to end its practice of using forged TCP reset packets to hinder the P2P traffic of its customers, but the cable provider isn’t out of the woods yet. Three class-action lawsuits were filed against Comcast this week in California, Illinois, and New Jersey, alleging that the company deceived and misled consumers by advertising that it offered unfettered access to all the content, services, and applications that the Internet has to offer
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