Is Panama about to pass the worst copyright law in history?

In a Rogue’s Gallery of copyright legislation, many efforts deserve mention. The DMCA is surely there, together with Japan’s new copyright law, the Digital Economy Act, and Ley Sinde. But a new Panamanian copyright bill is giving those laws a run for their money.

The excellent project at Infojustice.org have directed our attention to a [...]

Facebook privacy statement hoax

I have been seeing different versions of the following legal-looking privacy statement on Facebook popping up through my timeline:

“Facebook is now a publicly traded entity. Unless you state otherwise, anyone can infringe on your right to privacy once you post to this site. It is recommended that you and other members post a similar [...]

Do avatars dream of digital rights?

Free the worgen!

I have been playing World of Warcraft again in preparation for the forthcoming Mists of Pandaria expansion (two words: panda monks!). For years I played in European servers the same character, an Alliance Human mage who then switched sides and joined the Horde as a Blood Elf, and finally settled into [...]

Defending non-commercial licences

A recent blog post by the Students for Free Culture has been making the rounds in social media in the last few days. The article calls for an end to Creative Commons non-free licences, namely those with non-commercial (NC) and non-derivative (ND) elements. The blog is based on the dislike that many people in [...]

In search of an open Internet

“Who you gonna call?

Internet openness is all the rage these days. From call signs on buildings to Declarations of Internet Freedom, an important sector of informed users is catching on to the relevance of keeping the Web open. This openness movement has been prompted in part by the perceived and real [...]

7 Reasons Why Numbered Lists Are Bad for Blogging

1. Reality does not easily comply with numbered lists.

2. They are created mostly to attract easy traffic using SEO-friendly keywords.

3. They are the hallmark of lazy thinking.

4. Arbitrary number choice.

5. They are shallow.

6. After the first couple of entries, it becomes clear that the writer ran out of things to [...]

The Rise and Fall of Wikileaks

Back in 2010, Wikileaks was at the peak of its power and influence. The release of the Collateral Murder video, of the Afghanistan logs, and of the US diplomatic cables have to be seen as the zenith of the struggle between the Internet and the world powers. Although I was always concerned about the [...]

Are smart buildings the next cyber-threat?

For years Eben Moglen has been warning about potential dangers of proprietary software in embedded computers, from trusted computing to chips running software nobody can access. Moglen’s warnings are more relevant, as builders and architects are racing to implement intelligent buildings and smart grids, which are widely heralded as a boon in terms of both [...]

SCRIPTed August 2012

The latest issue of SCRIPTed, A Journal of Law, Technology & Society, is now online. Plenty of good things on this issue, including an excellent article on the Chilean Free Trade Agreement, several on Internet regulation, and an interesting take on patent claims.

(2012) 9:2 SCRIPTed

 

Issue DOI: [...]

The cloud is making us insecure

Keeping local information is a thing of the past. Nowadays everything is in the cloud, haven’t you heard? From Dropbox to Google Drive we keep our files stored in some nameless data farm in Iowa, and any Apple user will have lots of information stored in the iCloud. While these usually mean very sensitive data [...]