Copyright infringement is not theft

Tired of hearing copyright infringement called “theft” by all sort of people in the content industries? James Murdoch of News Corp is just the latest in a long line of  industry shills who favour this wrong-headed argument. I could write a long retort to that statement, but I will simply reproduce a comment from The [...]

What's up with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement?

"I find your lack of copyright enforcement disturbing"

If you follow technology news services and blogs that are vaguely interested in digital rights issues, you must already have heard about ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. This is a multilateral trade agreement between the EU, the US, Mexico, Canada, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand and a [...]

Landmark ISP liability case decided in Australia

What did you say Skippy? ISPs are not liable for the infringement committed by their customers?

As was mentioned last week, we have been expecting an important ruling with regards to internet service provider (ISP) liability from Australia.  Behold Roadshow Films Pty Ltd v iiNet Limited [2010] FCA 24.  This is a case of tremendous [...]

Is deep-packet inspection a criminal offence?

"These are not the packets you are looking for"

Things are heating up in the fight against piracy in the UK.  Virgin Media has announced that it will use deep packet inspection (DPI) software to analyse whether its customers are sharing copyright infringing material.  Privacy International has brought this practice to the attention of both [...]

The war on storage?

As usual, xkcd makes an excellent point:

With sizes of up to 64GB contained in a tiny card the size of a coin, I wonder why the content industries are not concentrating more on such storage devices, and continue to insist that the war on piracy is an online endeavour.  When I can copy my entire [...]

How did OiNK get away?

"I'm not criminally liable for secondary infringement, officer!"

It was supposed to be the British equivalent of high-profile cases such as PirateBay and the Jamie Thomas trial.  It was supposed to act as a clear deterrent to a new generation of file-sharers against widespread copyright infringement.  Instead, Alan Ellis, the founder of torrent tracking site [...]

Has the U.S. threatened Costa Rican sugar if IP law is not approved?

All your cane are belong to us

As far as incendiary headlines go, this one in BoingBong is near the top when it comes to flammability:  US to Costa Rica: you want sugar markets? We want maximal copyright.  It has everything, a large and powerful country threatens a small unarmed trading partner with retaliatory sanctions [...]

Debating the Digital Economy Bill: Exercise in futility?

The House of Lords debated yesterday the Digital Economy Bill, and I use the phrase “debate” in the loosest possible sense. What we got was a depressingly one-sided affair replete with misrepresentation, misunderstanding of the core issues, swallowing the industry’s figures without question, and corroboration that the House of Lords is an anachronistic, anti-democratic institution [...]

The Great Intermediary War

When the history of the Internet is written down (again), the annals of the years 2009 and 2010 will describe the consolidation of social media, the rise of Twitter, but more importantly, it will be known as the period when regulators and industry tried to tackle intermediaries.

This has been some time coming. At some point [...]

Digital Economy Bill and orphan works

So, the Digital Economy Bill has been unleashed upon an unsuspecting public (if we exclude the twittering and blogging classes of course). The Bill is already being scrutinised by various parties, and the veredict seems to be worrying, as it implements three strikes disconnection, as well as other seemingly abusive provisions.

I will be going through [...]