(via Becky Hogge and others) The European Commission released last week a statement in which it seems to advocate for more DRM across Europe. Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for the Information Society and the Media, commented that: “We have to make a choice in Europe: Do we want to Read more
Channel 4 has been airing a program called Picture This, where 6 members of the public who submitted their pictures to a competition were selected to compete for a gallery exhibition and a book deal. The program is being sponsored by Flikr, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Read more
Peter Jaszi, Professor at the American University Washington College of Law, has written to let us know of the release of a report on User Generated Content and copyright entitled Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video. The study includes a blog. I’ll let the report’s press release Read more
Various news sources have been reporting that the Beijing High Court has ruled in favour of popular search engine Baidu.com in a copyright infringement suit brought by major record companies. The dispute arose by the existence of a dedicated music search function called Baidu MP3, which allowed users to find Read more
According to the BBC, Egypt will pass a new law which will require licence fees from anyone reproducing Egypt’s vast archaeological heritage, be it museum pieces or monuments. Although the article is not particularly clear on the details, the BBC interviewed Zahi Hawass, the chair of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Read more
While this blog has achieved decent readership figures, the comment function is still rather under-used. There are several reasons for that: in my experience there seems to be a critical mass of readers vs comments, which I have not reached yet; Blogger’s interface does not encourage comments; and also most Read more
Canadian bloggers and IT Law gurus Michael Geist and Howard Knopf have pulled an amazing feat using Facebook and Youtube. They posted a video on Youtube opposing a DMCA-like reform to Ottawa’s copyright law, and then created a group on Facebook that opposed the amendments, which managed to get 28,000 Read more
(via Rena Gertz) When the scam becomes the scam, are we faced with post-modern fraud? This one pretty much redefines chutzpah. UNION BANK PLCCOMPENSATION OFFICE UNION BANK/ UNITED NATIONS 2007 SCAM VICTIMSCOMPENSATIONS PAYMENTS.ATTN: SIR/MADAM,REF/PAYMENTS CODE: UNB/06654 $150,000 USD.This is to bring to your notice that we are delegated from the Read more
The fourth issue of the fourth year of SCRIPTed, is now live. In this issue: Editorial SCRIPTed Redux: New Challenges, New Directions Shawn H.E. Harmon and Wiebke Abel, pp.301-303 Peer-Reviewed Articles A Private Law Approach to Privacy; Mandatory Law Colette Cuijpers, pp.304-318 Emerging Global Networks for Free Access to Read more
(via Lessig blog and various mailing lists) Licence geeks know that Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation Licence (GFDL). This is a nifty little licence used for publishing documentation with software projects. However, the GFDL is incompatible with Creative Commons licences. The incompatibility comes because the copyleft clause Read more