Travel
New York, New York
I’m off to speak at the conference Impact of Technological Change on the Creation, Dissemination and Protection of Intellectual Property, organised by Albany Law School, and taking place at the Cornell Club, New York.
Copyright
Copyright Activity Patch
I used to be a Boy Scout. There, I’ve said it. One of the things I loved about Scouting (besides the camping, gaming and learning about knots of course) was badge hunting. The merit badges I remember obtaining were Backpacking, Knots, Forestry, Swimming, Electricity, First Aid and Astronomy. Had I Read more
Regulation
Regulating YouTube?
It seems like after YouTube has been purchased by Google, it has managed to attract a large number of news stories, particularly with calls to regulate the site. The first news item comes from a potential crack-down of YouTube in the UK, as it has been noticed by ministers that Read more
Patent abuse
Patenting movies? The MPAA says no
I had reported last year about a patent application in the United States that tried to obtain protection for a movie plot. The application is by one Mr Andrew Knight, who believes the USPTO should be granting patents for unique and inventive movie ideas. His website contains a brief explanation Read more
Microsoft
Microsoft goes into open access territory
Microsoft has announced that it will be digitising books in what will be called Live Book Search. This service will include a partnership for publishers to provide books to Microsoft, and they will scan them for free to make portions of them available online through something called the Windows Live Read more
Games
Virtual worlds hit the mainstream
In an unprecedented move for a large media organisation, Reuters is reporting that it will be reporting directly from Second Life. One should expect new reports on market values, the price of customised badger avatars and the latest gig in the Second Life archipelago. I find this piece of news Read more
Patent abuse
Patenting food?
With the rise of the celebrity chef and the increasing amount of money spent on recipe books and all things food-related, I guess that it should not come as a surprise that intellectual property protection would not be far behind. One would believe that the possibility to protect culinary creations Read more
Hacking
Malware installation email
We should all now be aware of messages with requests to input your bank details. But what about messages asking you to install updates? I have received the following from support@microsoft.com (links removed to protect the innocent): Internet Explorer 7 downloadsGet downloads for Internet Explorer 7, including recommended updates as Read more
Open source
Fox goes the weasel
IceWeasel is a GNU browser (new, GNU, geddit?) based on Firefox distributed with Debian and Ubuntu Linux. Why does Ubuntu need a new browser, you may ask? As with so many things that have to do with the Free Software Foundation, it all comes down to their definition of free Read more
Cases
New internet defamation case
A woman in Florida has won $11.3 million USD (¢6 billion Costa Rican colones) in an online defamation case. Sue Scheff has a company called Parents Universal Resource Experts, which provides assistance to troubled teenagers. Scheff filed a defamation lawsuit in her State against a Louisiana woman who posted a Read more