The final version of the Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest has been published (PDF version here). This is a thorough and impressive documents stating the guiding principles towards a positive agenda in the intellectual property debates. The Preamble sets out this masterfully: Time is of the Read more
Some readers may remember that some time ago I wrote a post about Bitcoin, an interesting online payment experiment in the shape of a cryptographic currency. My conclusion was that the currency was probably illegal in the U.S. and Europe, and left it at that. At the time Bitcoin’s star Read more
Last week yours truly attended the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest, a meeting of like-minded activists and academics who got together to discuss and frame a positive agenda in the IP debate. The “progressive” side in the IP Wars has often been criticised by its opponents Read more
Last Sunday Fidel Gamboa, the lead singer of Malpaís, died at the painfully young age of 50. I wish I had known him enough to call him a friend, we had met several times and I admired his music, his sensibilities, and now I must carry the regret that I Read more
Consulting firm Gartner has produced a report suggesting that interest in social media may have peaked. The report says: “Of the respondents, 24 percent said they use their favorite social media site less than when they first signed up. These respondents tended to be in segments that have a more Read more
This week yours truly has been thinking about net neutrality prompted by a call for regulation in one of the national newspapers (my response here). For those not familiar with the term, net neutrality is one of those annoyingly slippery concepts that defy easy classification. Traditionally, the term has been Read more
Issue 8-2 of SCRIPTed, a journal of Law and Technology, is now online. This issue has a distinct emphasis on medical technologies, particularly issues around neuro-imaging: Editorial Twitter Chip, Simon Biggs, pp.120-123 Reviewed Articles Does Technology Trump Intellectual Property?: Re-framing the Debate About Regulating New Technologies, Michael Anthony C. Read more
The modern copyright system owes a lot to collective copyright management. Intellectual property is all about enforcement, but it tends to be expensive and time-consuming endeavour. Collecting agencies offer a system by which copyright enforcement is allocated to a society which represents its associates. When they work as intended, they Read more
The UK has had a glimpse of what the total societal collapse looks like. The UK riots of August 2011 have struck me as an example of systemic failure of government and society at almost every level of organisation, as lawlessness and anarchy reigned supreme for a few nights. This Read more
(via Mathias Klang) I highly recommend this excellent video about filter bubbles: The filter bubble was a phenomenon that was described in its early shape by Cass Sunstein in his seminal Republic.com, where he narrates the rise of the Daily Me, an information filter where people hear only what they Read more