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 if they Read more…
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 Read more…
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 Read more…
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 Read more…
Bilateral and multilateral trade agreements are strange beasts. They are usually drafted to get two countries or regions to open up their markets, therefore contain all sorts of harmonising provisions which will bring the contracting parties’ laws closer to one another in order to ease trade. One of the topics Read more…
There is a growing sense in copyright circles that something needs to be done about orphan works. In many ways, we can thank the Google Book Settlement for jolting policy-makers into action by including a clause in the agreement that deals with future orphan works legislation. In case you missed Read more…
Interesting piece in TechDirt about watermarking content. The associated Press has convinced Boston newspaper Town News to adopts its watermarking service to stop people from copying and pasting content because the biggest threat to online news editions is widespread copying and plagiarism. The article says that they hope to adopt Read more…
Tom Watson MP is fast becoming one of the heroes of social media circles. He has a blog, has a Twitter account, and is generally considered “one of us”, he clearly gets the online environment, and most importantly, I think that it shows that he is genuine, as opposed to Read more…
There are days when I wake up in an excellent mood, but a piece of writing manages to sour it somehow. I do not know where to begin with this call for patent reform from “a major British inventor”. Mr Trevor Baylis, inventor of the wind-up radio (no, I’m not Read more…
There were many reasons to believe that the UK would not be seeing any three-strikes legislation against file-sharing. First, the European Union had declared that it was a bad idea. Second, HADOPI had been declared unconstitutional in France. But most importantly, the Digital Britain report had considered that the proposal Read more…