The National Consumer Council (NCC) has spoken out against the music industry suing their customers, warning that this is heavy handed. Jill Johnstone from the NCC said: “The European Commission must think again before bringing in new and tougher IP laws. Criminal sanctions for infringing copyright holders’ rights must be Read more
I have finally managed to go through Stevens v Sony Computer Entertainment, the ruling from the High Court of Australia regarding modchips. In case you are too bored to check on Wikipedia, a modchip is a modification to a built-in technical protection measure in a computer game console (like PlayStation, Read more
This is another amazing comment by James Boyle in FT regarding the WIPO Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organisations, also known as the Webcasting Treaty. Boyle’s point is undeniably strong as usual. Why does the broadcast industry need a new right? Why is there need for further protection of Read more
(via Steve Hedley’s news list). An interest in software patents and IP can make you famous. Florian Muller is the founder of Nosoftwarepatents.com, who successfully lobbied against the Software Patent Directive. Muller has been nominated in this year’s Europeans of the Year awards in the “Campaigner of the year” category Read more
The proposed EC Directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights has been making the news and blogs recently. I have finally managed to read it, and it is scary. The Article 3 of the proposed directive states that: Member States shall ensure that all Read more
The mother of a teenage girl who serves and downloads music online is being charged £4000 for her daughter’s infringement. This seems to be part of a clever strategy by the music industry to attack P2P networks (I will talk more about it next week after I have presented my Read more
The person responsible for the leaking of the first Dr. Who episodes has been exterminated, I mean, has been fired. It is thought that the source of the leak was a peson who worked for a DVD transfer company. BTW, the first episode of the new Doctor Who will be Read more
This is an excellent rant from Ed Felten’s blog Freedom to Tinker, where he asks something that has been on my mind recently. Why is Hollywood complaining about the evils of movie downloading, when profits are at its highest levels ever. Why are we told that there is a problem Read more
This is an interesting article about the tactics that may be used by Microsoft against Free Software. The author seems to be arguing that Free Software infringes several patents held by Microsoft, so that they may try to use the WTO’s enforcement mechanisms to attack countries that use Free Software. Read more