Another year, another Special 301 report on the making. The Special 301 is an annual report from the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) prepared under section 301 of the Trade Act, in which countries are given disadvantageous marks based on how they enforce intellectual property rights, or whether Read more…
I’ve read with great interest the text of a presentation by Dr Francis Gurry to the Blue Sky Conference: Future Directions in Copyright Law, held in Queensland at the end of February. Dr Gurry is the Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, and I believe that his presentation Read more…
As an observer of that interesting case study in Internet regulation that is Anonymous, recent developments have been quite an eye-opener in the potential long-term survival of the group. When Anonymous coordinated a series of denial-of-service attacks against payment systems and electronic commerce giants in response to the perceived attack Read more…
Much virtual and real ink has been spent in the last few days to talk about the role of social media in the Tunisian and Egyptian popular revolts, some more informed, and some making rather grandiose exaggerated claims. One thing is true, while it is impossible to quantify the impact Read more…
What better way to start the year than with a good old rant? I have been looking at Diaspora, the Facebook replacement for those with a conscience and those who have to be just a little bit different from everyone else. Early reports seem to be that it requires a Read more…
I am in Jordan for a WIPO workshop. One of the interesting aspects of being in the Middle East is the presence of a more controlled Internet, and although Jordan’s Internet filtering is light when compared to some of its neighbours, I have encountered some interesting architectural features that seem Read more…
For Internet regulation geeks, last week has been one of the most exciting events in recent time, as we have been presented with almost a crash course in some of the main regulation theories of the last 15 years. The release of thousands of leaked diplomatic cables by Wikileaks have Read more…
A couple of days ago we wrote a small post thinking about ways in which Wikileaks could be taken off the Web. The conclusion was that Wikileaks might survive almost any type of concerted effort to remove it from the Internet. I was not really expecting the strength with which Read more…
The entire world seems to be looking at Wikileaks after the release of some of the almost 250,000 diplomatic wires from U.S. embassies and consulates around the world. Endless lines will be written about this, my own view is close to what Simon Jenkins writes in his commentary piece in Read more…
Following up from the story about the Internet group Anonymous taking itself too seriously, the organisers of the now infamous Operation Payback have issued a statement of intentions. It seems like they were honestly thinking that they would be getting more serious attention by then, given the grandiose claims they Read more…