   February 2005 ArchiveFebruary 23, 2005Rallying for Jailed Iranian Bloggers
Iran is cracking down on free speech, but bloggers are getting louder.
AllofMP3 Belongs to Us
The Russian music site AllofMP3.com has claimed for months that it's following the law, but local police aren't so sure.
HP Sued Over Expiring Printer Cartridges
Consumers don't like it when their devices are programmed against their interests? Fancy that!
Judge Says FCC "Can't Regulate Washing Machines"
Two of the three judges who'll decide the fate of the Broadcast Flag appear heavily skeptical that the FCC should have regulatory control over every device its mission touches - whether it's digital television recorders or, well, washing machines.
Stay Free! Launches a Blog
We love this culture-jamming journal of the copyright/trademark wars, and now it has a blog too!
Interoperability Wins Another Round Against DMCA
Lexmark lost its appellate bid to stop a competitor from making cartridges that work with its printers.
France Conquered by...Google?
France's national library is raising concerns about Anglo-Saxon domination in Google Print, the project that aims to digitize the holdings of some of the world's greatest libraries.
Your Computer on Remote Control
AOL plans to remotely downgrade the popular music software Winamp after bloggers used it to record digital music from Napster's digital streaming service.
Endangered Gizmos in the Beeb
Nice BBC article on our Endangered Gizmos project.
ChoicePoint Scandal Exposes Flaws in Privacy Law
A recent security breach at data-collection firm ChoicePoint is highlighting the rat's nest of state and federal privacy laws that covers - or fails to cover - consumer privacy meltdowns.
February 17, 2005Tecmo Goes Ninja on Game Hackers
The company is pursuing people who modified their versions of Xbox titles like "Dead or Alive" and "Ninja Gaiden." As if "Ninja Gaiden" wasn't *already* impossible to beat, now we've got to fight legions of lawyers? We're sticking to Scrabble.
Ohio Judges Tosses Voting Machine Deadline
Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell had ordered counties to purchase new optical-scan machines by Wednesday last week, but the court ruled in favor of the local elections boards and tossed the deadline.
BitTorrent Bram Makes TimeE-voting Reform Bill Tops 100 Co-sponsors
Rep. Rush Holt's Voting Integrity and Verification Act is back in action with more support than ever.
Blogging on the Dole
That's what some people may be doing as more and more employers crack down on those self-publishing from within cubicle walls.
France Knocks Apple, Sony Over DRM
The legal action claims that the companies' sale & marketing of use-restricted media is deceitful and anticompetitive.
NSA to Play "Traffic Cop" on US Data Networks
A cop with surveillance expertise, code-breaking supercomputers, and an unlimited black budget. We really wish this was just an episode of "Alias."
New Use-Restricted DVDs in the OffingBill Gates, Communist
Richard Stallman with an op-ed on software patents and the recent hubub over Bill Gates' application of the word "communists" to the free culture movement.
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Posted at 12:01 PM by Ren Bucholz | Permalink | Other Links:
Copyright
| Free Culture
| Patents
Fair Use for Australia?
The country is contemplating codifying fair use so it would be legal to do things like rip your CDs to an MP3 player for personal use. How refreshingly rational.
Oops, Napster Did It Again
A gap in the company's copy protection scheme, coupled with its all-you-can-eat-from-our-tiny-buffet subscription plan, allows current Napster users to experience an inkling of the functionality that everyone enjoyed five years ago.
Suspicious Wife Uses Spyware on Husband, Breaks Law
A judge has ruled that a woman broke the law when she surreptitiously used spyware to document her husband's extramarital affair.
Every Phone a Porn Portal
That's what some governments fear, so they're preparing to carry out cellular censorship for the newer, more lascivious mobile phones.
The Recording Industry: Competitive or Cartel?
Ed Felten says there's a "natural experiment" in progress to let us know.
Copyright Cops In Da House
An Italian DJ has been ordered to pay a 1.4 million-euro fine for spinning illegally obtained tunes.
CNN on Grokster
Pre-show coverage in preparation for next month's main event at the Supreme Court.
A Thousand National ID Proposals Bloom
Legislation in the US and abroad is aimed at creating de facto and explict national ID systems - a terrible idea in any form.
No Web for You!
China reportedly shut down more than 12,000 Internet cafes in 2004.
Michael Geist on Canadian Copyright
This is a fantastic lecture on the history of Canadian copyright law and current attempts to expand it. An absolute must-see for anyone interested in the global copyright debate.
P2P Lawsuits and Economies of Scale
This Daily Texan article shares some startling numbers about the RIAA's litigation campaign: they've settled 8,423 suits with an average settlement of $3,000. That's a total of $25,269,000, not a penny of which goes to the artists that the organization claims to speak for.
February 08, 2005Yin Yang Alert: Diebold Launches Voting Machine with Printer
The company that wanted to charge "out the yin yang" for voting machines with printers has finally produced a prototype of what you get for such a price.
DirecTV Fined for Violating Export Controls
Now that's what we call synergy.
Quidditch Cup 2005: Hogwarts v. US Army?
"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling is gunning for the US Army after discovering familiar-sounding characters in a monthly equipment maintenance publication.
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Posted at 03:37 PM by Ren Bucholz | Permalink | Other Links:
Copyright
| Free Speech
| International IP
Fox Censors Super Bowl Ad About Censorship
The racy commercial for GoDaddy.com -- an Internet domain name registrar -- featured a faux-hearing on broadcast censorship and is still widely available on the still-public Internet.
Music Industry Sues 83-Year-Old Dead Woman
That's the perfectly descriptive, totally head-shaking headline from the Boston Globe.
Patents Leave Japanese Writers at Loss for Words
A Tokyo court has taken word-processing software Ichitaro -- the only serious competitor to Microsoft Word -- off the market because of a dispute over software patents.
Of Media Savants and Cartoon Ferrets
The New York Times writes about the propaganda war between copyright extremists and pro-balance groups.
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Posted at 12:08 PM by Ren Bucholz | Permalink | Other Links:
Copyright
| Free Culture
| P2P
Another View on Grokster
Public Knowledge's fearless leader Gigi Sohn with a thoughtful op-ed on the importance of Grokster, the return of Induce, and the need for copyright balance.
Calling All Artists
Larry Lessig's most recent Wired column is a stirring call for artists to fight for the future of (their) music.
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Posted at 11:09 AM by Ren Bucholz | Permalink | Other Links:
Copyright
| Free Culture
| P2P
Ireland May Toss 50 Million Euros of E-voting Machines
Last year's security dust-up -- and the public's vote of no-confidence -- may mean the scrap heap for the country's planned switch to e-voting.
February 02, 2005German National Library Gets DRM Exemption
The German Federation of the Phonographic Industry has granted the German National Library a license to circumvent protection measures in order to facilitate archiving. It's nice of them to grant the license, but it's sad that libraries have to ask permission to do their jobs.
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Posted at 01:13 PM by Ren Bucholz | Permalink | Other Links:
Copyright
| DRM
| Free Culture
Weirdest Defamation Case Ever
In a bizarre show of legal straw-grabbing, a business man has sued CNN for failing to police the postings of "Wolfblitzzer0" on a non-CNN site. The man claims that Wolfblitzzer0's postings are defamatory, and that CNN's failure to assert trademark claims against him/her has caused harm. We assume, by the way, that the poster is not the cuddly anchor of CNN fame.
The Search Engine That Knew Too Much
Did you know that Google tracks every search and the IP address from which it was made? The company may not be evil, but privacy advocates worry that the data could be abused by virtue-challenged government agencies.
February 01, 2005Microsoft & Macrovision Launch Joint Copy Protection
The "M&Ms of DRM?" Okay, that was bad, but this news is worse. The two companies intend to saddle analog recordings with even more copy protection cruft.
Kids Down on Free Speech
According to this scary study, over a third of US students think the government should pre-approve news stories.
New Group Launches to Create Standards for E-voting
The Voting Systems Performance Rating (VSPR) is designed to be a publicly drafted, publicly available alternative to today's flawed voting machine standards.
Blaming CAN-SPAM for Junk Email
Some people think that the year-old law -- and its guidelines for sending legal spam -- are the reason that junk mail is more popular than ever.
Cuban on Grokster
The HDTV king and owner of the Dallas Mavericks weighs in on the coming Supreme Court battle over the future of innovation.
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