   August 2005 ArchiveAugust 30, 2005Your Medical Records Here
Sample medical insurance leads available for purchase. Includes info. on the treatment for AIDS and your smoking habits.
New Trademark Law: Where's the Beef?
Paul Levy of Public Citizen takes a close look at the fair-use failings of the Trademark Dilution Revision Act.
Tufte on Google and Privacy
The information design guru suggests that users just might want to regularly hide their Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.
August 25, 2005Web Fame, Chinese Style
How the Chinese authorities are failing to censor an online celebrity.
Snooping con Tutti
How lax wiretapping controls in Italy make hundreds of private conversations public knowledge.
High-Tech Hot Spots
Copyfighters Nelson Pavlosky and Siva Vaidhyanathan go mainstream in Newsweek's look at the increasing tech smarts of college students.
An Illustrated Guide to IPSec
Today's visual brain-stretcher: a pictorial guide to IPSec, the secure standard for IP.
Should We Have a DMCA? Australia Decides.
The consultation on anti-circumvention Down Under begins. Get your comments in now!
The Rise of CALEA
MIT Tech Review looks at the trouble with trying to tap the distributed Net.
Grokking the 'Ster
IPTA blog spots two cites of the Grokster ruling in current court judgements.
Michael Geist - Canada's Big Brother Plan to Reshape the Internet
Geist looks at Canada's new wiretapping proposals.
August 23, 2005Thomas Congressional Database to Be Revamped
All kinds of rumored new features. Only one thing is for sure: it's going to break all those web-scraping programs.
The Web of Law
Legal cites have the same scale-free network topology as scientific papers, the Web, and that dumb social-networking site you joined once.
The Section 108 Study Group
The Library of Congress has convened a group of experts to deliberate on the future of copyright exemptions for libraries and archives. There have certainly been easier gigs.
Customers of New UK ISP Get to Share all the Sony Music They Want
And the artists get paid. What an excellent idea!
August 19, 2005Convoluted Copyright Made Slightly Easier
Want to know whether something is in the public domain? Simply follow this six-deep, sixteen-node, seven-footnoted flowchart.
And that Diaper Pin - Definitely a Concealed Weapon
Babies as young as two years old are being identified and detained as potential terrorists by TSA officials just following the rules.
Muni Electricity, Muni Broadband
National Journal compares the fight for muni broadband with the fight for muni utilities in the 1900s.
Umm - Is She a Munition, Too?
ACM comments on the refusal to allow the researcher who broke SHA-1 into the US.
Fasten Your Seatbelts
Ed Hasbrouck on the future of Secure Flight.
August 17, 2005Global IP Control and Its Discontents
Nobel prize-winning economist Joe Stiglitz on how the US is exporting bad IP law to the developing world.
Her Day in Court
Defendant fights back against RIAA file-sharing suit, says that it was somebody else. RIAA somewhat dumbstruck.
Computer-Implemented Inventions at the European Patent Office
A pro-software patents org tries to get everyone's story straight.
An "Invention" So Non-Obvious, It's in the Name of the Device
ZDNet's David Berlind on the DVD player patent for, err, autoplaying a DVD.
Two Turntables, a Microphone - Oh, and an IP Attorney on Retainer
Glenn Reynolds on the poor fit between current copyright law and podcasters.
August 15, 2005Lessig, Vaidhyanathan in Georgia
Emory University is holding a symposium on Free Culture & the Digital Library on October 14th.
Patent "Harmonization" Off the Table at WIPO
Brazil, Argentina, and India want to widen the debate.
Terry Pratchett Responds to Harry Potter Ban
"ANYONE WHO READS A WORD OF IT before publication day will be MADE TO SIT IN THE CORNER." (Despite appearances, forum is Hungarian, not Trollish.)
"Copying Music Now Threatens Business like File-sharing Did"
AP reports on the sinister practice of "CD burning," and how the brave music industry is now seeking to control it.
August 12, 2005OSDL Announces Patent Commons Project
The free software community's communal defense against patent trolls.
Four Amendments and a Funeral
Rolling Stone Magazine's depressing fly-on-the-wall investigation into how Congress "works."
Furniture Causes FedEx Fits
FedEx thinks the DMCA applies to showing how to re-use their cardboard boxes.
ID Cards: Think Nationally, Fight Locally
James Moyer on how to persuade states to nix REAL ID.
August 10, 2005From Freedom to Consumption
David Isenberg talks about how the new FCC chairman is already rewriting Powell's "Four Freedoms."
Apple Refunds Canadian iPod Levies
Unfortunately, the deal that removed the levies also made ripping your CDs illegal. Time to spend that rebate (and a few extra thousand dollars) filling up those gigs at iTunes instead.
Times Are Good for Both P2P Networks and Music Industry
P2P network populations are up, even as online music store sales are up. Weren't they supposed to kill each other?
Texas Consumers to Elected Leaders: "Please Listen to Us."
Jon Lebkowsky's fine letter to the Texas legislature, asking it to punt bad broadband bills.
Hearings on 2257 Regs - New Hope for Free Speech?
Representatives of the adult entertainment industry seem to be doing well in the legal fight against the onerous DOJ requirements that threaten everyone's free speech rights.
Open Access Webliography
An excellent resource for those exploring the debate over open access to academic knowledge.
August 08, 2005Buildings With Souls That Must Not Be Stolen
A curiously well-illustrated list of things that someone has forbidden you to photograph or reproduce.
Copyright Registration - Only For Internet Explorer Users
Somebody should tell the Library of Congress that people who use open source browsers use copyright, too.
Following the Movie Money
Slate finds out how the movie industry makes a good chunk of its money - off of unlocked, freely broadcast over-the-air content, as it happens.
PATRIOT Civil Liberties Panel Being Held at Undisclosed Location
...at undisclosed future time. The Washington Post investigates the $1.5 million dollar disappearance.
August 03, 2005Risks Digest Celebrates 20 Years of Publication
From the Strategic Defense Initiative to RFIDs in social security cards, Peter Neumann's newsletter keeps spotting the flaws.
Coloc-lateral damage
When ISP Telus blocked its customers from viewing the website of the labor union it was fighting, it also blocked 766 other sites using the same IP address -- including a breast cancer charity.
August 02, 2005Copycrime
The European Parliament is considering criminal prosecution for copyright infringement. Is it Europe's shift for crazy laws this week?
Smuggling the DMCA into CAFTA
Declan McCullagh with a pithy piece showing how free trade agreements can be used to spread bad law around the world.
A Big List Against a Bigger List
Activists are gathering names in an EU-wide petition launched this week to protest planned data-retention regulations.
August 01, 2005Skilled in the Art of Push Polls
Screenshots of a curious poll by Microsoft regarding pursuing RedHat for alleged patent violations.
By Reading This License You Agree to Get Scared
Sun engineer reads his own company's license terms, gets freaked out enough to persuade Sun lawyers to drop it.
Solution to Government Inefficiencies: More Red Tape
Senator Ensign introduces a bill that would make muni broadband more, not less, complicated to get right.
The Person Whose Company Dies With the Most Patents, Wins
Historian Randal Stross on Microsoft's hunger for software patents.
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