HD-DVD DRM cracked

(Via SCRIPT News) The copy-protection system shipped with every HD-DVD has been cracked, according to the firm in charge of licensing, Advanced Access Content System (AACS).

As with DVDs before, licensed players come with a built-in encryption key (device key) which can unlock the content within High Definition discs, protected with another set of keys (volume keys). In DVDs, the protection was broken when a digital player forgot to encrypt their keys. In this case, the culprit was a self-proclaimed upset customer that goes by the nick muslix64. In an interview with Slyck News, he tells how he was looking at the transaction between the device and volume keys, and how he realised that the volume keys were not protected in the player's memory. Mr muslix64 decrypted the keys and created a command-line open source program called BackupHDDDVD, which obtains the volume keys. Once this has been achieved, the disc is left wide open. Just to be fair, he also cracked Blu-Ray's protection.

AACS has accepted the crack, and has stated that it will employ "both technical and legal measures to deal with attacks such as this one". The technical actions may include desperate measures such as deactivating the affected players (which would create a lot of anger amongst consumers), or to update players by sending software updates to users. Yeah, right! The users are going to update the software all by themselves. You cannot fault these people's optimism.

Whatever happens, it is clear that muslix64 will be on the industries sights. After all, he's wilfully circumventing effective protection measures.

TV industry to enforce BitTorrent?

I've just read a rather naive article in the BBC Technology website on the rise of BitTorrent TV-show sharing. According to the report this is the next stage in the fight against piracy, as the top shared material online now is made up of TV shows.

I'm sure that TV industries must be concerned. Shows are now offered with the commercials removed, ready for download though the many torrent sites available. Downloading also affects viewing figures and it makes it more difficult to measure a show's popularity.

I admit that I have become fond of downloading shows from BitTorrent, particularly Battlestar Galactica. Over my holidays I also downloaded Terry Pratchett's Hogfather and Torchwood. Is this infringing? Certainly, but then I have purchased Galactica DVD's after viewing, so not watching the show "live" is offset by the income gained through a DVD.

Honestly, I cannot see how the industry can try to stop BitTorrent sharing. Its nature is different to traditional client-based P2P sharing such as Limewire, there is no central network to attack, only individual users. You could also try attacking the torrent search engines, but as the content is not hosted by them, the legal case against them would be less straight-forward.

Latest FACT video against copyright

(via Ashley Theunissen) I recommend that you watch this video from the UK's Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). Apparently it is being distributed in rental DVDs instead of the annoying Piracy Crime video, but I don't know if it is new. I initially thought it was a spoof, but apparently it's quite real. I loved the over-the-top pirate branding things with an X, while the voice-over tells us useful facts like "The pirates are out to get you"; "Piracy funds terrorism" and "Don't let the pirates burn a hole in your pocket".

And remember, "Cool is Copyright!" (who wrote that? Yoda?)

PR firm attacks open access

(via Open Access News) Journal publishers represented by the Association of American Publishers (AAP) have hired a PR firm in order to raise morale and attack open access publishing, according to a report in the journal Nature. "We're like any firm under siege, it's common to hire a PR firm when you're under siege." said the president of the AAP. According to the article:

"The consultant advised them to focus on simple messages, such as "Public access equals government censorship". He hinted that the publishers should attempt to equate traditional publishing models with peer review, and "paint a picture of what the world would look like without peer-reviewed articles"."

The twisted logic required to come up with the phrase "Public access equals government censorship" leaves me in uncomfortable awe. In some people's mind one can imagine that providing wider participation and access is wrong, but I truly cannot fathom the mental process which produces such line of thought. I am similarly amazed by the false dichotomy deployed by implying that open access equals the demise of peer-review.

This is what happens when you bring mindless PR firms into intellectual debates.

Enforcing Creative Commons

Licence geeks may have noticed the following information in the right-hand column of this blog:


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 UK: Scotland License.

The terms of the licence are simple. I will allow people to reuse and republish my posts as long as they provide attribution to the original posts, are not reproduced for commercial purposes, and the person making the reproduction shares any modifications from the original content with a licence containing the same terms and conditions.

Thanks to the magic of the link-back function in Blogger, I have discovered that there is an outfit copying my messages through the Atom feed and placing them in pages filled with Google Ads. The pages have content from other blogs from all over the place, which makes me believe that this is almost certainly a Google Ad link farm. The domain is bgtoyou.com, with the www replaced by random numbers preceded by a g. Examples of this are yesterday's post, as well as:

http://g46.bgtoyou.com/The-Independent-Republic-of-Sealand
http://g71.bgtoyou.com/Is-Second-Life-Open-Source/
http://g122.bgtoyou.com/Should-Saddams-video-be-regulated/
http://g41.bgtoyou.com/Spanish-cafe-loses-case-on-free-music

Using the excellent Network Tools utility I found that the domain is owned by a person in Thailand. I emailed the registered owner to complain, but unsurprisingly I have not received an answer. I then used a traceroute to find who is hosting the content, and found that it is being served from hostgator.com in the United States. I then emailed the site's support to explain the situation, and I have been prompted to file a DMCA complain to remove the material.

Why enforce the licence terms? I write this blog without expecting to get money in return, and the thought of somebody profiting from them makes me very angry indeed. This is also a great chance to text Creative Commons in real life.

Stay tuned for the next instalment.

Vista's legal woes

(via Colin Miller. This post is best enjoyed while listening to either Iron Maiden's "The Number of The Beast", or R.E.M.'s "The End of The World As We Know It") .

Windows Vista is nearly upon us. Woe unto us, et cetera, et cetera. The Internet is abuzz with stories of people waiting for Vista with either nervous anticipation or disgruntled disgust. There are those who do not care, but their opinions rarely count, do they? Anyway, whether you're in the camp of those who will be queuing for a copy of the software, or you will be protesting with placards outside of your local PC World store, you will be aware of some of the issues debated.

The first concern with Vista is the re-vamped technological protection measures designed to seek and destroy objectionable materials in the computer, and which will even disable high-quality payback for unlicensed materials. The less publicised problem is that present in Microsoft's new EULA. I have finally managed to read it, and what a read it has proved to be!

There are two particular parts that I find troubling and highly problematic. The first relates to the removal of unwanted software:

"If turned on, Windows Defender will search your computer for “spyware,” “adware” and other potentially unwanted software. If it finds potentially unwanted software, the software will ask you if you want to ignore, disable (quarantine) or remove it. Any potentially unwanted software rated “high” or “severe,” will automatically be removed after scanning unless you change the default setting. Removing or disabling potentially unwanted software may result in
· other software on your computer ceasing to work, or
· your breaching a license to use other software on your computer.
By using this software, it is possible that you will also remove or disable software that is not potentially unwanted software."

This is problematic because it does not define spyware, and because apparently it allows Microsoft to define that which it considers to be at high and severe risk. While it does state what are the potential results of this system, it does not excuse it. It is the equivalent of me stating in a licence "this may result in the removal of your arm."

The second worrying section relates to hardware upgrade. This reads:

"You may uninstall the software and install it on another device for your use. You may not do so to share this license between devices.
(...)The first user of the software may reassign the license to another device one time, but only if the license terms of the software you upgraded from allows reassignment."

Some people have commented that this could very well mean that the possibilities for installing hardware upgrades would be seriously limited, particularly because another section in the licence states how many devices can "access the software installed on the licensed device to use File Services, Print Services, Internet Information Services and Internet Connection Sharing and Telephony Services". This allows 5 devices in Vista Home Basic, and 10 devices in Vista Home Premium and Vista Ultimate. The practicalities of this is that you will be able to make from five to ten changes in your computer, and after those changes, the licence will be deactivated. If you think that ten devices are a lot, this would in theory include USB drives, iPods, PnP wireless devices, routers, cameras, etc. If Microsoft follows the letter of the licence, the computer will easily become a dud.

Microsoft have stated that this is unlikely, and that the software will not act in the way the licence implies and it will allow minor hardware modifications. On the other hand, some fear that this is a slippery slope, and nothing stops Microsoft from changing their mind.

I tend to be less worried about the letter of the EULA than other people, mostly because in Europe the licence must be read in conjunction with consumer protection for non-individually drafted contracts. If a consumer is party to a form contract with a large retailer or service provider, the clauses contained must provide an adequate balance between the parties. If one clause is deemed abusive by skewing the balance, then the clause can be struck down from the agreement.

However, if you are outside of the European Economic Area, you're on your own. May we suggest Linux?

New blog

Abbe Brown, Jordan Hatcher and yours truly have started a new blog as part of a research project on the practicalities of free trade agreements in the signatory countries.

The Independent Republic of Sealand

In a move that reminds me of the plot in Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon, the popular torrent search engine The PirateBay has started asking for donations to purchase the independent micro-nation of Sealand. The people behind PirateBay have created a website to ask for donations to amass the £65 million pounds required to purchase this principality, which looks remarkably like a platform in the middle of the sea (pictured). Sealand is an abandoned concrete platform 10 kilometres off the coast of Suffolk. It was taken over in the 60’s by Paddy Roy Bates, a retired British Major, who declared the platform an independent state and himself a prince (which explains the principality moniker).

The legality of such claim seems doubtful. I've been doing some research on the topic, and there is surprising number of articles on the subject of the legality of the Principality of Sealand. There has been a court case in Germany denying one of its citizens the loss of his German nationality in favour of the principality. Apparently, In Re Duchy of Sealand is an often cited case in International Law in order to establish the requirements of statehood. Sealand is also famous because it has established a number of servers for providing data-haven services, and therefore international interest has re-surged, as it is used also as a tax-haven.

What is required for statehood? The Arbitration Commission of the European Conference on Yugoslavia describes a State as "a community which consists of a territory and a population subject to an organised political authority." It is doubtful that the platform consists of a state. It is also clear that no country has recognised Sealand. Nevertheless, the platform still exists, and the UK doesn't seem willing to exercise sovereignty.

The best analysis on the subject comes from Goldsmith and Wu in their excellent book Who Controls the Internet: Illusions of a Borderless World. Sealand is used here as an example of unregulated borders, much like the Barlowian view of Cyberspace. Their argument is that it doesn't matter if a micro-state attempts to extricate itself from the rule of law, as the citizens of that country would still have to operate in real countries, in the real world if you may. I tend to agree with this view. The UK doesn't need to exercise its jurisdiction over Sealand, the inhabitants of the platform must go into Ipswich for food and supplies from time to time. The servers must connect to the rest of the Internet somewhere. Regulate the choke-points and you have regulated the platform.

As of today, PirateBay has received $18 thousand USD in donations, which must prove something profound about the nature of the Internet which I cannot fathom this morning. However, something must be said about the state of mind of some of the donating parties. How is it that someone who will not fork out twenty quid for a boxed-set DVD willingly gives money to a dodgy outfit so that they can buy a doubtful country?

Nevertheless, I'm half tempted to join them and donate something. Apparently, all of those who donate money will be sure to gain citizenship. The possibilities are intriguing.

Political activism in Second Life

Second Life is back in the news. This time, reporters are describing virtual protests and guerrilla warfare against Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National, which has opened virtual headquarters in Porcupine, an otherwise quiet region of the Second Life universe. Apparently protesters, not happy with placards, are using all sorts of violent animations in order to disrupt Le Pen's domain. Reports reckon exploding pigs have been used.

Perhaps this is just a cute story, but it hides a more serious issue. UKIP, the UK Independence Party, has announced that it may follow suit and set-up headquarters in the virtual environment. Should these action be regulated at all? Europe and the United States have completely different views on freedom of speech. What will happen if racists and xenophobes take over Second Life?

Ready your exploding pigs, the revolution is coming...

EU report favours open source

(via Ashley Theunissen) The European Commission has released a report on the impact of open source software for the ICT sector in Europe. The report has been authored by a group of top researchers in the field, including Rishab Aiyer Ghosh, Paul David, and Philippe Aigrain.

The study analysed six small and medium organisations in Europe (mostly from the public sector), in order to ascertain the migration costs from proprietary to non-proprietary software. The report concludes that:

"Our findings show that, in almost all the cases, a transition toward open source reports of savings on the long term – costs of ownership of the software products.
Costs to migrate to an open solution are relevant and an organization needs to consider an extra effort for this. However these costs are temporary and manly are budgeted in less than one year. The major factor of cost of the new solution – even in the case that the open solution is mixed with closed software – is costs for peer or ad hoc training. These are the best example of intangible costs that often are not foreseen in a transition. On the other hand not providing a specific training may cause and adverse attitude toward the new technology. Fortunately those costs are limited in time and are not strictly linked to the nature of the new software adopted."

A very interesting report, although as a warning it should be said that it seems to be very favourable to OSS by default. I'm sure that the forces of FUD will be out in force soon to attack this as more Euro-pinko propaganda.

Is Second Life Open Source?

I've finally got around reading the nitty-gritty of the much publicised move by Linden Labs to release an open source version of Second Life. In case you have been living in a cave without a broadband connection, Second Life is a virtual world, more like a giant chat room than a game. It is a place where people go to pretend to be something they're not (much like a busy pub on a Friday night for non-geeks). Second Life has the doubtful honour of having achieved mainstream name-recognition. I believe this is what people who want to sound sophisticated talk about, even though they have never used it. The good thing about Second Life is that they are considered one of the good guys. For example, other games require users to assign the copyright over in-game creations, while in Second Life the user retains ownership over their works, and they can even release them under Creative Commons licences.

Anyway, the big news is that Second Life is now offering the source code for a client to connect to the game. At first glance, this is great news, but I wish that those reporting it would be specific. This does not mean that Second Life is now open source, it just means that one client to connect to the game is open source, there is a big difference in both statements. The source code for the client (called Second Life Viewer) has been released under a modified version of the General Public License. The source code is available for download under the terms of the GPL, with the added exception from the Linden Research, Inc. ("Linden Lab") Viewer FLOSS License Exception v0.5. Linden Labs claims that "those people wanting the freedom to modify and redistribute the Second Life Viewer as open source/free software may do so under the GNU GPL, with a special exception to allow for use with open source licenses that might otherwise be incompatible with the GPL." This sort of language hides the fact that this is a very big modification to the conditions within the GPL.

Those familiar with the terms and conditions of the GPL will know that one of the most important clauses is that further distributions of the software must be released under the GPL, this is known as copyleft. One big problem with the GPL has been to try to determine exactly what constitutes a derivative from the licensed source code, and whether a larger program that contains some GPL'd code has to be released under the GPL. This clause seems to try to get around that question by allowing the code to be modified and distributed under another Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) licence. What the exception does is to allow interoperability, in its own words:

"You are free to distribute a work based on the Program that is formed entirely from the Viewer Software (and any modifications thereof) and one or more works that are independent and separate works not derived from the Viewer Software, and are licensed under one or more of the licenses listed below in section 1 (each, a "FLOSS Work") , as long as:
1. You obey the GPL in all respects for the Viewer Software and any work based on the Program, except for the FLOSS Works, for which you must comply with B below,
2. all FLOSS Works,
1. are distributed subject to one of the FLOSS licenses listed below, and
2. the object code or executable form of the FLOSS Works are accompanied by the complete corresponding machine-readable source code for those FLOSS Works on the same medium and under the same FLOSS license as the corresponding object code or executable forms thereof, and
3. any works that are aggregated with the Viewer Software or a work based on the Program on a volume of a storage or distribution medium in accordance with the GPL, and are not licensed under the FLOSS licenses listed below, are independent and separate works in themselves which are not derivatives of either the Viewer Software, a work based on the Program or a FLOSS Work."

This is a pretty big modification, and I wonder what will the people at the FSF think about it. My view is that this makes the software incompatible with other GPL software, but I would like to see what other people think. I wonder as well why they didn't use another open source licence, or draft their own version. I think that even the LGPL might have achieved similar results.

Legal movie downloading just around the corner?

(via Techdirt) USA Today reports that online movie rental service Netflix is ready to begin offering a truly Internet rental service to its subscribers. Perhaps downloading is not the precise word, as the movies will be streamed into the computer, and therefore "in theory" will not be subject to being saved.

It seems like the industry is covering its collective behind by only allowing Netflix to stream unpopular B films and some few classics such as Amadeus and Bridge on the River Kwai. The streaming apparently is protected by Microsoft's DRM, which in theory does not allow the stream to be saved into a file.

I think that the film industry will eventually have to give in and allow "legal" downloads. The technology already exists to allow people to buy and download movies to their video iPods (I'm still trying to fill-up mine), but the industry is still uneasy, and only a few flicks are sold on iTunes. A lot of hit TV shows are sold on the iTunes store (at least in the USA, in the UK we still can't), so my opinion is that there is definitely a movie download market out there.

Nevertheless, you can download Mean Girls in the USA. We're not missing much.

More details on Sony case

Cedric Manara has helpfully sent some more information about the French Sony case. Sony France and Sony UK have been reprimanded by a French court because they do not warn consumers that the music they sell can only be played with Sony players. Sony UK offers music through a service called Connect, while Sony France offers something called Net Walkman, but nowhere in those two services it is stated that music is offered with ATRAC-3 proprietary DRM, which only plays in Sony players. Sony UK's practice was particularly thought to be tying (forcing them to buy Sony players if they buy from Connect).

Interestingly though, the court refused to enforce interoperability. After the implementation of DADVSI, French law allows courts to ask manufacturers to make adjustments to technical devices to allow for interoperability. While the ruling will allow consumers more information by forcing Sony to place a sticker on devices and better information on its websites, courts will not force interoperability. Some commentators believe that the courts will wait until the new interoperability ombudsman enacted by DADVSI comes into play.

Sony fined by French court for DRM music

(via Cedric Manara) A French court has ruled against Sony UK and Sony France over the use of DRM. Manara writes in the Cyberlaw mailing list:

A French court ruled against Sony France and Sony UK, in a case brought by a consumer group. Sony UK operates the website CONNECT Store, where French consumers can download music files in ATRAC 3 format. ATRAC 3 is a proprietary format, that can only be played on SONY players. To the Court, Sony UK did not clearly inform the consumers that these files cannot be played on other players. The Court also found that Sony France did not provide clear information to the consumers when selling its players without disclosing they are not compatible with other files. The Court also ruled that Sony UK's "tying practice" was contrary to the French Consumer code, article L. 122-1. Pursuant to this article, it is illegal to make the purchase of a service subject to the purchase of another product. To the court, the consumers who download a file from Connect are compelled to buy a Sony player if they want to play it.

I have not found this reported yet elsewhere, as the techie press seems to be covering exclusively the anti-trust case against Apple. I will be looking for more information when I come back from holidays.

Five things you didn't know about me

I've been tagged with the latest memetag to take over the blogosphere. Pedro Canut from Blogospierre has tagged me, prompting me to list five things that you don't know about me. I don't like talking about personal things (other than travel), but here is a list with mildly amusing factoids about me:

1. I used to DJ professionally in Belfast (yes, I actually got paid to do it). One night I met and played for Antonio Fargas, the original Huggy Bear from Starsky & Hutch.
   
2. I am ophidiophobic.
   
3. I was once held hostage at gunpoint during an assault in my family home in Costa Rica. My brother shot one of the gunmen and we escaped unharmed.
   
4. I'm writing a novel called "El Ataque de las Chicas Kamikaze".
   
5. I once tried online dating, but found the episode frustrating, infuriating and downright scary.
   

Now I tag the IPKats I know (Jeremy, Ilanah and Jo), The House of Commons staff (Abi, Ben, and Catherine), David Sasaki, Luke Razzell, and Becky Hogge.

Because I cannot just leave this meme alone, I've done some research to find out where it started. At first I thought that it would be difficult (if not impossible) to backtrack it, but after spending one hour following old posts, I managed to find the original (by the way, the blogosphere is a very large place, filled with rather weird people). Perhaps I should add to my list that I get very proud when I do geeky stuff, but everybody knows that.

Anyway, the original post comes from a blog called "Dipping Into The Water Butt" by a woman in the UK. It got picked up by her friends, and the rest is history. I did find a paragraph that was supposed to be kept, but it has been lost somewhere along the way:

PLEASE LEAVE THE FOLLOWING IN ALL POSTS
'Remember that it isn't always the sensational stuff that writers are looking for, it can just as easily be something that you take for granted like having raised twins or knowing how to grow beetroot. Mind you, if you know how to fly a helicopter or have worked as a film extra, do feel free to let the rest of us know about it.'

This would make for some excellent research on the scale-free nature of the blogosphere.

Should Saddam's video be regulated?

The supposedly private yet very public execution of Saddam Hussein has given us the first big cyberlaw story of 2007.

The story can be tackled from a wide range of angles: Who owns the video? Can (and should) it be banned? Is there any law that could be applied to stop its distribution? Is this what the User Generated Content (UGC) future will be like? However, I think that one of the most interesting questions posed by the viral propagation of the video clip has been one of regulation of online content.

Some people could make the argument that the distribution of the video is detrimental for many reasons: security, peace, national unity, politics, etc. The video has helped to give Saddam the semblance of martyrdom, and it will undoubtedly be used as a rallying call for insurgents. After all, his last words have already become memorable. Are these reasons enough to ban the video? Perhaps yes, perhaps not. However, how can you stop it? This is an example of an area that will become more relevant in the future. A large number of us now carry in our pockets a small multimedia centre, we can take video and pictures in situations that we would not have conceived ten years ago. And following the principle of Replicator Technology, once something has been released in digital format, copies of it can (and will) be made.

Perhaps I'm not very imaginative this new year, but I cannot see how we can stop undesired UGCs from spreading. Be it snuff film, terrorist instructions, bullying videos, abusive behaviour on camera, privacy violations, etc. I just cannot see any manner in which you stop digital copies from replicating. Self regulation from some of the largest players like YouTube have removed some of the worst offenders, but once the video is out in the open, it will continue to be copied, distributed and viewed all over the world. National legislation will only shift the problem to those unregulated jurisdictions, and the problem will not stop.

And what does this mean for the mainstream media? After all, there is a user rebellion afoot. Consumers are not content with news media showing restraint and not displaying the video, people will vote with their clicks and download the content wherever they can.

Perhaps we could just learn to live with the UGC future. If 2006 was the year of YouTube, this one may very well be the year where it all becomes mainstream. Citizen journalist, citizen rebel, citizen criminal?

Happy New Year

Happy new Year to all regular (and non-regular) readers. I've been overwhelmed by the steady numbers that the blog has been getting. Sometime in the last two days we've managed to reach the 30,000 hit mark, and last December was the most viewed month since I started counting, with more than 2,000 individual visits during the month. Needless to say, this prompts me to continue doing the same during 2007 (I know the masses want more llama pictures).

I thought of recording an MP3 of myself singing Auld Lang Syne, but I can never remember the lyrics, and it's hard to get on the spirit of Hogmanay at 28 °C. Perhaps next year...

Computers in movies

I've just read an excellent article about cinematic depiction of computer use in The Guardian. This is a topic of endless derision from techies and geeks all over the world. The article mentions that the balance can be tricky. In one hand we have the most realistic depiction of computers in film, Antitrust, which is a stinker of a movie. I mean, open source is not really the stuff of emotionally charged thrillers, is it? (to be fair, Revolution OS is a pretty good documentary).

On the other hand, the most ludicrous computer plot device in history, Independence Day, did very well at the box office. I mean, who in their right mind could believe that we would ever devise a computer virus that could infect an alien computer system? From a Mac? Try opening Mac or Linux files with your Windows OS and see your PC explode! Hey, maybe the aliens were using Macs. That would explain a lot... but I digress.

Computer expert Jakob Nielsen has come up with the top ten computer usability bloopers in film (the links are mine):

1. The Hero Can Immediately Use Any UI. "Break into a company -- possibly in a foreign country or on an alien planet -- and step up to the computer. How long does it take you to figure out the UI and use the new applications for the first time? Less than a minute if you're a movie star."

2. Time Travelers Can Use Current Designs. "An even worse flaw is the assumption that time travelers from the past could use today's computer systems. In fact, they'd have no conception of any of modern technology's basic concepts, and so would be dramatically more stumped than the novice users we observe in user testing. Even someone who's never used Excel at least understands the general idea of computers and screens."

3. The 3D UI. "3D is for demos. 2D is for work."

4. Integration is Easy, Data Interoperates. "In movieland, users have no trouble connecting different computer systems. Macintosh users live in a world of PCs without ever noticing it (and there were disproportionally more Macs than PCs in films a decade ago, when Apple had the bigger product-placement budget)."

5. Access Denied / Access Granted. "Countless scenes involve unauthorized access to some system. Invariably, several passwords are tried, resulting in a giant "Access Denied" dialog box. Finally, a few seconds before disaster strikes, the hero enters the correct password and is greeted by an equally huge "Access Granted" dialog box."

6. Big Fonts. "In addition to the immense font used for "Access Denied" messages, most computer screens in the movies feature big, easily readable text. In real life, users often suffer under tiny text and websites that add insult to injury by not letting users resize the words."

7. Star Trek's Talking Computer. "The voice-operated computer in Star Trek is an even more egregious example of designing an audience interface rather than a user interface. Spoken commands and spoken responses make it easy for the audience to follow the action, but it's a very inefficient way of controlling a complex system."

8. Remote Manipulators (Waldo Controls). "In practice, there's a reason we use steering wheels to drive cars instead of joysticks, touchpads, or push-buttons. The steering wheel is an excellent input device for fast and accurate specification of directionality."

9. You've Got Mail is Always Good News. "In the movies, checking your mail is a matter of picking out the one or two messages that are important to the plot. No information pollution or swamp of spam. No ever-changing client requests in the face of impending deadlines. And you never overlook information because a message's subject line violated the email usability guidelines."

10. "This is Unix, It's Easy". "In the film Jurassic Park, a 12-year-old girl has to use the park's security system to keep everyone from being eaten by dinosaurs. She walks up to the control terminal and utters the immortal words, "This is a Unix system. I know this." And proceeds to (temporarily) save the day."

Any other examples?

To snowclone or not to snowclone

I'm generally not into New Year's resolutions, but I believe that this year I will promise to write less snowclones. A snowclone, according to Wikipedia, "is a neologism used to describe a type of formula-based cliché which uses an old idiom in a new context. The term emphasizes the use of a familiar (and often particular) formula and previous cultural knowledge of the reader to express information about an idea." An example is this post's title: the well-known formula of "to X or not to X" is a snowclone.

The term was coined by linguist Glen Whitman, who noted that a new word was needed to describe the journalistic practice of calling things "the new black" (the snowclone is "X is the new Y"). The name comes from the famous urban myth that Eskimos "have X number of words for snow" (the range goes from 10 to 30). This is one of those lazy bits of common knowledge that nobody ever checks, but that is completely wrong, just as the myth that humans only use 10% of their brains. These lazy common knowledge adages can be the source of the snowclone, but the largest source is found in popular culture. Some of the best known snowclones are from movie tags ("In space nobody can hear you X"; "May the X be with you", "I, for one, welcome our new X overlords").

You too can become a snowclone hunter. Just go into Google and search using a snowclone template replacing the X for an asterisk. So, if you can find all instances of "All your X are belong to us", or "Have X, will travel".

Previous snowclones that I have been guilty of? All your Googlebase are belong to us; To bolbdly go where no patent has gone before; Limewire Strikes Back. How depressing.

Music industry sues AllofMP3.com

Several recording companies have sued Russian site AllofMP3.com for copyright infringement. The site is not precisely a P2P sharing network, it is more analogous to "legal" download sites where users purchase individual songs and albums at amazingly low prizes. The problem is that the site does not pay royalties to the music industry.

I think that the copyright legal issues in this case are quite straightforward, even if one considers the quirks of Russian copyright law. It seems to me like AllofMP3 are engaged in direct commercial infringement of protected works. However, what may prove to be a very relevant piece of litigation is the fact that this case may prove to be one of jurisdiction and long-arm enforcement of IPR. This is because Mediaservices, the Russian company that owns AllofMP3, has been sued in New York. This is definitely a case worth following.

I never though I would say this, but I hope the music industry win this one. I must be growing soft in my old age.

Halliburton loses appeal on software patent case

(via IPKat). Halliburton has lost its appeal on its case against Smith international with regards to software for designing drill bits. The software patent involved in Halliburton v Smith protected a software simulation program for designing the drill bits. Halliburton sued Smith, claimed it held patents in both the drill and design software and that Smith was using similar software to produce comparable results. Smith questioned the patents’ validity. The design software patent contained a long technical description of drills and drill bits, plus a description of the algorithm used to design the software. The instructions to the person skilled in the art were extremely detailed and could only apply to that particular desired result. This seems precisely to be the type of patent that has a technical effect, however one defines it. Pumfrey J agreed that there was nothing wrong with the patent per se and that it fulfilled the requirements of technicality . The problem with the patent is that it did not have adequate disclosure to ensure that an average skilled person would be able to work the patent.

In the appeal, the main point discussed was that of disclosure. Art.83 of the EPC provides that an application "must disclose the invention in a manner sufficiently clear and complete for it to be carried out by a person skilled in the art". Jacob J stressed how important this is for an application, and repeated the earlier judgement that there is nothing in the description of the software that would allow a person skilled in the art to work the patent. He said:

"Patents are meant to teach people how to do things. If what is "taught" involves just too much to be reasonable allowing for all the circumstances including the nature of the art, then the patent cannot be regarded as an "enabling disclosure." That is the basic concept behind the requirement of sufficiency and one that lies at the heart of patent law [...]. The setting of a gigantic project, even if merely routine, will not do. Moreover the analogy with genetic engineering and pharmaceutical inventions is not apt. The work that goes into bringing them to market relates to testing efficacy and safety – not in actually making the invented product."

I truly believe that there is a new UK doctrine based on the latest UK-based software patent rulings. We are getting rational policy advice and rational cases. What am I going to complain about?

SCRIPT-ed December 2006

The latest issue of SCRIPT-ed is now online. In this issue:

Editorial:

• Alastair Kent, "Patients and IP – Should we care?"
  

Special Issue on Privacy:

• Lilian Edwards, "Introduction to the Special Issue"
• When personal data, behavior and virtual identities become a commodity: Would a property rights approach matter?, Corien Prins
• Andreas Busch, "From Safe Harbour to the Rough Sea? Privacy Disputes across the Atlantic"
• Judith Rauhofer, "Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not after you: Legislative developments in relation to the mandatory retention of communications data in the European Union"
• Caroline B Ncube, "Watching the watcher: recent developments in privacy regulation and cyber-surveillance in South Africa"
• Ralf Bendrath and Rikke Frank Jørgensen, "The World Summit on the Information Society – privacy not found?"
• Miranda Mowbray, "Implementing Pseudonymity"
• Andrea M. Matwyshyn, "Penetrating the Zombie Collective: Spam as an International Security Issue"
• Philip Leith, "Squeezing Information out of the Information Commissioner: Mapping and measuring through online public registers"
  

Peer-reviewed articles:

• Philip Ruthen, "Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) - The imposition of ‘truth’?"
• Aurelio Lopez-Tarruella Martinez, "Licences for Use of Digital Works: The Difficult Balance Between Right-holders and Users"
  

Analysis:

• Ana María Delgado García & Rafael Oliver Cuello, "The Spanish Tax Administration and the Internet".
• Nicolas Jondet, "La France v. Apple: who’s the dadvsi in DRMs?"
  

Book Reviews:

• Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software, Joseph Feller et al (editors). Reviewed by Andres Guadamuz
• Copyright and Other Fairytales, Helle Porsdam (editor). Reviewed by Maureen O'Sullivan
• Xenotransplantation: Law and Ethics, Sheila A. M. McLean and Laura Williamson. Reviewed by Jessica Wright.

Bridging the Costa Rican digital divide

Continuing the series of stories from Costa Rica, the Costa Rican govenrment has started to implement a series of measures to reduce the digital divide between the information haves and have-nots.

Starting in February, the government will be offering computer and internet connections at affordable prices. For as little as ¢12,000 CRC per month (about £12 GBP, or $24 USD), users will lbe able to lease the computer and the internet connection. For ease of use, the payment will be added to the phone bill.

This is an excellent proposal, and I hope that it will prompt many of my fellow countrymen to join cyberspace.

Commission green-lights CAFTA in Costa Rica

The Commission on International Affairs of the Costa Rican legislature has approved CAFTA amidst strong opposition from students, intellectuals and union leaders. The vote in the commission was 6-3 in favour of sending the agreement to the plenary for it to be voted. As mentioned earlier, some of the less controversial surrounding aspects of the treaty are now under discussion, including IP reforms that will implement DMCA-like provisions into Costa Rican law.

I must admit that I'm still torn. While it is clear that the agreement is good for the Costa Rican economy, I'm disgusted by the storng IP enforcement clauses that ave been included into the treaty.

Inventor kills lawyer over idea for portable toilet

(via Patentingart list) It is true that to many of us IP is a source of income, but is it a matter of life and death? One man in Chicago thought so. Truck driver and sometimes inventor Joe Jackson murdered patent lawyer Michael McKenna and two other people at the offices of the Chicago firm Wood, Phillips, Katz, Clark & Mortimer.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Jackson invented a portable toilet for truckers, and went to McKenna to have the invention patented. However, Jackson became convinced that McKenna had stolen his idea and had registered the toilet for himself after researching on the Internet. I conducted a search on the USPTO on published applications and issued patents for Michael McKenna, but did not find anything. The search terms "joe jackson" and "toilet" did not produce any results either. According to family members, McKenna told Jackson that he could not patent the invention because it was already invented.

Jackson eventually snapped, and murdered the patent lawyer.

Tragic as the event is, I found something quite interesting in one of the articles detailing the unfortunate events. The Chicago Tribune describes the other lawyer killed as "an expert in the arcane legal field of intellectual property." Arcane?

I'm off to make some incantations and read some entrails.

Musician revolt?

I may be the only UK-based technology and IP blogger that has not yet mentioned the Gowers report. Because I'm in Costa Rica, I've been tempted to ignore writing about the report because so many people have already commented intelligently on it. Perhaps my only take is to stress again future. For too long have that I believe we may be witnessing a turning of the tide when it comes to IP policy. The fact that the Gowers review has managed to conduct its affairs with transparency and by looking closely at the actual evidence truly makes me feel optimistic about a more balanced IPIP owners gotten away with a one-sided push towards more protection. Public acceptance of the report so far seems to be decidedly favourable.

However, I have been prompted out of silence by the spectacle of ageing musicians pleading for copyright extension in a page published in the Financial Times. Under the title "Fair Play for Musicians", the ad contains 4,500 signatures of poor struggling acts such as U2, Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Cliff Richard and Sir Simon Rattle. I was astounded that this has been picked up by the mainstream press at international level. I heard the story on the radio while I was driving, and I almost crashed from shock. Copyright extension has become a hot topic, worthy of making the entertainment news in Costa Rican radio.

Nevertheless, despite the considerable star power wielded by the British Phonographic Industry, I think that this tactic will backfire and it will be a turning point with the public. There is nothing worse than a bunch of wealthy ageing rockers pleading for more money. It smells of greed and desperation (and somehow, it also smells of mothballs and dusty electric guitars, but I digress). Lessig has published a rebuke in FT, and I'm sure that widespread derision to this tactic will simply serve to expose what this is all about, earning a few more bucks.

By the way, David Berry has circulated a message pointing out that some of the signatories are actually dead. Lonnie Donegan (2002) and Freddie Garrity (2006) are deceased, no more, ceased to be, bereft of life (you know the rest). This makes me think that the BPI must have some mighty mediums in their ranks, or perhaps the ghosts of musicians past never leave the premises and hang around looking after their royalties. I don't know about you, but the image of a ghostly Mick Hucknall fills me with dread.

UPDATE: This article by Marina Hyde is a must-read.

Bush and Arias talk CAFTA

Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace laureate Oscar Arias Sánchez met in the White House with George W. Bush to talk about debt, democracy in Latin America, and of course CAFTA. As mentioned in earlier posts, Costa Rica has yet to ratify and implement the agreement.

Bush was briefed about the legislative process to approve CAFTA, and while he did not put any public pressure for the approval, he did mention that trade is one of the most important elements for development. Costa Rica is the largest economy in the CAFTA treaty, and its absence in the agreement would a tremendous blow for the free trade zone.

Bush also mentioned that he may look into condoning $104 million USD in debt that Costa Rica has with the USA in exchange for investment in health and education. Bush stated that those countries which invested in education and not in weapons should be rewarded in some form.

I must admit that when I heard that my irony meter broke and I could not continue listening to the press conference, so I don't know if something else of importance was mentioned.

Spanish café loses case on "free music"

A Spanish court in Pontevedra has ruled in favour of the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE) against a café named Direccion000. SGAE initiated action against the cafe to claim royalties for de public performance of music in the locale, while the owners claimed that they did not have to pay because they were only using “free music” under Creative Commons licences.

The café lost the case in first instance and appealed on the basis that the locale has several signs claiming that they had permission to play free music in the establishment under the terms of CC licences. However, SGAE was able to prove that the music selection included artists under their representation.

Perhaps the most worrying paragraph from the case is that which describes the legal validity of CC licences presented as evidence. According to the court:

“…it is worth to point out that the document presented by the defendants-appellants as a licence for free use of music does not constitute anything other than a mere informative leaflet about its own content, lacking any form of signature, and therefore bereft of legal value whatsoever”.

I find this worrying because it seems to imply that CC licences are invalid without a signature, which would spell trouble for their legal validity in Spain. I would hope that the court was shown the human readable deed, and not the licence as such.

I do not have sympathy for the café owners as it seems to me that they were playing commercial music while advertising that the locale only played “musica libre”. Still, I am greatly concerned about wider potential implications with regards to CC contract formation (or licence formation where applicable).

When the Internet breaks

In the age of broadband, Blackberries, 3G and wireless, we have come to expect 24/7 online access all the time. But what happens when the Internet breaks?

Costa Rica and the rest of Central America are connected to the Internet through two fibre optic cables: Maya-1 and most importantly Arcos-1. The former runs from Puerto Lempira in Honduras to Punta Cana in the Domenican Republic (some maps here). Since last Sunday, the Arcos-1 cable has been down, which has meant that the Internet is either very slow, or not available at all.

This has made me think back on some digital divide issues and the fact that large part of the Internet relies on complex inter-connection agreements for the lease of bandwidth, and that when one of those connections is unavailable, the Internet suffers. If such an event takes place in developed countries with vast inter-connected fibre optical networks, the impact is considerably smaller. However, with countries that rely heavily on one or two main cables for connection, any shortages hit very hard indeed.

The national telecomms company ICE and RACSA, the monopolist Internet Service Provider in Costa Rica, have mentioned that they are likely to sue if the faults where caused by negligence.

By the way, this message reaches you thanks to some other cables, such as the Antilles Crossing.

Troubled CAFTA in Costa Rica

The Central American Free Trade Agreement is the multilateral treaty signed between the United States, the Domenican Republic and several countries in Central America. As it happens with most free trade agreements negotiated by the Bush administration, there is a requirement to impose heavy protection of intellectual property rights in the signatory countries. In most instances, the protection seems particularly unnecessary for developing countries. Why are strong anti-circumvention provisions required in the text? Why the emphasis on implementing criminalisation of IPR infringement?

Anyway, the road to CAFTA has been extremely difficult in Costa Rica. Firstly, the agreement hung in the balance last February at the local elections when anti-CAFTA candidate Ottón Solís almost defeated pro-agreement candidate and now president Dr. Oscar Arias Sánchez. The agreement has also been the subject of heated popular demonstrations from university strudents and intellectuals.

CAFTA (or TLC in Spanish) is now in process of being voted in not in a bulk legislative package, but it has been broken up. IP provisions are now being considered by the plenary, including reforms to the existing IP law, and a new trade mark legislation. It seems to me that the Costa Rican government is trying to sneak some of the least controversial issues such as IP protection before sending the treaty to vote. Let's face it, IP issues do not send people to the streets (unless they are protesting software patents).

Costa Rica

I'm on my way to the land of Imperial, gallo pinto and lovely beaches. I will still be posting regularly from home.

Time to be mildly optimistic about IP policy?

This week the IP and Technology blogosphere has been set aflame by the report from the BBC stating that copyright terms for sound recordings will be left as they are. From IPKat to Copyfight, everyone seems to find this is a delightful outcome to the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property (see the submission from IP academics on this topic).

I find this latest development quite remarkable, as I am sensing a turn of the tide, a swing of the pendulum, a change of wind (select your cliché), with regards to IP policy in Europe. From the report on the database right, to the defeat of the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive, I believe that policy-makers in Europe are becoming more attuned to the copyfighter argument against unchecked expansion of intellectual property rights. We could be faced for the first time to a policy body actually refusing to listen the the considerable rhetorical weight andcelebrity appeal of those intellectual giants, Mick Hucknall, Bono and Sir Cliff Richard (please note the heavy ironic tone).

While many of us have been in the sceptical bandwagon for the duration of the present century, it is quite nice to see that politicians may be catching on.

Gifts for geeks

(via Lilian Edwards) What do you give to a geek who has everything? Why not try ideas from the Open Source Gift Guide? From tools for building your own robot,through Ubuntu distros, to a device that will turn your iPod into the loudest player in the world, you can have a look at the very innovative gift ideas for those who hate Microsoft, Apple and all things proprietary.

My favourites? It's a toss-up between Free Beer and the MAKE Warranty Voider. I also loved the PortableApps Suite. I'm installing it into my iPod!

Copyright is socialism?

Mick Hucknall, of Simply Red fame, has written an unintentionally comical apology of copyright extension for sound recordings. Mr Hucknall tells us that copyright fulfills socialist ideals because anyone can create something and obtain a property right over their creation. It seems like 50 years of profits are not enough for some musicians, so they want to extend this protection to 95 years. Mr Hucknall reminds us that opposing such move is "retrogressive and misconceived". He says that "Copyright is not a monopoly restricting the free flow of ideas. Allowing valuable sound recordings to pass into the public domain does not create a public asset: it represents a massive destruction of UK wealth, and a significant loss to the UK taxpayer as exploitation moves offshore or into the grey market." This is quite indicative that the article is all about profits and not about socialism, or distribution of wealth. Indeed, it is all about tax returns and the ability to squeeze profits for a bit longer.

Needless to say, I believe that many of the underlying assumptions in this article are wrong. Firstly, there seems to be an unsupported claim that longer copyright periods will serve as an incentive to creators. There is no evidence whatsoever that this is the case. On the contrary, when was the last time that you met a struggling musician who expressed their desire not to record a new song because of limited copyright extension terms? Secondly, the argument that extending copyright terms for sound recordings will have an effect on the government's coffers is also not supported by evidence. Thirdly, Mr. Hucknall claims that copyright is the sole economic foundation of the knowledge economy. It seems like this person has never heard of user generated content, Wikipedia, blogs, podcasting and all sort of content that does not rest on copyright.

The problem here is that some people seem to continue to be enamoured in their entrenched idea that copyright owners are somehow special people, and that the rest of us should consider ourselves lucky if we are granted the right to purchase content produced in the short head. However, the knowledge economy actually rests on the short tail, that vast majority of people who have found out that the creative process is not only a monopoly of a few writers and musicians. We are all copyright owners, and we are not all interested in earning profits from our works.

The Guardian has published a couple of replies to Mr Hucknall here and here. Andrew Brown's reply is particularly well-written.

The Internet is NOT for porn

Common sense tells us that the Internet is for porn, but latest research does not reflect this. A report from Berkley statistician Philip B. Stark on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice indicates that only 1% of websites searchable by Google are porn, and that search engine filters manage to block 87-98% of sexually explicit content.

The report comes from the trial stage of the case American Civil Liberties Union vs Gonzalez (formerly ACLU v Reno and ACLU v Ashcroft), which is underway. The case was brought by the ACLU against the U.S. Department of Justice to declare the Children Online Protection Act (COPA) unconstitutional because it violates freedom of speech. The report will not help the case by the DoJ, as it is clear that filters are working, and little children are not always exposed to porn the moment they log into their computer.

Another online libel and ISP liability case

The Californian Supreme Court has ruled on the case of Barrett v Rosenthal. The case was brought by two doctors who operated a website that exposed health frauds. The defendant is one Ilena Rosenthal, who hosts an online forum and discussion group. The two plaintiffs alleged that Rosenthal and others committed libel by maliciously distributing defamatory statements in emails and forum posts. The defendant claimed that the posts were protected by freedom of speech, but also that some of these boards are part of the "Wild West" of the Internet, where it is impossible to exercise any editorial or policing.

One of the important parts of the ruling is that it revisits the famous ISP liability case Zeran v AOL. Distributors and ISPs have for long been awarded some form of immunity from liability for libel and defamation, mostly based on the fact that the sheer volume of information that passes through servers makes all form of editorial oversight impossible.

What is novel about this case is that Rosenthal is not an ISP in the traditional sense, but an individual who administers a forum. The question then is whether individuals are to be awarded immunity. Rosenthal won the case in first instance and in appeal. The Court of Appeals went as far as to consider that there is no operational difference between individuals and ISPs. The California Supreme Court has rejected this line of thought by making a clear distinction between individuals and large enterprises. They argue:

"Individual Internet “users” like Rosenthal, however, are situated differently from institutional service providers with regard to some of the principal policy considerations discussed by the Zeran court and reflected in the Congressional Record. In particular, individuals do not face the massive volume of third-party postings that providers encounter. Self-regulation is a far less challenging enterprise for them. Furthermore, service providers, no matter how active or passive a role they take in screening the content posted by users of their services, typically bear less responsibility for that content than do the users. Users are more likely than service providers to actively engage in malicious propagation of defamatory or other offensive material."

However, while there seems to be a distinction between individuals and ISPs, the California Supreme Court had to conclude that the language in the legilegislation does not make a distinction, and therefore even idnividuals would be awarded blanket immunity. They however recommend the plaintiffs should not pursue the intermediary, but to sue the publisher of the defamatory Internet publication.

Microsoft splitting open source community

We have already written about the agreement between Microsoft and Novell, in which the open source developer has obtained a patent infringement "get out of jail free" card from the Redmond company. As expected, this has now created several replies from the free and open source community.

Firstly, Samba developers have requested Novell to reconsider because they think that this is a tactic that will separate commercial and non-commercial users of open source software, and therefore will balkanise the community. They say:

"The patent agreement struck between Novell and Microsoft is a divisive agreement. It deals with users and creators of free software differently depending on their "commercial" versus "non-commercial" status, and deals with them differently depending on whether they obtained their free software directly from Novell or from someone else. The goals of the Free Software community and the GNU GPL allow for no such distinctions."

And piling on the pressure on Novell, Eben Moglen has now stated that GPL v3 will be redrafted in order to make clear that this agreement will be in violation of the GPL. Moglen says that "GPL version 3 will be adjusted so the effect of the current deal is that Microsoft will by giving away access to the very patents Microsoft is trying to assert."

I think that this is further evidence of the widening split in the Free and Open Source movement. GPL v3 is becoming more and more restrictive, up to the point where it seems clear that its definition of "free" is anything but. Microsoft seems to be playing the split quite well, much like a predator picking the slower wildebeest from the pack (or dare I say, picking the weakest gnu?)

My main concern is that some of the language being used is redolent of the Cold War/War on Terror Manichaean rhetoric of "us versus them". Read this statement from Moglen, then exchange the word Microsoft with "Soviet Union" or "Iran", and you will see what I mean:

"I would not be advancing the course of discussions if I made any statement about who we are talking to here in specific terms. I will only say that it is my experience that Microsoft has never been in any hurry to identify itself as in direct negotiation with the free world.... In general, it is better at this point to say that all lines of communication that I think are necessary in order to resolve this situation peacefully are open, that we have not been unable to reach any parties that we thought it would be prudent or productive to talk to."

Da, comrade.

Microsoft's grand DRM plan to take over the world

(Cue organ music and evil laughter). The first Zune players have now been released in the United States. Microsoft's answer to the iPod has been controversial from the start, not only because it follows on Microsoft's well and tested method of coming late into a market and using its comprehensive weight to grind its competitors into submission. However, they may be taking on more than they can chew with iPod, which seems to have considerable brand recognition and general zeitgeist. The Zune is offered in three colours (including the ugliest brown in the world, I mean, what where they thinking?).

Most interesting has been Zune's DRM strategy, which is incompatible with Microsoft's own PlaysforSure TPM format. It seems like Microsoft wants to create two separate markets, one for third party stores and devices, such as Yahoo! Music, Napster, Creative and Philips; and the other market for its own players, software, store and devices. This includes a strategy to bring together Zune, Windows Vista and XBox as the next generation of entertainment environment for the digital consumer, all locked in a nice and tidy technically protected zone handled and controlled by Microsoft.

Where is the store? Zune has its own Zune Marketplace (read iTunes rip-off), but it seems to me that the overall strategy will be to bring all marketplaces together, such as Xbox Live's Marketplace, as it already allows people to download games, upgrades, and will soon offer movies and video shows. Add to this equation Windows Vista, and you start seeing how Microsoft expects to lock its customers into Xbox-playing, Zune-listening, Vista-using robots. And I don't even want to mention the wireless sharing feature, which will expire after three plays or three days.

I'll keep my iPod, thank you very much.

Survey on privacy expectations of bloggers

Karen Mc Cullagh has requested that I publicise this survey on privacy expectations of bloggers. If you blog, click on the link and take the survey. Karen says:

What this study is about…?

I'm conducting an online survey to explore the privacy attitudes and expectations of bloggers as part of my PhD research, which is sponsored by the ESRC and Office of the Information Commissioner, UK.

If you participate you will be asked to answer questions anonymously about your blogging practices (i.e. what kind of information you write about on your Blogger, Bebo, Myspace, LiveJournal, Xanga, Facebook, Friendster etc.) and your expectations of privacy when publishing online.

What will happen your answers...?

All answers will be stored and analysed on a confidential basis.

The responses will be used to inform academic and policy discussions on blogging practices and attitudes towards privacy.

Link to the survey:

Please take part in the survey: http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/privacysurvey/

Finally, could you please encourage other bloggers to participate in the study.

It takes less than 5 minutes to complete the survey!

Further information:

For further information on my research please visit

http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/staff/km.htm

Many thanks,

Karen

GPL wins case in the United States

The GPL does not contravene American antitrust law, according to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. The appeal case is Wallace v IBM, Red Hat and Novell, in which one Mr Daniel Wallace claimed that he would like to compete against the Linux operating system by selling derivatives or writing an operating system from scratch, but that this was not possible because Linux is offered for free. According to Mr Wallace, the GPL is part of a conspiracy because it makes software free forever, and it is impossible to compete against free products. Someone should have explained to Mr Wallace that free is not free as in beer, but free as in freedom.

Mr Wallace lost the case in the first instance because he could not prove that he had suffered an antitrust injury. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals did not buy Mr Wallace's arguments either. Judge Easterbrook delivered an excellent decision, which is worthy of reproduction:

"Software that is not maintained and improved eventually becomes obsolete, and the lack of reward may reduce the resources devoted to maintenance and improvement of Linux and other open-source projects. If that occurs, however, then proprietary software will enter or gain market share. People willingly pay for quality software even when they can get free (but imperfect) substitutes. Open Office is a free, open-source suite of word processor, spreadsheet and presentation software, but the proprietary Microsoft Office has many more users. Gimp is a free, open-source image editor, but the proprietary Adobe Photoshop enjoys the lion’s share of the market. Likewise there is a flourishing market in legal treatises and other materials, plus reference databases such as LEXIS and Westlaw, even though courts give away their work (this opinion, for example, is not covered by copyright and may be downloaded from the court’s web site and copied without charge). And so it is with operating systems. Many more people use Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X, or Sun Solaris than use Linux. IBM, which includes Linux with servers, sells mainframes and supercomputers that run proprietary operating systems. The number of proprietary operating systems is growing, not shrinking, so competition in this market continues quite apart from the fact that the GPL ensures the future availability of Linux and other Unix offshoots."

Hear, hear! This lays to rest one more FUD attack on the GPL. Let's hope that SCO v IBM will finally produce the desired result.

UK denies Denial of Service attacks

(via Out-Law) The Police And Justice Act 2006 has been passed yesterday. This new Act contains criminal sanctions for those who access a computer with the intent of impairing its operation, to prevent or hinder access to any program or data held on it, or to impair the operation of any program or data.

This is obviously intended to attack the implementation of technological attacks to a computer in order to criple it, and includes Denial of Service attcks, because they will hinder the operation of an internet server.

10 years of the WCT

I'll be attending a symposium next Friday at Case Western Reserve Law School in Cleveland entitled "The 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaties: 10 Years Later". There will be a webcast of the event for those interested.

Copyright industry exaggerates piracy

According to an article from Oz, the Australian Institute of Criminology will soon publish research that warns that piracy figures quoted by software, movie and music industries are absurd, inflated, and what they call "self-serving hyperbole". Really? Colour me surprised! A quote from the yet unpublished report says:

"It is inappropriate for courts and policy-makers to accept at face value currently unsubstantiated statistics. Either these statistics must be withdrawn, or the purveyors of these statistics must supply valid and transparent substantiation."

Very well said. I often criticise piracy reports that seem to equate each pirated copy to a lost sale, when no amount of research has ever proven this to be the case.

Defending your reputation online

As we spend more and more time online, we are (wittingly and unwittingly) leaving behind vast amounts of personal information. Dodgy poems, bad pictures, posts in the Pokémon forum, that Céline Dion fan website... you may have several things rattling online of which you're not particularly proud. Personally, I do not find this too problematic (after all, I have a picture of a llama in my weblog, my embarrassment threshold is rather high). However, employers, education authorities and members of the public are increasingly practicing background Googling before meeting someone (come on, admit that you've entered people's names into Google as well). What if your future employer or your next date finds your picture dressed like a Klingon? Could you live with the shame?

Reputation defender is here to help. The company promises to pursue internet service providers and web designers in order to remove embarrasing material through "proprietary" methods. They will also provide a monthly reputation report.

Now, if only I could remove some of my earlier journal articles from circulation...

Microsoft waives patent enforcement against SuSE

(Thanks to Amy Terry Sheehan for link) Microsoft and Novell have signed an agreement by which the software giant will not assert its software patent rights for technology that can be used in SuSE Linux distributions. The agreement also provides Microsoft users with the possibility of obtaining support for dual-boot systems that contain both operating systems.

As a person who has both SuSE Linux and Windows in his laptop, I think that this is great news. There is going to be further incentive for corporate enterprises to adopt Linux without fear of SCO-like litigation for potential patent infringement. This agreement also recognises that there is a growing number of people who are more than willing to bypass all of the ideological baggage involved with open source, and take the pragmatic approach of using whatever works and is easier to use. I believe that this is further evidence that Microsoft has changed its tactic with regards to open source software, and that the relationship with large parts of the community have been thawing.

However, I'm still a bit concerned about what Microsoft is getting out of this agreement. It's clear that this is very good news for Novell, but what's in it for Bill Gates? (cue eerie conspiracy music)

Criminal Enforcement Directive Workshop

Free Public Workshop - 13 November 2006

The first in a series of free public workshops is to be held Monday, 13 November 2006, 6pm (followed by drinks).

Criminal Enforcement Directive and Patent Law
Let the Punishment Fit the Crime?

The workshop will be held in the seminar room of the Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute, at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary University of London , Charterhouse Square (map).

The first in the series will examine the proposed European Directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights (Criminal Enforcement Directive). This workshop will look at the possible implications of the Directive specifically in the field of patentable technologies and patent practice.

Expert Panellists

Gwilym Roberts, Partner, Kilburn & Strode Patent Attorneys

Julian Heathcote Hobbins, Senior Legal Counsel, FAST (Federation Against Software Theft)

Phillip Johnson , Barrister and DTI Legal Adviser to the UK Patent Office

(Chair Johanna Gibson , Director of Patenting Lives Network, Queen Mary)

The meeting is free and open to the public, but places are limited, so please register by email to Johanna Gibson.

Details of forthcoming workshops will be announced on this website and the Patenting Lives Blog.

More on Aerotel's ruling

I've finished reading Aerotel v Telco Holdings, and I have to say that I have been impressed with a lot of the excellent reasoning displayed by Lord Justice Jacob in the ruling. I have selected some quotes:

"[...] despite the fact that such patents have been granted for some time in the US, it is far from certain that they have been what Sellars and Yeatman would have called a "Good Thing." The patent system is there to provide a research and investment incentive but it has a price. That price (what economists call "transaction costs") is paid in a host of ways: the costs of patenting, the impediment to competition, the compliance cost of ensuring non-infringement, the cost of uncertainty, litigation costs and so on. There is, so far as we know, no really hard empirical data showing that the liberalisation of what is patentable in the USA has resulted in a greater rate of innovation or investment in the excluded categories. Innovation in computer programs, for instance, proceeded at an immense speed for years before anyone thought of granting patents for them as such. There is evidence, in the shape of the mass of US litigation about the excluded categories, that they have produced much uncertainty. If the encouragement of patenting and of patent litigation as industries in themselves were a purpose of the patent system, then the case for construing the categories narrowly (and indeed for removing them) is made out. But not otherwise.

In our opinion, therefore, the court must approach the categories without bias in favour of or against exclusion. All that is clear is that there was a positive intention and policy to exclude the categories concerned from being regarded as patentable inventions. We must simply try to make sense of them using the language of the Convention."

In one of the most interesting parts of the ruling, Jacob J asks the EPO Board of Appeals for clarification with regards to their application of Article 52 of the European Patent Convention. This has been commented as a non-decision, but I completely disagree. It is clearly a decision because the ruling already talks about Macrossan's patent application. What is done here is to ask for clarification, although it is not the time and place to do it. Jacob J asks based on opinions by the parties and the British Comptroller of Patents:

"(1) What is the correct approach to adopt in determining whether an invention relates to subject matter that is excluded under Article 52?
(2) How should those elements of a claim that relate to excluded subject matter be treated when assessing whether an invention is novel and inventive under Articles 54 and 56?
(3) And specifically:
(a) Is an operative computer program loaded onto a medium such as a chip or hard drive of a computer excluded by Art.52(2) unless it produces a technical effect, if so what is meant by 'technical effect'?
(b) What are the key characteristics of the method of doing business exclusion?"

I would very much like to know the answer to those questions as well.

YouTube blues

"If you upload a video to YouTube you are a legitimate target for legal action in the same way the music industry is suing MP3 users [...] Most of the clips uploaded to the site will be infringing copyright in some way."

That is an inaccurate statement. While most of the TV and movie clips loaded to YouTube are infringing, it's not true that users are legitimate targets for legal action. Users will NOT be sued by the TV and movie industries, at least in the near future. Who made such a ridiculous statement? Well, according to Metro and the Evening Standard, I did! My first misquote, I feel like an important career step has been reached.

In other news, YouTube has been sued by Universal Tube and Rollerform Equipment Corp; proud holders of the domain name utube.com. The problem for the tube manufacturer is that millions of people log into their site while looking for YouTube, which knocks down the servers. The suite then is one of trade mark confusion, not one of copyright infringement.

After all, the Internets is a series of tubes...