Egypt to 'copyright' antiquities

According to the BBC, Egypt will pass a new law which will require licence fees from anyone reproducing Egypt's vast archaeological heritage, be it museum pieces or monuments. Although the article is not particularly clear on the details, the BBC interviewed Zahi Hawass, the chair of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, who claims that the law is needed to support and maintain Egypt's archaeological treasures. He also claims that the law will have an effect worldwide.

I'm rather curious about this law. It seems like this would be some sort of statutory copyright extension to items which never had copyright. This has been done before in slightly different manner. In the UK, s301 of the CDPA provides perpetual royalties for adaptations and public performances of the play "Peter Pan". These statutory extensions however cannot be enforced outside of the territory that implemented them, which leads me to wonder about the validity of such efforts.

The strange world of blog comments

While this blog has achieved decent readership figures, the comment function is still rather under-used. There are several reasons for that: in my experience there seems to be a critical mass of readers vs comments, which I have not reached yet; Blogger's interface does not encourage comments; and also most of my readers do so via RSS feed (250 daily subscribers to the feed).

I do not delete comments, unless they are spam, even if they are critical of what I have written (one warranted criticism here, and one laughable attempt here). The most common type of spam is about Costa Rican property (such as with this post), and about WoW gold farming for obvious reasons, but most intriguingly, this post generates a lot of in-game currency spam! There must be a Korean game named ILAWS...

Despite the lack of comments, there have been some notable exceptions. Some of the most commented posts are on hot topics, such as Free Software, software patents, and P2P. However, there is one post that still generates comments to this day, and it is this post about sex offenders. Given the nature of the comments, I am guessing that the post comes up highly when someone is searching for sex offender registers, or something similar.

However, in a weird sequence of posts I found one that is even stranger, which I reproduce without the names:

"I noticed that you had a variety of sex-orientated posts and they are moderated. Please make sure that when you read this that you don't post it for all to see, I'm a attorney in North Texas and it would cause me and my office manager X all sorts of grief if seen and reported. I'm planning a surprise trip for him, so we can leave between Christmas and February. We're interested in Eastern European countries where the age of consent for same sex is lowered to 13 or 14. To avoid attention could you post a 1 liner, "Fun for boys in Grapevine TX" with the age and county, so that it wouldn't draw any attention, such as "Fun for boys in Grapevine TX 13 Siberia". If you needed to e-mail back to me post the 1 liner, "Fun in Grapevine TX please email me".
Sincerely,
Y"

I believe a prank (or something nastier) is being played on someone. I googled the combination of names and found a post under this same name in a website advertising gay erotic products. Even more bizarre, the person who is supposed to have made this post is indeed a lawyer in Texas specialising in Family Law, but in a strange twist there are records of disciplinary action taken against him in the Texas bar for, amongst other things, deceit and misrepresentation (suffering a 3 year suspension). As I see it, there are two possibilities here:

• The comment's author is truly monumentally stupid and decided to leave evidence in a blog of his plans to engage in under-age sex. I find this option highly unlikely.
  
• The author is engaged in a systematic smear campaign designed to tarnish a lawyer's reputation through the use of blogs, forums and search engines. The fact that this is a family lawyer could mean that this person has a serious enemy online.
  

This brings home once more one of the most serious pitfalls in the participatory web. The potentials for misuse of all of these amazing tools is disproportionate. Although these attacks are lost in minor blogs that nobody who knows the person is ever likely to read, the damage would be done through Google. Nowadays we all google potential employees, people we meet randomly, speakers at a conference, etc. Imagine that a person was looking to hire this lawyer. The first page of results shows that he was suspended from practice, and later on he would find some unsavoury pages. The result is easy to fathom.

Political power in Web 2.0

Canadian bloggers and IT Law gurus Michael Geist and Howard Knopf have pulled an amazing feat using Facebook and Youtube. They posted a video on Youtube opposing a DMCA-like reform to Ottawa's copyright law, and then created a group on Facebook that opposed the amendments, which managed to get 28,000 members (and spawned a lot of other groups, such as the aptly named "No American Style Copyright Law in Canada"). According to the article, they have managed to postpone the reforms.

Congratulations!

Post-modern scam

(via Rena Gertz) When the scam becomes the scam, are we faced with post-modern fraud? This one pretty much redefines chutzpah.

UNION BANK PLC
COMPENSATION OFFICE UNION BANK/ UNITED NATIONS 2007 SCAM VICTIMS
COMPENSATIONS PAYMENTS.
ATTN: SIR/MADAM,
REF/PAYMENTS CODE: UNB/06654 $150,000 USD.

This is to bring to your notice that we are delegated from the UNITED
NATIONS in Central Bank to pay 150 victims of scam $150,000 USD (One Hundred
and Fifty Thousand Dollars Only each).You are listed and approved for this
payment as one of the scammed victims to be paid this amount, get back to
this office as soon as possible for the immediate payments of your $150,000
USD compensations funds. On this faithful recommendations,we want you to
know that during the last U.N. meetings held at Abuja, Nigeria, it was
alarming on the money lost by various individuals to the scams artists
operating in syndicates all over the world today.

In other to compensate victims, the UNITED NATIONS Body is now paying 150
victims $150,000 USD each in accordance with the UNITED NATIONS
recommendations. Due to the corrupt and inefficient Banking Systems in
Nigeria, the payments are to be paid by Central Bank Nigeria as
corresponding paying bank under funding assistance by the governments of USA
, CANADA and BRITAIN.

Any benefactor of this compensation award will have to be first cleared and
recommended for payment by UNION BANK PLC. According to the number of
applicants at hand, 114 Beneficiaries has been paid, over a half of the
victims are from the United States, we still have an outstanding of 36 scam
victims left to be paid. Other victims who have not been contacted can
submit their application as well for scrutiny and possible consideration.

We shall feed you with further modalities as soon as we get response from
you on how you intend receiving your compensation payment. Send a copy of
your response and payment code to our remittance officer:

NAME: Mr Steven Ade
SCAMMED VICTIMS /REF/PAYMENTS CODE:
UNB/06654 $150,000 USD.
PHONE NUMBER:+234-808-454-0643
EMAIL:unionbankplc.ng231@yahoo.ca

Yours Faithfully,

Mrs. May Udoh

SCRIPT-ed December 2007

The fourth issue of the fourth year of SCRIPT-ed, is now live. In this issue:

Editorial

• SCRIPT-ed Redux: New Challenges, New Directions
  Shawn H.E. Harmon and Wiebke Abel, pp.301-303

---

Peer-Reviewed Articles

• A Private Law Approach to Privacy; Mandatory Law
  Colette Cuijpers, pp.304-318
  


• Emerging Global Networks for Free Access to Law: WorldLII’s Strategies
  Graham Greenleaf, Philip Chung and Andrew Mowbray, pp.319-366


• Can Article 5.7 of the WTO SPS Agreement be a Model for the Precautionary Principle?
  Niu Huei-Chih, pp.367-388


• The Protection of Personally Identifiable Information
  DeLiang Liu, pp.389-406


• Net Neutrality and Consumer Access to Content
  Christopher T Marsden,pp.407-435


• Identity Theft and Systems Theory: The Fraud Act 2006 in Perspective
  Anne Savirimuthu and Joseph Savirimuthu, pp.436-461

---

Analysis

• Robots Bowling Alone: Evolving Post-Technological Humans
  David Koepsell, pp.462-467
  


• Copyright and Research: A Different Perspective
  Jan Velterop, pp.468-472

---

Reports

• Institute of Medicine, Law & Bioethics (IMLAB)
  Amanda Warren-Jones, p.473-477
  This is the first in a series of reports on the work of research centres working in SCRIPT-ed's areas of interest.
  

---

Book Reviews

• The Regulatory Challenge of Biotechnology: Human Genetics and Food Patents
  by Han Somsen (ed)
  Reviewed by Kate Getliffe, pp.478-481
• Biotechnology and International Law
  by Francesco Francioni and Tullio Scovazzi (eds)
  Reviewed by Andrea Glorioso, pp.482-489
• Unravelling the Myth around Open Source Licences
  by Lucie Guibault and Ot van Daalen
  Reviewed by Andres Guadamuz, pp.490-492
• The Troubled Pregnancy: The Legal Wrongs and Rights in Reproduction
  by J.K. Mason
  Reviewed by Alasdair Maclean, pp.493-496
• New Directions in Copyright Law
  by Fiona Macmillan (ed)
  Reviewed by Daithí Mac Síthigh, pp.497-498

Wikipedia makes a move towards CC

(via Lessig blog and various mailing lists) Licence geeks know that Wikipedia is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation Licence (GFDL). This is a nifty little licence used for publishing documentation with software projects. However, the GFDL is incompatible with Creative Commons licences. The incompatibility comes because the copyleft clause in the GFDL only allows for redistribution under the unmodified terms of the same licence. It also allows for commercial reuse of the work, which makes it incompatible with the more popular CC licences (BY-NC-SA and BY-NC-ND). The closest licence to the GFDL is Attribution/Share-alike.

Now the Wikimedia Foundation has announced that it will allow migration to Creative Commons BY-SA, which is a huge step in the standardization of CC licences as the option of choice for open content (as an aside, SCRIPT-ed is moving towards Creative Commons as default licensing option). This a momentous change for Wikipedia, and certainly a welcome one. There are several questions as to legitimacy, and whether or not contributors should get a say as to the licensing of each article.

Cybercrime in emerging economies

One of the surprises from my trip to Costa Rica has been the prevalence in the media of stories regarding internet fraud, phishing and other hacking attacks. Back in August the police arrested 16 individuals involved in identity theft in order to remove ¢800 million CRC (about $1.6 million USD) from bank accounts.

The relative unfamiliarity with new technologies, coupled with some insecure institutional practices and balances, have meant that cybercrime has become a profitable exercise in Costa Rica. In the UK, users are covered by all sorts of consumer protection at national and European level, but here users run with all of the risks from fraud. With better systems in place, it would be possible to weed out a lot of the most basic attacks, but identity checking is seriously lacking. It seems unfair that users should bear the brunt of the liability for online fraud.

Things are changing however. The national press has been educating readers about phishing and other scams, and some banks have started implementing better checks, or imposing caps on online transactions per day. Scotiabank has even gone as far as to issue consumers with a password generating keyring, a device that randomly generates a new passcode every 60 minutes or so, and which is synchronised with the account (this would however, leave the user vulnerable to mugging, but I digress).

The law has also been changed, there is now a criminal offence against internet fraud which carries a maximum 10 years.

I guess that bridging the digital divide means that the number of potential cyber-victims increases, and the law should change accordingly.

On leave

I'm spending December in the beautiful and sunny Costa Rica, so expect fewer posts than usual. Normal service will resume in January.

Pirate Bay loses IFPI domain

Kopimists around the world are grieving the loss of the IFPI.com domain (which stands for International Federation of Pirates Interests) in a WIPO dispute over its ownership. The owner, as such things stand, was the Pirate Bay.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry initiated a domain name dispute with WIPO to earn the transfer of the domain. In a decision dated November 19, a WIPO dispute settlement panel decided to transfer the domain from Pirate Bay back to the IFPI on the grounds that "... The Complainant has provided and the Panel accepts, evidence of its many trademark rights for IFPI and its reputation in several countries including the UK. The Disputed Domain Name is identical to the IFPI trademark."

Pirate Bay may appeal, but I seriously doubt that they will be successful. You have to give it to them though, they have style.

ISPs acting on Bittorrent

(via Ars Technica) EFF has released a report outlining several practices at Comcast, a popular American ISP. This is controversial, because some ISPs sell themselves as high-speed with no restrictions, which would be violated by bandwidth throttling and traffic shaping. Comcast claims that it delays bittorrent traffic, and does not block it.

What is traffic shaping? It is a method on imposing speed restrictions on certain types of traffic, such as Bittorrent, under the assumption that it slows down the quality of service to those who are not downloading at the moment. Regardless of who you believe, bittorrent hogs a lot of bandwidth in what appears to follow a Pareto distribution where few users use up a disproportionate amount of bandwidth. If that is the case, why should we get upset by ISPs imposing some form of traffic restriction on users that use up a lot of resources? One answer is that the assumption that bittorrent traffic is illegal is not always warranted. Just this week I used bittorrent to download Open Office, Knoppix and SuSE Live CD, all perfectly legitimate open source software. I also downloaded a copy of XP SP2 as my (also legitimate) CD was giving me problems when installing it in my MacBook.

Having said that, it is clear that the vast majority of traffic that uses bittorrent protocols is infringing. If we start with that assumption, it seems fair that other types of traffic be given priority in the network. As an online gamer, I hate network lag and poor quality of service, and any technical issue that can be used to solve such issues should be applauded.

Case against Creative Commons dropped

Those of you interested in Creative Commons may remember that the organisation was sued by a family in Texas as a result of a Flickr image that got misused by Virgin Mobile Australia (more details here). The complaint against Creative Commons from the Chang family was with regards to negligence, as they argued that CC owed a duty of care to its licensors, and should have educated them better. It is not clear from the blog entry about whether this action followed conversations with the Chang family, but I noticed that the plaintiffs also dropped their case against Virgin USA, which leads me to believe that this is not a settlement.

It seems to me that the Chang family has had a look at their case, and probably realised that their strongest claim is against Virgin Australia for their disastrous campaign. Although I think that the case against CC was clearly weak, I do believe that the organisation should think hard about situations in which a licence is offered as the default option. While it may increase licence take-up, it may create more situations like this one.

Virtual week

Last week I was rather quiet for several reasons. On Wednesday I presented a paper entitled "Build Your Own World" at the beautiful Glasgow venue called The Lighthouse (available from the awesome Slideshare website). I was very impressed with the knowledgeable and diverse audience, but I am now a complete convert to Keynote's capabilities to deliver beautiful and useful presentations. This paper was part of a series of events organised by Urban Learning Space, a technology think-tank supported by Scottish Enterprise. I mostly talked about virtual worlds as the next stage in the user-generated content revolution, but I concentrated on some of the legal issues and potential problems that we will face.

After that I attended the screening of Bloodspell, the first Machinima feature-length film, which is also licensed under a CC licence. I should not sound too surprised, but I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the film. If you don't mind the polygonal characters, the story was very entertaining, and I found myself laughing at the right places. It was actually quite a funny film, and it served to reinstate my faith in the use of new technologies in order to empower creators to distribute their work to a wider audience. The question and answer session was very enjoyable, chaired by the always astute panGloss. The event was organised by London Metropolitan University (thanks again to Fernando), and by the amazing ORG, who just released their second year review.

Speaking of ORG, Jordan Hatcher has informed us that the report on the usage of Creative Commons by cultural heritage organisations is out now.

France set to punish pirates

President Nicolas Sarkozy has a new target: Internet pirates. According to Reuters, France is set to punish illegal downloaders by cutting off their broadband. Apparently, they will receive warnings, and at the third their ISP will be forced to cut them off.

I am sure that many people will make this claim in the future, but can I state for the record that this will not work? Content will be masked, VPNs will be unleashed, and the arms race between content providers and downloaders will continue.

There are however, interesting options on interoperability, and compromises form industry to provide content that plays everywhere. France is indeed becoming the capital of interoperability.

Quoting the opening of Bloodspell (of which I will give a full report soon), piracy is wrong. So don't steal any boats.

Another academic scam

I've just received a second academic scam. My comments in green:

From: un.academicawards@katamail.com [this would be more convincing if it was masked as a UN addres]

UNITED NATIONS UNIVERSITY AWARDS COORDINATOR [actually, there is such thing as the UN University!]
BRENT ADAMS (UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL GRANTS)
UNIVERSITY STAFF AND UNDERGRADUATE AWARD DEPT
REF NO: 05/0029-UNG/0901-03
BATCH NO: 11-4120/UNG/0307
SERIAL NO: AA01/07/003/UNEG

ATTN: WINNER/RECIPIENT.

RE: 3rd Annual University Staff And Students Award.

This is to notify you that you have emerged as one of the recipients of the 3rd Annual University Staff And Students Award Grants of the UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL GRANTS for this year. [Me? I won? Wow!]

Your University email address, picked from your school website and attached to ticket number [I still like the idea of allocating grants this way, saves you filling hateful applications]: 003-0155107-07 with serial number.: AA01/07/003/UNEG which drew the numbers: 10-01-44-86-23 [numbers make it sound soooo official, I'm impressed] which emerged as the 4Th place winning numbers in category "A" amongst other ten email addresses selected from the best 200 Universities worldwide [Nice, Edinburgh Uni is now one of the top 20 universities in the world. We rock!]. Your Award Fund/prize is $500,000.00 (FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND US DOLLARS) [wait a second, the other email I received offered me £500k GBP! The dollar is not worth much these days in case you haven't heard] which is credited in cash to file with REF:05/1128-ISA/0001-1.

There are a total of 30 winners in this year's award draw who won under categories "A", "B" and "C". All the winners/recipients of this award were selected through a computer ballot system drawn from the best 200 Universities worldwide [it's teh lottary!]. The award which is given annually since 2005 is promoted and sponsored by the UNITED NATIONS, eminent personalities like the Ovorangwen of Benin, The Sultan Of Brunei, Abdullah II Bin Al Hussein (The King of Jordan) and Bill & Melinda Gates are also donors to this year's award [yes, and I can shoot laser from my eyes].

This award is an initiative towards the development and enhancement of global education, the assistance of the less privileged university undergraduates, the appreciation and compensation of hardworking university staff across the world and the encouragement of the use of internet. [of course I deserve this money! I'm hardworking less privileged university staff that encourages the use of internets.]

Your award fund is deposited with our designated paying bank with your ticket number and serial number. You are warned to keep this award information strictly confidential until your award has been processed and your fund remitted to your account to avoid double claim [or perhaps to.... *gasp* allow the fraud to run its course?]. Please be informed that your above award fund has been insured under insurance fund policy which assures you that you will receive your award fund complete without any deduction from the fund for security reasons [that does not make any sense, but it sure makes it sound official]. There are accredited agents in charge of the claims of the awards in the 3 respective categories who are located in Africa, Asia and Australia [why Australia? There's nothing down there but dingoes and poisonous critters]. You are advised to contact the agent in charge of your category (A) with the necessary information as given below to enable him process the claim of your award fund. Below are the information you are required to email to your agent:

1. Name in full
2. Country of Origin
3. Name of University
4. Contact Address
5. Age
6. Sex
7. Occupation
8. Phone/Fax
9. Batch Number
10. Serial Number
11. Reference Number
12. Amount Won
[Now we're getting somewhere, you want my bank details, together with all sorts of information that will make it easy for them to get all of my money out of my account, right?]

The above listed information are to be emailed to our accredited agent in charge of category "A" award claims with his contact information as provided below:

Name : Rev. Jim Edwards [Reverend? Ah yes, play the religious card. Men of the cloth are intrinsically reliable, right?]
Email: jimedwards2020@yahoo.com [Hint for future scams: Yahoo accounts are bad idea]
jimedwards2121@hotmail.com [Hint for future scams: Look at the above hint, but replace Yahoo with Hotmail.]
Phone: 011-234-703-045-4042 [Allow me to get a list of World's calling country codes. +234 is Nigeria. Colour me surprised!]

CALL HIM FOR MORE DIRECTIVES IMMEDIATELY AFTER YOU EMAIL YOUR INFORMATION TO HIM. DIAL PLUS (+) IN PLACE OF (011-) IF YOU ARE CALLING HIM FROM ANYWHERE OUTSIDE U.S.A.

WARNING!!! [Danger! Danger! Your caps key is stuck!]

(1) YOU MAY RECEIVE THIS NOTIFICATION MORE THAN ONCE AS THIS ORGANIZATION RE-SENDS THIS NOTIFICATION TO THE AWARD RECIPIENTS IN MOST CASES UNTIL EVERY RECIPIENT HAS CLAIMED HIS OR HER PRIZE. ANY OTHER NOTIFICATION OF THIS NATURE RECEIVED BY ANY WINNER BEARING ANOTHER TRADE MARK OR CONTACT INFORMATION SHOULD BE IGNORED OR FORWARDED TO YOUR CLAIMS AGENT IMMEDIATELY, THIS HELPS US TO FIGHT THE ACTIVITIES OF IMPOSTORS. [Translation: we send this to several people, so you may receive it again, which is not an indication of a fraudulent transaction.]

(2) SUBMISSION OR PROVISION OF WRONG INFORMATION TO YOUR AGENT LEADS TO IMMEDIATE DISQUALIFICATION AND CANCELLATION OF YOUR AWARD. [Translation: Don't play with us.]

Congratulations!!!

Sincerely,
Brent Adams
University Awards Coordinator,
United Nations Educational Grants.

Second Life PI

Is your wife cheating you on the virtual world? Do you want to check on the extra-curricular activities of a future employee? Hire SL(eye) Investigations! Their services include:

• Vetting & Pre-Employment Screening
• Asset Tracking
• People Tracing
• Theft & Fraud Investigation
• General Research
• Computer Security & Data Recovery

The site seems to be a place holder, but I find the implications fascinating.

Research grants: the new identity fraud scam

We have all become used to identity fraud scams coming from the daughter of the late Prime Minister of Burkina Faso; or lottery winning addresses for the UK National Lottery mysteriously coming from Yahoo Hong Kong addresses. I have just received a first, which I thought I would share with you. This is, to my knowledge, the first scam directed towards academics that I have ever seen. My comments in red:

SUBJECT: GRANT AWARD DONATION!! [Multiple exclamation marks are a sure sign of a deceased mind]
FROM: ukfoundation@award.com [what, no .org.uk or .ac.uk domain?]
REPLY TO: claimsofficeruk@uk2.net [and even stranger, the reply-to address is different, and from a cheap ISP. I'm getting suspicious now]

THE UK FOUNDATION FOR BASIC RESEARCH. [I'm going to ignore the fact that such body does not exist] [ ]

The Uk Foundation for basic research would like to notify you that you have been chosen by the board of trustees as one of the final recipients of a cash Grant/Donation for your own personal, educational, and business development [aren't I the lucky one?].The Uk Foundation for basic research was conceived with the objective of human growth, educational and scientific research, with a mind also for Community development. [you forgot to mention World Peace]

In conjunction with the ECOWAS [the Economic Community Of West African States? I'm starting to guess where this is coming from] ,UNO and the EU We are To celebrate the 30th anniversary program, We are giving out a yearly donation of £500,000.00 (five hundred thousand pounds sterling) each to 100 lucky recipients. These specific Donations/Grants will be awarded to 100 lucky international recipients worldwide; in different categories for their personal business development and enhancement of their educational plans. This is a yearly program, which is a measure of universal development strategy.

Based on the random selection exercise of internet websites and millions of supermarket cash invoices worldwide [wait, research grants given on the basis of supermarket cash receipts? Well, there's an idea for the UK research councils!], you were selected among the lucky recipients to receive the award sum of ( £500,000.00 ) Five hundred thousand dollars as charity donations/aid from the Uk Foundation, ECOWAS, EU and the UNO in accordance with the enabling act of Parliament [I'm guessing that telling us which Act of Parliament is out of the question?]. (Note that all beneficiaries email addresses were selected randomly from over 100,000 internet websites or a shop'scash invoice around your area in which you might have purchased something from).

You are required to contact the Claims Processing Manager below, for qualification documentation and processing of your claims. Please endeavor to quote your Qualification numbers (N-222-6647, E-910-56), REF Number: SW/90/0021/7896/56 BATCH No: 34/0065/KJY in all discussions [meaningless yet official-looking numbers make everything look better].

Executive Sec. MR. George Jackson.
Claims Processing Manager
TEL: +4470 1114 6946
FAX: +4470 9287 1710
Email: claimsofficer07@merseymail.com
Email: claimsofficeruk@uk2.net

NOTE:THE FOLLOWING DETAILS ARE NEEDED FROM YOU AS TO ENABLE YOUR DONATION FUNDS RELEASE !
1. Full Names:
2. Residential Address:
3. Direct Phone No:
4. Fax Number:
5. Email address:
6. Qualification numbers:
7. Sex:
8. Nationality:
9. Occupation:
10.Age:

[Now we're getting somewhere! They want my personal details... I smell identity fraud down the line].

Finally, all funds should be claimed by their respective beneficiaries,no later than 20 days after notification. Failure to do so will mean cancellation of that beneficiary and its donation will then be reserved for next years recipients.

On behalf of the Board kindly, accept our warmest congratulations [the comma should go after Board].

In your best interest to avoid mix up of numbers and names of any kind, we request that you keep the entire details of your award strictly from public notice until the process of transferring your claims has been completed, and your funds remitted to your account [Oops, does that mean that I won't be getting my research grant? Say it isn't so!]. This is part of our security protocol to avoid double claiming or unscrupulous acts by participants/nonparticipants of this program [unscrupulous people trying to take advantage of others? Whoever heard of such a thing?].

Sincerely Yours,

MRS.MARRY JACK.
THE PROMOTION COORDINATOR, [Note to future frauds: choosing a believable name would make your scam more effective. Mary Jackson would be a better option].

High Court to review software patents

(via press release) Four UK technology companies have appealed a ruling from the Intellectual Property Office denying them patentability over a computer implemented invention. The self-styled High Tech Four ( Astron Clinica, Software 2000, Surf Kitchen and Cyan Holdings) had an adverse ruling from the IPO where it applied its guidelines on patentable subject matter issued last year in the wake of Aerotel's decision.

I have not had time to read through their claims, but it seems that they object to the restriction of patentability of software as such, and they want to reverse current practice at the IPO which is unfavourable to the patenting of computer implemented inventions, and they claim is contrary to current practice at the EPO and other continental patent offices.

It seems like we will get another software patent ruling soon, which has to be welcome. However, being the shallow person that I am, I cannot help but comment on the name the High Tech Four. What are they? Patentabilty super heroes? Their motto: "We Fight for Justice, Freedom, and Fair Rulings in IPO Subject Matter Decisions!"

The Bad Web

The Internet is a bad, bad place. I'm reading "The Cult of the Amateur", the much maligned book by Andrew Keen, and it does not make happy reading. He has a bone to pick with the web as we know it, elsewhere he commented that:

"When I look at today’s Internet, I mostly see cultural and ethical chaos. I see the eruption of rampant intellectual property theft, extreme pornography, sexual promiscuity, plagiarism, gambling, contempt for order, intellectual inanity, crime, a culture of anonymity, hatred toward authority, incessant spam, and a trash heap of user-generated-content (whew, what a mouthful!). I see a chaotic humans arrangement with few, if any, formal social pacts."

All revolutions need their grumpy sceptics, and Keen is making a lot of money as the outspoken critic of Web 2.0, peer production and what he considers is an environment that glorifies communist ideals. One needs to see who is praising Keen to understand who his audience is: the Daily Mail, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, etc.

However, Keen's message may have a resounding endorsement in the way some governments respond to online threats. Instead of better policing, the UK gets a scaremongering campaign that tells us to beware of social networking sites and open wireless spaces. We need education and proper policies, but the UK governments is only giving us message that reeks of Daily Mail Luddism.

The technophobes strike back

So Marina Hyde at The Guardian is at it again. The UK hosts now four million blogs, and all she can say is "Oh Noes!" The article makes an interesting point about the loss of privacy awareness in the younger generations, which is true, but then goes on to equate this phenomenon with blogging, as if all bloggers were posting their daily events all the time. Instead of celebrating the wonderful diversity in opinion and the rise of a more informed an self-empowered society, the technophbes of the world resent us having opinions and making them known.

It is true that the blogosphere is full of dross and inane content, but so what? It is true that simply by writing a blog one is not assured visitors, but so what? Millions of people are writing down news of interest, posting their thoughts, sharing their pictures, and this is a bad thing why? Not all bloggers use their real identity, so why equate blogging with privacy concerns? Ms Hyde has confused her Web 2.0 tools, she must be thinking of social networking.

This inane blogger is now signing off.

EU asks US to remove internet gambling restrictions

The EU Trade Commissioner, Peter Mandelson, is on his way to the United States to continue compensation talks with trade representatives in order to reach a settlement over the internet gambling ban. Mandelson has commented that the US should not discriminate against EU online gambling firms.

The US lost the WTO trade dispute with Antigua and Bermuda over whether online gambling was discriminatory against trading partners by imposing a double standard. The US has escalated its ban, which is seen by many as over-reaching its borders. Perhaps the solution lies in some of the threats made by the smaller nations. If the US will not comply with WTO disputes, then they will not enforce TRIPS.