Microsoft loses on software patent

Microsoft has lost a patent infringement suit in California in a case brought by Guatemalan inventor Carlos Amado, who has obtained $9 million USD (not nearly as much as the $500 million USD that he had asked for). The claim deals with U.S Patent 5,701,400, a patent that protects a "Method and apparatus for applying if-then-else rules to data sets in a relational data base and generating from the results of application of said rules a database of diagnostics linked to said data sets to aid executive analysis of financial data". In other words, it is a patent that protects the linking of a database program with a spreadsheet application, such as the linking of Excel data into Access.

The "invention" was filed in 1990, and Mr. Amado offered to sell it to Microsoft (or perhaps licence it, the reports are unclear on this point). Microsoft refused, and eventually Mr. Amado sued Microsoft for infringement, as they had eventually included this linking function into Office. Microsoft claimed that they had started working on this function before Mr. Amado had filed his patent, and that "its own engineers started developing technology linking Excel and Access as early as 1989 and that it never infringed on Amado's patent."

Although I may be the type of person that would not shed a tear for Microsoft, I must admit that this is just another example of why software patents are so wrong. It doesn't matter that Microsoft had been working on some interoperability function between two of its own programs, what matters is that somebody beat them to claim for a patent, and that this was broad enough to ensure a successful claim.

I just hope that this will serve to awaken large software manufacturers, and that they will finally realise that the software patent racket is perhaps not worth it.

Open Access Law Program

This is part of the Science Commons project that encourages the adoption of open access principles in legal publishing. It seems like legal academics should be at the forefront of the open access debate by practicing those principles and negotiating harder with publishers to retain copyright and be able to maintain publishing rights on repositories and research networks like SSRN.

Thankfully, we at SCRIPT-ed are at the forefront of the change taking place in legal publishing by providing a quality journal fully compatible with open access principles.

Ironic anti-spam site

(via Andrea Matwyshyn and Lilian Edwards). This is quite an ironic problem for an anti-spam site. The Anti-Spam Research Group (ASRG) of the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF) used to have a wiki, until it had to be shut down due to continuous abuse by spammers.

Yes, wikis are well-known vulnerable targets to spammers. This in itself poses many interesting questions about the viability of wikis. With the exhuberantly humongous success of Wikipedia, wikis have demonstrated that they have tremendous potential as a communication tool.

Extending copyright terms

The new minister for the creative industries, James Purnell, has announced that he plans to introduce and extension to copyright terms to match those in the United States. While the article doesn't mention it, I am guessing that this means an extension to copyright in sound recordings, which is currently 50 years. The plan is to extend terms to 90 years. "Why is this needed?", you may ask. The reason is that the extension would be "a way of generating more money for the record industry, which would use it to discover new talent." Amazing. You need to extend copyright in sound recordings so that the industry can spend it in the difficult task of going to bars and scouting new acts. I knew that drinks are expensive in bars, but this is ridiculous.

At least the industry has changed its tune. It's no longer "poor us", at least they admit that this will increase profits, and that the profits are there to be increased. I still smell a very heavy lobbying process behind this. The best part of the article is this:

"“The label Cool Britannia gave the impression that the policy was about supporting an elite in London. But the last five years have shown that creative industries are central to regeneration,"” he said "“You only have to look at Manchester, Gateshead or Liverpool to see how these sectors generate jobs and civic pride. We do not want to be in a situation in 30 or 40 years'’ time when [these industries] are talked about in the past tense like shipbuilding."”

You heard it here first. Liverpool and Manchester owe their regeneration to The Smiths and The Beatles.

So many jokes, so little time.

And now for something completely different...

World Wind is an open source project from NASA that provides satellite images from around the world. Although the resolution is not the best in many places, it is an amazing tool, and users can add their own plug ins. This is what open source is good at, and it is nice seeing NASA releasing something useful to the SourceForge community.

Now, back to looking for Costa Rican cities.

IBM and SUN are the real bad guys

I go away for a few days and when I come back I find that everything has been turned on its head. IBM and SUN are the bad guys, they are exploiting open source projects and using them as cheap subcontractors of American multinationals, according to Jesus Villasante, the head of software technologies at the European Information Society and Media Directorate General. The controversial speech included other strange declarations, such as the statement that there is no European software industry, that open source is in disarray, and that software patents are bad.

I must admit that while I do not agree with some of the comments, there may be some room for concern over the corporate strategies of some open source-friendly companies. Companies like IBM are not supporting open source out of the kindness of their hearts, they are using OSS as part of a strategy to break Microsoft's dominance over the software market. With stories about IBM's economic problems, it would not be difficult to believe that IBM could eventually change their strategy and become opposed to open source.

Nevertheless, there is a feeling that open source is going mainstream. When the Financial Times has a comment stating that open source is good, and has business potential, it should be noted that the movement has finally matured and has left some of its "communist" image behind.

Away

I'm in sunny Alicante for the rest of the week.

BitTorrent goes search

Bram Cohen, the maker of BitTorrent, must be a brave man. He has created a torrent search site in the main page of Bittorrent.com, probably setting himself as the next target for overzealous copyright bozos. The website does not filter materials subject to copyright protection, I just searched for "Episode III" and found various copies of the infringing file (forgive me George for I have sinned).

So, the legal argument about P2P search sites will have to take place, and will eventually have larger implications for the internet. The new BitTorrent search does not share infringing content itself, if you search it will simply point to you to a site that does not host the content either, it only hosts a file that tells you where the seeds are, and the seeds are not the file itself, the file is being shared by various users online. The legal question for me is this: does a link to a site that tells you where the infringing material can be found is in itself infringing? Before you answer, use Google and search "episode iii bittorrent" or "episode iii torrent". I found at least 5 sites with the file through that. If the MPIAA sues BitTorrent, a suit against Google should follow shortly.

Google Print beta site live

So, Goggle continues its unstoppable take-over of the world (thanks to Mike Collins for the link). Google Print is the service by Google that allows users to search full text books, and also get information about books and authors, and eventually would allow you to read the entire work online. Google is undertaking a massive project scanning books, which would mean that the real life libraries of the world will be available digitally. This is useful to look for references and research, but I cannot see people leaving printed books yet.

One thing worries me, and it is that at the moment there seems to be a preponderance of English titles. I searched "Don Quixote"and found the book in English, but then I searched for "Don Quijote" and did not find it in its original Spanish. I searched the immortal opening words: "En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme", and it failed as well, but I found some interesting books on quotations. If one of the greatest works in literature is not scanned in its original language, I am afraid that it demonstrates that the online tyranny of English will continue.

On a minor note, the English translation of the opening line of Don Quixote entirely changes the meaning of the phrase, and misses the beauty of the original.

Technological solutions vs Law

Countries around the world are scrambling to regulate new types of technologies and perceived threats. New legislations are being passed to attempt to curb phishing, spamming, denial of service attacks, defacement and all other sorts of dangerous and annoying practices. But with these efforts, one has to ask the question, are these legislations useful? Has any anti-spam law stopped one single spam coming through my inbox? I seriously doubt it. What is really working against spam is the use of technological filters.

The same may be true for phishing. There is a new toolbar by Netcraft that blocks known phishing sites. This seems the way to go, instead of wasting valuable legislative time on things that can be solved with filters and blockers.

BitTorrent servers seized by the FBI

The FBI, U.S. Customs and the Department of Homeland Security (talk about overkill) have raided a BitTorrent network called EliteTorrents, and seized servers and computers, and arrested a group of "copyright thieves". Now, if somebody goes to the EliteTorrent site, they will find a warning from the FBI. The FBI agent informs us that "When thieves steal this data, they are taking jobs away from hard workers in industry, which adversely impacts the U.S. economy." I really want to see the evidence for this argument. Has there ever been a single job lost due to P2P and downloads? I really want to know. Unsurprisingly, the report is peppered with similar rhetoric. And guess who makes an appearance?

"The content selection available on the Elite Torrents network was virtually unlimited and often included illegal copies of copyrighted works before they were available in retail stores or movie theatres. For example, the final entry in the Star Wars series, "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," was available for downloading on the network more than six hours before it was first shown in theatres. In the next 24 hours, it was downloaded more than 10,000 times. "

Yes, and we already know that Episode III has done terrible business, right? Anyway, I was looking at the U.S. Department of Justice website, and I found it incredibly Orwellian. It has a terrorist attack threat meter, which informs us that the threat of a terrorist attack has been increased (yellow at the moment). It also has a section called "Life and Liberty", which was "launched to educate Americans about how we are preserving life and liberty by using the USA PATRIOT Act." I have a shiver coming down my spine.

Save George, boycott BitTorrent

Poor movie producers. Poor George Lucas. BitTorrent threatens the very existence of filmmakers when evil internet pirates download their movie. Yeah, right.

Star Wars Episode III has come out (I loved it by the way), and it has made an astounding $158.4M in 4 days! This is now the weekend record, shattering Spiderman 2's opening weekend. Yet, we are asked by movie executives to feel bad, feels sorry, there's a disturbance in The Force. Some people have released pirated versions of the movie online, and they are being sold everywhere! Adequately, some people are asking themselves so what? Star Wars will still make gazillions and George Lucas will not have to beg on the streets. I mean, the MPIAA and their ilk really must think that we are stupid. "Beware!" they tell us. "Here is the largest blockbuster movie of all time, it will make everyone involved very rich, but there's a 17 year-old downloading the movie somewhere, this is theft and it must be stopped at all cost!"

Sigh!

Software patent debate

This is a lengthy and amazingly well-informed debate about software patents in Europe from Lessig's blog. Seeing who the participants are, this should come as no surprise. It is nice to see some of the best proponents of software patents (I refuse to use the euphemism in vogue) argue their case against some well-informed opponents. One of the main criticisms that I have against the critics of software patents is that often they use over-simplifications of the arguments. I understand that it is difficult to convey the nuances of the EPO's board of appeal rulings to the masses, but using downright fabrications is not the solution.

To me, the case is still an economic one. What is the economic case for software patents? Is there a real need for software patents in Europe? I maintain that the answer is negative.

Piracy still a problem according to BSA

So, the new report from the BSA is out with its dire warnings about how piracy is threatening the very fabric of civilisation, supports terrorism, creates unemployment and recession, and steals one sock from your sock drawer. This would be amusing if it wasn't for the fact that the software industry has failed to collapse despite the horrendously pessimistic report issued year after year, and that Mr. Gates still gets a very hefty sum at the end of the year.

The problem with these reports is that they rest on two failed assumptions to calculate "losses". First, they use a fictional price of software, failing to understand that comparative prices of software around the world vary wildly. The second major flaw is that the study assumes that every infringing copy represents a lost sale. This is evidently absurd, and it's surprising that they still use it. People who copy Adobe Photoshop from the internet will almost certainly not buy it. People who buy MS Office from a market stall in Peru are not likely to buy the full copy. In fact, software giants like Microsoft have relied heavily on piracy to make sure that people are using their software at home and at work, creating a Microsoft client culture where there are no alternatives.

As long as the industry keeps assuming that we can't think and see beyond their bogus figures, they will not make any advances.

More on Google's dominance

Two days ago I commented on the worrying developments regarding Google's Web Accelerator. This could have serious consequences, see for example this spoof site about Google's Content Blocker (thanks for Anne-Kathrin for the link). I recommend reading their privacy policy, where it states that "Google is committed to collecting every bit of data that it possibly can, and storing it forever." I am coming back to this because I'm reading an excellent book called Linked: How Everything Is Connected to Everything Else and What It Means for Business, Science, and Everyday Life by Albert-Lászlo Barabási. This is a brilliant book about the science of networks, and it explains the reasons behind phenomena like six degrees of separation and Pareto's 80-20 rule.

In short, Barabási's argument is that networks respond to certain rules that apply almost universally to things like quantum physics, the internet and celebrity links. Networks are not random, they grow at a specific rate, in which the older hubs have the advantage because they can develop the largest collection of links, but also there are hubs that acquire links at a faster rate, and can overcome older ones (fitness of hubs). Because society is a network where each one of us is a link, there are people who collect links faster, and this serves to prove the observation that the rich get richer. If we think about this in internet terms, Google was not the first search engine, but it obliterated its competition because it had better fitness. Why is Linked important for Google? The thing is that Barabási's mathematical proofs can have a strange effect, and it is that in some instances, it can lead to a collapse of competition, and the winner takes all.

According to Barabási, this occurs in physics with the application of Einstein-Bose equations about gases, and his claim is that this applies as well to other networks. If this is true, then what we are seeing with Google is not only predictable, it may be inevitable.

It's Star Wars, man!

The circle is now complete. For those of us in Generation Jedi, the next few days will see the end of a story that has provided the cultural background to some of the most important events in our lives. We are a generation of thirty-somethings whose first great experience was to see Star Wars (sorry, Episode IV: A New Hope) with our dads. Then came the toys, the watches, the duvets and the life-long practice of giving our money to George. Empire Strikes Back gave us the greatest shock of our early lives, it was darker and smarter than the first movie, and had the most amazing plot twist in pre-internet days ("Luke, I'm your father"). We all shouted with Luke "NO!", and our innocence was lost. With Return of the Jedi we were old enough not to be too impressed with the Ewoks, we realised that George was fallible, and then there was the golden bikini, puberty had arrived. The following years were largely Star Wars free, but we still remembered and looked for the same thrills elsewhere.

Then the internet changed everything, we found out that there were millions of us out there, working in technology companies and fuelling the dot.com bubble. The internet came with fandom, screen savers, ASCII reproductions and computer backgrounds (mine used to be mostly Star Wars oriented). Then George realised that there was more money to be made, and he gave us the Special Editions, and started work on the Prequels. Episodes I and II came, Generation Jedi was not amused, Jar-Jar and silly love dialogue just didn't do it for us. Could it be that *GASP* we had finally grown? Were our childhood memories, well, childhood memories? Were we giving Star Wars more credit than it deserved? We doubted, George had joined the Dark Side.

Word on the internet is that George has redeemed himself with Revenge of the Sith. We can only hope.

This is the end of the Web as we know it...

and I feel fine. I am not truly sure what to make of this, but it sounds Important. It seems like Google has created an application called Google Web Accelerator. This is a small application that is supposed to allow people to load pages faster. How does it do it? It acts as a proxy client, where popular pages are stored in Google machines and other clients serving files. According to Google, this is done by:

• Sending your page requests through Google machines dedicated to handling Google Web Accelerator traffic.
• Storing copies of frequently looked at pages to make them quickly accessible.
• Downloading only the updates if a web page has changed slightly since you last viewed it.
• Prefetching certain pages onto your computer in advance.
• Managing your Internet connection to reduce delays.
• Compressing data before sending it to your computer.

This is good, right? Hmmm... perhaps not (some are already boycotting Google). One possible result would be that Google would have unlimited control over what you see, and the web would become the World Wide Google. Well, it already is in many ways, but such control makes me feel a bit uneasy, sort of what I would feel if I was a citizen of the Republic and was reading news that Chancellor Palpatine was gaining more control over the government.

Developments such as this prompts me to ask about the accountability that such huge power entails. Legislators do not have any idea of how the internet works, and they generally respond with silly, misguided or inefficient regulation that does nothing to solve any problems whatsoever. Has anybody stopped receiving less spam as a result of the many new and shiny laws that forbid it? No, the solution so far has been technical, not legal. The web is about to change, and a few companies are about to obtain ultimate power. Trust regulators to miss this development and pass new anti-piracy legislation, because the only real danger online is a 15 year-old downloading a song.

Thought Thieves

Just when you thought that the Microsoft Corporation did not have a sense of humour, you read this, and it brings a smile to your face. Check out the Thought Thieves competition, where you can win £2,000 worth of film and video equipment vouchers (Vouchers? What's up with Bill Gates? I want hard cash!). The competition says:

Thought Thieves is about people stealing and profiting from your creation or innovation. Think about it: how would you feel if you saw your hard work being passed off as the property of someone else? What would you do?

Funny, I thought that was the entire basis behind the GPL and Free Software.

Collecting societies against Creative Commons

This is a very worrying development for Creative Commons. CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (which brings together 207 authors' societies from 109 countries); has published an article heavily criticising Creative Commons. They are quoting Emma Pike's article against CC, and pretty much using the same FUD that has been already used against the movement, you know, we are all a bunch of hobbyists and bored academics; and "real" creators who want to profit from their work should not use any sort of CC licences.

I still don't know for sure where the animosity from these people really comes from, but I have my suspicions. It seems evident that the most vocal attackers of the Creative Commons model (and of open licences in general) are the intermediaries, such as the collecting agencies. These societies rest on the assumption that they are the only representatives of creators, and their profits rely on this idea being maintained. But what happens if creators take a more involved approach about their copyright? Then the middle-men lose their role. If we all become publishers, then the reliance on collecting societies vanishes. Am I being naive? Probably, I'm just an academic, so my opinion doesn't really count in the real world, according to these people.

BBC opens RSS content

(thanks to Lilian Edwards for the link). The BBC is now opening its RSS content for syndication. Web designers can now syndicate BBC content on their own websites with much less restrictions than before. If you wanted to add one of the many BBC feeds to your blog or website, you had to contact the BBC and obtain permission to do so. Now, feeds are being published with a new open licence that allows users to include the feeds without prior permission, as long as the website fulfills the following conditions:
- the site is not blacklisted by the BBC (porn, racism, terrorism);
- displays prominently that the content comes from the BBC;
- the content is not offered for a fee;
- provides a working link to the news item.

This is a novel open licence. Somehow akin to a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commerical licence, but with the added elements of linking and not allowing use in restricted sites. This serves as further evidence that the BBC is now one of the major players in the open licensing movement.

Social roles of virtual communities

Browsing randomly on Google Scholar (as one does) I found an excellent article about social roles in electronic communities. It describes several types of personalities that can be found in online fora:

Celebrities - Prolific posters who spend a good deal of time contributing to the community. Celebrities define what the community is.

Ranters - Prolific posters that have only one or two issues.

Lurkers - Readers who rarely participate (if at all). Apparently, lurkers are the silent majority, happy to read but not to write. Some celebrities may turn lurkers after a while.

Trolls - Trolls write inflammatory messages to elicit a response and create problems for the community. They tend to have various sock-puppets.

Flamers - Aggressive posters.

Newbies - The interesting thing about newbies is not the newbie himself/herself, but the way in which the community reacts to newbies. Some communities accept newbies, while others are suspicious of them.

Speech Communities - Groups that share the understanding of specific terms.

Linkers - People who provide no text, only links.

I find this relevant to the law because I am interested in how virtual communities organise themselves. The article says that there is some correlation between what the elite thinks (the celebrities) and what is going to be considered accepted behaviour by the community as a whole. This would suggest a type of online aristocracy in which the rules are set by the ruling and visible elite, while the silent majority complies.

Patenting Lives call for papers

I have attended another meeting of the Patenting Lives project, some interesting discussion took place (will be writing about some of it later on). During the meeting we discussed the Patenting Lives Conference. Here is the call for papers:

The Conference of the Patenting Lives Project will be held in London, 1-2 December 2005. Further details will be available on this site soon, as well as a formal call for contributions including:

- poster presentations
- papers
- panels and roundtables
- artistic contributions

Please check this site again, or to express your interest and receive the call for contributions, please contact:

Dr Johanna Gibson
Project Manager
j.gibson@qmul.ac.uk

Queen Mary Intellectual Property Research Institute
University of London
John Vane Science Building
Charterhouse Square
London EC1M 6BQ
United Kingdom

U.S. Congress looking at possible patent reform

This article in the Washington Post tells us about the plans to reform the U.S. patent system, because it is now felt that the system is suffering from too many patents awarded, and too few are not being awarded.

There are those who want Europe to go the way of the United States in software patents, for example, an online patent commentator recently expressed that Europe should adopt American -style software patents because "software patents help small companies, and better quality software patents sends the innovation information signals needed to improve industry economics and progress." However, anybody who looks at the American system in an unbiased manner, will have to admit that the system is broken (I recommend again the excellent book "Innovation and it's discontents"). But don't take my word for it, look at these patent beauties: IBM's patent 6,585,776 for "displaying hypertext documents with internal hypertext link definitions", which in my view, is a patent on styling HTML HREF tags; or Google's patent 6,839,702, a patent that protects a system which "highlights search terms in documents distributed over a network", in other words, a patent for putting search results in bold. Or as the article in the Washington Post points out:

"Even Bruce R. Chizen, chief executive of Adobe Systems Inc. and chairman of the Business Software Alliance, which is leading the charge for the technology industry, acknowledges that allowing software patents in the 1980s was a bad idea. But Chizen argues that it's too late to turn back now."

Interestingly, Europe may actually be listening. I have finally managed to read the document by MEP Michel Rocard presented to the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI), entitled "Working Document on the patentability of computer-generated inventions". It is an excellently argued document, measured and intelligent. It actually does away with the patentability of software per se, and offers a very strict definition of what can be patentable and what is meant as "technical effect". We will see if this view prevails when the vote finally takes place.

Open Access 1, Celera Genomics 0

In an article in Nature (Marris E, "Free genome databases finally defeat Celera", Nature 435, 6 available only under subscription), it is reported that Celera is finally giving up some of its proprietary database practices, and will make available all of its genetic data through the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information databases. This is an incredible result for the open access movment, and for all of those who are offering genetic data online free of charge. Celera has been deemed as one of the "bad guys" in IP, with their doubtful behaviour in the race for the human genome, and their filing of excessive number of biotechnology-related patents. It would be fair to assume that the free and open access databases have had and effect on this part of Celera's businness, and has prompted them to clean up their act and finally offer some data online for free. Celera going open access? What is the world coming to?

P2P: Still going strong

Data still seems to indicate that P2P networks are gathering more and more people. For example, Slyck.com has been monitoring P2P network since 2003 and the chart shows a steady increase in numbers (the data does not include torrent statistics):

At least the music industry has stopped claiming that P2P networks are diminishing in numbers, which they tried earlier in the year, and were shut down. This report by the IFPI claims that litigation against users is working because:

"...there can be no doubt the campaign is having an impact. File-sharing is being contained: traffic on P2P networks which would have spiralled out of control a year ago has, in fact, began to slow down. Meanwhile legal ways of enjoying music online have taken off. People have begun to explore and enjoy the legal online music market in earnest."

That page also gives us a profile of the average downloader. The average P2P user is aged 25 to 35; is a teacher, public sector worker, IT or a student; and lives in large towns or cities. Rats, I've been found!

May the Commons Be With You!

Star Wars fandom has always been sophisticated. Does anybody remember Troops? Then there are other great ones, such as Jedi Hunter (Crikey!) and many, many others. Now there is a new and sophisticated kid on the block, Star Wars Revelations, a fan movie produced with $20,000 telling the story of surviving Jedi between episodes 3 and 4.

The interesting part about fandom is that strictly speaking, it is copyright infringement, but the copyright industry has learnt not to enforce it, afraid that if they clamp down on it, they will alienate their fans, who are the ones buying their products anyway. This has prompted Clive Thompson from Slate to argue that Star wars should go Creative Commons. It's an interesting idea, as this is actually what is taking place at the moment. Or there is another option, we could draft a a "fandom" licence.

Creative Commons FUD

It was meant to happen sooner or later. Creative Commons is now a target of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD). The Register has this interesting comment on a panel debate discussing CC licences. According to the report, the ex-chairman of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Fran Nevrkla, described CC licences as the product of “learned professors living in rarified luxurious environment supported by public funds”. He has obviously been to my office (note the tone of irony and bitterness in my typing). Emma Pike, the director of British Music Rights even recommended musicians to use Kazaa rather than Creative Commons. Somebody must be afraid. Mind you, this is the same Emma Pike who wrote this, where we are told that the only musicians who should ever consider CC are hobbyists, Gilberto Gil and David Byrne.

Something that bothers me about these types of attacks is that they are uninformed, and based on the assumption that there is something wrong with people who are willing to offer their work under different conditions to the same old proprietary model that only benefits a few lucky creators. I think that some of these industry-types are truly baffled by those who do not want to live their lifestyle an continue to accept the myths about the struggling writer and the garage band that will be affected if we don't have more IP protection.

Update on GPL case

The case reported two days ago about the GPL has been settled, and Fortinet has agreed to comply with the GPL. This means that Fortinet's software will be distributed with the GPL, the standard terms of agreement will be changed, and the source code will be offered upon request for the cost of distribution.

A victory for the good guys (or a victory for the godless communist anarchists, depending on your point of view).

DVD protection ruled illegal in France

The Paris Court of Appeals has ruled against the copy protection mechanisms included in DVDs, called Content Scrambling System (CSS). Not too long ago the same mechanism was being enforced in American and Norwegian courts, and now they are declaring that the technology is a bit dodgy. The case was brought by a French man who wanted to transfer his copy of Mulholland Drive into VHS format to watch with his mother (I will not make any wise comments about how unwise it is to watch a David Lynch movie with your parents). He was not able to do it because of the copy protection built-in the DVD, so he brought a case against Les Films Alain Sarde and Studio Canal. The court apparently has ruled that copy-protection is incompatible with private copying rights. The court also found that the labeling on the DVD is inadequate, as those with copy-protection have small CP letters, and this might confuse consumers.

It is quite refreshing that we are getting a number of progressive rulings on intellectual property around the world. Is it possible that courts are finally understanding that copyright owners have been getting all of the protection that they want for far too long? James Boyle has an excellent article in FT.com deconstructing the stupidity of some IP protection. Copyright industries have gone unchallenged for too long. Viva la Revolución!

GPL granted an injunction in Germany

German courts continue to give credence to the GPL. A software company called Fortinet developed several security products, including firewall and anti-virus software. This was supposed to run on something they called "FortiOS", which they claimed was their own operating system. The problem is that this operating system was actually largely based on the Linux kernel, which is licensed through the GPL. Not only did they do this, but they tried to hide this fact through encryption. GPL-violations.org sent a cease-and-desist letter, but Fortinet failed to sign it. Free Software advocates then asked for an injunction against Fortinet in the Munich district court, where they have obtained a preliminary injunction banning Fortinet from further distribution of the offending software until they are in compliance with the GPL.

This is welcome news, and continues to erode the arguments of those who think that the GPL is not valid (usually made by Microsoft and its minions). I am also struck by how the German courts are so willing to embrace the GPL, as they have done before. I remember being in a conference where a German professor assured me and the audience that a German court would never find the GPL enforceable.

Enter the virtual economy

Sony is about to open Station Exchange, a shop for virtual goods in Everquest, one of its most popular online computer games. The idea behind the website is that users will have a sanctioned site where users can exchange their game goods. For example, if you buy a level 50 character, or a Flaming Sword of Justice™™, then you can do it with the certainty that you will indeed receive the items and will not be subject to a scam, which apparently happens in "unsanctioned" auction sites. Online auction sites are filled with the sale of virtual items that are only available to players that have put a lot of time and effort in obtaining them. These cost money, and there is a real-life economy of virtual goods and characters. The real reason for this new site is that Sony has realised that there is money to be made here, and they want a piece of the action.

There is little doubt that the virtual economy is growing. According to Terra Nova, the virtual economy is worth between $4 billion and $7 billion USD, equivalent to the economy of Namibia or Jamaica, depending on which figure you take. I must admit that I am extremely skeptical about these figures, so I will reserve my comments until there is a more thorough study conducted. Regardless of my doubts, the value of the virtual economy is significant.

Google and more privacy threats?

When did Google join the Dark Side? It is difficult to say. One could argue that they took the first step with GMail, but I think that it happened when it became the de-facto internet search engine and obliterated its competition. Now Google has a new service that should send shivers down privacy advocates' spines. You can now login to Google and keep track of your searches. I don't know about you, but I will never sign up to something like that because I think that my web searches say too much about me. Yes, I have lots of searches on Anime and computer games and the such, but my preoccupation is much more basic than worries about typecasting and geek stereotypes. Internet searches would record anything: your shopping patterns, how much time you spend researching about a subject, your tastes, preferences, likes and dislikes, who are you keeping an eye out for, political and sexual preferences, bittorrent searches and the like. Too much power, and I cannot trust Google anymore not to sell that information to data miners.

Nigerian scams go glurge

This is probably not a Nigerian scam, but I don't know how else to call it. I received it yesterday, and was struck by the change of tactics from scam writers. People are now better informed and will instantly be suspicious of any offer from dodgy bank officials from Ouagadougou, or former Baath-Party politicos from Iraq looking to deposit Saddam's gold in your account. This new scam I think is playing to the glurge gallery (Glurge is the term used by Snopes to refer to sickly-sugary emails that are sweetly disgusting, like the Alaska one). This email plays on religious feelings in a strong way:

Hello,
My name is Mrs.Jennifer Wilson I am a dying woman who have decided to
donate what I have to you/ church. I am 59 years old and was diagnosed
for cancer about 2 years ago,immediately after the death of my husband, who
had left me everything he worked for.
I have been touched by God to donate from what I have inherited from my
late husband to you for the good work of God,rather than allow my
relatives to use my husband's hard earned funds ungodly.Please
pray,that the good Lord forgive me my sins.I have asked God to forgive me and i
believe he has because He is a merciful God. I will be going in for an
operation,and i pray that i survive the operation.
I have decided to WILL/donate the sum of $1,500,000 (One million five
hundred thousand dollars) to you for the good work of the lord, and to
help the motherless,less privileged and also for the assistance of the widows.
At the moment I cannot take any telephone calls, due to the fact that
my relatives are around me and i have been restricted by my doctor from
taking telephone calls.presently,my WILL have been adjusted and my
lawyer has been notified.
I wish you all the best and may the good Lord bless you abundantly, and
please use the funds well and always extend the good work to others.
Contact me through this email address jenniferwilson59@rushpost.com if you
are interested,so that i can feed you with the information on how to
claim the funds of($1,500,000.00).I know I have never met you but I have
been directed to do this by God,and i hope you act sincerely.
NB: I will appreciate your utmost confidentiality in this matter until
the task is accomplished,as I don't want anything that will Jeopardize
my last wish, due to the fact that i do not want relatives or family members
standing in the way of my last wish.

Regards,
Jennifer Wilson

I think that I need an Alka-Seltzer now.

WIPO Seminar on Copyright and Internet Intermediaries

Colleagues Charlotte Waelde and Lilian Edwards were the keynote speakers at WIPO's Seminar on Copyright and Internet Intermediaries. The preliminary reports from the seminar are quite interesting. For example, EDRI-Gram has a comprehensive review of the proceedings (not online yet at the time of writing this), but it has a very good write-up about what my two colleagues did (congratulations Lilian and Charlotte). The report says:

The opening keynote speeches by Lilian Edwards and Charlotte Waelde from the AHRB Research Centre in Intellectual Property and Technology of the University of Edinburgh provided the audience with an excellent overview of all the issues related to provider liability for content provided or shared by their customers. Edwards started with the problematic definition of 'service provider', which now also includes online auctions, search engines, RSS feeds, blogs, chat-rooms and price comparison sites. In the period leading up to the year 2000 governments were hesitant to regulate liability, fearing it would disturb the nascent market. But after 2000 the market was mature enough and governments and the entertainment industry were dissatisfied about the lack of self-regulatory solutions. The EU E-commerce directive from 2000 then forced a compromise by distinguishing in possible liability for hosting third party content and no liability for mere conduit and temporary caching. Charlotte Waelde analysed the jurisprudence of the different court cases against producers of P2P software, both in the US and in the Netherlands. She concluded that it is crucial for the liability question in P2P cases to determine whether the ISP is somehow authorising the infringement, or whether an ISP is entitled to presume that facilities will be used in accordance with the law.

Very interesting stuff, I can't wait to hear more about the meeting.

P2P activism, boycott music and DVD sales

This is a call to arms to all of those who have ever downloaded content from the internet not to buy any music or movies during the last week of April (25-30 April). The intended outcome is to demonstrate that music downloaders are a powerful buying force, and that if they decide to boycott the music industry, this will be felt in some way or another. I am not sure how they are intending to measure the effect of the campaign, but I am supporting them. So, wait until may to buy your new DVD.

Virtual Worlds, New Worlds?

(N.Y. Times article, you know what to do). This article deals with the making of Tho Fan, a new language created specifically for the computer game Jade Empire. The language joins Klingon and Elvish (sorry, Quenya, Sindarin and Telarin) as one of the growing number of invented languages created to give fiction more depth. It is interesting that language is so important to lend credit and depth to a story; possibly because language often shapes how we think and how we explain the world around us.

To me this is just another example of the cultural significance that computer games are acquiring in modern society. There can be little doubt now that games are now an art form, as worthy of scholarly interest as movies, theatre and dance. Games are increaingly displaying sophisticated storylines, character design, interactivity and complexity. I would even say that games have a greater potential than many other art forms. For example, in film and theatre you are presented with sealed stories that you must accept as given. With games, you are often the protagonist, and you may actually write your own story as you go along. Better AI and more complex gaming options allow gamers can choose how a story or a character develops. Then, there are huge virtual worlds in the shape of MMORPGs where users can interact with people from around the world (or from the closest server).

Does this have anything to do with the law? It could. To me, the most interesting thing about games, and particularly about MMORPGs, is that they are a large experiment on regulation and law-making. How do people deal with a vast new online world where they can do what they please? Do players revert to the basest human impulses and descend into anarchy? Does altruism exist in virtual worlds? How do players regulate their actions? Do they rely merely on the game makers to act as law-makers? Are there different social norms that affect virtual players? Does the architecture of the game determine the behaviour of the world?

Mixed reaction to Creative Archive

The advertisement of the Creative Archive has raised a bit of a stink amongst certain circles. There are some neutral reports, like this one in Wired, or the one in The Guardian. The CC-UK list has given the licence a lukewarm reception, with downright negative vibes coming from the Friends of the Creative Archive list. Others have concerns that the licence is not compatible with Creative Commons (one may want to ask "so what?"). Others have concerns about the No-Endorsement clause.

I am slightly concerned about the snipes from the Creative Commons orthodoxy about a new licence model. Why should the BBC follow the CC model if it doesn't fit? To me it is much better to have loads of content released under an open licence, whatever that licence may be. I do not believe that all free and open source software should use the GPL, or the BSD licence; one of the great things about open source is that you can choose your licence. I am afraid that the open access and creative movement may be moving towards the monopoly of Creative Commons and the use (and abuse) of McLicences. Compatibility is nice, but complaining about breaking with CC orthodox belief is just silly.

Good reading on open source

There are several links that I want to highlight about open source software in general. First there is the ongoing "A history of Free and Open Source by Peter H. Salus, who is serialising the book in Groklaw. Here is the introduction. Then there is a good article about the SCO case by Groklaw's Pam Jones. Then (courtesy of Anne-Kathrin Kuehnel), there is this online book in Spanish called "Software libre; técnicamente viable, económicamente sostenible y socialmente justo" by Jordi Mas i Hernández. Looks like a good introduction, but it is a bit basic for those already familiar with the subject.

P2P traffic unaffected by suits

There have been claims by the music industry that suing users works, and that there has been a decrease in P2P use. This is not supported by the facts. According to a new study, P2P network traffic rivals normal web browsing, and the P2P traffic in North America has been unaffected by the suits. Moreover, there appears to have been an increase as the publicity brings more people to see what the news are talking about.

This is deliciously ironic. The RIAA and the MPAA are actually increasing file sharing. Priceless.

Creative Archive Licence, a blow to Creative Commons?

The Creative Archive Licence(CAL) is now online. This is an open licence from the BBC, the BFI, the Open University and Channel 4, and it covers a large amount of works owned by those four institutions which are offered for the purpose of reuse and adaptation, in other words, they empower the mix culture.

CAL is a very nicely drafted licence. It emanated from the fact that the BBC was not able to use Creative Commons licences in order to release their footage because they needed a licence that was jurisdiction specific (or more precisely, jurisdictions specific). I am told that this is because the BBC has a duty to provide content to licence-fee payers, but it actually makes money from international licensing of its archive (yes, I remember seeing Dr. Who in Spanish). Nevertheless, the CAL is heavily influenced by the Creative Commons licences - CC allows their licences to be modified without their consent, but they cannot call themselves "Creative Commons".

The licence allows reuse and remix by letting users copy, share, create derivative works and copy and share them on any platform and in any media. The licence has 5 elements (instead of CC's 4 elements). CAL allows the copy and reuse as long as it is not distributed for commercial purposes, it is distributed under the same licence, the author is credited, there is no endorsement or derogatory treatment, and it is only shared in the UK. These two last elements are the novel ones in CAL, particularly because CC licences are not territorial (but offer choice of law clauses), and this one is very territorial.

What I like particularly about CAL is that it really thinks hard about some elements that Creative Commons does not go into, and this is the pesky problem of non-commercial abuse. This has been eloquently expressed by Bill Thompson, both in his column and in a recent panel meeting in Edinburgh. This is particularly important for public works, which could be abused by using them to promote all sorts of purposes that may go against the public interest. The example is always used of the BNP using works distributed with a CC licence. While I agree that dealing with the moral element is an important advance in open licensing, my concern is that this adds a rather problematic subjective element to the licence because it states that the work cannot be used if it brings the owner's reputation into disrepute. This is clear if the BNP uses my photograph to warn about the swarm of Costa Rican academics invading Britain, but it may not be so clear in other circumstances. What if the owner doesn't have a sense of humour, and the work is used in a comedy setting?

Nevertheless, this is a very good step, and it shows that customisation of licences is the way to go. Trying to get everyone in the creative industries to choose the same licence is like herding cats.

IBM continues its good work with software patents

(NY Times link, remember to use Bugmenot). IBM is opening up its intellectual property. Yes, this is similar to the much publicised legally binding promise of non-enforcement issued last January, but it goes further, and it provides a serious philosophical shift about how companies should use their intellectual property. IBM is prepared to rethink the way in which it does business by making sure that basic technologies and standards are kept open, so that the entire industry can innovate at a faster rate.

I think that industries are finally realising that they cannot continue as they have been. The rise of the patent troll has generated understanding in big corporations that there is something rotten in the patent system, but it must be said that they are complaining and blaming firms for using the system as it exists. We have been told time and time again that innovation will only take place if there is an incentive to innovate, namely a patent monopoly right. However, it is becoming clear that innovation takes place in different ways, even when people share or give away some of their intellectual property. If this is the case, then the traditional justifications for intellectual property must be wrong, and we need to revise the whole premise that stronger protection is needed across the board.

This is highly inflammatory stuff in some circles. I am subscribed to a patent news list, and the writer is almost foaming at the mouth at the prospect of software patent reform in the United States, calling IBM hypocrites because they have profited from the filing of patents. That they may be, but they may still be right. Patent lawyers (and patent trolls) are the ones who are set to lose the most from treform of he current environment of software patenting in the United States, and Europe should take notice.

It is all about the content

The internet is all about the content. This seems like a bleeding obvious statement, but it is amazing how little understood this is. Content is difficult to create. Sitting every morning looking for today's post is in fact a bit difficult, and I guess that it would be incredibly easy just not to bother and not write any opinions whatsoever, just links. But this is not what blogging is about, I think. The whole point about the internet is that people interact, share ideas and opinions, find useful information and use it and reuse it for their own benefit.

So, content is what people are looking for, and this is why Google has become so important. We want content (text, pictures, opinions, news, poetry, song lyrics), and the search engines help us to get it. IT is becoming increasingly obvious that content also needs to be free of charge, people will be less likely to pay for content when there is so much free one out there. So who pays for all the content? Is it just hobbyist academics? Is it just well-intentioned people who like to share ideas? When you really look at the internet, you realise that it is the largest socialist experiment in history. In strict capitalist terms of markets, costs and rewards, it should not work. Why would people give-up their free-time to provide content?

I don't know, ask millions of bloggers around the world. I guess that there is the hope that there is somebody out there reading.

Another software patent article in Linux Insider

This is a dreadful article by yet another software patent lawyer in Linux Insider. It praises software patents American style, without shame, just like that, as if the system in the U.S. was not broken! Only a software patent lawyer can state such idiocy and claim that the system in the United States is fostering innovation. A cursory glance at the software landscape shows that small and medium software companies are suffering from submarine patents, and afraid that they may be infringing a patent that protects basic ideas. The amount of bad patents out there is staggering, which has been made more evident by the rise of the internet.

An example of a bad software patent is Test.com's patent, which is held over test and exams performed through the internet. This is so broad and obvious that I cannot even begin to comprehend how it was awarded.

WTO Dispute over online gambling

There has now been a result in a WTO dispute between Antigua and Barbuda and the United States regarding restrictions to online gambling. The two Caribbean countries brought the dispute against the United States because they claimed that its restrictions towards online gambling included in three pieces of legislation (the Wire Act, the Travel Act and the Illegal Gambling Business Act) went against their obligations in the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). The case was also brought against legislations that regulate online gambling that exist in 8 different states (Colorado, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, South Dakota and Utah). It was argued that the United States could not impose blanket prohibitions against online gambling because it did allow distance-betting under some circumstances, and that the prohibitions established discrimination for foreign suppliers of services.

This is a very complex case that shows just why the international dispute settlement is so important for international trade. In the first instance of the dispute, the panel ruled against the United States. The Appellate Body has produced a ruling that is more favourable to the U.S. than the previous one, but it has still considered that the three federal acts mentioned are in violation of the country's responsibilities in GATS, and has recommended that the U.S. should take steps to comply with these. It seems like the legislation will have to be amended in some way. As this article points out, it is unlikely that the ruling will do anything to stop online gambling, the existing legislation is difficult to enforce.

The important question is, are Antigua and Barbuda in the song Kokomo?

BILETA 2005

I have just returned from sunny Belfast, where this year's BILETA Conference was held (BILETA is the British and Irish Legal, Education and Technology Association). I must say that this was an excellent conference, very good quality of papers all around, with enough discussion in most of the sessions. I particularly enjoyed a paper about blogs from Prof. Tang Hang Wu (picture attached). The conference kept the promise of being exceptionally critical. Next year's conference will be in Malta. Nice.

The Chewbacca Defense lives on

Johnnie Cochran died last week. He may be better known as one of the defense attorneys in the OJ simpson trial, but he has a much larger claim to internet fame: he is the inspiration for the Chewbacca Defense, which is used (and abused) in internet forums (and universitites) around the world every single day. The Chewie Defense is a logical fallacy that consists of confusing your audience with inconsistent, complicated and irrelevant facts to make them agree with what you are saying, even if it doesn't have anything to do with the argument being put forward.

This was first introduced in a South Park episode in which Chef decides to sue Alannis Morisette's music company for using a song he composed 10 years earlier called "Stinky Britches". The copyright infringmenment case is clear and the music company is obviously going to lose. But then Johnnie Cochran takes the stage and delivers his famous Chewbacca defense.

Ladies and gentlemen of the supposed jury, Chef's attorney would certainly want you to believe that his client wrote "Stinky Britches" ten years ago. And they make a good case. Hell, I almost felt pity myself!
But ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider: Ladies and gentlemen this [pointing to a picture of Chewbacca] is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk, but Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now, think about that. That does not make sense! Why would a Wookiee—an eight foot tall Wookiee—want to live on Endor with a bunch of two foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense!
But more important, you have to ask yourself, what does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense!
Look at me, I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca. Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense. None of this makes sense!
And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberating and conjugating the Emancipation Proclamation... does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense.
If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

Needless to say, this argument sways the jury and Chef is found guilty of harrasing the music industry, but everything is solved when Cochran takes pity on Chef and uses the Chewie Defense to get him off.

The internet has given rise to a new host of logical fallacies. There is the Argumentum ad Google: something must be right/good/popoular because it produces a lot of search results in Google.

Sue them out of business

This is an interesting bit in the BBC technology section, which tells us that the lawsuits against the largest spammer in the world are actually working. Many companies, including Microsoft, have sued Scott Richter, the Spam King, and he is under so much pressure that he has had to declare bankruptcy.

This is all good and well, but then why am I still receiving spam?

Lessig visits Edinburgh

Professor Lessig gave a lecture yesterday as part of a panel organised by the AHRB Centre for the Edinburgh Science Festival. Yours Truly had the pleasure of participating in the panel, well, actually I just sat there and gazed at the brilliant, entertaining and slick presentation. Lessig has created his own style of using powerpoint slides, it is quite an amazing thing.

The event served to launch the Creative Commons Scotland project. Comments are welcome.

April's Fools: The Aftermath

Another April's Fools has come and gone. What is the verdict? Some good jokes out there, some sophisticated ones, some simply surreal. The most widely circulated is Google Gulp, where the search engine goes into the soft drink market. Then we have a useful item that tells us that technology companies are performing 18% more April's Fools gags than last year. In other news, Cory issues a DMCA takedown notice against the makers of the BoringBoring blog for trade mark infringement. Then, the Bush twins are being sent to Iraq (about time too).

My favourite? The one from EFF's Effector, where we are informed that Acacia has sued the makers of World of Warcraft for infringement of their Troll patent. The claim was strongly rebutted by Leet Hax0r, Blizzard Legal Overlord.

The unstoppable rise of open access journals

The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) now has more than 1500 peer-reviewed open access journals. This is an impressive number, which is a great witness as to the vibrancy and power of the open access ideals. The main success of OA is that it empowers authors, who will usually get ot keep their copyright. It encourages the reuse of articles, and does away with the ludicrous economics of traditional academic publishing.

If open access keeps going at this pace, traditional publishers may start to find that they cannot continue pricing journals in the same way. After all, we academics do all the work for them!

Holy lawsuits, Winged Mammal Man!

I have been playing City of Heroes for a couple of days, and I wanted to make a comment about the ongoing case between Marvel Comics and NCSoft, the distributors of CoH. The world of CoH is great, vast and fast-paced action makes it an addictive environment. I spent last night hunting trolls with a large group of players from Spain. Something that has really struck me is the level of imagination and creativity exhibited by the players in the game. Every possible combination of spandex is explored in the game, and the users exhibit an amazing amount of imagination into the creation of the online personae.

Enter Marvel, claiming that their copyright is being infringed by players dressing-up as their characters. People dressing-up as super heroes? Perish the thought! But do they have a claim? Their complaint states that the character building engine constrains users into infringement. This is not the case, the options allow for an incredible amount of choices. I have only encountered very few heroes that resemble trademark characters. There was a large green tank called "The Angry Man", and I also saw a hero that looked like Storm, but that was it.

I must say that this is absolutely preposterous. What next? Will DC and Marvel sue Fathers for Justice?

Busy, busy, busy

Lack of updates. Yes, hmmmm... This is due to many different things. There is Easter, and then there is the fact that the World Model United Nations is in town, and then I am doing some research into MMORPGs.

If anybody plays City of Heroes, keep an eye out for Technollama!

Yahoo goes CC

Yahoo is now offering a search engine that looks for content bearing Creative Commons licences. This is a great source of reuseable content, and it is nice to see search engines embracing Creative Commons ideals, although it must be said that this may just be part of Yahoo's fight against Google. This developmentg takes place at the same time as the split between Creative Commons UK into CC-England and Wales and CC-Scotland is now official. The project will be officially launched next weekend when Lessig visits Edinburgh.

Largest mesh network in ... Cork?

Cork City can now boast the largest WiFi in Europe. The city centre will be coverd by a large wifi mesh network that will pbe offered through credit card payments. This is an interesting development which [rpves that the future is wireless.

Am I moving to Cork? NAH!

Podcasting in the news

This is a Beeb article that explains Podcasting. I don't follow any podcast shows myself, but it seems to be growing in popularity. Missing from the aticle is the issue of copyright and podcasting. So far, the movement has been untroubled by copyright concerns, many of the shows are not using , but there are music as well, and the concerns are there. The logical solution for podcasters is not to use music, or if they do, to use audio released with Creative Commons, such as the famous Wired CD.

Exterminate! Exterminate!

The person responsible for the leaking of the first Dr. Who episodes has been exterminated, I mean, has been fired. It is thought that the source of the leak was a peson who worked for a DVD transfer company.

BTW, the first episode of the new Doctor Who will be broadcast this Saturday. Life is good.

Has AFP won?

The blogosphere has been buzzing with the news that Agence France Press has sued Google for copyright infringement. This is because Google News displays results from different news sources, including pictures, links and headlines. Now Google has decided to remove AFP's content from their site as a direct response to the suit.

I must confess that I still have not made up my mind about this case, but I feel that Google News may be infringing the news sources. I must say that I assumed Google was paying the news service providers. Could AFP be fishing for licensing fees?

Hardware hacking workshop

I really wish that I could go to New York to this event. This is a workshop by artist Nicolas Collins, who is publishing a book called, oddly, Hardware Hacking. The description of the process sounds really good:

Basic soldering skills will be learned through building contact microphones and coils to sniff electromagnetic fields. The students will open up a range of battery-powered "consumer" technology (radios, electronic toys), observe the effect of direct hand contact on the circuit boards, experiment with the substitution of components, and listen to unheard signals running through the circuit. Knowledge acquired through this process will be applied to building circuits from scratch...

Sounds like fun. As I will be building my new computer this Easter weekend, I could use some of this knowledge.

Google Print is here

Finally! Google Print is now starting to produce results for works in the public domain (but it appears to be working only through Google.com and not co.uk). I googled Oliver Twist and got the entire book in the results (TIP: It is the icon with the books beside the link). I also was able to find The Count of Monte Cristo and Dracula.

But beware, the service is still in BETA, so most of the books are available as placeholder and provide a few pages and the table of contents. Still, this is a very exciting development, and it could prove to be a very good marketing tool for your writers, as you are allowed to advertise your own book with Google Print.

Wellcome Trust goes Open Source

Robert Terry, the Senior Policy Adviser of the Wellcome Trust, has written a paper in PLoS stating that the Trust will require the publication of all work that is funded by them through open access journals. This is a great boost for the open access movement, because it means that funding bodies are starting to require open access publishing as a prerequisite for researchers obtaining funding in the first place. The Wellcome Trust funds a considerable amount of research every year, which should mean that a sizeable chunk of high-quality research will go to open source journals. (thanks to Andy and Lilian for the link).

Buzz Game: Measuring technology hype

This is a new game by Yahoo that allows you to measure the buzz level of a technology through share investment by players. You can play in diverse markets, such as which is the best Linux ditribution (Fedora seems to be at the forefront), the best MMORPG (World of Warcraft), Annoyances (Spyware), P2P (surprisingly, GNUtella over Bittorrent), and portable players (iPOD, duh).

Creative Commons in the news

The Washington Post has an article about Creative Commons, featuring interviews with Lessig and Cory Doctorow. This seems to be the watershed that demonstrates that the movement has become mainstream. The article emphasises the many commercial uses of the movement.

Does this mean that Creative Commons is not cool any more?

Lessig on open access law journals

Lessig has claimed that he will never again publish in a journal that is not published through some sort of open access licence, preferably a CC BY-NC licence (Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial.

This raises an interesting point. Why should we academics give away our copyright when publishing in "traditional" paper journals? We are not getting any money. The publishers prey on the desperate academic who needs to publish or perish. Academics should stand up for their rights and end this despotic state of affairs, publish in open access journals.

Viva La Revolución!

Hacking search engine rankings

Search engine optimisation is an art, and people get paid a lot of money to do it. There are now some firms that offer all sorts of services to make sure that your website can be found near the top in Google and other search engines. Why is it so important to get to the top? Because one study "concluded that sites that appear on the first page of results attract six times the traffic they did before landing there and earn double the sales." Being in the first Google page means big money, which creates an incentive to be there at whatever cost. This situation has created an economy of links, where getting links to your site enhances your Google rating.

Cybercrime is on the increase

An article in today's Guardian warns about the growing dangers of cybercrime. From phishing to eBay fraud, organised crime is increasingly using the internet to promote some criminal activities. Although this is a growing development, there seems to be a certain luddite stream running through these articles. It is almost as if the authors are telling us that these things are new because of the internet.

Nevertheless, these fears may be warranted to some extent. The online world brings a new scale to this issue, as criminals can have better chance of reaching more and more people, but it also allows access to otherwise inaccessible targets. Today's FT relates a case of cybercrime: hackers in Israel targeted a Japanese bank through their UK servers. Die Hard with computers. And no Bruce Willis. And no Alan Rickman.

SCRIPT-ed new issue online

Here is the list of contents:

Editorial:
- Laureation for Honorary Degree of LL.D: Professor W R Cornish, Professor Hector MacQueen, p.1.

Special feature:
- Identifying Risks: National Identity Cards, Wendy M. Grossman, pp.2-17.

Peer-reviewed articles:
- The Significance of UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on the Human Genome & Human Rights, Shawn H.E. Harmon, pp.18-47.
- Evolution of Industry Knowledge in the Public Domain: Prior Art Searching for Software Patents, Jinseok Park, pp.48-82.
- Public Domain; Public Interest; Public Funding: Focussing on the ‘three Ps’ in Scientific Research, Dr. Charlotte Waelde and Mags McGinley, pp.83-106.
- The Shape of Things to Come: Swedish Developments on the Protection of Privacy, Rebecca Wong, pp.107-124.

Analysis:
- Regulación Para Mundos Digitales: El Mundo Comunitario, (Regulation of Online Worlds: The Community World), Erick Iriarte Ahon, pp.125-134.

Book Reviews:
- The International Political Economy of Intellectual Property Rights, Meir Perez Pugatch. Reviewed by Geoff Gregson, p.135
- Intellectual Property Law in Practice, Thomas E. Hays and Claire C. Milne. Reviewed by Christine Riefa, p.136.

Pharming the net.

Phishing, you ask? Phishing is soo 2004. Pharming is the latest craze amongst the trendy cybercriminals. Pharming is an attack that resembles a virus, it changes the host files in a computer - files that interpret the URL that you input in the browser. The site then takes you to a pharming site where you give your password and details, never even knowing that you were not in the actual site that you wanted to visit. An expert describes pharming as :

"Phishing is to pharming what a guy with a rod and a reel is to a Russian trawler. Phishers have to approach their targets one by one. Pharmers can scoop up many victims in a single pass,"

I'm phed up of those phlipping phools and their phorbidden pharming. Phie on you!

Scottish Universities agree on Open Access

The main Scottish universities have signed the Scottish Declaration on Open Access, organised by OATS (Open Access Team for Scotland; what a great acronym). Timothy O'Shea, the Principal at the University of Edinburgh, said that "The University of Edinburgh wants to ensure that its research is as visible as possible within Scotland, the UK and the world. This open access initiative provides an important route to deliver this."

So, we have joined the 21st century. It will be interesting to see if there is any money involved in promoting successful open access initiatives. *COUGH*give-us-money*COUGH*

Virtual sweatshops

It seems like the story about virtual sweatshops is true after all. Romanian workers play computer games for 10 hours a day to produce virtual goods in MMORPGs which are later sold through eBay or through other websites such as Gamersloot. In those places you can buy powerful accounts, virtual estate or other goodies to satisfy your gaming needs.

What are people buying and selling? Well, on eBay you can buy an ethereal llama. I am jealous, I am just techno, I'm not even ethereal!

Observer article

(Warning: the article is entitled "Patently absurd", I had never seen that title before!) This is an article by John Naughton about software patents (yes, I know I promised that I would not write about software patents again, but I can't stop myself). Although the article is an adequate introduction to what took place, the item is much more complex than described, but the depiction is good enough to introduce the unwashed to the mysteries of the patent world.

However, what I really liked about the article is that it mentions US Patent 5,443,036. This patent claims to protect:

A method for inducing cats to exercise consists of directing a beam of invisible light produced by a hand-held laser apparatus onto the floor or wall or other opaque surface in the vicinity of the cat, then moving the laser so as to cause the bright pattern of light to move in an irregular way fascinating to cats, and to any other animal with a chase instinct.

The mind boggles.

Swedish servers raided, no bits harmed

Swedish police have raided servers belonging to the ISP Bahnhof Internet. They discovered 23 Terabytes of infringing content. Apparently, one of the servers in the ISP was the largest file serving machine in Europe!

This case highlights an interesting question about ISP liability. Apparently, two employees are now suspected of being responsible. Assuming that the company didn't know about the misuse of the servers and the employees are found responsible, would this be enough to limit their liability? In most legal systems, employers have certain responsibility for the actions of their employees (responsibility in eligendo). The thing is, how can a company keep track of what the system administrators are doing? Who keeps the keepers?

City of Heroes strikes back

In the last episode, our hero NCSoft, defender of City of Heroes, had been caught by the evil ploy of Marvel Comics Lawyer-Man. The evil Lawyer-Man caught NCSoft in the cave of The Judge, where he alleged that our hero was guilty of willful secondary infringement. Lawyer-Man has all the powers of the Doomsday Machine Copyright Armament (DMCA). How can NCSoft escape?

But do not despair! The Judge has heard the pleas of NCSoft, and has declared that City of Heroes has considerable non-infringing uses. The Judge has also kindly destroyed several of Lawyer-Man's weapons. NCSoft has not escaped yet, but it seems like our hero might just pull through.

KAPOW! ZAP! ZOINK! Holy lawsuits, Batman!

Wireless for the digital divide

The wireless roadshow is a project that creates very cheap wireless solutions that use cans and cheap circuits, and takes it to developing countries, where they can be used to connect to remote communities to the internet at very little cost.

This I believe is the way of the future, developing countries will leapfrog copper wires and jump into the wireless domain right away.

Software patents go mainstream

I promise that this is the last software patent article for a while. The Guardian has a pretty decent article describing the state of affairs with the approval of the directive-that-shall-not-be-named. It is quite interesting to see that there is something happening that produces enough interest to allow this issue to be reported by the mainstream media. Who said that patent law was boring?

Guess the age

This is an exercise to test the patent described in the previous article (and infringe a silly American patent in the process). This is the full list of my purchases for the last two months with eBay and Amazon:

• The Success of Open Source
• Hack//Sign complete series
• Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind
• The Motorcycle Diaries
• Cowboy Bebop complete series
• Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II
• The Business and Economics of Linux and Open Source
  
• Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity
• Untitled Intellectual Property
• Linux Suse 9.2 Professional Upgrade
• Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusarders

If I were an AI system, I would guess that this profile is for a 21 year-old leftist open source advocate who rants against Microsoft but plays his games with an XBox.

And the prize for the silliest patent goes to...

Take a look at Amazon's US patent 6865546. This is a patent for a system that determines a buyer's age according to previous buying records. The patent states that:

One embodiment of the present invention is a system and method of determining the age of an item recipient, such as a gift recipient. The age range for the gift recipient is estimated based at least in part on a customer order history of gifts purchased by the customer for the gift recipient. At a first date, a customer order for a first gift for the recipient is received, where the first gift is associated with a first age appropriateness designation. At a second date, a customer order for a second gift for the recipient is received, where the second gift is associated with a second age appropriateness designation. An age range associated with the recipient is then estimated based upon at least the first age appropriateness designation and the second age appropriateness designation.

I would like to know the "age appropriateness designation" for my recent purchases. Let's see, I have purchased Cowboy Bebop, Hack//Sign, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II. I bet the system would say that I am a 16 year old geek.

They did it, they actually did it!

Today, thousands of activists and open source developers in Europe must be shouting "Damn you all to hell". The European Council has decided to adopt the proposed text of the software patents directive (pardon me, the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive). The procedure seems to have been dodgy to say the least, with some inventive dealings from the Council's presidency to allow a text as an agreement that was anything but. The procedure is explained briefly here by Karl Lenz, and it seems to have prompted a documentation request by JURI, the Legal Affairs Committee.

So, what now? If there are any patent lawyers celebrating, they should not open the bottles yet. It is my understanding that this agreement still has to go back to the Parliament, where the shenanigans from the Council are likely to produce a serious backlash. Then there is going to be a long string of articles that attempt to tell people about what is really happening. This article for example actually does a good job of explaining why the directive may be bad for SMEs.

My take? There is no telling what will happen, but the dubious procedure will make this directive a prime target for some sort of review. I don't know enough of European Law procedures, but I would guess that this is something that could be reviewed by the European Court of Justice. Any good European appeal lawyers out there?

Long Tail economics

This is an old article, but I have just read it and found it quite thought-provoking. The article first discusses the economics of mainstream entertainment, which offers us low-quality works from the because of their proven economic return. Those with different tastes must look further and deeper to satisfy their taste. Enter the internet, and everything is turned upside down. The net gives us the chance to buy items that are not the average mass market stuff, which opens profit opportunities for a larger number of creators than the average market.

The way in which this is done is by exploding the Pareto Principle (which roughly states that only 20% entertainment works will be profitable and will fund the 80% that are not). The net has created a space where even the non-hits are profit-making, because there are many more buyers. The article explains that this is now being proven by legal download sites.

What is then the long tail? The fact that creative works may make income from little things accumulating through the mix culture. My hope is that Technollama will someday become a household brand and I will make tons of money from tie-ins and merchandising.

10 years of the web

Yahoo is celebrating its 10th birthday by launching an excellent little flash applet that celebrates the 100 most important net moments of the last decade. Yes, the visual net is now 10 years old, so we have a lot to reminisce about. There is Napster, ICANN, Jerry Garcia, Howard Dean's scream, The "I kiss you" guy, Peter Pan Guy, Blair Witch Project, Wikipedia, open source, NakedNews, Heaven's Gate, Hot or Not, and even flashmobs!

Ah, the memories.

Lessig on moral rights

There is an interesting argument between the BBC's Bill Thompson and Lessig. Thompson recently wrote a thoughtful paper about the great copyright debate, which amongst other things, criticised the lack of thought that Creative Commons has had regarding moral rights. Lessig has replied that moral rights are really important, but that CC licences do not deal with them and leave each jurisdiction to handle them as they may. Lessig says:

So yes, Creative Commons will not, at least in some jurisdictions, deal with moral rights. Nor will it cure cancer or end poverty. But if it is unclear to anyone, let's be clear about it: We don't therefore not "care" about cancer or poverty. We don't therefore "dismiss" those problems. We just understand -- as everyone should -- that the tools we're spreading can only do so much.

This is a false analogy, as cancer and poverty have nothing to do with copyright, but moral rights are an integral part of copyright in many jurisdictions. Therefore, dealing with moral rights is going to be integral to any adequate copyright-related licence. I can see why CC licences prefer not to deal with moral rights, as they are often seen to be directly in clash with many of the adaptation and derivative rights awarded in such documents. Bill Thompson argues that he may want to object Nazi groups from using his work, and this is where moral rights would be useful. I tend to agree with him, but I have also expressed elsewhere that the philosophy behind open source, free software and CC licences is to allow modifications of the work, and moral rights may be against those stated goals.

Nevertheless, it is nice to see that this issue is being taken seriously, and that people are willing to engage in some debate about the subject of moral rights.

Problems with open source licences

Lawrence Rosen cannot be accused of being an outspoken attacker of open source. He is one of the main advisors for the OSI, and has written a very good book on open source licences. However, he has recently expressed some lingering concerns about this licensing scheme. He describes some problems with the multiplication of open source licences, which poses a problem to developers as they will have to look at different documents to choose one that fits. This is the thorny problem of standardisation versus customisation of licences. Should OSS developers choose one of the existing OSI certified licences, or they should just draft one that fits their needs? This is an increasing problem because there is growing concern about the international validity of some OSS licences, particularly because most of them are American-centric licences. Rosen says that "It's a legitimate reason for submitting a new license if there is an aspect of your license that doesn't satisfy the law of your country". There is already a French GPL, but moves towards creating new licences may be stopped by the German case declaring the GPL valid.

This could be a good time to be smug and say "I told you so". I believe that there is nothing wrong with customisation because not all of us should be forced to consume American licences. Are we in danger of creating a McOSS culture?

State of Play papers available online

The papers from the ground-breaking conference State of Play are now online. This conference explores the interaction between the law and computer games. Readers may be tempted to think that this is just another excuse from academics to go to a city, have a conference and ingest large quantities of cheap crust-less sandwiches. Nevertheless, there are some good articles in there. Michael Froomkin, one of the best theorists of cyberspace regulation, writes a great article about the use of online games to test and experiment real rules.

Read them, if you can get away from your PS2.

Gratuitous llama pics

As part of an agreement with the good people at IPKat, we are going to include some pictures of llamas. I hope to make this llama famous, it was a particularly photogenic one:

Costa Rica to ban VoIP

I am not sure if I should feel ashamed of this piece of news. ICE, the Costa Rican telecommunications monopoly has done some good things ensuring that large sectors of the country are connected online, but now they are hoping to ban Voice over IP (VoIP). According to them, 1 out of every 5 calls to the United States are done through VoIP services. ICE has presented a bill to the Costa Rican legislature that will declare all unlicensed use of telecommunications networks a type of fraud, and those found guilty of providing the service could go to jail. Some critics have stated that this could include all sorts of chat services that use multimedia.

Could Xbox Live be banned in Costa Rica? I'd better stay here in Edinburgh.

Infamously famous: Should they have privacy?

Have you seen the Numa Numa Dance? It is strangely compelling, isn't it? But what of the guy in the video? According to this article, he is now in hiding and suffering from depression. It raises some questions about cyber-privacy, but it may have other implications. I wonder if the Romanian group has found some considerable financial advantages from their song being downloaded so much, and how one could go ahead and measure it.