Shiny Happy People

What makes people happy? This is a difficult question, particularly when one considers that there is a growing trend in some policy circles to emphasise happiness as a goal, instead of concentrating efforts on making people richer. The BBC even broadcast a series looking at the new science of happiness.

So, if happiness is entering the realms of scientific research and policy-making, we have to determine how we can measure happiness, or even trying to determine if such thing is possible. Do you simply ask people? Organise surveys? Measure happy thoughts?

The Happy Planet Index attempts to do just that. While it doesn't measure absolute happiness, it "shows the relative efficiency with which nations convert the planet’s natural resources into long and happy lives for their citizens". The top countries on the list are:

1 Vanuatu
2 Colombia
3 Costa Rica
4 Dominica
5 Panama

Vanuatu? This is a country famous for being a tax haven, hosting KaZaA and being the online pharmacy capital of the world. Internet hosting haven equals happiness? Well, maybe. Costa Rica is number three, and we are a gambling website hub.

Of course, I'm a bit depressed about these news, because while all my fellow Costa Ricans are having a happy time, I'm stuck in cold Edinburgh.

Limewire Strikes Back

LimeWire has replied to the RIAA suit against them with a countersuit. LimeWire has issued its answer to the plaintiff's claim, and have counter-sued. The document makes an interesting argument against the RIAA's anti-competitive practices. The main claim is that the RIAA has been operating as a cartel by promoting iMesh, which has been sanctioned as the only "legal" P2P service. As many other services, iMesh began life as the average illegal P2P service, but it is now one of the RIAA's most valued possessions. According to LimeWire, the music industry representatives operate as a competition-busting cartel, whose sole existence is to remove potential competitors from the market.

While the argument seems rather weak to me, I admit that I do not know enough of American anti-trust law to make an educated comment, so I am reduced to mindless cheering. Go LimeWire, Go!

Security breach in Second Life

The BBC reports on a serious security breach at Second Life, the popular virtual environment game thingy. According to a bulletin by Linden Labs, the makers of the game, they have expressed that: "Linden Lab reported today that it is notifying its community of a database breach, which potentially exposed customer data including the unencrypted names and addresses, and the encrypted passwords and encrypted payment information of all Second Life users. Unencrypted credit card information, which is stored on a separate database, was not compromised."

This is a serious development that could threaten the rapid rise of this game, particularly because Second Life is emerging as one of the most important virtual economies in the world, with a growing and vibrant market where people create and exchange all sorts of virtual content, from music to virtual clothing. It has such potential that it has even been featured in several business magazines, such as Business Week.

250 Linden Dollars (L$) will get you one US Dollar ($). Hey! That's a better exchange rate than the Costa Rican Colón!

Zune and Creative Commons

Some further news about the Zune and Creative Commons DRM discussion, which has caused quite a stir in the circles that get stirred by this sort of tune.

Just a brief recap. The Zune Insider blog broke the news that Zune would have a new interesting feature to transfer files through wireless device so that friends could share music. The problem with the feature is that it only allows the recipient to keep the song for three days. "Foul" cried all sorts of people! Our songs are being infected by viral DRM! Zune Insider then posted a correction, stating that Zune would not infect the file with DRM restrictions, but that it would simply not play it again. I must admit that I do not see the difference, as the end result is that you cannot play the file.

The problem that many people are having with Zune's DRM-that-may-not-be-DRM-but -has-the-same-effect is that it could eventually have implications for music released under a Creative Commons licence, but some people did not buy the argument. See for example LawMeme and Slyck News, where the authors argue the many possible angles of infringement. James Grimelmann in LawMeme particularly reasons some interesting points about the absurdity of some of the original claims regarding Zune and CC, particularly in regards to fair use doctrine.

My problem with the extremity of the case made against Zune is that I simply do not see this as a problem for CC nor Zune users. I am trying to imagine a case where a Creative Commons song would be affected by Zune, and I cannot imagine any situation where this would take place. As i have mentioned several times, I have several CC-licensed songs in my iPod. Imagine that I decide to sell it and purchase a Zune. Would I ever send these songs to another Zune user? Very unlikely. After all, these songs are already available online, such as the Wired CD. If I were to transfer these songs, I would not infringe my CC licence, as I would not distribute the content to the public, it is a private copy. However, in the UK we don't have private copying, but this sharing is allowed under CC licensing.

I will not be buying a Zune any time soon, and I am guessing that the device may not find favour with the public. However, I cannot be concerned about the potential DRM problems of wireless sharing service that could be easily bypassed. Burn, rip and share, I say.

Update: Ashley Theunissen has emailed me this interesting note. Seems like Amazon has not realised that Zune is made by Microsoft:

Behind BIOS - Interview with Richard Jefferson

Richard Poynder has emailed me a link from an interview with Richard Jefferson, founder of the Biological Innovation for Open Society (BIOS), an Austrlian initiative on the use of open source licensing and principles in the biological sciences. There is a longer version of the interview available under a Creative Commons licence.

This is an excellent look at the field of biotechnology patents and open access.

GPL upheld in Germany. Again.

Groklaw has the story of yet another court victory for the GPL in Germany. This is the second such court ruling in Germany, which I find ironic as I was once involved in a heated argument with a German law professor who assured me that open source licensing in general, and the GPL in particular, were invalid under German law.

GPL violations brought the suit in Frankfurt against wireless device manufacturer D-Link, who apparently had been infringing parts of the Linux kernel, which is licensed under the GPL.

Yet another victory for open source, and further erosion of the old FUD "the GPL hasn't been tested in court".

EU Software Patents: The Sequel

There seems to be a new software patent conflict in the European air as a result of the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA). The EPLA is a project by the members states of the European Patent Convention, and it is being organised by the European Patent Office. The EPLA will create a European Patent court, which would be in charge of the enforcement of European patents. This job is currently performed by national courts, and to a lesser degree by the EPO Board of Appeals.

While the simplification of the process could be benefitial, activists against software patents are concerned, and FFII has already been actively posting these worries on their website. One of the main problems with the EPLA and the new courts is that there appears to be a steep increase in the cost of patent litigation in Europe, which would make it more difficult for SMEs and open source projects to fight software patents. There is also a danger that the court will become extremely pro-patent owners, as is the case with the American Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit.

To complicate matters, the European Union has been looking at establishing a separate system with the Community Patent, which would have its own judiciary process. I've looking at the documents and it seems like the proposal is stalled. If any reader knows more about this, I would be willing to hear from them.

SSRN Revolution

For those unfamiliar with SSRN, it is one of the most important research resources that I use to find articles that are otherwise not easily available online. SSRN relies on authors making their articles available in PDF format. Why should anyone make their articles available online? Because SSRN uses the most important non-economic incentive there is: recognition. Most academic authors are not economically rewarded for their articles, you publish because you want to advance in your career, publish or perish and all that. SSRN's killer feature is that it has a counter, so you know exactly how many people have read your articles, which gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling on cold mornings.

These articles are supposed to be made available for everyone to download without restrictions. However, Dan Hunter has blown the whistle on a disturbing new feature on SSRN, some authors have noticed that their articles can only be accessed after the viewer registers with SSRN, which goes completely against the "open" concept. The reason given by SSRN seems to be that this is done to stop authors "gaming" the count by repeatedly downloading articles.

Hunter's revelation has caused a storm in the Cyberprof mailing list. Some solutions have been suggested, such as self-publication, or taking our papers elsewhere. I must admit that I'm reluctant to take stuff elsewhere, as I would lose my paper count. I know, it is a bit sad, but reputation and bragging rights are as palpable as currency in academic circles.

The most popular idea is to start a collective article with as many co-authors as you can, and post it on SSRN with all of the links, which would offset their results. There is even a blog to continue the collective article created by Orrin Kerr. What we need is a wiki...

I know what you may be wondering. What about my articles? I've broken into the 300 most downloaded legal authors in SSRN (299). And if you were not wondering, I've told you anyway.

There be pirates, matey!

Thanks to Ilanah at IPKat for reminding me that today is "Talk Like a Pirate" day. Avast me hearties, arrrgggh!

As a devout Pastafarian, I keep taps on all things pirate. For example, did you know that Patafarianism teaches us that there is direct correlation between global warming and the decrease in pirates? So, if we all become pirates, then global temperatures will fall. Faultless logic there.

Yo, ho, ho and a a bottle or rum!

Zune out of tune?

Both the techie press and blogospheres have been filled with stories on Zune, Microsoft's new digital player and best hope to cripple Apple's hold on the market. Zune follows Redmond's long tradition of arriving late to a market and trying to take on the early innovators, but I digress. Something that has been rather clear in a lot of the stories is that there is considerable confussion on exactly what is happening with the Zune DRM, and most importantly, with interoperability and interaction with other services.

What has raised a few eyebrows (and prompted derisive snorts, caused rolled-eyes and originated several other facial clichés) is the fact that Zune has had to create a new music store that can compete with iTunes. The problem with this is that Microsoft already has a music service used in other legal download stores such as Napster, Rhapsody and Yahoo! This service is called PlayForSure, and it is a subscription-based DRM system that allows the user to play music as long as they remain under subscription, but that will stop playing the moment the service is discontinued. However, Zune will not play PlayForSure content, prompting many to point out the idiocy of technological protection measures.

Moreover, there have been grumblings regarding Zune's viral infection of tunes with their own DRM as soon as the content is shared through a wireless service, and how this may infringe content under a Creative Commons licence. This made me pay attention, as I have 87 CC-licensed songs in my iPod. Microsoft's idea here is that as soon as you share music with friends using Zune's wireless service, the player will "infect" the songs with a DRM that will delete the song after three days. This would contravene CC licences that do not allow content to be shared with a TPM, and it would place restrictions in songs that are shared less restricively.

Although worrying, I must admit that I do not share the concerns of most of the techie blogosphere, perhaps because DRM does not make my blood boil as it does some other people. My problem here is that although I spend a large percentage of my money on the copyright industries (websites, books, DVDs and music), I have not yet found a single TPM protected work that I could not circumvent. Perhaps I'm not an average user, but that is precisely my point. What is the reason behind restrictive DRM, if they can be so easily circumvented by techno-geeks? Imagine a technically-challenged person who purchases a DRM protected CD and cannot play it in his/her computer. This person could just live with it, or phone her nearest geek friend, who will break the protection and allow her to enjoy the content. In fact, this seems to be what's happening with existing DRM. As Stan Beer points out, there are 60 million iPods in the market and 1.5 billion iTunes, which translates into 25 iTunes tracks per iPod. This actually matches my own calculations (I've only bought close to 20 iTunes).

Where has all the other content come from?

SCRIPT-ed September 2006 issue

The September 2006 issue of SCRIPT-ed is now online. In this issue:

Editorial:
- From child porn to China, in one Cleanfeed; Lilian Edwards.

Peer-reviewed articles:
- Affidavit Evidence and Electronically Generated Materials in Nigerian Courts; Andrew I. Chukwuemerie.
- Parasiteware: Unlocking Personal Privacy; Daniel B. Garrie and Rebecca Wong.
- Regulating the Digital Television Infrastructure in the EU. Room for Citizenship Interests? Eliza Varney.

Analysis:
- Markets in Tradition – Traditional Agricultural Communities in Italy and the Impact of GMOs; Johanna Gibson.

Book Reviews:
- On the Origin of the Right to Copy: Charting the Movement of Copyright Law in Eighteenth-century Britain (1695-1775); Ronan Deazley. Reviewed by Ross Gilbert Anderson.
- CODE: Collaborative Ownership and the Digital Economy, Rishab Aiyer Ghosh (editor). Reviewed by Colm Brannigan.
- Art and Cultural Heritage: Law Policy and Practice, Barbara T. Hoffman (editor). Reviewed by Simon Stokes.

Copyright implications of the social web

Several sites are reporting that Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music, has been complaining about rampant copyright infringement in websites such as YouTube and MySpace. Mr Morris stated that: "We believe these new businesses are copyright infringers and owe us tens of millions of dollars. How we deal with these companies will be revealed shortly." Expect a horde of corporate lawyers to descend upon the infringing sites and start hacking them into tiny pieces with large axes and very thin watches.

It's not difficult to read these comments and snort derisively. Universal and their ilk are dinosaurs, or more accurately, they resemble coelcanths, living fossils if you may. They may survive, but their business models are proving to be increasingly at odds with the rapid movement of what we now call cyberspace. Wikipedia, Blogger, MySpace and YouTube have exposed what some call the democratisation of the means of distribution of content. In a world where everyone with an Internet connection can be a publisher, the old distributors and intermediaries are looking preposterously old-fashioned. By claiming that they still control the means of distribution through copyright infringement suits, it seems like they are trying to fight the new models with old legal tools.

Does Universal have a case? As I have mentioned before, YouTube's legal status seems to be very strong, which makes any sort of litigation an uncertain matter for the plaintiff. As IPKat has commented as well, it is difficult to fathom what is the claimed lost revenue from a person posting a low-quality music video in YouTube. The potential for bad PR amongst the technocratic elites should not be underestimated either. Angering the geek masses can be a very bad idea, as Metallica found to their detriment after the Napster fiasco.

The geek shall inherit the earth. Get over it.

Virtual personalities

The blogosphere (or more accurately, the vlogosphere) has been mourning the sad fate of one of its main stars, Lonelygirl15, whose video blog had achieved cult status for its mix of intriguing storyline and all-round appeal of a shy and lonely, yet cute teenager. However, Lonelygirl was not the homeschooled 16-year-old girl named Bree, but an actress playing a part in a video scripted by some young filmmakers. From the New York Times to BoingBoing, going through CNET, everybody's talking about it.

I know that this may sound like 20/20 hindsight-ism, but I was never taken in by the whole lonelygirl craze. It must be that I'm immune to fabricated cuteness, or that I'm an old cynic, but I just didn't get why people were raving about the show. Some have called her the Mona Lisa of YouTube, and there may be something to be said about her hypnotic appeal to the geek masses. I also think that there is something to be said about the growth of a new art, or the recognition that blogs, vlogs and YouTube offer new opportunities for viral and fad marketing. The Long Tail of Internet fads?

eDonkey throws in the towel

There have been several signs recently that eDonkey would join the legal download market. It seems like this is the road to be taken by commercial clients, which will continue to fall or be taken out by litigation.

eDonkey have now paid the RIAA $30 million USD to avoid litigation. Similarly, the www.edonkey2000.com domain seems to be down. However, this is of little importance if the network is still running. I had an old eDonkey client saved in my computer (for research purposes only of course), I have installed it and the network seems to be working fine. I know that I always repeat this, but a client is not the same as a network. Interestingly, I came across a site called edonkey.com. When you visit the page, you will get a scary message that is not the old site, and not even a mirror. The site brings up an IP address message that reads:

"The eDonkey2000 Network is no longer available.
If you steal music or movies, you are breaking the law.
Courts around the world -- including the United States Supreme Court --
have ruled that businesses and individuals can be prosecuted for illegal
downloading.
You are not anonymous when you illegally download copyrighted material.
Your IP address is xx.xx.xx.xxx and has been logged.
Respect the music, download legally."

My IP address has been logged? What for? Am I guilty of browsing the web? Will the police knock down my door for looking at a website? It seems like someone wants to scare people, who might that be? According to the Whois database, the "edonkey.com" domain is still registered to Jed McCaleb, who is the lead programmer for Overnet, the owners of eDonkey. So, it is not a spoof site. Has McCaleb given the keys to the RIAA?

What's the large picture? This does not affect the P2P market, mostly because in the days of BitTorrent people are simply downloading entire albums and 500 song collections.

SCRIPT-ed books for review

Would you like to be a book reviewer for SCRIPT-ed? You get a free book if you agree to write a review for us. The books available for review are:

• Gustavo Ghidini "Intellectual Property and Competition Law: The Innovation Nexus"
• Francesco Francioni and Tullio Scovazzi - "Biotechnology and International Law"
• Jeremy Phillips - "Trade Marks at the Limit"
• Oliver Mills - "Biotechnological Inventions: Moral Restraints and Patent Law"
• Sheila McLean and Laura Williamson - "Xenotransplantation: Law and Ethics"
• Richard Silberglitt et al. - "The Global Technology Revolution 2020 - Executive Summary"
• Margaret Llewelyn and Mike Adcott - "European Plant Intellectual Property"
  

If you're interested email me at: a.guadamuz@ed.ac.uk.

Confessions of a conference organiser

I believe that in the future, when I look back on this week, the first image that will spring is one of bone-crunching tiredness. Of course, this is mostly self-inflicted, but I digress. I had been warned by people more experienced than me that this was to be expected.

So, how did the conference go? In my own biased view, despite relative low attendance due to the "liquids on a plane" scare, and one self-deprecating joke too many, the conference has proceeded well, particularly content-wise. I measure conferences on participation and the amount of questions raised by the presenters, and from the very start we had excellent questions and a good amount of discussion, so much that I had to bring the conference to a close when people still wanted to keep talking at 6.15 on Friday night!

There have been very few disappointing presentations, and the vast majority have been interesting, good or even ranging on brilliant. I was able to attend most of the presentations, and I've been very happy about the level.

Update: There were several bloggers present at the conference, so you may want to look at their unbiased take on the workshop and conference. Nic Suzor has complete coverage (including photographic evidence that I can still dance); Abbe Brown; Ian Brown; Fernando Barrio; Pedro Canut; Andrew Adams; Daithí Mac Síthigh; and Thomas Otter.

GikII

This has been an awesome start to the VI Computer Law conference, although I don't know if I'm allowed to say this as one of the organisers, so take my praise with a pinch of salt. The first Geek Law workshop had a bit of everything geek: killer robots, SETI, the Matrix, Power Rangers, virtual property, MMORPGs, anime, manga, porn, thermodynamics, Harry Potter, 1984, and more references to Monty Python than the Holy Grail's special edition DVD. We also discovered that Disney and Beckham are geek too.

My highlights? Anime, anime, anime; a MIDI rendition of The Girl From Ipanema; feeling that gaming is OK (or not if you want a social life); and a limerick that ends with "De minimis non curat lex".

Paraphrasing Lilian Edwards, "this was like a normal conference, but without all the boring papers".

Late BlogDay 2006

I'm posting my BlogDay list very late this year. I can only use as an excuse that I've been rather busy with the Conference to do the BlogDay its deserved favour. Without further excuses, here is the list (in no particular order):

Terra Nova: Blogging, MMORPGs and gaming, what's there not to like? Most interesting is the academic look and serious discussion of new worlds. While it tends to be quite WoW-heavy, I always enjoy learning about the latest game-related research.

PatentingLives: Jo Gibson's scholarly and most excellent blog.

IPKat: The best IP blog out there. Fun to read, informative and full of cats. Jeremy and Ilanah do a splendid job with this amazing resource, a must-read for anyone with even a passing interest in IP in the UK.

Machine Envy: Becky Hogge's new blog has become one of my must-reads, particularly because I enjoy her articles in openDemocracy, and it offers a deeper look into the writing process and how some of her ideas come about.

Blogzilla: Ian Brown's blog. The best name ever.

I also like Lilian's blog (the blog formerly know as Blogscript); Oso, Moreno, Abogado; Quemarlasnaves; and carobotero.

Close Wikipedia!

Excellent article by Bill Thompson on the problems of accuracy in Wikipedia. Bill says that:

If Wikipedia can find a way to combine community participation with greater oversight, perhaps by encouraging every registered user to check changes and edits instead of leaving it largely to the central cabal of administrators, then they may be able to make the new approach work.
Perhaps we should all be asked to check one random page for every ten or twenty we look at, giving our time to make the site work in return for better content?

It is true that there is a serious problem with giving power to users to edit, as exemplified by Stephen Colbert's take on the entry for Wikipedia and elephants. However, there is already a two-tier system in Wikipedia, with IPs (unregistered users) who generate minor edits, and registered users who are supposed to be more responsible and a part of the community.

As someone who has had some frustrations with Wikipedia, I agree with Bill's take on this subject. Maintaining the vibrant nature of the site, while making sure articles are accurate, should be the desired balance.

Universal revolutionises music downloads

Vivendi Universal has announced that it will offer its music catalogue for free in a legal download site in exchange of advertisement. This could be a tremendous hit for other legal download sites. This may be an indication that some music executives could be throwing in the towel in their War on Piracy. It also means that the P2P business model of web advertisement does indeed work.

Although I think that iTunes has achieved enough market power and brand recognition to be safe, this move may spell doom for smaller struggling download services, and it could even dent some P2P networks, which are still as strong as before the RIAA and IFPI started suing users.

Wikicharts

Wikipedia has millions of articles, but what do people actually read? The recently created Wikipedia charts may give us a rough idea of user's real interests. As of today, the top articles are:

1. Main Page
2. JonBenét Ramsey
3. United States
4. Wikipedia
5. Pluto
6. Irukandji jellyfish
7. Wii
8. Jeff Hardy
9. Pokémon
10. Neighbours

I find the list rather depressing, although Pluto and the Irukandji jellyfish are surprise entries, and I also have to admit that I had underestimated the popularity of both Pokémon and Neighbours. Further down the list, things get even more interesting. List of big-bust models and performers is at number 14, with List of female porn stars (19) and List of sex positions (32). Makes you think that the famous machinima is true, and the Internet is for porn.

Gaming and anime are doing really well in Wikipedia: Wii (7), Pokémon (9), Fable (20), Sasuke Uchiha (25) Final Fantasy VII (35), Red-Haired Shanks (39), Son Goku (Dragon Ball) (85) and Dragon Ball GT (92); just to mention a few. Unfortunately, wrestling is also very popular (why, oh why?).

What about technology law? The highest possible legal-tech-related article is BitTorrent at 95. Yes, nobody cares about the law...

The most disturbing articles? I'm trying to decide between the high popularity of Beverly Hills, 90210 (73), or the World Wrestling Entertainment roster (18). However, Priyanka Chopra (13) restores my faith in humanity.

IT World Conference next week

This is the last week of registration for the VI Computer Law World Conference. If you're anywhere near Edinburgh, be sure to drop by and join us in this event.

Software patent on the BBC

I have been enjoying watching the Dragon's Den on BBC2. This is a TV program where inventors pitch their ideas to a group of potential investors. The combination of wacky inventions, nervous pitches, colourful personalities and some memorable put-downs make this a quite enjoyable program. Last night's winner was one Mr. Ian Chamings, a former DJ and now a patent attorney. His pitch was for a website called MixAlbum.com (the site seems to be under construction at the moment). The site is an iTunes for dance music, with the supposed novelty that it can automatically mix two songs and sell the result. Mr Chamings obtained £150,000 GBP from two Dragons for 40% of his company. One of the elements that swayed the investors was the fact that Mr Chamings has a patent on his work.

Needless to say, as soon as I heard the word "patent" my interest was piqued. Doing some research, I have found that this software is indeed patented as a "computer aided music mixing system" under UK patent GB2370405. I'm really surprised that this product was able to get a patent in the UK! The abstract and the patent clearly are describing an algorithm for software. This is not a computer implemented invention in the sense of the defunct European Directive, and most certainly it is not under any conceivable manner a computer application that has a technical effect, as required by European and UK patent practice and case law.

Furthermore, mixing software is not a novel idea, and the prior art is extensive, as there has been mixing software in the market for years and years, (MixMeister and MixVibes just to mention two of them). The patent application discusses some of the prior art, but claims novelty on the grounds of being an automated system, and because it performs the mixing more efficiently than its predecessors, which in itself should not warrant a patent.

This is further evidence of the insidious creep of software patents in the UK and Europe, as if further evidence was required, considering the wealth of examples of already patented software.

Apple settles iPod suit

Apple is settling a patent dispute with Creative, the makers of rival digital player ZEN. According to reports, Apple will pay $100 million USD to Creative in an amicable solution to the patent infringement suit. Creative Technology owns U.S. patent 6,928,433 which protects an "Automatic hierarchical categorization of music by metadata". The patent covers:

"A method, performed by software executing on the processor of a portable music playback device, that automatically files tracks according to hierarchical structure of categories to organize tracks in a logical order. A user interface is utilized to change the hierarchy, view track names, and select tracks for playback or other operations."

This patent can clearly be used by Creative against other portable players. It seems like Apple did the right thing in settling this potentially costly litigation.

Don't download this song on campus

Two comedy items received through the Cyberprof mailing list, one intentional and one not (we hope). Behold the Campus Downloading video, a release by the RIAA to scare students into not downloading music on campus. I bet that this video will acquire cult status only equaled by Reefer Madness, due to its over-the-top scaremongering and use of threatening tactics.

The video includes all the rhetoric that we have come to expect from the RIAA, including the use of "stealing" at any opportunity; it also reminds us that there are criminal penalties for downloading music, so you can end up in jail. We also meet Derek, who in a surreal interview tells us about how he was taken from class by the police, had an FBI agent talk to him about copyright law, how he "works 40 hours a week" just to pay for legal fees, and how downloading has ruined his life. Call me cynical, but I think that his settlement with the RIAA included appearing in this video. We then hear about a computer expert who talks about how people can catch viruses from P2P, with shots of the guy fixing the inside of the computer because "the hard drive has been destroyed by the virus". It also probably eats your food, and steals your girlfriend while it's at it.

I propose the following IMDB tagline for Campus Downloading: "Cautionary tale features a fictionalized and highly exaggerated take on the use of the Internet. A trio of P2P programs lead innocent teenagers to become addicted to downloads, wild parties, and jazz music."

If you feel your sanity slipping away after watching the RIAA video, then do have a look at Weird Al Jankovic's new song: Don't Download this Song. The lyrics are nothing but inspired:

Once in a while,
maybe you will feel the urge
to break international copyright law;
by downloading MP3s,
from file-sharing sites,
like Morpheus, or Grokster, or LimeWire or KazAA.

But deep in your heart,
you know the guilt will drive you mad,
and the shame will leave a permanent scar;
'cause you start up stealing songs,
then you're robbing liquor stores,
and selling crack,
and running over school kids with your car.

By the way, you can download this song.

NYT studies paedophile chat rooms

This is a thorough yet slightly panicky report from the New York Times about online paedophile chat rooms and fora. We are told about the strange world of the paedophile support groups online, where participants exchange stories, fantasies, technology tips and discuss job offers. Some experts are called to give their opinion about the dangers of such sites, such as the fact that it reinforces their own twisted views that what they do is not illegal. They also share "paedophile propaganda" designed to ensnare children. They also discuss political activism and ways to change the status quo (apparently, there is a paedophile party in Holland).

The article is perhaps obviously explosive, and almost designed to send worried parents into paranoia. When describing the types of jobs that paedophiles hold, it listed children's parties DJs; paediatric nurses; piano teachers; an employee at a water theme park and a paediatrician specializing in gynecology. But most worryingly, the paedophile's preferred job seems to be teaching, while the most common method of accessing minors was through their own families.

While the article makes an excellent point about the power of reinforcement that online communities have, I must admit that this type of technophobe moral panic is a pet-peeve of mine. The story weaves both online and offline behaviours into a seamless continuum, always hinting that the problem has been exacerbated by the Internet. If one were to go by articles such as this, it would be logical to believe that the online world is teeming with criminals, crooks and perverts.

You're better off staying at home and reading the Daily Mail.

First WiMax UK city

Milton Keynes is set to be the first UK city to be covered by a WiMax network. Telecoms firm Pipex is planning to join Intel to roll out the network on the unsuspecting Milton-Keynesian public. With 3G sales lagging, WiMax could still try to corner the hi-speed wireless network market.

At least there is going to be one reason to move to Milton Keynes.

Scam, UN style

I love phishing and Nigerian scam letters. I love receiving letters from the late wife of the former president of Burkina Faso, when they cannot even spell "Burkina Faso" correctly. There is something to be said for human stupidity and greed. I've just received a new scam letter. It is better written than other similar letters, so I will reproduce it here with my comments in blue (red was a bit annoying):

UNITED NATIONS ORGANISATION
IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
WORLD BANK FACT-FINDING & SPECIAL DUTIES OFFICE
[Impressive name-dropping here. UN, IMF and the World Bank, all in the first three lines!]
Office of The Director Special duties.
London, United Kingdom
TEL: +447031924614
FAX: +448709127823
Email: *deleted*@msn.com
[First mistake. We are asked to believe that this UN worker is sending this message from his MSN account. The phone number is a mobile phone number. Don't they have offices at the UN-IMF-WB?]

Special duties reference
**UNO/WBF LM-05-371**
**ORDERING CONTRACTOR:
UNO/WBF - UK
DIPLOMATIC BOX 55KG
[That sounds impressive, we have a code!]

To the Beneficiary,
[Another typical scam flag, you are never addressed by name]

The World Bank Group, Fact Finding & Special Duties office In conjunction with the United Nations Organization, has received part of your pending payment with reference number (LM-05-371) amounting to US$ 5Million (Five Million United State Dollars) out of your contractual/inheritance funds from our ordering contractor Bank quoting reference to UNO/WBF LM-05-371, the said payment is been arranged in a Security-proof box weighing 55kg padded with synthetic nylon. According to information gathered from the bank's security computer we were notified that you have waited for so long to receive this payment without success, we also confirmed that you have not met all statutory requirements in respect of your pending payment.
[Why would the UN and the World Bank handle inheritance boxes? Are the funds contractual/ or inheritance? This is tailored for people who have no idea how the UN works]

You are therefore advised to contact our Payment Clearance Department to obtain necessary information to the Security Courier Service Company that is specialized in sending diplomatic materials and information from one country to another, which also has diplomatic immunity to carry consignment (Box) such as this.
[Where to start with this one? Why does anybody require diplomatic immunity to carry consignment boxes? ]

This office has met with this Security Courier Service and concluded shipping arrangement with them,therefore shipment will commence as soon as we have your go ahead order,the diplomat who will be bring in this Consignment(Box) to you is an expert and has been in this line of work for many years now so you have noting to worry about.
[They could at least try to get their grammar right]

After all arrangements we have concluded that you must donate Five Hundred Thousand United States Dollars (USD500,000.00) to a charity organization we designate to you as soon as you receive your money. To this effect, in your response you should send to us a promissory note promissing to donate the stated about and also with your address where you will like the Box to be delivered. Please maintain topmost secrecy as it may cause a lot of problems if found out that we are using this media to help you. Therefore you are advised not to inform anyone about this until you received your money.
[Finally! Here is the hook. They are making you a favour by bringing this in, but you will have to do something in order to get it.]

The above requirement qualifies you for final remittance process of the received sum. Please confirm message granted with "GO AHEAD ORDER" on mail:
[Yeah, sure. You can steal my DVD collection while you're at it as well.]

Making Linux user-friendly

Some news from LinuxWorld, which is taking place in San Francisco. When Larry Lessig began by calling open source to arms, the tone for the meeting was set as a defining event for the community. One of the goals of open source developers has been to produce a user-friendly Linux desktop that can be used by the non-techie public, which has not been achieved in the past. Every year we read articles promising that this is going to be the year of the Linux server, but the promise continues to prove elusive. While Linux distributions like SuSE and Ubuntu are advancing as excellent desktop solutions, but they are not ready for mass consumption.

When non-technically inclined people ask me about whether I think Linux they should switch to Linux, my advice is generally that they should still wait. In my own experience installing Linux takes a long time, and getting everything running when you are not a developer can be frustrating, particularly if you are not familiar with command prompts, installation and compilations. Although latest versions are much better, I think that Linux is still not ready for the mainstream.

It seems like people at LinuxWorld agree. A panel of top open source names included some comments with regards to Linux usability. Eric Raymond commented that younger users are concerned about games and multimedia (yes, people do like graphic user interfaces, it's not the 80's anymore). According to Raymond, the top question he gets from people under thirty is "will it work with my iPod?" Raymond claims that there is a golden window of opportunity for Linux before Windows Vista hits the market, and Windows users will be looking for alternatives to buying and installing the DRM-laden monstrosity.

I'm going to try to run my iPod with the new SuSE installation. I just hope that my music survives. Who know? Migration may be closer than I thought.

Blogosphere Wars

It seems that as the blogosphere grows, one of the themes that keeps fascinating bloggers is all about readership. Who has it, who does not, and how do you get more links. The blogosphere is buzzing about the latest post that takes a look at the great readership divide. In the words of Nicholas Carr:

"Once upon a time there was an island named Blogosphere, and at the very center of that island stood a great castle built of stone, and spreading out from that castle for miles in every direction was a vast settlement of peasants who lived in shacks fashioned of tin and cardboard and straw."

Looking in from the shacks, it is amusing to see the amount (and vitriol) of replies this comment has gotten (and here I am adding to the hype). The Guardian's Technology Blog has linked to some of the responses.

This is a topic close to my own interests, I have repeatedly stated that the blogosphere clearly displays the behaviour of power law distribution, as explained by this article. Blogs follow clear link-ratio behaviours, where older players are rewarded with more links, and it becomes increasingly difficult for new blogs to reach wider recognition because they inhabit the long-tail.

The way out of the freezing cold is to be linked by the top bloggers, but this happens rarely. I don't think this will be the last time we hear about this topic.

Software support

It is interesting to notice what happens when things go horribly wrong with your computer. I have a Windows system at home and a dual-boot laptop. Over the weekend I installed SUSE 10.1 on the laptop, and I have to say that this is the best Linux release yet. Fast installation, seamless and easy-to-follow instructions, and for the first time in my experience, everything works out of the box (well, almost everything, you still need to implement DVD support for legal reasons). I had several questions about installing and running certain components, but I was able to find answers in the online documentation and in the impressive network of online forums where knowledgeable Linux users will provide friendly advice and suggestions.

Contrast that experience with what happened yesterday when I tried to re-install Windows XP. The Windows machine has been giving me some problems for the last month, so I decided to reformat and reinstall. This is pretty straightforward process most of the time, as Files and Settings Transfer usually allows me to hit the ground running after an installation. Big mistake. I made copies of my files and settings and saved them into my iPod (yet another great use for the trusty player), and I encountered my first support problem. My first chore was to generate a bootable CD of Windows XP SP2 to make installation cleaner and to have a native SP2 system instead of an update. This can be done supposedly by following instructions from Microsoft's TechNet, but their articles were incomplete, and they left you hanging at the worst time. In the end I had to use a third party application to build the CD.

After this, I reinstalled Windows, when I discovered to my horror that Files and Settings Transfer would not work! There are several problems with the application, and some patches from Microsoft, but the instructions in TechNet were completely misleading, and they ignored what I found online to be a huge problem. Several forums had a lot of users with the same problem. What to do then? I browsed and the first thing that struck me was the different level of user support offered in Windows forums. A lot of users were rude, and their suggestions were not that useful, sometimes even condescending. Needless to say, Microsoft's own solutions were useless.

After several hours of browsing and beating my head against the wall, I found an obscure reference to the fact that this could be caused by files being Read Only. I went into the Windows Command Prompt and used "attrib" to get rid of the protection. It worked! How hard is it for Microsoft's support to write a small article with this short and useful information?

Anyway, after reinstalling the files and settings, my computer started behaving exactly as before. I am guessing that there is something wrong with the Windows settings transferred into the new Registry, as the system worked perfectly before installing the settings. I am now unto the 2nd installation, with almost no sleep, hoping that the system will be ready some time in the future.

By the way, I'm writing this from Linux.

Microsoft Live

I am testing Microsoft Live, Redmond's answer to Google's Internet domination. Microsoft Live offers a search engine, picture folder, blog hosting, Map editor and a convenient WYSIWYG text editor that allows you to edit blog posts offline, and separate from the clunky Blogger editor. The editor reads your blog's style, so you will really know what the post looks like before you submit it. Microsoft Live is also the reply to many online favourites, such as Flickr and Myspace. Users will be able to place their blog, pictures, files, maps and other assorted information in one single space. Live is also part of a strategy to attack other Google tools, such as Google Desktop and other desktop integration programs.

This seems to me to confirm Microsoft's reputation as a catch-up company. Others will make the real trailblazing and innovation, and then Microsoft will descend with its possibility to generate a market lock-in by implementing their new features into Windows.

Just beware that this is a beta and it does not work too well.

Sunday Bloody Remix

This is an amazing remix of Sunday Bloody Sunday, sung by George W Bush.

I am left speechless by the sheer creativity of people who are willing to do something like this.

E-learning patented

(via Jordan Hatcher) Blackboard, the maker of educational software applications, has managed to patent e-learning. At first I thought that this was an exaggeration, nobody could claim such a broad patent as to cover e-learning, right? Behold U.S. Patent 6,988,138, which protects "Internet-based education support system and methods". The title is worrying enough, until you read the abstract:

"A system and methods for implementing education online by providing institutions with the means for allowing the creation of courses to be taken by students online, the courses including assignments, announcements, course materials, chat and whiteboard facilities, and the like, all of which are available to the students over a network such as the Internet. Various levels of functionality are provided through a three-tiered licensing program that suits the needs of the institution offering the program. In addition, an open platform system is provided such that anyone with access to the Internet can create, manage, and offer a course to anyone else with access to the Internet without the need for an affiliation with an institution, thus enabling the virtual classroom to extend worldwide."

Has the patenting system come down to this? This is so broad that I cannot imagine any sort of situation in which an e-learning programme could not find itself infringing. This covers methods, virtual learning environments (VLEs), discussion forums, delivering classes via webcast or podcast, and just about everything else. To make matters worse, the patent has also been awarded in Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, and Blackboard has applied for a European patent (which I hope will be sent back to the fiery chasm from whence it came).

Unfortunately, Blackboard are suing competitors Desire2Learn, which also manufactures educational software. I had a look at their products, and they would seem quite straightforward. VLE software, educational repository, and chatroom applications. Unfortunately, given the broad nature of Blackboard's patent, it seems to be clearly infringing the patent claim as drafted. I wonder if Blackboard will be tempted to sue Big Blue; after all, IBM produces software like Lotus Virtual Classroom, and Lotus Learning Management System, which are clearly infringing the patent. However, IBM has such a large number of software patents that it I believe it would prove to be a costly enterprise.

On the lighter side, there is a great parody of the patent in CogDogBlog, where we learn that Socrates already patented education methods at an earlier date. I wonder if I can obtain a patent for using PowerPoint in class. Given the sorry state of the USPTO, I think that I might just get it.

Music industry sues LimeWire

LimeWire, the popular Gnutella P2P client, has been sued by music industry giants Sony BMG, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and EMI Music. This new case will be the first to try the inducement test introduced by MGM v Grokster, as the music companies will claim that LimeWire is "actively facilitating, encouraging and enticing" copyright infringement within their network.

Will this be the end of LimeWire? Highly unlikely. As it happened with the KaZaA deal, legal action against P2P networks attack specific clients, not the actual network itself. LimeWire is just one of the clients in the Gnutella network, one of the oldest and more resilient P2P networks out there. While Gnutella traffic has been up and down through the years, it has seen a resurgence since 2004 with the demise of FastTrack and the growing popularity of clients such as LimeWire and BearShare. In 2004 the Gnutella network barely made a blip, but by 2005, it had achieved 21% share, and the network seems very robust. However, although it has overtaken FastTrack, Gnutella is still not as important as BitTorrent and eDonkey. There is the fact that even if LimeWire loses the case, its open source brother, called FrostWire, is already prepared to carry the network forward.

What about the legal case against LimeWire? I believe that one argument that will be made by the P2P client's lawyers is to state categorically that the Gnutella network has proved to provide considerable non-infringing uses, with companies such as BadBlue using the network to provide "legal sharing" for large enterprises. It is also obvious that inducement will be the greatest issue. I wonder if the music industry lawyers have obtained some sort of information about LimeWire that will ensure them to obtain an inducement ruling. In my experience with LimeWire, they seem to be operating a tight ship. When you download the client, you are asked to click on one of these two options:

• I might use LimeWire BASIC for copyright infringement.
• I will not use LimeWire BASIC for copyright infringement.
  

If you click on the first one, you will get a message stating that "Lime Wire LLC does not distribute LimeWire BASIC to people who intend to use it for purposes of copyright infringement. Thank you for your interest; however, we cannot complete this download."
There are other similar warnings against infringement within the software. However, at many different stages, people are prompted to download LimeWire Pro, which is advertised as containing the following features (amongst others):

• Faster downloads than ever
• Downloads from multiple hosts
• Auto local network searches
• Better search results
• Turbo-charged download speeds
• Connect to more sources

These could be construed as implying inducement, although this is not clear, as the downloads could be legal.

Nevertheless, this is going to be the biggest legal test for the music industry so far. They will have to spend a lot of money once again to try to get another potentially phyrric result (which is in no way guaranteed), and even if they win, they will have given LimeWire the biggest advertising that it would ever desire. This will eventually strengthen the other Gnutella networks, and if LimeWire ceases to exist, there is a long line of replacements out there. The music industry cannot win this battle with lawsuits alone.

Copyright at the Fringe

(Thanks to Jordan Hatcher for the link). A London law firm will be sending a murder of lawyers to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival to train comedians on how to protect their intellectual property. No, this is not a cheap joke. Apparently, joke stealing is a serious problem at the Fringe, so the lawyers will be releasing their briefcases and thin watches to the service of the average struggling comedian.

I have to wonder, just how are jokes protected by copyright? I think that the best claim for protection is to write down the jokes. The original work will immediately have copyright, and then you would also have rights over the performance of the jokes and against the unauthorised fixation, reproduction, retransmission and communication to the public of said performance. But what if your act is not original? Will we have a new breed of legal hecklers in the audience?

"Hey mate, that joke goes against the Berne and Rome Conventions!"

"You're so bad that I'm willing to claim moral rights against you!"

"Will you be having fair dealing with that?"

[BOOM-TISH]

Meta-phishing?

Phishers appear to be growing more imaginative, perhaps as a sign of growing consumer sophistication about their tactics. I have just received a phishing email that seems to play on phishing scam fears by asking users not to give information away, but then directing them to a website where they have to log in their personal banking details. The scam reads:

"Be on your guard - beware of fraudsters! Ensure that you are logging onto a genuine Barclays site and not being duped by scam emails. Take a look at Online Security to find out more.

Dear Barclays customer,

Like other UK based banks, we are currently seeing very large numbers of "phishing emails" in circulation. Many of these look as if they are from Barclays, typically encouraging you to click a link and type in your logon details. Such attempted frauds only work if you click that link, and you then type in your full security details and contact information.

Please remember: We never ask you to enter your Credit Card information and contact information on the Internet or over the phone. To learn how to protect yourself against "phishing" and other "identity theft" attempts, please spend a few minutes to upgrade to our latest security: CLICK HERE TO BEGIN

We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for you co-operation."

Innovative or dumb? Still, there are statistics claiming that phishing is catching some users, so there may be people out there who fall for this.

Blogosphere is written by somebody else

This is a very interesting article about the growing practice of plagiarism online, particularly fueled by the blog explosion. More and more people are joining the bandwagon and creating a blog, writing their thoughts and opinions for the world to read (or more accurately, for their reluctant and suffering friends and family to read). The problem is that the increase in quantity is in no way an indication of an increase in quality, and some of the new bloggers are finding out that writing is not as easy as it seems (at least I have the excuse that I'm not a native English speaker). What to do then? Give up on your dream to have a blog and an audience? No, just copy and paste what somebody with talent has written. Who will find out? What really struck me about the article is that a lot of people, when confronted with their offence, will just shrug it off and walk away.

I'm just glad that nobody has found out yet that my posts are a clever mish-mash of paragraphs from Boing-Boing, IPKat and Groklaw.

One Laptop Per Child

One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) is a worthy project to combat the digital divide (if somebody utters the word "bridge" I will scream). The project has managed to design $100 USD laptops, which is considered affordable enough to provide children in developing countries and remote rural communities with their first introduction to information and communication technologies.

While the Indian government has refused to participate in the pilot projects, Brazil, Argentina, China, Nigeria and Thailand have agreed to get some in order to analyse the viability of the project.

However, being the realist that I am, I fear that this may be one of those projects that have an air of innevitable failure about them. This is a worthwhile and grand project that could do a lot of good in developing countries, but I'm afraid that as soon as something goes wrong, the press will turn on it and it will be scrapped.

Still, I wish them the best of luck.

Stronger IP rights coming your way

Two pieces of news exemplify that IP maximalism is alive and well, and that the copyfight has just begun (cue Imperial March). The first is a piece in The Times regarding the term extension of sound recordings. The article informs us that those poor struggling artists, Cliff Richard and The Rolling Stones, may suffer in the UK because sound recordings are only protected for 50 years, instead of the suggested 70. How will Sir Cliff survive? The article informs us that:

The singer, whose wealth is put at £40m by The Sunday Times Rich List book, has described copyright payments as a “pension” for musicians and said: “Every three months from the beginning of 2008, I will lose a song.”

My heart weeps for Cliff's loss.

The second piece of news is that the Council of the EU has released a document justifying the plans to produce a new Enforcement Directive. The directive plan proposes to impose and harmonise criminal sanctions for IP infringement. Although the plan is directed towards commercial pirates and counterfeiters, there is serious concern that this could translate into the criminalisation of everyday practices.

The EU better stay out of my iPod.

(Thanks to Jan for pointing out an error in the post)

New draft of GPL v3 published

The second draft of the GNU General Public License version 3 is now available to the public. I have spent some time this weekend reading through the new draft and comparing it with the original. You can find some of my earlier opinions about the first draft in this SCRIPT-ed article. The new draft has been released alongside some useful information about the drafting process, including an audio comment by Eben Moglen and a document explaining the changes. The draft comes after three international conferences, thousands of comments on the website and hundreds of hours of committee discussions.

The text has been tidied and compressed, making the new draft much more readable and easier to follow. However, the end result is still a long document, but it is good to see that there are some efforts in making the license as user-friendly as possible. It must be remembered that the primary audience of the GPL is not the legal profession, the recipients are software developers.

One of the stated goals of GPL version 3 has been to make it compatible with international standards set out in the Berne Copyright Convention, as it has been recognised by the drafters that the licence has international use, but earlier versions were designed with American law in mind. In my opinion, the most welcome change to the new draft has been to get rid of some American-specific terminology by using international definitions. This applies particularly to the term "derivative work", which has specific meaning in American law as a work based on another. However, derivative work has other meanings in other jurisdictions (such as the UK), so the term has been a sticking point for international lawyers and academics since earlier GPL versions. The new draft uses the term "modified", defined as "versions in which material has been translated or added".

A lot of re-drafting has gone into Section 1 with regards to source code. This was perhaps one of the most complicated sections, and it has been considerably cut down to make it easier to understand. The spirit of the section still remains, as it requires the release of keys in cases in which the modified work is encrypted. This was controversial originally, and by reading the new draft I believe that it is still controversial. Although the text has been made clearer, the keys still have to be released, which could be a sticking point with some developers.

The similarly controversial section on Digital Rights Management has also been modified, which is a very welcome development in my opinion. The text used to read: "Regardless of any other provision of this License, no permission is given to distribute covered works that illegally invade users’ privacy, nor38 for modes of distribution that deny users that run covered works the full exercise of the legal rights granted by this License." The new draft now reads: "Regardless of any other provision of this License, no permission is given for modes of conveying that deny users that run covered works the full exercise of the legal rights granted by this License." This is another welcome change, as the mention of privacy was redundant and could produce legal challenges in jurisdictions with restrictive privacy protection legislation.

Another interesting change with regards to DRM is that the draft has added some wording to the previous definition of technological protection measure. The old draft stated that: "No covered work constitutes part of an effective technological protection measure..." This was initially designed to excludes all works distributed under the GPL from the anti-circumvention measures in the WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) by specifically stating that the licensed software shall not constitute "an effective technological protection measure", and it would therefore not apply for such protections. However, this was extremely confusing to those who were not familiar with the legal terminology and the origin of the definition, as it can be seen in the heated exchanges generated by this paragraph in the comments section. The new draft states that "No covered work constitutes part of an effective technological “protection” measure under section 1201 of Title 17 of the United States Code." This makes it evident that what the paragraph is covering is the legal definition of "technical protection measure" found in international treaties and national legislation. Specifically, section 1201 of the U.S. Code is the DMCA anti-circumvention measures provision. This is useful, but if the licence wants to be really international, why not mention the WIPO Copyright Treaty instead?

The most innovative feature of the draft is that the Lesser GPL (LGPL) will now become an extra permission of the GPL, which helps to make the licensing process simpler.

I will continue with the analysis in the following days, but my initial opinion is that I am extremely pleased with the direction that the draft is taking. While it still has some of the problems that I noted in the first draft, the FSF must be commended for the amazing effort placed in democratising the discussion and involving the open source and free software community into the drafting process.

KaZaA deal worth gloating about?

The international record industry has been heralding as a great victory their deal with P2P software producer Sharman Networks, the makers of the KaZaA P2P client. Read for example this note from FT.com, where the settlement is described as one of the biggest victories against online piracy for the music industry.

Under the terms of the settlement, Sharman Networks will pay the world’s four major music companies - Universal Music, Sony BMG, EMI and Warner Music - more than $100 million USD in damages. KaZaA has also agreed not to share pirated copies on their network, while it has promised to go "legal" and start selling music in the fashion of another former pirate haven, Napster.

As far as victories go, this is as pyrrhic as they come. It is no secret in the P2P sharing community that FastTrack, the P2P network used by KaZaA, has been in considerable decline since 2004. To understand this, one has to understand P2P networks, and I believe that some of the journalists writing on this subject are seriously out of their depth when reporting on this issue. P2P clients like Grokster, KaZaA, Limewire, Morpheus and eDonkey do not make a P2P network; they only allow the user to connect to an existing network by using common protocols. There are a large number of P2P networks out there: Gnutella, Gnutella 2, Ares, FastTrack, eDonkey2000, BitTorrent and even Freenet. Clients are applications used to connect to those networks. For example, the Gnutella network alone serves a large number of P2P clients, including LimeWire, BearShare, iMesh, FrostWire, MLDonkey, Morpheus, Swapper, Shareaza and XoloX. KaZaA is only one client in the FastTrack network, which includes other clients such as giFT, Grokster, iMesh, KCeasy, MLDonkey, mlMac and Poisoned. You can bring down KaZaA without bringing down the entire network.

Moreover, FastTrack has been in serious decline in recent years. In January 2004, FastTrack accounted for 46% of all the P2P worldwide traffic. By June 2004, their share had been reduced to 19%, mostly because users swapped to other networks, mainly BitTorrent and eDonkey2000. It is thought that nowadays FastTrack accounts for less than 15% of the global P2P traffic.

Why the celebration then? I believe that the music industry has to show something for their efforts, as it is clear that despite their heavy-handed tactics they have been losing the battle against P2P networks. I believe that they should concentrate on making legal downloads more appealing and interoperable, which will eventually solve most of the issues.

iCommons Summit 2007 announced

The place and dates for the 2007 edition of the iCommons summit has been announced. This edition of the summit will take place in Dubrovnik, Croatia, between 15-17 June 2007.

Wikipedia celebrates American independence

(From Burkhard Schäfer). Wikipedia is celebrating 750 years of American independence on the 25th of July, according to The Onion. The article informs us that the United States became independent in 1256, that there is footage of the original Thanksgiving on YouTube, and that the founding fathers are Jefferson, Washington and FAG. The article also points out that:

The commemorative page is one of the most detailed on the site, rivaling entries for Firefly and the Treaty Of Algeron for sheer length. Subheadings include "Origins Of Colonial Discontent," "Some Famous Guys In Wigs And Three-Cornered Hats," and "Christmastime In Gettysburg." It also features detailed maps of the original colonies—including Narnia, the central ice deserts, and Westeros—as well as profiles of famous American historical figures such as Benjamin Franklin, Special Agent Jack Bauer, and Samuel Adams who is also a defensive tackle for the Cincinnati Bengals.

I have modified the above entry to included links to relevant sources in order to make sure that non-geeks understand the above references.

Blogging behind a firewall

So I am now coming to you from Islamabad. This is a very beautiful city with exceptionally nice open spaces, and some interesting grand architecture that towers above the greenery (we are in the middle of the monsoon season). This is one of those “designed” capitals, so everything is in an ordered grid, which does not detract from the astounding natural surroundings. There are mountains Gandalf, mountains!

One thing I have discovered is that for the first time in my life (that I know of) I find myself behind a country firewall. The most publicised one is of course the Great Firewall of China, but many other countries are adopting the gateway filtering approach. I have discovered to my horror that Blogger is blocked in Pakistan (as is the case in China, apparently). I have of course managed to circumvent the block by connecting to my VPN in Edinburgh, so as far as the Internet is concerned I could still be sitting in my office at the University. However, the circumvention is more difficult for those who do not have the benefit of virtual private networks and such, so I am left to wonder about the efficient manner in which this regulates content. As far as Pakistan and China are concerned, Technollama does not exist.

This of course is a well-explored area of regulation, and it does speak well about Code model of regulation. The Pakistani architecture regulates Blogger (and undoubtedly it also regulates huge amounts of other data). However, architectural regulation does not work that well with the super-users, those who can easily circumvent the architectural restrictions imposed on the network. Those same super-users tend to be at the forefront of any revolt against the technological restrictions.

Pakistan

The Llama Tour '06 continues with a visit to Pakistan. I will be attending the WIPO Seminar on Copyright in the Digital Environment. I shall continue posting, wireless permitting and all that.

DRM-free music sold on Yahoo

(Thanks to León Sánchez Ambía for the link). This is a very interesting new development in the DRM front. Yahoo is selling the new song by Jessica Simpson as an MP3 unencumbered with technical protection measures. This is quite a development, as all the songs sold in iTunes have some form of restrictive DRM protection or other.

The song is more expensive to the DRM alternative ($2 USD as opposed to $1), but you can customise the file and it plays everywhere.

There seems to be a definite swing against DRM in the public, although I still believe that not enough people care.

One thing though, who in their right mind would want to buy a song by Jessica Simpson?

Vorsprung durch technik

Find out how George W. Bush operates.

Computer Law Conference programme published

We have published the draft programme for the VI Computer Law World Conference, which will take place from Wednesday 6th - Friday 8th September 2006. The programme is looking extremely good (if I may say so myself), so get going and register as soon as you can! (llamas not included). The programme for the GikII workshop (4-5 September) will be available shortly. Come to Edinburgh and enjoy the hospitality of the AHRC Research Centre for Studies in IP and Technology Law.

The programme for the main conference is:

Wednesday September 6th

9.00 - 9.30 - Registration

9.30 - 11.30 - Plenary Session

9.30 - 9.45 - Welcome message and acknowledgments: Andrés Guadamuz, University of Edinburgh and Erick Iriarte Ahón, Alfa Redi.
9.45 - 10.30 - Keynote Presentation: Ray Plzak & Steve Ryan, American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN). Title to be confirmed.
10.30 - 11.45 - Guest speaker to be confirmed.

11.45 - 12.00 - Coffee Break

12.00 - 13.30 - Cybercrime

• Chik, Warren. Computer Crime, Cyber Crime and Challenges to Law Making: A Critical Comparative Study of the Adequacies of Computer Crime and Cyber Crime Legislation in the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore.
• Jones, Mark. Amending The Computer Misuse Act 1990 – An Adequate Response to the Global Denial of Service Threat?
• Valeri, Mauro. Europe's first “On line Police station”.

12.00 - 13.30 - Policy

• Lipskier, Natalia; Olivera, Noemí and Proto, Araceli. Legal Policies for ICT in Latin America.
• Mathur, Tarun. Resolution of Disputes Through Artifficial Intelligence: An Interface Between Law and Technology.
• Saravia, Miguel. Creating Prosperity through Innovation: ICTs at Work in Development.

13.30 - 14.30 - Lunch

14.30 - 16.00 - Justice System

• Griffo Oliveira, Cristine. The convergence of Law on Computing Science.
• Gregorio, Carlos. Access to legal information and use of information to enforce the law in Latin America and the Caribbean: a chiaroscuro that could attain an equilibrium.
• Kuchta, Kelly. How the Technical Evolution of Electronic Discovery Will Impact Litigation in the Future.

16.00 - 16.15 - Coffee Break

16.15 - 17.45 - Governance

• Plaza, Juan Carlos. The new IPV6 as a source of legal risks and opportunities.
• Alvarez Cabrera, Carlos. Working Group on Electronic Emergencies: the Latin American experience.
  

Thursday September 7th

9.30 - 11.30 - Plenary Session

9.30 - 10.45 - Keynote Presentation: Professor Lilian Edwards, University of Southampton. Title to be confirmed.
10.45 -11.30 - Keynote Presentation: Mia Garlick, Creative Commons. Creative Commons: Five years On.

11.30 - 11.45 - Coffee Break

11.45 - 13.15 - Intellectual Property

• Al Ramahi, Mohammad. The Ownership of Internet Domain Names.
• Rens, Andrew. Res Communes and Creative Commons?
• Lipton, Jacqueline. Internet Domain Names and Free Speech.

13.15 - 14.15 - Lunch

14.15 - 16.15 - Electronic Commerce

• Menon, Rohan and Mukhija, Ketan. E-Governance in the Indian Corporate Sector: A Long Overdue Initiative.
• Peguera, Miguel. Liability of online intermediaries in Europe: The implementation of the E-Commerce Directive exemption rules.
• Rico Carrillo, Mariliana. Privacy and Data Protection in Payment Systems.
• Valero, Julián and Sánchez, Daniel. Personal data protection, e-commerce, certificates service providers, trusted third parties, certificate validation, electronic identification card.

16.15 - 16.30 - Coffee Break

16.30 - 17.30 Privacy

• De Rooy, Julie. Workplace Privacy in a Technological Environment.
• Hoffman, Sharona and Podgurski, Andy. Privacy Rights and the Electronic Storage of Personal Health Information.

Friday September 8th

9.30 - 11.30 - Plenary Session

9.30 - 10.45 - Keynote Presentation: Professor Michael Geist, University of Ottawa. All Rights Reserved?: Cultural Monopoly, the Internet and the Trouble with Copyright.
10.45-11.30 - Keynote Presentation: Nic Garnett (WIPO). Automated rights Management Systems and Copyright Limitations and Exceptions.

11.30 - 11.45 - Coffee Break

11.45 - 13.15 - Intellectual Property

• Haigh, Maria. Downloading Communism: File-sharing as Samizdat in Ukraine.
• Jondet, Nicolas. La France v. Apple: who’s the dadvsi?
• Meehan, Michael. Virtual Property, Protecting Bits in Context.

13.15 - 14.15 - Lunch

14.15 - 15.45 - Privacy

• Ferrer Serrano, Roberto and Oliver-Lalana, Daniel. Privacy and Identity Management in Communication Processes within Organizations: Insights from the Le-Sig Project.
• Moustakas, Evangelos and Ranganathan, C. Legislative Approaches to Tackle Unsolicited Commercial Email (Spam): A Cross-Country Comparative Analysis.
• Reis, Fabio. The use of visual surveillance system at mass audience festivals in Brazil: looking for a balance between human rights and the need of security.

15.45 - 16.00 - Coffe Break

16.00 - 17.30 - Intellectual Property

• Fotinopoulos, Konstantinos. The ICT European industry and software patents.
• Granados, Palmis. Genetic Patents and Indigenous Peoples in the Third World.
• Wang, Yueyue. Will Fair Use Survive? - Regulating File-Sharing in Research and Education.