Doomsday clock

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Let's see if it gets approved


The recent front page posting "The Doomsday Clock Is Moved Closer To Midnight" got me wondering, Do we need a Doomsday Clock for the Internet?

With the US seriously considering the draconian intellectual property protection measures such as SOPA and PIPA, as well as the US pressuring Spain to pass similar legislation, threats to online freedom are serious and impending.

China has its 'Great Firewall' and Egypt (among others) has disabled cell phone service during turbulent times. Let's not forget that ACTA was negotiated in secret.

Things have gotten so bad that the German hacker space shackspace is considering launching its own satellites to combat such censorship. Even Australia has been in the news with internet blacklisting

The internet was mostly ignored in its early days by big corporations and some governments; it now seems under a microscope. So, do we need a doomsday clock? And if so, who is the time keeper?

Two sad stories on the political front

Techdirt is reporting the obvious: big media is ignoring the SOPA/PIPA controversy.  The implication is that the self interest is preventing coverage. The big media conglomerates have a strong self-interest in ensuring the government protects their intellectual property.  Individual freedoms be damned!

It's sad when outsiders point out how large segments of the population, and the candidates they are selecting to run for president, choose ignorance over science.  But that is just what the folks over at The Telegraph have done in this article about the Republican primary process.

Why the UN should never be involved with the Internet

Underscoring and providing yet more evidence that the United Nations should have no role in Internet governance, the General of the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) says that the Internet would be a better place if it was patented and controlled.  BoingBoing has the sad story.

Copyright / Patent trolls - its the zombie apocalypse

Sad news on the "information wants to be free" front.  Time zone data may not be the most sexy thing, and probably is something most people don't ever think about, but there is a data base of worldwide timezeons. 

The full story is on Stephen Colebourne's blog. 

The short story is that a company called Astrolabe has filed suit against the open source timezone project claiming copyright infringement.

First off, I didn't know you could copyright facts (see 1st question), but what is really insulting is that this company offers free products: a free birth chart (aka horoscope).

Really?

Toward copyright sanity (in the UK)

Ars Technica has an article about copyright reform in the UK.  From the article:

The British government today pledged (PDF) to enact significant changes to copyright law, including orphan works reforms and the introduction of new copyright exceptions. And the tone of the comments was surprising: the government agrees that "copyright currently over-regulates to the detriment of the UK." CD (and perhaps DVD) ripping for personal use should become legal at last—and the government is even keen to see that the consumer rights granted by law can't simply be taken away by contract (such as a "EULA" sticker on a CD demanding that a disk not be ripped).

Can Monkeys own copyrights?

Seems that a monkey was using an idle camera to take self portraits:

So, when websites started using the images, you can imagine what happened.  The Carter News Agency is asking sites to remove the images.  The justification: TechDirt doesn't own the copyright. 

Question is: who does.  If no one, then what authority does Carter have in asking TechDirt to remove the images.  Does the request imply that Carter think that it owns the copyrights?  If so, how.  If not, then the request is baseless.  In fact, making false DMCA take down claims (which has not (yet) happened) is itself illegal.

Copyright Cartel: "Child pornography is great"

While Torrent Freakmay not be the most neutral reporter of news, this article is beyond belief.  (well, given the source of the quote, I guess it is believable).

In short, the copyright cartel (this time in Europe) is trying to associate child pornography with peer-to-peer file sharing in an effort get lawmakers to pass legislation controlling what we do online.

Nice business these guys are in.