03.17.10
Posted in Intellectual Monopoly, Patents at 1:44 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: New reminders of the dangers of an excessively broad patent law
• IPO finds cosmetic treatment patentable [hat tip: Glyn Moody]
Following the EPO decisions, the hearing officer in this case considered the claimed method was not treatment by surgery because the intervention did not burn the skin (as was the case in T 1172/03). There was also no suggestion that cells in the body were radically altered in the process (as was the case in T 383/03). The method was also not treatment by therapy, because (according to an expert medical witness) there were apparently no medical conditions that would benefit from wrinkle reduction resulting from the method. On the matter of inventive step, the hearing officer considered that GB2344532 did not contain clear and unmistakable directions to use the known process for reducing wrinkles, and that the use of the process to reduce wrinkles would be counter-intuitive (akin, so the hearing officer considered, to prescribing cigarettes for treatment of lung cancer), so the claimed invention would not be obvious to the skilled person. The objections raised could not therefore be sustained, and the application was remitted back to the examiner to conclude examination.
• Brazil Starts Public Consult On Retaliation Against US IP Rights
The Brazilian government today announced the start of a process of public consultation on suspension of concessions or obligations of intellectual property rights from the United States. The government on 15 March published a resolution of the Chamber of External Trade (CAMEX) launching the consultation, according to a Brazilian government press release.
This follows a WTO dispute settlement ruling in a US-Brazil dispute on cotton subsidies where the US was found in non-compliance with international trade rules. The decision gave Brazil the authorisation to suspend its obligations on US goods including IP rights.
• More Examples Of Patent Incentives Making The World Less Safe [original source is Wired Magazine]
Well, given Monsanto’s history of patenting disease resistant crops — and then over-aggressively attacking anyone who uses such crops (even accidentally), it would seem like a rather legitimate fear. Perhaps, rather than brushing this fear off, the USDA’s Cereal Disease Laboratory (CDL) should work to do something to fix things?
Related posts (about Monsanto):
- Reader’s Article: The Gates Foundation and Genetically-Modified Foods
- Monsanto: The Microsoft of Food
- Seeds of Doubt in Bill Gates Investments
- Gates Foundation Accused of Faking/Fabricating Data to Advance Political Goals
- With Microsoft Monopoly in Check, Bill Gates Proceeds to Creating More Monopolies
- Gates-Backed Company Accused of Monopoly Abuse and Investigated
- How the Gates Foundation Privatises Africa
- More Dubious Practices from the Gates Foundation
- Video Transcript of Vandana Shiva on Insane Patents
- Explanation of What Bill Gates’ Patent Investments Do to Developing World
- Black Friday Film: What the Bill Gates-Backed Monsanto Does to Animals, Farmers, Food, and Patent Systems
- Gates Foundation Looking to Destroy Kenya with Intellectual Monopolies
- Young Napoleon Comes to Africa and Told Off
- Bill Gates Takes His GMO Patent Investments/Experiments to India
- Gates/Microsoft Tax Dodge and Agriculture Monopoly Revisited
- Beyond the ‘Public Relations’
- UK Intellectual Monopoly Office (UK-IPO) May be Breaking the Law
- “Boycott Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in China”
- The Gates Foundation Extends Control Over Communication with Oxfam Relationship
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03.16.10
Posted in America, Europe, Intellectual Monopoly, Law, Patents, RAND, Standard at 6:43 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: The European Commission turns its back on open standards that anyone can accept; ACTA and the Digital Economy Bill show a legal land grab by corporations
WE live in interesting times when constitutions are being blatantly violated and overridden. Lobbyists play a role on behalf of companies whose embrace of our laws that defend us is proving rather deadly. This post is not about the imbalanced patent system that mostly protects monopolies; this time it’s about open standards being polluted with software patents, even in Europe. A Red Hat employee presents some details (it is his personal interpretation, not Red Hat’s stance):
For years and years I am using and promoting the term Open Standards. And it has always been very clear what an Open Standard is and, more important, what it is not.
You can go through various defintions of Open Standards:
* Free Software Foundation Europe
* European Interoperability Framework (v1)
* Digistan
* Danish Parliament
* Bruce Perens
And no matter what differences you find in those definitions, they all agree on some crucial points, the most important being the freedom to use and implement the standard without having to ask for permission or having to pay license fees for the use of an Open Standard.
[...]
If you agree this far, pay special attention to this:
Currently, the Chinese companies using technologies detained by European companies are not allowed to enter into negotiations on the amount of royalties due to the latter, when they use their essential patents in the framework of open standards. The situation is highly detrimental to European companies and their complaint has been reflected in the European Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC) – IPR Working Group’s Position Paper 2005. The Commission therefore urged the Chinese government to take action in order to ensure that those royalties are duly paid by Chinese companies.
Hartmut Pilch from FFII pointed my attention to this and added some valuable comments here.
Bottom line is – DG Trade, represented by Mr. Luc Pierre Devigne, seems to use the term Open Standards in a way that is simply not compatible with the accepted definition of Open Standards. Royalty payments on Open Standards can simply not exist in my view.
So…
Who have we here? It’s a buddy of ACTA lover Pedro Velasco-Martins. Luc Devigne and other ACTA boosters can be found in conjunction in an old report which we mentioned in this post. At least we manage to identify people who are fundamentally against the people whom they represent and instead promote the agenda of large corporations with intellectual monopolies.
As a reminder, Europe overwhelmingly rejects ACTA, whereas the US loves it [1] and here in the UK we have the complementary Digital Economy Bill trying to sneak its way into law [2, 3, 4, 5]. Our constitutions are being stomped on. █
_____
[1] Europe trashes ACTA as Obama praises it
Earlier this week, we noted that the major parties in the European Parliament had all agreed on a resolution trashing the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and the secret process that has been hashing it out. That resolution has passed Parliament by a huge margin—633 yes votes, 13 no votes, and 16 abstentions.
The Greens/EFA coalition praised the vote. Greens MEP Carl Schlyter of Sweden said that “ACTA risks becoming known as the Absence of Commission Transparency Agreement… The EU cannot continue to negotiate on ACTA if the people are not allowed to take part in the process. It is also a totally absurd and unacceptable situation if MEPs, behind closed doors, have to ask the Commission about the content of the agreements we are supposed to vote on.”
[2] Lib Dems to change their amendment to the digital economy bill
The Liberal Democrats are preparing to change their controversial amendment to the digital economy bill, which has its third and final reading in the House of Lords on Monday.
The change would give sites blocked under the bill the power to challenge it in the courts, and to demand legal costs and damages from any copyright owner that caused it to be wrongly blocked through court procedings.
But the Open Rights Group, which campaigns on digital rights and freedoms, said that the amendment would not solve deeper problems with the bill – which may be rushed into law with barely any debate in the Commons – and called for it to be abandoned.
[3] Wanted: a Groundswell of Massive Opposition
Last week I wrote about the great news on the ACTA front, but sadly that’s just one battle we need to win. Another is against the insanely retrogressive Digital Economy Bill – an ironic name if ever there were one, given that it seeks to impose the old rules of the *analogue* economy on the digital world. As such, it is likely to have a huge negative impact on companies using the Internet (that is, anyone in business not still using the abacus.)
[...]
That handily maps out is how we can stop the Bill: by creating that “groundswell of massive opposition”. What I think we need to do is to make it clear to our MPs is how the music recording industry just expects them to roll over and accept the Bill as is, rather than to carry out their parliamentary duties and to examine it and amend where appropriate. We need to get across the fact that this Bill is not incidental, but will determine the economic and social landscape for this country in the next few years; as such, it needs to be drafted carefully, not thrown together at the last minute.
[4] Lords pass controversial internet piracy bill
Legislation to tackle internet piracy, including bans for illegal file-sharers, has been passed by the Lords.
The Digital Economy Bill is now expected to be rushed through the Commons before the general election.
Peers had earlier rejected a bid by ministers to include wide-ranging powers over future online piracy law.
[5] BPI Says That UK Spies Are Against Digital Economy Bill
The debate over the Digital Economy Bill in the UK (the attempt to ratchet up copyright law to repay favors to an entertainment industry that is slow to adapt) has taken an odd twist. Cory Doctorow over at Boing Boing has the details of a leaked memo from the BPI (pdf) to a bunch of recording industry execs and lobbyists, that details the state of the bill and the ongoing strategy for getting it approved. There are a few items worth noting:
1. The BPI seems to think that the UK intelligence community is now the biggest threat to stopping the bill. Seriously. Apparently, UK spies are afraid that passing this bill will drive a very large number of people to switch to using encrypted internet tools, making it that much more difficult to spy on them.
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03.07.10
Posted in Apple, GNU/Linux, Intellectual Monopoly, Microsoft, Patents at 8:03 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: ACTA, patents, and tax law challenged
TECHNICALLY, GNU and Linux make a fantastic platform that is Free (libre), stable, versatile, affordable, yet rather prestigious. The main rivals of GNU/Linux include Apple and Microsoft, both of which are already fighting GNU/Linux using software patents. Sadly for them, software patents are still invalid in the vast majority of the world, so they need to change the law. Here at Boycott Novell we strive to keep track of these issues which we consider to be most vital to the future freedoms of software. We also need to preserve developers’ right to develop programs without dreading a lawsuit over the use of some idea or algorithm. It’s not Free software which cripples the software industry; it’s ludicrous secret code and software patents that do this.
ACTA
Yesterday we showed that the ACTA conspiracy is trying to launder patent law around the world and the USPTO is likely to remain broken because the fox watches over this hen house. Here is an interesting USENET post from yesterday:
Subject: ACTA is one big con-artist scheme
From: Anonymous
Date: Saturday 06 Mar 2010 09:53:35
Groups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
I’m starting to understand why the U.S. is trying to con other nations into ACTA:
First Step: Implement a patent system which allows the patenting of obvious and trivial ‘inventions’, including software patents, business processes etc.
Second Step: Prod your citizens and corporations to patent virtually everything, even the most straightforward and trivial algorithms, patent things which were invented previously and allow the eternal extension of the patent’s duration by so-called Patent Extensions where trivial improvements are made to a patent, but will make it impossible for anyone to take use the invention in the expired patent because there’s hardly any difference between it and the Extended Patent.
Third Step: Force other nations through secret negotiations to accept you ‘Everything’s Patentable’ patent system (i.e. ACTA).
Fourth Step: Since U.S. companies and individuals have patented everything under the Sun, start litigation in countries which were stupid enough to adopt the U.S’s patent system and start raking in money without ever having to lift a finger. Start threatening with trade sanctions against countries that did not adapt the Trivial Patenting scheme, accusing them of ‘Intellecual Property Infringement.’
Let’s recall what Vice President Biden did a few months back (we have the video). The EFF is formally complaining about this abuse of power right now:
The Obama Administration has been slowly ramping up its attention to intellectual property issues. Over the past few months, we’ve seen an IP “summit” at the White House. We’ve seen the successful nomination of a new cabinet-level “IP Czar” position. We’ve seen the announcement of a new DOJ task force for IP issues. What does it all portend?
[...]
The first bad omen came last December, when Vice President Biden invited the RIAA, MPAA and other representatives of the mainstream entertainment industry to a closed-door “Piracy Summit” at the White House. Although Biden’s office sold the summit as “bringing together all the stakeholders” in the piracy debate, it failed to invite a single representative of the public interest or the technology industry.
One outcome previewed at the summit was the formation of a new Department Of Justice “Intellectual Property Task Force”, which was formally announced in February. Unfortunately, the Department of Justice already has a history of coming down disproportionately hard on victims of the copyright conflict. And while the task force’s announcement stressed that IP crime “threatens not only our public safety but also our economic wellbeing,” it didn’t even pay lip-service to the harms to privacy, free speech, and innovation in the industry’s long war on piracy.
Intellectual monopolies are for monopolies; they have almost nothing to do with advancement.
Patents
OSS Watch writes about “threats to copyleft” in a guest post which says:
Combining freedoms and copyleft in the Gnu GPL license (invented by Richard Stallman) was the cornerstone of free software. This is now questioned due to the proliferation of incompatible copyleft licenses.
After counting 1,800 free software licenses used in hundreds of thousands of projects, the Black Duck company patented (Patent US 7,552,093 B2) the technology for controlling the use of open source licensing in a multi-source development process (meaning combined works, elaborated from multiple free components under different licenses).
No need to say that patenting proprietary technology to solve copyleft licenses incompatibility may not be seen by everyone as a major achievement!
This kind of incompatibility is exactly what the monopolies want. They want more patents, which help discriminate against the ’small’ people. Here are some new reports that are mistaking patents for “inventions” [1, 2]. It’s about some person called NakaMats, who might just be a bit like Edison — that is, someone who took other people's ideas and filed them in the patent office (claiming credit for small variants of existing ideas). That’s not invention, it’s organisation.
Patents help lawyers, as lawsuits clearly suggest. Bad players like Rambus (which ambushed the market [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]) get to mess around with competition, using patents. From Reuters we learn that:
Memory chip designer Rambus Inc (RMBS.O) said the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office had affirmed two of three patents at the center of a legal dispute over whether graphics chip maker Nvidia Corp (NVDA.O) infringed on Rambus technology.
Patent Reform
Can one hope for amendments after a co-called ‘reform’ we’ve been hearing about for years. According to TechDirt, the patent reform bill is “more of the same”.
It still tries to switch the US to a “first to file” system, rather than “first to invent” — which just encourages more patents being filed faster, rather than better patents being filed. It has the same (controversial) damages setup as last year, which would be useful in limiting damages from infringement, but which many special interests hate.
Here is some detailed information about the changes.
Supplemental Examinations: Permits a patent holder to provide additional, potentially material prior art regarding the patent to the PTO. If the PTO considers the information and determines it has no effect on patentability, that additional information cannot serve as the basis for an inequitable conduct claim later in court. The information must be presented to the PTO and any reexamination must be completed prior to litigation.
It was unreasonable to expect the USPTO to become reasonable. It is run by lawyers, to whom more patents mean more business and personal income. The fox controls the hen house again.
Tax Evasion
Speaking of income, tax laws are broken because Microsoft is able to evade taxation, leaving it for others to pay the national bills. One of Microsoft’s former employees keeps complaining about this [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9] and in his latest updates on this issue [1, 2, 3] he also includes hilarity from Rep. Larry Seaquist:
Does the Department of Revenue think Microsoft is following the law? Well, we’ve recently received a more detailed response from the department about this issue and will post more shortly. All I’ll say for now is that HB3176 labels this kind of out of state tax dodge an “abusive tax practice”.
As for Rep. Seaquist, when I wrote him to be sure he understood the problems with the bill (and to ask him for a public statement for the blog), he replied, “Gents, please direct your continuing concerns to Rep. Hunter. Very best wishes, Larry”
But Rep. Hunter is a former Microsoft manager. Smell the corruption that Microsoft presence in the United States government has brought about. The fox dominates the hen house again. █
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03.02.10
Posted in Bill Gates, Hardware, Intellectual Monopoly, Law, Microsoft, Patents at 9:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: This is a set/variety of news with no single point of focus
THERE is more patent news (of relevance to Free software) than we can cover exhaustively, but here is a quick list of important articles.
Multimedia Patents
Here is an article warning about the “legal minefield” which is H.264.
If you’re a digital-video professional–the sort of person who records weddings, sells stock footage, or edits B-roll–chances are good you deal with the H.264 video encoding technology. But after reading software license agreements, you might well wonder if you have rights to do so.
A recent blog post by Harvard Ph.D. student Ben Schwartz, including the provocative phrase “Final Cut Pro Hobbyist,” put the spotlight on license terms in Apple’s video-editing software by questioning when professionals may use H.264 video. A similar “personal and non-commercial activity” license requirement appears in Adobe Systems’ competing Premiere package, too.
The patent pool behind H.264 must have its members lick their lips just thinking of how the world gets saturated with their software patents. It gives financial leverage that they have not fully exploited yet. This is why the debate about free codecs should not be dismissed as irrelevant.
Facebook
The other day we wrote about Facebook's latest software patent, which is a problem to many. It’s somewhat similar to Amazon’s one-click nonsense. Why did Facebook need such a patent? “Because Without Patents, No One Would Ever Come Up With News Feeds,” says TechDirt sarcastically.
The purpose of the patent system should be to create incentives to come up with something that is both new and non-obvious, which would not be created without that incentive. And, then, of course, the idea is to share that information with the world, via the patent.
“Facebook’s news-feed patent could mean lawsuits,” says this article which appeared in CNN.
Facebook this week was awarded a patent pertaining to streaming “feed” technology — more specifically, “dynamically providing a news feed about a user of a social network,” complementing another patent filing that has been published but not yet approved.
Patent Markings
This item which was mentioned in Slashdot and covered by TechDirt is a fine example of lawyers interfering with the industry and nitpicking in order to make jobs for themselves.
A few years back, we wrote about some lawsuits that were filed against companies who were still listing expired patents on their products, implying that those products were still protected by the patents. The practice of claiming patent coverage over something that isn’t patented is known as “patent marking,” and it’s become very popular lately. AdamR alerted us to the news that Activision was recently sued for patent marking, in listing out patents on certain games that don’t cover what’s in those games. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Joe Mullin points us to the news that, in just the past few months, it looks like a bunch of lawyers have started going around filing patent marking lawsuits. In at least some of these cases, totally different groups of lawyers have sued the exact same companies over the same patents.
If anyone needed more proof that the patent system hampers society, this is it.
Patent Lobby
“Patent Deal Is Close,” argues the Senate Judiciary Chairman.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., announced Thursday that he has reached a tentative agreement on patent overhaul legislation with the panel’s ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala. “We have reached a tentative agreement in principle that preserves the core of the compromise struck in committee last year,” Leahy said in a statement. Leahy said he hoped to release details of the agreement “in the coming days” after consulting with other senators and House lawmakers.
[...]
The Innovation Alliance, which has been critical of the bill, said the changes “appear to be a positive step in the right direction.”
With Innovation Alliance lobbyists involved, it’s unlikely to be too useful. Microsoft's patent troll, for example, spends millions per year on bogus ’studies’ and lobbying, so the system can be made worse. The word “reform” disguises this possibility because of its connotation. There is some more information in TechDirt.
“Patents and software need to get a divorce before they destroy innovation, particularly the FOSS development process.”
–Pamela Jones, GroklawVirginia Espinel, the “IP” Czar which was mentioned here for her future role serving the Copyright Cartel (after Biden and the lawyers decided to privately make a police state around "IP"), writes in the White House Blog about “Intellectual Property and Risks to the Public”
She wants feedback [1, 2] and Groklaw’s Pamela Jones gives her some by writing: “Can someone show me which IP law protects ideas, as opposed to their implementation or recording in a fixed medium? Even Gene Quinn says there is no such protection. So that would be my best suggestion. PS: Patents and software need to get a divorce before they destroy innovation, particularly the FOSS development process.”
Hardware
Here is another new embargo attempt which shows what the patent system is really achieving:
German Chipmaker Infineon Technologies and its subsidiary Infineon Technologies North America have filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC) against Elpida Memory seeking to prevent Elpida from importing and selling certain DRAM semiconductors and products in the US.
Embargo is not innovation.
According to some other reports, Sony patents a “universal games controller” [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]. It has something to do with an LCD touch screen.
According to a patent recently filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) Sony is working on a universal game controller that could be used with competitor consoles from Microsoft and Nintendo.
A new Microsoft booster, Peter Bright, writes for Ars Technica about another new Microsoft patent, among others that receive coverage in other Web sites, e.g. [1, 2, 3].
Microsoft’s Beijing office filed a patent yesterday for an unusual little device with two distinct functions: one side is an inductive charging pad, for, say, a mouse. The other features a tiny built-in display for displaying headlines or sports scores.
It’s made in China, which is sometimes playing along with the company that commits many crimes. This greed for patents comes at a price though.
Microsoft and Its Patent Trolls
Microsoft claims that it faces over 50 lawsuits that involve patents. One of them seems likely to have Microsoft defeated shortly (next week).
Larry Oakley, editor/publisher of the WallStreetCorner.com investment site (www.WallStreetCorner.com) today reported as an Alert in his “Comment” editorial column that news surrounding VirnetX Holding Corporation’s (AMEX:VHC; www.virnetx.com) patent infringement jury trial against Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT) scheduled for March 8th in Tyler, Texas has caused VHC’s stock price to surge over 40% from Oakley’s “Stock Pick” original news report published on January 16, 2010. Oakley’s latest Alert on VHC was published today, February 22, 2010 on WallStreetCorner.com’s website.
Tyler, Texas. Many patent trolls reside and/or litigate there. But the world’s biggest patent troll is actually a neighbour and friend of Bill Gates, who enjoys the presence of over 1,000 attack dogs that are small legal firms. The Business Times glorifies this troll and so does a Microsoft booster at the Seattle Times (which contains more Microsoft propaganda at the bottom of this article for example). It’s time to shut down this racketeering operation, not to hail it. █
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02.26.10
Posted in America, Asia, Europe, Intellectual Monopoly, Law, Patents at 2:51 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Latest information about ACTA includes explanation of the secrecy, or at least those who insist on secrecy while they conspire against the public
“Inducing copyright infringement will be in ACTA,” says the president of the FFII regarding this new report. Yesterday he shared videos of the hearing about ACTA in the EU.
The top EU official responsible for data privacy slams the ACTA process. This report says that a warning from Peter Hustinx “comes as nations negotiating the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) recently concluded the seventh round of talks at a meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico.” That was a while ago. There is now a Dutch ACTA leak (see article in Dutch) and the following new reports reveal some new information worth highlighting:
• New ACTA Leak: U.S., Korea, Singapore, Denmark Do Not Support Transparency
Throughout the debate over ACTA transparency, many countries have taken public positions that they support release of the actual text, but that other countries do not. Since full transparency requires consensus of all the ACTA partners, the text simply can’t be released until everyone is in agreement. Of course, those same countries hasten to add that they can’t name who opposes ACTA transparency, since that too is secret.
• New ACTA leaks reveal internal conflicts among negotiaters
Countries negotiating the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement are clashing over a proposed three-strikes regulation, the legal basis for such a treaty and the lack of transparency in the process, according to newly leaked documents.
The European Parliament is demanding answers from the European Commission about ACTA, while public outcry and criticism are driving many European countries to demand clarity about the secret talks, which have been ongoing for more than two years. But these E.U.-member nations are being frustrated by the European Commission.
• World, get ready for the DMCA: ACTA’s Internet chapter leaks
The oddest thing about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) secrecy is that, whenever we see leaked drafts of the text, there’s nothing particularly “secret” about them. That was also the case with this weekend’s leak of the “Internet enforcement” section of the ACTA draft; as we’ve noted in the past, ACTA appears to be a measure to extend the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to the rest of the world, and that’s exactly what the Internet section tries to do.
• Written Declaration presented today in Brussels
“ACTA is legislation laundering on an international scale, trying to covertly push through what could never be passed in most national parliaments” declared the socialist Member of the European Parliament Lambrinidis in his presentation of a written declaration that aims at establishing the official oppositon to ACTA of Europe´s elected representatives. He also criticized ACTA´s intention of “systematic monitoring of citizens in the hands of internet service providers, giving them more power than police have in anti-terror operations”.
• Europe ‘will not accept’ three strikes in Acta treaty
The European Commission has pledged to make sure the Acta global treaty will not force countries to disconnect people for unlawfully downloading copyrighted music, movies and other material.
“The EU Commission maintains that any criminal action should be for infringements on a large, commercial scale only,” says the president of the FFII. But the ACTA affects international patent law, thus it’s relevant to us. █
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02.24.10
Posted in Apple, Asia, DRM, FOSS, Intellectual Monopoly, Law, Microsoft at 4:48 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
Summary: Lobby groups of the maximalists from the United States are trying to eradicate Free software in other countries, using lies of course; the BBC blocks Free software
SOME months ago we showed how the Copyright Cartel controls the United States government when it comes to the field that affect its paymasters. It’s highly imbalanced as it assumes that those with wealth should call the shots and the remainder of the population simply accept anything that’s being decided in secret meetings.
According to this fascinating news story, the Copyright Cartel is traveling around the world and reverses truths; it says that Free software is bad for one’s economy, altogether neglecting the factors that are digital autonomy and control, not to mention the jobs which get generated when a nation builds and maintains its own software.
The US copyright lobby has long argued against open source software – now Indonesia’s in the firing line for encouraging the idea in government departments
It’s only Tuesday and already it’s been an interesting week for the world of digital rights. Not only did the British government changed the wording around its controversial ‘three strikes’ proposals, but the secretive anti-counterfeiting treaty, Acta, was back in the headlines. Meanwhile, a US judge is still deliberating over the Google book settlement.
As if all that wasn’t enough, here’s another brick to add to the teetering tower of news, courtesy of Andres Guadamuz, a lecturer in law at the University of Edinburgh.
Guadamuz has done some digging and discovered that an influential lobby group is asking the US government to basically consider open source as the equivalent of piracy – or even worse.
What?
It turns out that the International Intellectual Property Alliance, an umbrella group for organisations including the MPAA and RIAA, has requested with the US Trade Representative to consider countries like Indonesia, Brazil and India for its “Special 301 watchlist” because they use open source software.
So it’s official. The Copyright Cartel, which is a friend of Apple and Microsoft by the way, has brought its disgraceful and shameless lies over to the software arena. Whose back is it rubbing? IDG, at least in the UK, has got some more coverage, but it uses stupid (and incorrect) words like “piracy” and “pirate”. Cory Doctorow does not make this mistake.
There’s a fantastic little story in the Guardian today that says a US lobby group is trying to get the US government to consider open source as the equivalent to piracy.
The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), an umbrella group for American publishing, software, film, television and music associations, has asked with the US Trade Representative (USTR) to consider countries like Indonesia, Brazil and India for its “Special 301 watchlist” because they encourage the use of open source software.
A Special 301, according to Guardian’s Bobbie Johnson is: “a report that examines the ‘adequacy and effectiveness of intellectual property rights’ around the planet – effectively the list of countries that the US government considers enemies of capitalism. It often gets wheeled out as a form of trading pressure – often around pharmaceuticals and counterfeited goods – to try and force governments to change their behaviours.”
Another line of familiar propaganda says that giving something away free of charge is “unpatriotic” or “unamerican” (Microsoft just labels it a "patent infringer" and resorts to extortion). There are many articles out there which expose this pattern of slurs. At least they don’t compare Free software to terrorism just yet (Rob Enderle comes close when comparing Free software advocates to people who crash planes into buildings).
Anyway, Microsoft’s old friends at the BBC [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7] are still adopting the same train of thought as the Copyright Cartel. The BBC not only supports Internet policies that are proposed by the Copyright Cartel (e.g. BPI) but it also uses improper insults or daemonisation terms like “piracy” and “pirate”. According to this exclusive new report, the BBC is now rejecting Free software plugins:
The BBC has quietly updated its hugely popular iPlayer with a verification layer that closes the door on open source implementations of RTMP (real-time messaging protocol) streaming, The Register has learned.
The Beeb applied the update to its online video catch-up service on 18 February, just four days after Adobe Systems penned a corporate blog post about its “content protection offerings”.
There is at least one software company that will be pleased. Well, many of its employees are now working inside the BBC. █
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