Posts tagged as:

law

This Ain’t Right: Fight the Orphan Works Act

July 23, 2008

Jeffrey Zeldman pointed out the dangerous Orphan Works Acts making their way through Congress. This act has far-reaching implications for everyone, but the impact is even larger for those who work or publish on the ‘Net. Ultimately Congress is attempting to reduce your rights as a creator (whether you write, draw, design Web sites or [...]

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IE to Eliminate the Click to Activate Requirement for Flash & ActiveX

November 8, 2007

About six months back, Microsoft was forced to hobble the usability of Internet Explorer as a tactic in their legal battles with Eolas. This lead to much consternation within the Web development community and too much time and money spent implementing a JavaScript workaround that ensured that user’s aren’t forced to click every bit of [...]

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The DMCA and You

March 22, 2006

As noted on Copyfight, the Cato Institute has released Circumventing Competition: The Perverse Consequences of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which takes the law to task for being anti-competitive and derides “Congressional interference in the market for digital rights management technologies.” As noted in the report:
Why won’t iTunes play on Rio MP3 players? Why are [...]

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Intellectual Property and the Public Sphere

December 1, 2005

I haven’t had a chance to read Intellectual Property and the Public Sphere from the “UK’s leading progressive think tank”, but I hope to over the weekend. It should be interesting to read the take of a non-US based group as so much of my perspective is shaded by matters here in the States.
This looks [...]

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Pizzaright

September 28, 2005

Freedom to Tinker introduces a great way to understand the implications of current pushes to extend copyrights: Pizzaright Principle. This litmus test is pretty straightforward, replace the intellectual property term under discussion with ‘pizzaright’:
Pizzaright – the exclusive right to sell pizza – is a new kind of intellectual property right. Pizzaright law, if [...]

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The Supreme Court Overturns the Broadcast Flag

May 8, 2005

In a move that has brightened my day, and reaffirmed the strength of our system of checks and balances, the Supreme Court has ruled that the “Commission acted outside the scope of its delegated authority when it adopted the disputed broadcast flag regulations.” The entire brief is worth a read, or at the [...]

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Lumps of Coal

December 17, 2004

Downhill Battle, a “non-profit organization working to end the major label monopoly and build a better, fairer music industry”, has set up a great campaign to raise funds for IPac, EFF and Public Knowledge. “For every $100 given to these groups in the month of December, Downhill Battle will send one lump of coal to [...]

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The Constitutionality of Software Copyrights

December 15, 2004

As mentioned on The Technology Liberation Front , “Greg Aharonian, Editor/Publisher of the Internet Patent News Service—and one of America’s leading intellectual property experts—has just filed a major lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of software copyrights. In his complaint to the U.S. District Court’s Northern California Circuit, Aharonian details the adverse impact of vague software copyright [...]

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IPac in Wired

November 30, 2004

Check out the Wired News story titled Battling the Copyright Big Boys, which provides a great introduction to what we, at IPac are building, and the goals we aim to accomplish. There is a lot to do, so if you have some time, and care about copyright and intellectual property issues (including whether or not [...]

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The Senate Ponders Bad IP Laws

November 16, 2004

Wired News reports that the Senate may try to pass a hellish cornucopia of copyright and IP laws during the current lame duck session:
The Senate might vote on HR2391, the Intellectual Property Protection Act, a comprehensive bill that opponents charge could make many users of peer-to-peer networks, digital-music players and other products criminally liable [...]

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