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Pangloss is intrigued and slightly amazed to discover that a well known download site called "Rnbxclusive" was taken down yesterday by authority of SOCA, the UK's Serious and Organised Crime Agency and its front page replaced with this: On being questioned by various, including the highly handy David Meyer of ZDNet, SOCA have confirmed (a) that this message is genuine and did come from them (b) that the site has been "taken down" under the common law offence of conspiracy to defraud. The web is awash with complaints that this is the UK's version of SOPA and that the domain name was taken down extra territorially (registered to GoDaddy, in the US, not within SOCA jurisdiction) and without due process. This may well be true.But this rather unexpected approach to the war on file sharing raises for me a number of other, perhaps even more awkward questions.
panGloss
It’s time to introduce a new element: creativity. I’ve tried to find an example of “pure” creativity: the invention of something we use or consume that did not exist before we thought of it. At the same time, it must not be an “enabler” – a good that allows us to do things we had… [Read more…] The Barbarians are coming!”
Reflections on Diplomacy
Falkvinge on Infopolicy - Discussions on information policy and civil liberties
Copyright Monopoly – Jack Zeal: “To Be Esteemed, Be Useful”. A premise so simple and sound, it was one of the earliest mottos of the United States, appearing on their coinage of 1792. Sadly, it seems that this principle is ignored in the intellectual-property reform circuit. I see a lot…
Contrary Brin
I regularly consult with various branches of our “protector caste”... from the military services and homeland security to several unnamed “agencies.” Naturally, I am encouraged by the fact that some of the most serious-minded men and women on the planet are very interested in well-grounded projections of diverse possible futures - not only mine, but those of several other "science & sci-fi guys." Absolutely all of the top-elite officers of these services appear to be convinced, without a shadow of a doubt, about Human G enerated Climate Change (HGCC). All of those I have met consider it to be both real and one of the greatest cha llenges of our time. Ponder this: the US Navy is striving with great intensity to prepare for an Arctic Ocean that is nearly ice-free for large parts of the year. Canada is shifting most of its military budget northward.
Michael Geist - Blog
The government's vision of fostering new competition is somewhat limited. The primary goal appears to be the creation of a strong, national fourth carrier in the market. The spectrum caps and foreign ownership changes are both geared toward giving a fourth player the necessary spectrum and capital to compete with Bell, Telus and Rogers. That suggests consolidation of the current smaller players in the hope of a single, stronger competitor - possibly foreign owned - challenging the incumbents.
CyberPanda
I attended the very instructive seminar organised by the Westminster Media Forum today on privacy, social media platforms and the right to be forgotten . The idea of the 'right to be forgotten' has been promoted by Viviene Reding (VP of the EU Commission) recently and has attracted a number of strong and diversion reactions (e.g. Tessa Mayes` recent article on the subject in the Guardian ).
Welcome to Kevin Werbach's Website
Kevin Werbach is a technology analyst, business school professor, conference organizer, and policy maven. He focuses on the intersection of business, law, and technology in converging worlds of the Internet, media, and communications.
Mediactive - Creating a User's Guide to Democratized Media
It’s time to change the role of the news ombudsman. Two new posts/columns from the people who are best known in this job today prove it. The most recent was a head-scratching query from the New York Times’ Public Editor (aka ombudsman), Art Brisbane — asking whether the Times should be telling its readers when sources don’t tell the truth.The Boston Phoenix has an article about what Facebook coughs up when a subpoena is sent to the company. The paper came across the material as it worked on an article called Hunting the Craigslist Killer . The issues that come to mind for me are 1. Privacy after death?
madisonian.net — a blog about law, tech, culture, and related things
There’s a simple reason why I haven’t commented on the Department of Justice’s warning to Apple and publishers over the agency model for e-book pricing: I don’t understand the issues yet . Unless and until I do, I know better than to hold forth on them. Antitrust economics is specialized, technical, and unintuitive. Everyone can understand the basic idea that a cartel to hold up prices will hurt consumers more than it benefits the cartel.
The Laboratorium
ShareThis March 22, 2012 at 12:36 pm Tags: Law Rev (Maryland) Posted in: Uncategorized Print This Post Comments (0) The Yale Law Journal Online has just published Mistakes, Misunderstandings, and Misalignments , in which Jules L.
Concurring Opinions
This extraordinary book explains the engine that has catapulted the Internet from backwater to ubiquity—and reveals that it is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path to a lockdown, ending its cycle of innovation—and facilitating unsettling new kinds of control. IPods, iPhones, Xboxes, and TiVos represent the first wave of Internet-centered products that can’t be easily modified by anyone except their vendors or selected partners. These “tethered appliances” have already been used in remarkable but little-known ways: car GPS systems have been reconfigured at the demand of law enforcement to eavesdrop on the occupants at all times, and digital video recorders have been ordered to self-destruct thanks to a lawsuit against the manufacturer thousands of miles away.