Major Book Publishers Demand Identities of Usenet Uploaders (Remember Usenet?)
Some of the world’s largest book publishers are going after two prolific Usenet uploaders. The publishers have obtained subpoenas from a federal court in the District of Columbia which require major...
View Article“More than machinery we need humanity” – The NSA, Verizon, Prism, and You
I’m definitely adding LibrarianShipwreck to my must-read list! The real scandal is not that the NSA obtained millions of phone numbers from Verizon, it is not that through Prism the government spied on...
View ArticleGene patent decision: In Plain English
The Supreme Court long ago ruled that an inventor who discovers a phenomenon in nature, or figures out a “law of nature,” cannot get an exclusive right to use or sell that by obtaining a patent from...
View ArticleAbout Frackin’ Time: Someone’s suing over Happy Birthday’s copyright status.
Jennifer Nelson is my hero! The song “Happy Birthday to You” is widely credited for being the most performed song in the world. But one of its latest venues may be the federal courthouse in Manhattan,...
View Articledanah boyd: where “nothing to hide” fails as logic
So where does this get us? People often feel immune from state surveillance because they’ve done nothing wrong. This rhetoric is perpetuated on American TV. And yet the same media who tells them they...
View ArticleHow is this useful Congressman Fortenberry
Last week, prior to the recent NSA scandals, my Congressman was concerned about the recent IRS (maybe) scandals (on the NSA issue, so far I am unaware he even has an opinion,) his e-mail newsletter...
View ArticleLeaked: NSA’s Talking Points Defending NSA Surveillance
The government has been passing around some “talking points” to politicians and the press trying to spin the NSA surveillance story. We’ve got the talking points about scooping up business records...
View ArticleAl Gore: NSA Surveillance Violates The Constitution
“This in my view violates the constitution. The fourth amendment and the first amendment – and the fourth amendment language is crystal clear,” he told The Guardian, which revealed the agency’s phone...
View ArticleBig Brother’s Prying Eyes
Whatever your take on recent revelations about government spying on our phone calls and Internet activity, there’s no denying that Big Brother is bigger and less brotherly than we thought. What’s the...
View ArticleHow Copyright Makes Books and Music Disappear (and How Secondary Liability...
Abstract: A random sample of new books for sale on Amazon.com shows three times more books initially published in the 1850’s are for sale than new books from the 1950’s. Why? This paper presents new...
View ArticleLife-size gorilla sculpture dressed as Freddie Mercury removed from city...
A gorilla sculpture dressed in a famous Freddie Mercury costume has been removed from Norwich city centre after a charity claimed the animal’s suit breached copyright. The sculpture – dressed in the...
View ArticleFan-Created Subtitle Site Raided By Swedish Police
A new development in the increasingly controversial war against alleged copyright infringement is raising eyebrows in Sweden. Police raided Undertexter.se yesterday, a site which indexes subtitles that...
View ArticleJudge Orders U.S. to Release Aaron Swartz’s Secret Service File
A federal judge in Washington, D.C. on Friday ordered the government to promptly start releasing thousands of pages of Secret Service documents about the late activist and coder Aaron Swartz, following...
View ArticleJudge: Apple Conspired To Price-Fix eBooks
U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote’s ruling in the non-jury trial sets back what Apple claimed all along: that their discussions with the five major book publishers was merely doing business in a new...
View ArticleCory Doctorow: Hacking Politics
Computers permeate almost every aspect of our lives. To fully understand the world we live in, we must understand computers and the language of 1s and 0s they speak. The characters in Cory Doctorow’s...
View ArticleSee how easily freaks can take over your life
Would you panic while internet crooks took over your life? We put one real victim through the test. We scared the hell out of him by gradually taking over his life. His freaked out reactions, should...
View ArticleThe public domain. Now available for only $165 an hour!
Figuring out if a work is renewed can be a tricky business. The only official records of renewal are held by the Copyright Office in Washington D.C. However records before January 1, 1978 are not...
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