Group items tagged

"from the free-culture-matters dept We're back again with another in our weekly reading list posts of books we think our community will find interesting and thought provoking. Once again, buying the book via the Amazon links in this story also helps support Techdirt. "

"from the free-culture-matters dept We're back again with another in our weekly reading list posts of books we think our community will find interesting and thought provoking. Once again, buying the book via the Amazon links in this story also helps support Techdirt. "

"from the time-for-a-change dept Here on Techdirt we've written many times about the problematic nature of drug patents. They are harmful both directly, in terms of the price distortions they cause and seek to spread to new markets, and indirectly, through the lobbying that the pharma industry deploys to strengthen and extend them, notably in trade agreements such as TPP and TAFTA/TTIP. "

"from the time-for-a-change dept Here on Techdirt we've written many times about the problematic nature of drug patents. They are harmful both directly, in terms of the price distortions they cause and seek to spread to new markets, and indirectly, through the lobbying that the pharma industry deploys to strengthen and extend them, notably in trade agreements such as TPP and TAFTA/TTIP. "

Techdirt will go beyond the talking points & fear mongering to bring facts to the debate - and we'll go even further, creating an ad campaign that reaches millions to better educate everyone about the importance of encryption. 95%funded so far23days left $9,504raised so far Back this work *This project will only be funded if $10,000 is raised by Mar 26th, 8:52pm CET

"from the the-government-can-doxx-you,-but-not-itself dept Meet the new transparency/Same as the old transparency: The Justice Department has kept classified at least 74 opinions, memos and letters on national security issues, including interrogation, detention and surveillance, according to a report released Tuesday by the Brennan Center for Justice."

"It is with mostly pleasure, but a little bit of sadness, that I am here to inform you, dear reader, that the idiotic trademark lawsuit brought by Citigroup against AT&T because it dared to say "thank you" to its customers is dead. "

"from the double-irish-with-a-dutch-sandwich dept For quite some time now, we've seen EU regulators talk fairly openly about their desires to harm American internet companies, mostly in a misguided attempt to boost local European companies (and to collect more money). It's why we keep hearing about weird, carefully targeted regulations designed to pump up how much money companies like Google, Apple and others pay. "

"from the bad-ansi,-bad dept You would think that "the law" is obviously part of the public domain. It seems particularly crazy to think that any part of the law itself might be covered by copyright, or (worse) locked up behind some sort of paywall where you cannot read it. Carl Malamud has spent many years working to make sure the law is freely accessible... and he's been sued a bunch of times and is still in the middle of many lawsuits, including one from the State of Georgia for publishing its official annotated code (the state claims the annotations are covered by copyright)."

"from the funny-how-that-works dept We've noted for a long time now that copyright laws are regularly used as a tool for censorship. In Russia, abusing copyright law for censorship and to harass political opponents has become standard. Remember how the Russian government teamed up with Microsoft to use questionable copyright claims to intimidate government critics? And then how the MPAA gleefully got into bed with Russia's media censor to celebrate copyright? Of course, Russia also expanded its ability to use copyright to censor the internet, following pressure from short-sighted US diplomats, demanding that Russia better "respect" copyright laws. "

"from the funny-how-that-works dept We've noted for a long time now that copyright laws are regularly used as a tool for censorship. In Russia, abusing copyright law for censorship and to harass political opponents has become standard. Remember how the Russian government teamed up with Microsoft to use questionable copyright claims to intimidate government critics? And then how the MPAA gleefully got into bed with Russia's media censor to celebrate copyright? Of course, Russia also expanded its ability to use copyright to censor the internet, following pressure from short-sighted US diplomats, demanding that Russia better "respect" copyright laws. "

"After the Paris attacks late last year, we noted that it was clear that they were evidence of an intelligence community failure, rather than an "encryption" problem -- which kind of explained why the intelligence community quickly tried to blame encryption. But, as we noted, most of the attackers were already known to the intelligence community and law enforcement -- and there's still little evidence that they used any encryption. "

"After the Paris attacks late last year, we noted that it was clear that they were evidence of an intelligence community failure, rather than an "encryption" problem -- which kind of explained why the intelligence community quickly tried to blame encryption. But, as we noted, most of the attackers were already known to the intelligence community and law enforcement -- and there's still little evidence that they used any encryption. "

[from the our-disregarded-internal-policies-trump-your-First-Amendment-rights dept That whole thing about the FBI not surveilling people based solely on First Amendment activity? The thing that's been in all the (FISA) papers (and agency policies)? Yeah, the FBI hasn't heard of it either. ]

[ ...Jobs that require some human creativity are supposed to be immune from an attack of automation, but it really depends on what kind of creativity. ...]

"from the because-fuck-you,-that's-why dept When pharmaceutical companies defend outrageously-priced medicines, they often claim these massive profit margins are there to help them recoup the money dumped into research and development. But that has nothing to do with the high prices. R&D costs are consistently lower than companies portray them."

"Back at the end of August, we wrote about a ridiculous situation in which the Pokemon Company decided to sue two fans in Seattle who had set up a Pokemon-themed party leading into the big PAX conference. As soon as the threats came down, these guys shut down the party entirely, but the Pokemon Company would not be stopped in its determination to totally bankrupt and destroy such a big fan who was out there promoting Pokemon and Pokemon culture. "

"Back at the end of August, we wrote about a ridiculous situation in which the Pokemon Company decided to sue two fans in Seattle who had set up a Pokemon-themed party leading into the big PAX conference. As soon as the threats came down, these guys shut down the party entirely, but the Pokemon Company would not be stopped in its determination to totally bankrupt and destroy such a big fan who was out there promoting Pokemon and Pokemon culture. "

[from the urls-we-dig-up dept The scientific method has undoubtedly advanced the growth of knowledge, but with the enormous amount of data that can be collected now, it can be difficult to turn all that information into reliable and understandable facts. On the other hand, ...]