Group items tagged

"from the trolls-strike-again dept Techdirt recently wrote about the ever-growing flood of patents being granted by the USPTO. As we've emphasized, more patents do not mean more innovation; nor do they necessarily lead to greater overall benefits for business."

"from the trolls-strike-again dept Techdirt recently wrote about the ever-growing flood of patents being granted by the USPTO. As we've emphasized, more patents do not mean more innovation; nor do they necessarily lead to greater overall benefits for business."

"from the GNU-Emacs-for-DNA dept Techdirt readers hardly need to be reminded that, far from promoting innovation, patents can shut it down, either directly, through legal action, or indirectly through the chill they cast on work in related areas. But not all patents are created equal. Some are so slight as to be irrelevant, while others have such a wide reach that they effectively control an entire domain. Patents on a new biological technique based on a mechanism found in nature, discussed in a long and fascinating piece in the Boston Review, definitely fall into the second category. Here's the article's explanation of the underlying mechanism, known as CRISPR-Cas: "

"from the correct-horse-battery-staple dept Data breaches that expose passwords are pretty much a fact of life at this point -- and the effects are multiplied by the fact that many, many people reuse passwords no matter how much they know they shouldn't. "

"And while it's rarely a concern for rights holders and content protection companies, they also owe it to the rest of the internet to do their best to avoid targeting legitimate URLs -- especially those that have absolutely nothing to do with the content being "protected" and are, as in the case of IMDb, sites that can actually increase sales. "

"from the speak-up-now dept Last week, we noted that there was an effort underway to introduce an amendment for this week's Defense Appropriations bill in the House that would effectively limit some of the most nefarious aspects of the NSA's ability to spy on Americans via two different types of backdoors: (1) so-called "backdoor searches" on Americans' information collected under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act and (2) mandating tech companies build in backdoors to their technology for the NSA to go snooping."

"from the speak-up-now dept Last week, we noted that there was an effort underway to introduce an amendment for this week's Defense Appropriations bill in the House that would effectively limit some of the most nefarious aspects of the NSA's ability to spy on Americans via two different types of backdoors: (1) so-called "backdoor searches" on Americans' information collected under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act and (2) mandating tech companies build in backdoors to their technology for the NSA to go snooping."

Word is that the vote will happen today. If your Congress-critter needs persuading, it's time to jump at that telephone and send a few volts their way. 

"from the blathering-about-other-stuff-coalition dept We already wrote about how US Secretary of State John Kerry made some tone deaf remarks about "online freedom" and transparency during his appearance at the Freedom Online Coalition meeting in Estonia last week"

"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. "

"Nothing necessarily earth-shattering was said by anyone, but it did involve a series of high powered tech execs absolutely slamming the NSA and the intelligence community, and warning of the vast repercussions from that activity, up to and including potentially splintering or "breaking" the internet by causing people to so distrust the existing internet, that they set up separate networks on their own. The execs repeated the same basic points over and over again. They had been absolutely willing to work with law enforcement when and where appropriate based on actual court orders and review -- but that the government itself completely poisoned the well with its activities, including hacking into the transmission lines between overseas datacenters. Thus, as Eric Schmidt noted, if the NSA and other law enforcement folks are "upset" about Google and others suddenly ramping up their use of encryption and being less willing to cooperate with the government, they only have themselves to blame for completely obliterating any sense of trust. Microsoft's Brad Smith, towards the end, made quite an impassioned plea -- it sounded more like a politician's stump speech -- about the need for rebuilding trust in the internet. It's at about an hour and 3 minutes into the video. He points out that while people had expected Congress to pass the USA Freedom Act, the rise of ISIS and other claimed threats has some people scared, but, he notes: We need to look the world's dangers in the face. And we need to resolve that we will not allow the dangers of the world to freeze this country in its tracks. We need to recognize that antiquated laws will not keep the public safe. We need to recognize that laws that the rest of the world does not respect will ultimately undermine the fundamental ability of our own legal processes, law enforcement agencies and even the intelligence community itself. At the end of the day, we need to recognize... the one asset that the US has which is even stron

"from the good-luck-with-that dept You'd think that after years and years of pointless banter along these lines that people in power would understand just how ridiculous they sound when they try to blame search engines for infringement. TorrentFreak points out that the UK's Culture Secretary Sajid Javid gave a barn raising speech to folks from the British recording industry. "

# ! ...No Idea of how the Internet (and the #Culture) work # ! or just another desperate -and useless- anti-culture measure. [#Clue: Pe@ple wants #more #accessible, #cheaper... and -essentially- #Better stuff. They (us) deserve it and can be easily #done.]

"from the streaming-away dept In all of the discussions about cord-cutting, it seems like many times we get lost in the weeds of specific details on certain angles or certain perceptions. Occasionally lost in all of this is the simple fact that the public ditching their cable TV subscriptions is happening and the pace at which it's happening is rising." [# ! … wants to #choose # ! by themselves… # ! …and not another TV # ! Stop #contents #restrictions and #You'll see… # ! #Give The Pe@ple what they want, what they deserve… # ! … and a #new -#fairer- #business #model will #rise.]

"As more and more information about the NSA's global surveillance capabilities emerges through leaks of material obtained by Edward Snowden, the US authorities have been playing the terrorist card heavily. That is, they concede that they have been spying on pretty much everyone, but claim that it was only to fight terrorism, and thus to save lives. In particular, the NSA insists it is not spying on anyone for the purposes of industrial espionage -- here's what it wrote in an email to the Washington Post on the subject just a couple of weeks ago: "

"from the because-of-course dept For many years, despite claims from legacy copyright industry extremists who sought to blame everyone else for any piracy issues, we've pointed out that the reality is almost always that piracy is their own fault for failing to provide convenient, reasonably priced alternatives to the public. When they actually do that, piracy rates almost always drop significantly. And now we have even more proof that these legacy industry insiders know this and don't care. "

"These companies don't have to agree in writing to carry this out or even raise their prices; they can simply, within their separate geographic and product territories, bundle and tie their services, buy up inputs that a competitor might need, and refuse to connect to competitors - among many other potential tactics. It's in their interest for these local monopolists to cooperate, because any defection would make the whole system crumble."

"These companies don't have to agree in writing to carry this out or even raise their prices; they can simply, within their separate geographic and product territories, bundle and tie their services, buy up inputs that a competitor might need, and refuse to connect to competitors - among many other potential tactics. It's in their interest for these local monopolists to cooperate, because any defection would make the whole system crumble."

"These companies don't have to agree in writing to carry this out or even raise their prices; they can simply, within their separate geographic and product territories, bundle and tie their services, buy up inputs that a competitor might need, and refuse to connect to competitors - among many other potential tactics. It's in their interest for these local monopolists to cooperate, because any defection would make the whole system crumble."

"from the time-to-get-it-right dept As we just mentioned, it looks like there aren't enough votes in Congress to give the President and the US Trade Rep the "fast track" authority they want to cram massive trade agreements down the throats of the American public. Nancy Pelosi, whose statement last week helped signal that it was a real possibility that support for fast track would no longer be likely, has now penned an op-ed for USA Today claiming that fast track is on its last legs, highlighting that Congress (not the executive branch) has the power to regulate commerce with foreign countries. Meanwhile, supporters of trade have put into motion an attempt to salvage fast track, which may lead to a vote as soon as tomorrow -- but seems like a risky gambit that may not succeed. "

"from the time-to-get-it-right dept As we just mentioned, it looks like there aren't enough votes in Congress to give the President and the US Trade Rep the "fast track" authority they want to cram massive trade agreements down the throats of the American public. Nancy Pelosi, whose statement last week helped signal that it was a real possibility that support for fast track would no longer be likely, has now penned an op-ed for USA Today claiming that fast track is on its last legs, highlighting that Congress (not the executive branch) has the power to regulate commerce with foreign countries. Meanwhile, supporters of trade have put into motion an attempt to salvage fast track, which may lead to a vote as soon as tomorrow -- but seems like a risky gambit that may not succeed. "

"from the about-time dept A few years ago, the major record labels finally started to realize that, perhaps, shoveling many millions of dollars to the RIAA was a waste of good money, and they severely cut back funds. You may have noticed that, while the RIAA had taken the lead on the copyright front in the first decade of the new century"

"from the but-you-can-trust-them dept The big broadband players keep trying to tell us (and politicians and regulators) how good they are and how much we can trust them. Part of their whole pitch on killing net neutrality is that they'd never do anything to harm consumers." [ # ! First... # ! #citizens' #swindling; # ! then, #government #bribing... # ! #Unfair, anyhow we look at it. # ! :/]

"from the but-you-can-trust-them dept The big broadband players keep trying to tell us (and politicians and regulators) how good they are and how much we can trust them. Part of their whole pitch on killing net neutrality is that they'd never do anything to harm consumers."

"As also noted, the claim was quickly picked up by media outlets and large ISP executives as the centerpiece of a campaign to convince the press, public and regulators that Title II will result in the sky falling. The cable industry was also quick to use the study as the underpinning of a series of ads pretending they care about soaring consumer bills (adorabl"

"As also noted, the claim was quickly picked up by media outlets and large ISP executives as the centerpiece of a campaign to convince the press, public and regulators that Title II will result in the sky falling. The cable industry was also quick to use the study as the underpinning of a series of ads pretending they care about soaring consumer bills (adorabl"

"Today, open, uncopyrightable APIs continue to spur the creation and adoption of new technologies. When programmers can freely reimplement or reverse engineer an API without obtaining a costly license or risking a lawsuit, they can create compatible software that the interface's original creator might never have envisioned or had the resources to develop."

"Today, open, uncopyrightable APIs continue to spur the creation and adoption of new technologies. When programmers can freely reimplement or reverse engineer an API without obtaining a costly license or risking a lawsuit, they can create compatible software that the interface's original creator might never have envisioned or had the resources to develop."