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"The perennial FOIA Reform Masquerade Ball is again under way, with legislators attempting to dodge blustery requests to "cut in" by administration officials and similarly-motivated federal agencies. The dance usually ends with Congressional committee chairmen yanking needles from records and booting everyone out of the dancehall. Meanwhile, limited headway is being made in another branch of the government, far from the muffled protests of overwhelming majorities who have been shouted down by parties of one. The DC Appeals Court has just ruled that the government must extend its FOIA fee discounts to students at educational institutions, rather than just to instructors and administration. "

"The perennial FOIA Reform Masquerade Ball is again under way, with legislators attempting to dodge blustery requests to "cut in" by administration officials and similarly-motivated federal agencies. The dance usually ends with Congressional committee chairmen yanking needles from records and booting everyone out of the dancehall. Meanwhile, limited headway is being made in another branch of the government, far from the muffled protests of overwhelming majorities who have been shouted down by parties of one. The DC Appeals Court has just ruled that the government must extend its FOIA fee discounts to students at educational institutions, rather than just to instructors and administration. "

"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. "

" Andy on April 12, 2016 C: 110 News In the latest broadside in the content takedown debate, RIAA chief Cary Sherman has suggested that Google-owned YouTube is short-changing the labels by operating a DMCA-protected protection racket. Unsurprisingly Google sees things quite differently, noting that the tools already exist to take down unauthorized content on a permanent basis."

" Andy on April 12, 2016 C: 110 News In the latest broadside in the content takedown debate, RIAA chief Cary Sherman has suggested that Google-owned YouTube is short-changing the labels by operating a DMCA-protected protection racket. Unsurprisingly Google sees things quite differently, noting that the tools already exist to take down unauthorized content on a permanent basis."

" Andy on March 18, 2014 C: 8 Breaking Following today's copyright settlement between Google and Viacom, it's interesting to note that YouTube still has plenty of illicit Hollywood content online. The MPAA has certainly noticed, with an effort last week to have several Popcorn Time-style dedicated web interfaces de-listed by Google, a request that was declined."

" Rick Falkvinge on April 6, 2014 C: 3 Opinion There's a European Election coming up. Voting starts in about one month, with the main election days on May 22-25. We've had many victories as activists and concerned citizens in the past five years to defend the net and its liberty, but the main showdown looks like it'll come down in the next five years. Your vote is going to matter."

" Rick Falkvinge on April 6, 2014 C: 3 Opinion There's a European Election coming up. Voting starts in about one month, with the main election days on May 22-25. We've had many victories as activists and concerned citizens in the past five years to defend the net and its liberty, but the main showdown looks like it'll come down in the next five years. Your vote is going to matter."

"Citizens made to feel that they "are the subject of constant surveillance." by Cyrus Farivar - Apr 8 2014, 4:25pm CEST"

Just finished reading the court's opinion. I can only wish that the U.S. government had such fine-tuned respect for civil rights Not quoted in the linked article, but opinion paragraph 68 is very bad news for U.S. service providers: "In the second place, it should be added that that directive does not require the data in question to be retained within the European Union, with the result that it cannot be held that the control, explicitly required by Article 8(3) of the Charter, by an independent authority of compliance with the requirements of protection and security, as referred to in the two previous paragraphs, is fully ensured. Such a control, carried out on the basis of EU law, is an essential component of the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data (see, to that effect, Case C-614/10 Commission v Austria EU:C:2012:631, paragraph 37).". The Court is holding, in other words, that an E.U. network *must* be created that can prevent user's data from being transported outside the E.U., that user's data retained for law enforcement or national defense purposes cannot be transmitted or stored outside the E.U. It will take awhile for this to be transposed into national laws. But this is very good news for folks in the E.U. and for civil libertarians globally.

" Andy on September 23, 2014 C: 31 Breaking Last month UK police took down several torrent site proxies and arrested their owner. Now a UK developer has created a new & free service that not only silently unblocks any website without falling foul of the law, but one that will eventually become available to all under a GPL 3.0 license."

" Andy on September 23, 2014 C: 31 Breaking Last month UK police took down several torrent site proxies and arrested their owner. Now a UK developer has created a new & free service that not only silently unblocks any website without falling foul of the law, but one that will eventually become available to all under a GPL 3.0 license."

"Linux took a principle and filled in an important technology gap that inspired the filling of a thousand other gaps too. This led to the rise of the venerable Linux distribution, as myriad as consumer-grade platforms such as Ubuntu and Fedora, to server-grade such as CentOS and Debian, and down to the downright weird such as RebeccaBlackOS. "

"Linux took a principle and filled in an important technology gap that inspired the filling of a thousand other gaps too. This led to the rise of the venerable Linux distribution, as myriad as consumer-grade platforms such as Ubuntu and Fedora, to server-grade such as CentOS and Debian, and down to the downright weird such as RebeccaBlackOS. "

[ Andy on May 20, 2015 C: 0 Breaking Voltage Pictures, a movie company with a reputation for chasing down alleged Internet pirates, is being sued for "blatant" breaches of copyright. After promoting its own version of a Godzilla movie without first obtaining permission from its Japanese owner, Voltage is now being called out as "outrageous in the extreme."]

[ Andy on May 20, 2015 C: 0 Breaking Voltage Pictures, a movie company with a reputation for chasing down alleged Internet pirates, is being sued for "blatant" breaches of copyright. After promoting its own version of a Godzilla movie without first obtaining permission from its Japanese owner, Voltage is now being called out as "outrageous in the extreme."]

" Andy on May 24, 2015 C: 0 Opinion While plenty of sites infringe copyright on a regular basis, this site is never one of them. However, that doesn't stop copyright holders from trying to disappear our pages from Google search. Sadly, the latest sorry efforts only attracted our attention to even bigger mistakes, such as the Web Sheriff trying to take down a movie's own Kickstarter page."

" Andy on May 24, 2015 C: 0 Opinion While plenty of sites infringe copyright on a regular basis, this site is never one of them. However, that doesn't stop copyright holders from trying to disappear our pages from Google search. Sadly, the latest sorry efforts only attracted our attention to even bigger mistakes, such as the Web Sheriff trying to take down a movie's own Kickstarter page."

" Andy on June 15, 2015 C: 0 Breaking After 2.5 years of operations the Mega cloud storage service has published its first transparency report. Aimed at inspiring confidence in how the company deals with complaints and protects privacy, the document reveals that Mega takes content down faster than Google and a maximum of 0.165% of users have been suspended."

" Andy on June 15, 2015 C: 0 Breaking After 2.5 years of operations the Mega cloud storage service has published its first transparency report. Aimed at inspiring confidence in how the company deals with complaints and protects privacy, the document reveals that Mega takes content down faster than Google and a maximum of 0.165% of users have been suspended."

"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. "

"SDN and cloud technology may cut down on big glitches, analysts say"

"SDN and cloud technology may cut down on big glitches, analysts say"

" Andy on September 15, 2015 C: 22 Breaking A controversial UK Conservative party video portraying the Labour party's new leader in a negative light has been taken down by YouTube. The advert, which attacked incoming Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, contained copyrighted content not authorized for use by the Tories. In fact, the footage is owned by a staunch Corbyn supporter."

" Andy on September 15, 2015 C: 22 Breaking A controversial UK Conservative party video portraying the Labour party's new leader in a negative light has been taken down by YouTube. The advert, which attacked incoming Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, contained copyrighted content not authorized for use by the Tories. In fact, the footage is owned by a staunch Corbyn supporter."

" Ernesto on September 18, 2015 C: 49 Breaking New data published by Canadian network management company Sandvine reveals that BitTorrent's share of total Internet traffic during peak hours is going down. For the first time since the file-sharing boom began it has dropped below 10% in Europe and the same downward trend is visible in the Asia-Pacific region."

" Ernesto on September 18, 2015 C: 49 Breaking New data published by Canadian network management company Sandvine reveals that BitTorrent's share of total Internet traffic during peak hours is going down. For the first time since the file-sharing boom began it has dropped below 10% in Europe and the same downward trend is visible in the Asia-Pacific region."

"Contents 1 Studies 1.1 Evaluation of the effects of the HADOPI law 1.1.1 University of Delaware and Université de Rennes - 2014 - Graduated Response Policy and the Behavior of Digital Pirates: Evidence from the French Three-Strike (Hadopi) Law 1.1.2 M@rsouin - 2010 - Evaluation of the effects of the HADOPI law (FR) 1.2 People who share files are people who spend the more for culture 1.2.1 Munich School of Management and Copenhagen Business School - Piracy and Movie Revenues: Evidence from Megaupload 1.2.2 The American Assembly (Collumbia University) - Copy Culture in the USA and Germany 1.2.3 GFK (Society for Consumer Research) - Disappointed commissioner suppresses study showing pirates are cinema's best consumers 1.2.4 HADOPI - 2011 - January 2011 study on online cultural practices (FR) 1.2.5 University of Amsterdam - 2010 - Economic and cultural effects of unlawful file sharing 1.2.6 BBC - 2009 - "Pirates" spend more on music (FR) 1.2.7 IPSOS Germany - 2009 - Filesharers are better "consumers" of culture (FR) 1.2.8 Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc. - 2009 - P2P / Best consumers for Hollywood (EN) 1.2.9 Business School of Norway - 2009 - Those who share music spend ten times more money on music (NO) 1.2.10 Annelies Huygen, et al. (Dutch government investigation) - 2009 - Ups and downs - Economische en culturele gevolgen van file sharing voor muziek, film en games 1.2.11 M@rsouin - 2008 - P2P / buy more DVDs (FR) 1.2.12 Canadian Department of Industry - 2007 - P2P / achètent plus de musique (FR) 1.2.13 Felix Oberholzer-Gee (above) and Koleman Strumpf - 2004 -File sharing may boost CD sales 1.3 Economical effects of filesharing 1.3.1 University of Kansas School of Business - Using Markets to Measure the Impact of File Sharing o

"Contents 1 Studies 1.1 Evaluation of the effects of the HADOPI law 1.1.1 University of Delaware and Université de Rennes - 2014 - Graduated Response Policy and the Behavior of Digital Pirates: Evidence from the French Three-Strike (Hadopi) Law 1.1.2 M@rsouin - 2010 - Evaluation of the effects of the HADOPI law (FR) 1.2 People who share files are people who spend the more for culture 1.2.1 Munich School of Management and Copenhagen Business School - Piracy and Movie Revenues: Evidence from Megaupload 1.2.2 The American Assembly (Collumbia University) - Copy Culture in the USA and Germany 1.2.3 GFK (Society for Consumer Research) - Disappointed commissioner suppresses study showing pirates are cinema's best consumers 1.2.4 HADOPI - 2011 - January 2011 study on online cultural practices (FR) 1.2.5 University of Amsterdam - 2010 - Economic and cultural effects of unlawful file sharing 1.2.6 BBC - 2009 - "Pirates" spend more on music (FR) 1.2.7 IPSOS Germany - 2009 - Filesharers are better "consumers" of culture (FR) 1.2.8 Frank N. Magid Associates, Inc. - 2009 - P2P / Best consumers for Hollywood (EN) 1.2.9 Business School of Norway - 2009 - Those who share music spend ten times more money on music (NO) 1.2.10 Annelies Huygen, et al. (Dutch government investigation) - 2009 - Ups and downs - Economische en culturele gevolgen van file sharing voor muziek, film en games 1.2.11 M@rsouin - 2008 - P2P / buy more DVDs (FR) 1.2.12 Canadian Department of Industry - 2007 - P2P / achètent plus de musique (FR) 1.2.13 Felix Oberholzer-Gee (above) and Koleman Strumpf - 2004 -File sharing may boost CD sales 1.3 Economical effects of filesharing 1.3.1 University of Kansas School of Business - Using Markets to Measure the Impact of File Sharing o

The Vodafone disclosures will undoubtedly have a very large ripple effect. Note carefully that this is the first major telephone service in the world to break ranks with the others and come out swinging at secret government voyeur agencies. Will others follow. If you follow the links to the Vodafone report, you'll find a very handy big PDF providing an overview of the relevant laws in each of the customer nations. There's a cute Guardian table that shows the aggregate number of warrants for interception of content via Vodafone for each of those nations, broken down by content type. That table has white-on-black cells noting where disclosure of those types of surveillance statistics are prohibited by law. So it is far from a complete picture, but it's a heck of a good start.  But several of those customer nations are members of the E.U., where digital privacy rights are enshrined as human rights under an EU-wide treaty. So expect some heat to roll downhill on those nations from the European treaty organizations, particularly the European Court of Human Rights, staffed with civil libertarian judges, from which there is no appeal.     

"Being available at no cost may not define free software, but it is responsible for many of its ups and downs over the years. Free software, Richard Stallman famously wrote, is "free as in free speach, not free as in beer." The phrase has always sounded clumsy to me -- after all, how often do you find free beer?"

"Being available at no cost may not define free software, but it is responsible for many of its ups and downs over the years. Free software, Richard Stallman famously wrote, is "free as in free speach, not free as in beer." The phrase has always sounded clumsy to me -- after all, how often do you find free beer?"

"The MPAA recently asked Google to remove the homepages of dozens of sites that offer links to pirated content. Google, however, refused to take down most of the URLs, likely because the takedown notices are seen as too broad. "

"The MPAA recently asked Google to remove the homepages of dozens of sites that offer links to pirated content. Google, however, refused to take down most of the URLs, likely because the takedown notices are seen as too broad. "

"from the your-promised-broadband-Utopia-never-arrived dept While Title II is the best net neutrality option available in the face of a lumbering broadband duopoly, it still doesn't fix the fact that the vast majority of customers only have the choice of one or two broadband options. It's this lack of competition that not only results in net neutrality violations (as customers can't vote down stupid ISP behavior with their wallet), but the higher prices and abysmal customer service so many of us have come to know and love"

"from the your-promised-broadband-Utopia-never-arrived dept While Title II is the best net neutrality option available in the face of a lumbering broadband duopoly, it still doesn't fix the fact that the vast majority of customers only have the choice of one or two broadband options. It's this lack of competition that not only results in net neutrality violations (as customers can't vote down stupid ISP behavior with their wallet), but the higher prices and abysmal customer service so many of us have come to know and love"