war

Law and the pirate bay

On the 29th of January the Frederiksberg county court (in Denmark), at the request of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), ordered (court decision available here) the ISP Tele2 to block access to The Pirate Bay. In 2006 a Copenhagen court ordered Tele2 to shut its customers’ access to AllOfMP3.com, a Russia-based online music site.

According to The Pirate Bay the only other countries to block The Pirate Bay are China and Turkey (Piratbyrån). The Danish Pirate group have already published articles on how to bypass the measures set up by Tele2 and have prepared a letter of complaint for the customers of Tele2 to copy&paste into emails (Also on jesperbay.org).

In Sweden the courts are beginning to move on the Case against The Pirate Bay (BBC News). Similarly in China, three major music industry companies petition courts to order Baidu to remove all links on its music delivery service to copyright-infringing tracks. (PC world, ArsTechnica).

We all know that these organizations are being attacked the question is what is it that they are doing that is so wrong?

First of all it is important to state that these sites, possibly with the exception of AllOfMP3, do not have copyrighted material on their servers without permission. In other words the organizations cannot be sued for direct copyright infringement.

They are being sued for helping others find that material. Some argue that that the role of The Pirate Bay is similar to that of linking (Copyriot). In other words the Pirate Bay is no different to Google or Yahoo. The debate on linking, and in particular on deep-linking & framing, was never really ended. It seems to have fizzled out in the last millennium, with non-cases such as Shetland Times vs Shetland News (in 1996 see for example BBC).

Eventually the whole concept of depth was lost on the Internet – in more ways than one it may seem.

But is The Pirate Bay only linking? The Pirate Bay is a large collection of torrent files. These files (and their protocol) are an ingenious way of utilizing the web to ensure redundancy of information and the a distribution of traffic to remove bottlenecks.

The information contained in these files help to the person wishing to download. With no technical knowledge the user can download copyrighted material seamlessly from several sources at the same time while downloading the user also shares the parts of the material he/she already has downloaded. The actions of the user are a clear case of copyright violation if the original material is copyrighted and is shared without the consent of the copyright holder.

The Pirate Bay stores the torrent files and hands them out to all who want them. They have no way of knowing whether the torrent files contain information about legal or illegal material. Whether it is there with or without the consent of the copyright holder. So are they contributing to copyright infringement?

Contributory infringement analogous to the getaway driver in a bank robbery. Even though he/she did not go into the bank he/she is part of the robbery. There are two parts in contributory infringement: The infringer knew or had reason to know of the infringing activity and active participation in the infringement (for example inducing it, causing it or contributing to it).

It is difficult for The Pirate Bay to claim that they have not had reason to know that their site is playing an important role in the copyright infringement of others and supplying the torrents in a easy to use way could definitely be seen as contributing to the infringement.

Of course the same arguments can be made against many search engines but The Pirate Bay cannot use the argument that it is used mainly for legal purposes as Google would argue. The argument that The Pirate Bay may be discriminated against in the fact that it is being singled out for prosecution may be true but it is hardly a defense that will successfully permit any contributory infringing behavior.

We should expect to see the case against the Pirate Bay move from upwards and onwards until it reaches the highest court. Most probably by the time the case is resolved reality and business models for online content will have changed…

We look forward to many interesting arguments along the way.

Posted on by mklang

Stallman in Stockholm

On the 26th February at 5.30 pm – the Free Software Foundation Europe, Unionen and the Royal Institute of Technology are offering a lecture by Richard Stallman: The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System

Stallman will speak about the goals and philosophy of the Free Software Movement, and the status and history of the GNU operating system, which in combination with the kernel Linux is now used by tens of millions of users world-wide.

The lecture will take place at: Room F1, KTH, Royal Institute of Technology

Posted on by mklang

Education inflation

McDonalds has been certified to award A-levels

It will offer a “basic shift manager” course, training staff in skills such as human resources and marketing.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said the company had been approved to develop courses up to the equivalent of A-level standard. (BBC Online)

Ok so I value the importance of eductation but if you can get an A-level in D’ya want fries with that? then what is next? A bachelors in cleaning? A Masters in pizza hut? A PhD in video rental? Steps like this do not increase the value of the knowledge gained but only act to demean the importance of the A-level as a university entrance qualification.

Posted on by mklang

Interns to the Open Rights Group

The Open Rights Group is looking for summer interns. If you have the time and inclination this is a really worthwhile pursuit.

Are you a student thinking ahead to the long summer months? Are you itching to contribute to an exciting and socially beneficial cause? If you fit this bill and are interested in computer science, politics, law or culture online then come and intern for Open Rights Group.

The Open Rights Group works to  raise awareness in the media of digital rights abuses and to protect digital rights online.

Posted on by mklang

Cape Town Open Education Declaration

The Cape Town Open Education Declaration is receiving strong backing through Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales and Ubuntu’s Mark Shuttleworth.  The goal of the Cape Town Open Education Declaration is to make publicly funded education materials freely available on the internet.

The backers of the Cape Town Open Education Declaration, announced on Tuesday, said the initiative is designed to echo the disruptive effect that open source had on the proprietary software world by opening up the development and distribution of educational materials. (ZDnet)

The declaration, and its public support, is an important step in promoting and developing Open Access.

Posted on by mklang

The Mexican Suitcase

A cultural treasure referred to as “the Mexican suitcase” lost for fifty years, the legendary Robert Capra, a train station in 1922, the Spanish Civil War, Mexican diplomats, Mexico City… It all sounds like a spy novel but the lost negatives of Robert Capra have resurfaced.

 frank-capra.jpg

Posted on by mklang

Against Intellectual Property

A new version of the book Against Intellectual Property by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine is out now (download it here). The print version will be published by Cambridge University Press (around July 2008).

Reviews: Stephen Spear November 2007 review in the Focus

It is common to argue that intellectual property in the form of copyright and patent is necessary for the innovation and creation of ideas and inventions such as machines, drugs, computer software, books, music, literature and movies. In fact intellectual property is a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty.

Credits (pdf)
Chapter 1: Introduction (pdf)
An overview of the central theme: intellectual property is in fact intellectual monopoly and hinders rather than helps innovation and creation.
Chapter 2: Creation Under Competition (pdf)
Would the world be devoid of great or lesser works of art without copyright?
Chapter 3: Innovation Under Competition (pdf)
What would happen to innovation without patents?
Chapter 4: The Evil of Intellectual Monopoly (pdf)
Why are patents so bad anyway?
Chapter 5: The Devil in Disney (pdf)
What is the big deal with copyright?
Chapter 6: How Competition Works (pdf)
How would artists and innovators get paid without copyrights and patents?
Chapter 7: Defenses of Intellectual Monopoly (pdf)
What is the conventional wisdom and why it is wrong.
Chapter 8: Does Intellectual Monopoly Increase Innovation? (pdf)
This is the heart of the matter: there is no evidence that intellectual monopoly serves the purpose that both the U.S. Constitution and economic logic dictates. There is no evidence it “works” to increase creation and innovation.
Chapter 9: The Pharmaceutical Industry (pdf)
But what about life-saving drugs?
Chapter 10: The Bad, the Good, and the Ugly (pdf)
A look at various policy options.
References (pdf)


Posted on by mklang

Return of Toi Moko

The trade in morbid exotic items has filled several museums around the world who were competing to fill up with body parts, mummies, bones, skins and skulls. The winners of the competitions built the biggest, most impressive and best respected museums in the world.

The problem is that the wind has changed. Many of these artifacts are not acceptable in museums any more (even though some are still considered OK). Some of the remains are returned but many large museums with large collections are hesitant since returning their large collections would be a significant loss to them.

A recent argument in France is a good illustration of the problem. It all began when the Natural History Museum of Rouen tried to give back a toi moko to New Zealand (toi moko were originally the heads of Maori warriors killed in battle). When the French Culture Ministry heard this they stopped the return.

These situations are complex but it is fascinating to see the evolution of morals. The question worth asking is which of our actions today will be seen as totally immoral tomorrow?

—

Read more about the French toi moko at the New Zealand Herald & USA Today. Liverpool returns toi moko (2006)& Scottish return of toi moko (2005)

Posted on by mklang

Shipwrecked!

Yesterday I managed to be extremely careless. I was working with one of my websites via an ftp program and was not being observant enough. I thought that I was somewhere else when I began happily deleting files and folders in preparation for a major reworking. I did think it was strange that there were so many files and folders but this thought did not ring any serious alarm bells.

Later I discovered that I had deleted all the files for the digital-rights site. Soon after I found out that my web host does not do backup recovery. I was devastated.

Fortunately most of the content is in the database I had not touched that. So after spending some time re-installing wordpress and adapting it to my needs I managed to bring back my blog. Unfortunately the images were not stored in the database this means that all the images all the images are gone now gone.

But at least the blog is back. And I have learned some valuable lessons: beware of multi-tasking, look twice before deleting and maintain better backups (even of non-essential material).

 462989717_3169be5215.jpg

photo Shipwreck wide 2 by Subindie (CC ATT-NC-SA)

Posted on by mklang

Piracy is inevitable

The Wall Street Journal have an interesting article on the upcoming file sharing case involving the Pirate Bay. In the article Showdown Looms Over Pirated Media-Directory the WSJ presents a balanced view of the situation but writes:

While Sweden might seem to be an unlikely harbor for pirates of any kind, weak copyright laws, lax enforcement, high broadband penetration and general antipathy toward the entertainment industry have made it a file-sharing free-for-all.

This opinion that Sweden is somehow exceptional when it comes to file sharing has been cropping up a lot recently – both in print media and in conversations and I must say that I am surprised. Yes, the Pirate Bay is a Swedish outfit but anyone who thinks it is a problem in Sweden has fundamentally misunderstood the situation.

Ask around most teenagers in most countries are involved in copyright violations. Most of this is copying music and films. A bit more difficult (but not much) is to get an honest response from adults. Many adults are doing the same thing.

Remove all of Sweden and the Swedes and you would not significantly impact world copyright violations. Remove the Pirate Bay and you would have created nothing more than a hiccup or temporary annoyance.

The pirates are all around you. This is not about weak laws and lax enforcement it is about a fundamental change in the way in which we view right and wrong in relation to copyright and having the technological base with which to act.

It’s all about the digitalization of copyrightable material coupled with the development of technological gadgets such as  iPods, iPhones, cheap storage and good broadband. Piracy is inevitable.

Posted on by mklang