Category: Technology

EU ACTA Analysis Leaks: Confirms Plans For Global DMCA

Michael Geist – EU ACTA Analysis Leaks: Confirms Plans For Global DMCA, Encourage 3 Strikes Model

Michael Geist has posted a summary of the leaked EU ACTA analysis. Some highlights:

  • Third party liability
  • Limitations on 3rd Party Liability
  • Anti-circumvention Provisions
  • Civil and Criminal Enforcement of Anti-Circumvention
  • Rights Management Information protection
  • Limitations to Rights Management Information protection

The anti-circumvention provisions, while not entirely out of line with U.S. law, are a bit troubling as it’s not yet clear whether circumvention for established fair use (such as education) would be allowed.

Even more troubling are the limitations on 3rd party liability. If service providers (like YouTube) no longer enjoy “safe harbor,” or legal protection from copyright infringement lawsuits for materials their users upload, the entire landscape of “user generated content” or “remix culture” may drastically change.

Perhaps more transparency would bring much needed balance to this treaty!

News Corp. May Shield All Content From Google

News Corp. May Shield All Content From Google – Media News Summaries | Newser

News Corp. honcho Rupert Murdoch wants to put a permanent end to “parasite” Google’s “kleptomania” when it comes to content on his newspapers’ websites.

I agree with Battelle–this is a lot of “bluster.”  Barely one line of text in a file on their servers would achieve this end–why do they need to tell everyone about it?

Twitter–what’s it good for? Conferences!

When Twitter first came out, I must admit, I was quite skeptical of the technology.  At the time, it seemed like a poor replacement for Facebook statuses–why replicate a technology for communicating with the people you care about?

I’ve since seen the light by getting into following and posting to conferences that I’m either attending, or monitoring from afar. Doing this allows one to:

  • See what’s going on (including snippets of talks by great speakers)
  • Connect with people you might not otherwise talk to

I find these connections most interesting.  First, it seems as though there needs to be some “event” that drives people to seek others out (the jury is out on whether it must be face-to-face). Second, by using a #hashtag, people sharing an experience have a means to immediately converse and share ideas with–not just other people sharing the event, but anyone who might be following them. It really constructs a social network–on the fly.

It’s possible that I dig this because I’m a bit of a geek who isn’t one to strike up a conversation, or because of the network effects with more people on Twitter.  Still, I think there’s an interesting