CRIA speaks out

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The Canadian Recording Industry Condemns Government Inaction On Copyright (from a press release).

As Frank points out, it is worth noting that the WIPO treaties are summarized as making copyrighted works easier to « use » legally on the Internet. While this could arguably be true according to a certain interpretation of the texts, it certainly is not the dominant idea I get while reading either the DMCA or the EU IP directive (or reading commentaries on the Japanese and Australian laws).

And you have got to admire the impressive mention of the 42 signatories… « Canada’s international commitments » makes it sound as though we’re a contracting party. We’re not, to either the WCT or the WPPT.

Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe

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« Lab rat: Swapping gets legit » in the Red Herring discusses a system called LOCKSS.

LOCKSS mirrors the way the librarians share their print archives. Each library keeps its own collection but borrows from the others to make a copy if a particular publication is missing or replaces it if damaged. If a library wants to join LOCKSS, it only needs the software client installed on a PC and a network connection to both the library’s local network and the Internet. Once installed, LOCKSS automatically creates a permanent cache, or local database of the journal articles. Unlike other caches that are deleted after a day or so, the LOCKSS cache is never deleted. However, it can only store copies of the journals for which a particular library has valid subscriptions.

Interesting application of a P2P model. It does raise a number of questions, regarding IP but also regarding integrity of the content and auditing. I guess the advantage of a P2P model here is that it avoids the need for the central authoritative server used in a mirroring scheme.

[thanks Cla]

Broadcast flag

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I was waiting for a single link to post on the Broadcast flag decision. Thanks to Donna for providing me with one.

It is a debate I didn’t follow as closely as I should have. I’m still trying to find someone owning a HDTV set with a pair of « rabit ears » on top of it.

Wilfred, hacked

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Ça devait arriver, mais dix jours avant la sortie de l’album, je trouve qu’on abuse!

Pirater la relève, c’est pas fort.

J’ose espérer que les téléspectateurs de TVA sauront faire preuve d’un peu de jugeotte face à cette nouvelle…

Font history

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Douze Lunes points to « Scourge of Arial« . It tells a little bit of type history. I like those things, as you might have noticed.

Speaking of fonts, these days, I’m trying to use Gentium, « a typeface for the nations » as an alternative to my old favourite, Minon. It’s free-as-in-beer (and I’m not convinced the open source model would work well for fonts) and the goal of the project is interesting. I stumbled upon it looking for fonts with the required accents to write pinyin.

Quote of the day

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Andrew McLaughlin : « Here’s a good way to frighten yourself: Learn about something, and then read what the press writes about it. It’s astonishing how often flatly untrue things get reported as facts. »

Exactly what I needed to hear today (about a very different issue)… Ok, the actual point about IPv6 is interesting too.

[via Donna’s Copyfight]

Onno W. Purbo

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Has anyone heard of this guy? Onno W. Purdo is apparenly doing a very cool project in Indonesia using Wifi (apparently on « stolen » FM spectrum) to provide Internet connectivity at very low cost. A trainer (err… facilitator..) last week mentionned him a few times but it turned out he didn’t know much about the project either.

There is a lot of information on this server. I’m trying to skim through it to understand a bit more. Looks like his projects start with solid ideological and policy basis though.

International Cyber(cons)piracy

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Time to replace the maple leaf by the Jolly Rogers?

Frank points to this CNet article where Michael Geist speaks ont he differences between Canadian and US copyright laws.

He does confirm what I argued about before regarding downloading from filesharing networks and private copying:

I’m inclined to think that you’d have a pretty good argument as an individual user–that personal, noncommercial copying is permitted by the exemption.

The one caveat–and this is where there have been many myths–is that there is little doubt under Canadian copyright law that making those same songs available to others is not permissible.

So many interesting things are going on in the cyberlaw space right now, I find it very frustrating as I am spending most of my time away from my computer these days. I barely have time to read my news.