January 2012
9 posts
22 EU Countries Ratify ACTA, Key Parliament Member... →
Most member states of the European Union have signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) at a ceremony in Tokyo, Japan on Thursday, Jan. 26. ACTA is a global treaty that tries to normalize copyright protection and IP standards. It’s similar to SOPA and PIPA, proposed U.S. laws whic…
Watch(via Information Diet Livestream)
Our Director of Government Affairs is on right now, explaining how things work (or don’t work on the hill with SOPA and PIPA)
Freakonomics » How Much Do Music and Movie Piracy... →
Supporters of stronger intellectual property enforcement — such as those behind the proposed new Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) bills in Congress — argue that online piracy is a huge problem, one which costs the U.S. economy between $200 and $250 billion per year, and is responsible for the loss of 750,000 American jobs.
These numbers seem truly dire: a $250 billion per...
Ship or Die: Contact Congress - Talk directly to... →
shipordie:
Today Ben and I are announcing the release of a new iPhone app called Contact Congress. What it does is really simple: grabs your location (or you can give us an address), locates your representatives, and lets you get on the phone with them in two taps.
Why we built it
Like many…
Watch(via LiveLeak.com - Al Gore comments on SOPA)
December 2011
5 posts
livin' the dream: A Step-by-Step Guide to Transfer... →
jeffepstein:
Follow these step-by-step directions to transfer all of your domains from GoDaddy to NameCheap.
I’m Boycotting GoDaddy because they are pro-SOPA.
Step 1: Login to GoDaddy and get to the domain manager.
Step 2: Select all domains
Step 3: Click on the “Locking Icon”
Step 4:…
Sense & censor ability: Congress defers SOPA vote... →
13 tags
Castro’s answer to social networks? A Cuban...
univisionnews:
Red Social has been allegedly set up by Cuba’s Ministry of Education. It’s impossible to access from outside the island. (Screenshot by La Chiringa de Cuba)
By SANDRO MAIRATA Channel: Latin American Affairs
Launched under the radar a few days ago, “Red Social” (literally, “Social Network”), is Castro’s regime latest attempt to squeeze the information flow in Cuba.
The site mimics...
November 2011
3 posts
5 tags
October 2011
2 posts
“As a revenue source, spectrum auctions are a particularly pernicious tax on...”
– Yochai Benkler: Selling Our Wireless Future (via fred-wilson)
2 tags
PK at the 2011 ROFLCON Summit →
Thanks to the great staff who made the ROFLCON Summit possible and our hosts at Weiden Kennedy for allowing us to share their beautiful office space! Pictured are PK staffers Sherwin Siy @sherwinpk and Tyler Gray @tylergray at the wonderful animated gif creator.
September 2011
3 posts
3 tags
August 2011
5 posts
“The services offering access to a bottomless library of content continue to...”
– The convenience trap
“The items, mostly copies of luxury objects, inside the little shop in downtown...”
– Chinatown Funeral Goods Bring Copyright-Infringement Arrest - NYTimes.com
July 2011
2 posts
Overcoming Bias : IP Like Barbed Wire? →
“You have no fundamental right to enjoy the innovations produced by others without compensating them.” So says Robin Hanson. In the first place, this shows the sorts of misguided thinking that arises when you frame pragmatic policy issues in terms of “fundamental rights” when there aren’t any fundamental rights clearly at stake on either side of a debate. Amazon...
June 2011
2 posts
“I have paid for cellular service through AT&T and Verizon. Both companies...”
– Public filing in the FCC’s docket on the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger.
May 2011
6 posts
“The New York Stock Exchange now claims that you have to get their permission...”
– NYSE Tries to Body Slam TPM!
“I make songs that are good and then I sell them (and concert tickets, and...”
– Jonathan Coulton » Blog Archive » On Snuggies and Business Models
“The entire set of issues surrounding copyright in an increasingly digital world...”
– A VC: Protect IP (fka COICA)
Experimenting with Piracy →
Interesting price discrimination experiment,
“The book, now scheduled to hit stores on June 14, began attracting attention...”
– Strange take on things. There appears to be no downside to this PDF circulating; there’s be no way it would be #1 on Amazon if people hadn’t been forwarding it around. Yet the article seems pretty set on the notion that because the spread of the PDF is viral and unauthorized, there...
Usage Caps Will Now Apply To 56% Of Broadband... →
The important quote in the article comes from industry analyst Craig Moffett.
“This isn’t about protecting against the data network being swamped with excess usage,” Sanford Bernstein senior analyst Craig Moffett said. “This is about putting the business model on a stable, long-term economic model.”
April 2011
2 posts
Examining Ghana's use of intellectual property law... →
My work challenges arguments that have been advanced against granting such knowledge protection within intellectual property regimes, especially those arguments that place so-called “traditional knowledge” and “modern art and science” in separate and unequal spheres. By pointing to the culturally and historically contingent nature of intellectual property law, my book demonstrates that such...
March 2011
3 posts
“BEWARE of habitual monopolists bearing gifts—especially if they operate in...”
– America’s mobile-phone merger: Not so fast, Ma Bell | The Economist
“The simple fact is that the provision of telecommunication service is most...”
– AT&T’s proposed T-Mobile acquisition: Going from monopoly to duopoly - FierceTelecom
“Many of the participants in the Reddit thread on e-book pricing question...”
– Will E-Book Prices & Restrictions Lead to E-Book Piracy?
February 2011
21 posts
“This week I’m going to switch gears a little and declare an enemy for all...”
– Make: Online » Sony’s War on Makers, Hackers, and Innovators
“Marguerite Humeau, attempts to ressuscitate the sound of extinct animals by...”
– The rebirth of prehistoric creatures - we make money not art
“Seriously, people, give it up; you’re tilting at windmills. No, it’s worse than...”
– This is why trying to prevent book piracy is utterly futile | Blog | Futurismic
“We fully accept that the artistic community might classify Kelley’s garden...”
– From the court’s ruling on Chapman Kelley v Chicago Park District.
Via Millennium Park Garden Deemed Not Copyrightable, Because Gardens Are Not Authored | Techdirt
2 tags
“An issue of PC Pro with around 150 separate articles, and 100 photos would...”
– The true cost of publishing on the Amazon Kindle | PC Pro blog