Category: Linklog

““Either way, when international accords, like ACTA, are conceived and constructed under a cloak of secrecy,” [Senator Ron] Wyden [D-OR] said, “it is hard to argue that they represent the broad interests of the general public. The controversy over ACTA should surprise no one.”” – ACTA ‘leaves to the discretion of each country the definition… Read more →

Brett Debritz asks an interesting question: what if somebody were to tweet an extremely defamatory or racially offensive remark using the Nova-nominated hashtag and it ended up on the company’s website for a sustained period of time? What if somebody sued? Who would be responsible: the author (if they could be identified) or the publisher?… Read more →

Dutch Supreme Court upholds conviction for theft of virtual objects: According to news reports, the Dutch Supreme Court has upheld a lower court’s conviction of a teenager for assaulting a younger boy and stealing virtual objects from an online RPG.  The victim was forced to transfer the objects to his attackers in the game world… Read more →

Stunning orbital timelapse as animated GIF – thank you, Internet. Read more →

Absurd ASA ruling upholds complaint over user reviews: The UK Advertising Standards Authority has upheld a complaint that the popular travel reviews website TripAdvisor has misled consumers by implying that reviews were accurate.  According to the ruling: consumers would understand the claims “Reviews you can trust”, “… read reviews from real travellers”, “TripAdvisor offers trusted… Read more →

““Everyone knows the ACTA agreement [will] impact on civil liberties …, and still, everything is being done to prevent the European Parliament from having its say in this matter. … I will not take part in this masquerade.”” – Kader Arif, rapporteur for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in the European Parliament. Meanwhile, the treaty, having… Read more →

Copyright in photographic works has always had an uneasy relationship with the idea-expression dichotomy, which generally limits protection to the physical manifestation of a work rather than its underlying principles or abstract concepts. In a decision sure to reignite the debate, Birss J has held that a photograph which reproduced the composition, subject matter and… Read more →

Some excellent analysis of the MegaUpload arrests and the blunt hammer of criminal copyright enforcement. Read more →

AFNIC, which administers the .fr ccTLD, has been held not liable by a French court for failing to suspend a domain name about which a trade mark owner complained.  The decision is sensible, given the impossibility of a domain registry policing the uses to which all registered domains are put, and consistent with article 15… Read more →

From the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2012 report: The impacts of crime, terrorism and war in the virtual world have yet to equal that of the physical world, but there is fear that this could change. Hyperconnectivity is a reality. With over five billion mobile phones coupled with internet connectivity and cloud-based applications, daily life is more vulnerable… Read more →