WikiLeaks Wins Battle Against Visa, MasterCard
by Alex Fitzpatrick
WikiLeaks wins court case against VISA Iceland for blocking funds
from The Next Web by Jamillah Knowles
Member of European Parliament sends “Thank you for fighting ACTA” email with 2K emails on the CC line
by Cory Doctorow
Lee sez,
As part of my protest against ACTA I signed up to the fightforthefuture.org web page, and asked them to contact my MEP on my behalf, which they did.
House Quietly Reintroduces a Piece of SOPA
from EFF.org Updates by Adi Kamdar
Even after millions rallied against the passage of SOPA/PIPA, the House is still quietly trying to pass a related bill that would give the entertainment industry more permanent, government-funded spokespeople. The Intellectual Property, Competition, and the Internet Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee recently held a hearing on Lamar Smith’s IP Attaché Act (PDF), a bill that increases intellectual property policing around the world. The Act would create an Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property, as well as broaden the use of IP attachés in particular U.S. embassies. (The attachés were notably present in Sec. 205 of SOPA?which was also introduced by Smith.)
How the record industry killed legal P2P, created a generation of pirates, and laughed all the way to the graveyard
by Cory Doctorow
TorrentFreak’s Enigmax does a great job of summarizing Copyright and Innovation: The Untold Story, a remarkable scholarly paper written by Rutgers law’s Michael A. Carrier, forthcoming in Wisconsin Law Review. Carrier interviewed the 31 subjects for the paper: “CEOs, company founders, and vice-presidents from technology companies, the recording industry, and venture capital firms,” and asked them to tell the story of the P2P wars and the music industry. The result is a very good, zippy, 61 pages that’ll angry up your blood, with phrases like “Lawyers at the labels historically drove the digital agenda. There was no one there with a truly entrepreneurial spirit. Zero, zilch, zingo, nada. No one there whose entire initiative was not to hang on to the past.” and “Even more dramatically, each of the companies ‘had a VP level person called the ?digital person?’ who was ‘the person who had a decent office and no operational responsibility whatsoever.'”
America’s ISPs set to spy on your network access to help entertainment industry
by Cory Doctorow
Douglas Rushkoff writes on CNN about the new US “six strikes” copyright regime, an unholy alliance between the major entertainment companies the the nation’s largest ISPs, which gives your ISP carte blanche to spy on all your private Internet traffic on the off chance that you might be interfering with Universal Music’s profit-maximization scheme. If you attract enough unsubstantiated copyright accusations, you and your family — or your business — could lose your Internet access.
ACTA IS BACK: Leaked docs show Canada/European Commission trying to sneak ACTA into Canada & back into Europe
by Cory Doctorow
Michael Geist sez,
Last week, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to reject ACTA, striking a major blow to the hopes of supporters who envisioned a landmark agreement that would set a new standard for intellectual property rights enforcement. The European Commission, which negotiates trade deals such as ACTA on behalf of the European Union, has vowed to revive the badly damaged agreement. Its most high-profile move has been to ask the European Court of Justice to rule on ACTA’s compatibility with fundamental European freedoms with the hope that a favourable ruling could allow the European Parliament to reconsider the issue.
5 Ways to Stop National Security Leaks (But Do You Really Want To?)
by Spencer Ackerman
The Senate and House intelligence committees are mad as hell about national security programs leaking to the press, and they’re mulling measures that would penalize leaking. Just one problem: what they’re considering won’t stop leaks; they’ll just make routine journalism harder. The measures that actually would making leaking harder would give politicians, journalists and citizens pause. (Hint: one of them is an alcohol ban.)
What’s wrong with TPP, the son of ACTA
by Cory Doctorow
The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Carolina Rossini has a very good editorial explaining what’s wrong with the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a secret trade treaty with punishing copyright provisions that’s being negotiated by the USA, repeating the worst sins of ACTA and magnifying them (among other thing, TPP will make implementing the notorious SOPA into a trade obligation for the US).
First image ever uploaded to Internet revealed
from Hurriyet Daily News
The first photo ever uploaded to the Internet 20 years ago has been revealed.
Cybersecurity legislation could soon lurch forward in the Senate, but can it pass the President?
from The Next Web by Alex Wilhelm
Lady Gaga?s social network ?Little Monsters? opens its doors to everyone
from The Next Web by Drew Olanoff
The US Military pushes cybersecurity, while the Chamber of Commerce fights regulation
from The Next Web by Alex Wilhelm
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