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Study: Patent trolls cost a half a trillion dollars in "lost wealth"

http://www.h-online.com

Since 2004 that exploitation has increased, with litigation by NPEs rising from around 500 cases per year to 2600 in 2010.patent trolls

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lozz's picture
Created by lozz 10 years 27 weeks ago – Made popular 10 years 27 weeks ago
Category: Legal   Tags:
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Could Free Software Exist Without Copyright?

http://blogs.computerworlduk.com

GNU GPL actually *depends* on copyright, an intellectual monopoly, in order to spread intellectual freedom. Moreover, it seems to doom free software into a kind of symbiosis with copyright, forcing it to remain a supporter of that monopoly, since without it, the approach used to make the GPL so powerful would not work.

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JRepin's picture
Created by JRepin 11 years 28 weeks ago – Made popular 11 years 28 weeks ago
Category: Legal   Tags:
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VLC developer takes a stand against DRM enforcement in Apple's App Store

http://www.fsf.org

Rémi Denis-Courmont is one of the primary developers of the VLC media player, which is free software and distributed under the GPL. Earlier this week, he wrote to Apple to complain that his work was being distributed through their App Store, under terms that contradict the GPL's conditions and prohibit users from sharing the program.

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akf's picture
Created by akf 11 years 30 weeks ago – Made popular 11 years 30 weeks ago
Category: Legal   Tags:
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Java Trap, 2010 Edition

http://journal.paul.querna.org

Oracle is going to control the future of Java. I don’t know what will happen to the Java Community Process, but I lack any faith in it continuing.

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lozz's picture
Created by lozz 11 years 32 weeks ago – Made popular 11 years 32 weeks ago
Category: Legal   Tags:
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Creative Commons launches Public Domain Mark

http://creativecommons.org

Today, Creative Commons announces the release of the Public Domain Mark, a tool that enables works free of known copyright restrictions to be labeled in a way that clearly communicates that status to the public, and allows the works to be easily discovered over the Internet.

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stargrave's picture
Created by stargrave 11 years 32 weeks ago – Made popular 11 years 32 weeks ago
Category: Philosophy   Tags:
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UK Adopts Open Government License for everything: Why it’s good and what it means

http://eaves.ca

In almost every aspect the license, the UK government will manage its “intellectual property” by setting the default to be open and free.

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JRepin's picture
Created by JRepin 11 years 34 weeks ago – Made popular 11 years 33 weeks ago
Category: Government   Tags:
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Open Government Licence enables re-use of information

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk

The UK Open Government Licence is a key element of the Government's commitment to greater transparency. It provides a single set of terms and conditions for anyone wishing to use or license government information and removes some of the existing barriers to re-use.

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stargrave's picture
Created by stargrave 11 years 34 weeks ago – Made popular 11 years 34 weeks ago
Category: Government   Tags:
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GPLv3-licensed Open Source now dominates at Google Code

http://blog.internetnews.com

According to data presented by DiBona, Google's Open Source programs manager, the GPLv3 license now represents more than half of the GPL licensed code that Google hosts on its Google Code site. What DiBona's data shows is that developers are embracing GPLv3 and using it for their project in growing numbers.

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JRepin's picture
Created by JRepin 11 years 44 weeks ago – Made popular 11 years 43 weeks ago
Category: Community   Tags:
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A CIO’s Quick Guide To Open Source Licenses

http://itexpertvoice.com

One great benefit of using Linux, Apache, and other open source software is that you can modify the code to make it perfect for your business. But open source licensing restricts how you distribute the modifications. Here’s what a CIO needs to know about open source licenses -- making this a suitable document to show to your boss, who's been asking for a no-nonsense overview.

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estherschindler's picture
Created by estherschindler 11 years 44 weeks ago – Made popular 11 years 44 weeks ago
Category: Legal   Tags:
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Proprietary Licenses Are Even Worse Than They Look

http://ebb.org

There are lots of evil things that proprietary software companies might do. Companies put their own profit above the rights and freedoms of their users, and to that end, much that can be done that subjugates users.

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joy1234's picture
Created by joy1234 12 years 7 weeks ago – Made popular 12 years 6 weeks ago
Category: Legal   Tags:
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Enforcement of the GNU GPL in Germany and Europe, by Till Jaeger

http://www.groklaw.net

GPL enforcement is successful in Europe. In several court decisions and out of court settlements the license conditions of the GPL have been successfully enforced. In particular, embedded systems are the main focus of such compliance activities. The article describes the practice of enforcement activities and the legal prerequisites under the application of German law.

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sockpuppet's picture
Created by sockpuppet 12 years 7 weeks ago – Made popular 12 years 7 weeks ago
Category: Legal   Tags:
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Packaging Open Source, by Mark Webbink

http://www.groklaw.net

There is an article by Mark Webbink, Esq., "Packaging Open Source", in the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review, Vol 1, No 2 (2009) that I think you'll find interesting. It compares various FOSS licenses and how they handle compilations and collective works.

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zepplin's picture
Created by zepplin 12 years 15 weeks ago – Made popular 12 years 15 weeks ago
Category: Legal   Tags:
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No, you can’t do that with H.264

http://bemasc.net

A lot of commercial software comes with H.264 encoders and decoders, and some computers arrive with this software preinstalled. This leads a lot of people to believe that they can legally view and create H.264 videos for whatever purpose they like. Unfortunately for them, it ain’t so.

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Marcin's picture
Created by Marcin 12 years 16 weeks ago – Made popular 12 years 16 weeks ago
Category: High End   Tags:
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The Unlicense: A License for No License

http://ostatic.com

The GNU General Public License (GPL) is often described as "Copyleft" because it turns traditional copyright on its head to make code freer than traditional proprietary copyright licenses. Taking that a step further, some developers are embracing the Unlicense, a license that "disclaims" copyright interest in a piece of code altogether.

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altan's picture
Created by altan 12 years 19 weeks ago – Made popular 12 years 19 weeks ago
Category: Legal   Tags:
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RMS on Selling Exceptions to the GNU GPL

http://www.fsf.org

The practice of selling license exceptions became a hot topic when I co-signed Knowledge Ecology International's letter warning that Oracle's purchase of MySQL (plus the rest of Sun) might not be good for MySQL. As the following article explains, my feelings about selling license exceptions are mixed. Clearly it is possible to develop powerful and complex software packages under the GNU GPL without selling exceptions, and we do this. MySQL can be developed this way too. However, selling exceptions has been used by MySQL developers. Who should decide whether to continue this?

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JRepin's picture
Created by JRepin 12 years 20 weeks ago – Made popular 12 years 20 weeks ago
Category: Legal   Tags:

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