The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) has launched a campaign to raise money from its members to hire lobbyists to protect them against the dangers of "Copyleft."
Read more »ASCAP's attack on Creative Commons
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No Minister: 90% of web snoop document censored to stop 'premature unnecessary debate'
The federal government has censored approximately 90 per cent of a secret document outlining its controversial plans to snoop on Australians' web surfing, obtained under freedom of information (FoI) laws, out of fear the document could cause "premature unnecessary debate".
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ODF 1.2 Begins Final 60-day Public Review
A major milestone was reached for the OASIS ODF TC last week. The latest Committee Draft of ODF 1.2 (CD 05) was sent out for a 60-day public review.
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Lessons learned from a hasty standard
The ISO has modified its procedures after the controversial adoption of Microsoft's OOXML document format as an open standard in expedited proceedings
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How about a legal penalty for hindering fair use?
Brazil has proposed a broad update to its copyright law (Portuguese) and it contains a surprising idea: penalize anyone who "hinders or impedes" fair use rights or obstructs the use of work that has already fallen into the public domain.
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Mono Demoted to “Proprietary Software” Status
OpenSUSE classifies Mono-based applications correctly (as proprietary)
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Court Fails to Protect Privacy of Whistleblower's Email
This court decision should provide a wake-up call for all those planning to store documents in the so-called "cloud".
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A CIO’s Quick Guide To Open Source Licenses
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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EU Authorities: Implementation of Net Surveillance Directive Is Unlawful
In a landmark announcement issued today, the data protection officials across the European Union found that the way that EU Member States have implemented the data retention obligations in the 2006 EU Data Retention Directive is unlawful.
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EFF Urges Court to Block Dragnet Subpoenas Targeting Online Commenters
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) this week served a motion to quash dragnet subpoenas that put privacy and anonymity at risk for the operators of dozens of Internet blogs and potentially hundreds of commenters.
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New Zealand to make software unpatentable
New Zealand is set to become one of the first countries to make software unpatentable after its Minister for Justice, Hon Simon Power, announced modifications to the Patents Bill.
Read more »The Internet Responds to ASCAP's Deceptive Claims
In recent years, they've demanded fees from the Girl Scouts Of America for singing songs around a campfire, as well as from consumers for using unauthorized ring-tones in their cell-phones.
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MySQL founder seeks to challenge Oracle's acquisition of Sun
At the European Court in Luxembourg, Monty Widenius has brought proceedings against the Oracle acquisition of Sun Microsystems
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Open Core and OSI
Simon Phipps is correct: Open Core is Bad for You, the "you" here being you and me, end users: The open core model exploits open source and is a game on software freedom. The fact the game is played does not invalidate software freedom, but it suggests we need to revisit definitions and make the game harder to play.
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Brazil's copyright law forbids using DRM to block fair use - Boing Boing
"Brazil has just created the best-ever implementation of WIPO Copyright Treaty. In Brazil's version of the law, you can break DRM without breaking the law, provided you're not also committing a copyright violation. And what's more, any rightsholder who adds a DRM that restricts things that are allowed by Brazilian copyright laws ("fair dealing" or "fair use") faces a fine."
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