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World Day Against Software Patents

Stopsoftwarepatents

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World Day Against Software Patents - 24 September

Three years ago the European Parliament stopped the attempt to make software patents enforcable in Europe. An unprecedented community effort made it possible with a relative low awareness about the dangers among larger software companies. Since then litigation and patent traps have become a serious problem for the market and users of software. We need to reduce patent risks which impede innovation and investment.

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ISPs Set To Wage Privacy War on their Own Customers

...with the government's hot and eager help, of course.
From the its-about-"terrorists"-not-copyrights...honest dept.

SSRN-The Rise and Fall of Invasive ISP Surveillance by Paul Ohm

The Rise and Fall of Invasive ISP Surveillance
Paul Ohm
University of Colorado Law School
August 30, 2008

Abstract:
Nothing in society poses as grave a threat to privacy as the Internet Service Provider (ISP). ISPs carry their users' conversations, secrets, relationships, acts, and omissions. Until the very recent past, they had left most of these alone because they had lacked the tools to spy invasively, but with recent advances in eavesdropping technology, they can now spy on people in unprecedented ways.

We're already starting to see this undemocratic violation of our privacy and civil-rights in the UK, with sinister initiatives like Phorm from BT (and their criminal partners, formerly known as the Spyware outfit 121Media), and more generally with the mere existence and subsequent overreaching implementation of insidious laws like the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, which are now being quite openly abused as a matter of routine investigation into non-terrorist activities.

And the impetus for this destruction of our democracy is ... paranoid and greedy media companies, a.k.a. the MAFIAA®, who "lobby" government to pervert our society for their own selfish ends. "Pervert" is very apt description of how the MAFIAA® gangsters operate, after all they are predisposed to stalking and making abusive phone calls to 10-year old girls.

In a society in which such thugs are not only tolerated, but actually supported by government, whilst that same government declares its entire population of ordinary citizens to be "guilty", and punishes them by revoking their privacy and other civil-rights, it's clear that democracy is well and truly dead.

Your ISP is at the front-line of that battle. It is the weapon the government uses to strike you down.

Don't let them.

Fight back.

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GPL JMRI Beats Patent Troll Matt Katzer in Court

From the criminal-thug-gets-just-deserts dept.

Ruling Is a Victory for Supporters of Free Software - NYTimes.com

Published: August 13, 2008

SAN FRANCISCO — A legal dispute involving model railroad hobbyists has resulted in a major courtroom victory for the free software movement also known as open-source software.

In a ruling Wednesday, the federal appeals court in Washington said that just because a software programmer gave his work away did not mean it could not be protected.

The decision legitimizes the use of commercial contracts for the distribution of computer software and digital artistic works for the public good. The court ruling also bolsters the open-source movement by easing the concerns of large organizations about relying on free software from hobbyists and hackers who have freely contributed time and energy without pay.

It also has implications for the Creative Commons license, a framework for modifying and sharing creative works that was developed in 2002 by Larry Lessig, a law professor at Stanford.

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The "Right" to Own Knowledge

The Thinker

Two people on opposite sides of the world have exactly the same idea at the same time. Which one of those two people would be most morally justified in claiming to own the exclusive rights to that idea?

Should it be the first to dash through the doors of the USPTO office, with a big wad of cash in his hand?

Isn't that just further rewarding someone for already being affluent (or quick, or both), rather than rewarding him for having an original thought?

And how original are anyone's thoughts anyway?

Surely our knowledge is merely the sum of what we have been taught, and not some divine gift handed down from God, entitling the bearer to exclusive privileges. How can anyone claim exclusive rights to that which has been collected from others, such as authors; teachers; parents and peers? Are those contributors not equally entitled to attribution and rights to that knowledge? Are such contributors not also entitled to benefit from those ideas? Given the scope of where one acquires knowledge, shouldn't those beneficiaries encompass all mankind?

This is the essence of Free Software.

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