It is with great reluctance that I have just sent two DMCA notices to parties that are distributing software I’ve written in violation of the licenses.  I sent informal notices to the parties a month ago, and received no replies.  Two of the parties are using aliases, and I do not have postal addresses or [...]

The wheels of justice grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine!
Judge Kimball has ruled in SCO v. Novell that SCO does not own the Unix copyrights, and therefore most of SCO’s claims against Novell are dismissed. SCO has to waive claims against IBM and Sequent, and also owes Novell a lot of money (in [...]

AT&T now claims that they will deploy some kind of filtering to keep copyrighted content off their network, effectively spying for the MPAA and RIAA. No one has developed a reliable way to even identify copyrighted content, but even if that existed, how would they distinguish legitimate transfers of copyrighted content from unauthorized transfers?
It [...]

The AACS-LA claims to own the hexadecimal number 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0 (decimal 13256278887989457651018865901401704640), and is threatening those who post it online, even though they also claim that the distribution of the number is not a problem for the viability of the AACS system.  If it’s not a problem, why do they need to threaten people who [...]

The HP “pretexting” scandal was publicized in such a way as to make people think it was a new problem, and required new legislation.  Apparently it didn’t occur to anyone that the very term “pretexting” is a euphemism to disguise the nature of the act, which is actually “fraud.”  Fraud is defined by Wiktionary as [...]

Big Media not only wants to protect their existing rights under copyright law, but they’re constantly pushing to get even more legal protection.  Although they won’t directly admit to it, they’re trying to undermine fair use rights.  Because of the rapid advancement of technology for publishing and communication, copyright law affects the average citizen far [...]

This Washington Post article describes students protestiing their school’s use of Turnitin.com. It has been discussed on Slashdot as well. My ENGL 001A English Composition course at Mission College requires me to submit all of my papers to Turnitin, and I am unhappy about it, but I wasn’t aware that there is widespread [...]

Their current state motto is “Live Free or Die”. But since recent court rulings in New Hampshire have eliminated the “Live Free” choice, it appears that dying is the only choice remaining to citizens of New Hampshire.
I’ve previously mentioned the Gannon case in Nashua, where police charged a man with violating the state wiretapping [...]

The Free Software Foundation has started a “Defective by Design” campaign to eliminate DRM (Digital Restrictions Management).
DRM is intended to prevent unauthorized copying of music, movies, and software. However, it also prevents copying and use that is within fair use rights provided by copyright law. In many cases, DRM is also harmful to [...]

This morning I awakened from a horrible nightmare. Perhaps somewhat apropos for Halloween. But the dream didn’t involve vampires, wiches, or ghosts. It was about Digital Restrictions Management (DRM).
I dreamt that I went into a bookstore to browse. I pulled a book from a shelf and opened it, only to find [...]