We've talked about the latest efforts concerning a treaty for the blind and others with disabilities, which will carve out some rules to give them slightly more rights to ignore certain copyrights in order to allow them to access some works. The negotiations have been going on for years (decades, depending on who you talk to) and the copyright maximalists absolutely hate the idea. They see it as opening the barn door for others to rush through asking for copyright law to be scaled back for them as well. There have been numerous stall tactics used and, of course, lots and lots of secrecy.

Once again, secrecy seems to be the way business is being done, as Jamie Love explains how everyone had been barred from using social media to inform the public what's going on.

Today after a short plenary session, the informal negotiations were scheduled to begin behind closed doors again. But WIPO decided to permit NGOs attending the negotiations to follow a live audio of the discussions, subject to a ban on the use of the Internet and related social media to report on the negotiations.

The ban specifically singled out "twitter, blogs, news reports, and email lists" and extends to social media in general.

Love argued that Chatham House rules could be effective (in which you can talk about what was said, just not who said it). But, of course, the US said that was unacceptable. Because, of course, the US doesn't want anyone to know about its crazy arguments, even if they're not attached to the US itself.

But, really, the bigger problem is the threat of retaliation under this system for reporting on info discovered through other means. Love explains the problem:

I assume we will be permitted to report and comment in other ways that do not rely upon this audio feed, but people will be careful because there is now a threat to cut off that access if the the forbidden information starts showing up on the Internet, and it maybe difficult to persuade people that the audio feed was not the source. This means less information will be disseminated, including the reports from the relatively accessible negotiators, of which there are many who are willing to talk in the breaks. These bans on the use of social media are increasingly being sought by transparency averse negotiators, particularly when pursuing anti-consumer and anti-freedom policies.

It is simply unacceptable these days to hold such negotiations in complete secrecy. It is for reasons like this that people don't trust such organizations and think they're corrupt. Even if they're not corrupt and totally aboveboard, just doing these kinds of things in secret stirs up distrust for the government.

The fountain of youth has been an elusive goal for centuries, and there's still no magic potion (or pharmaceutical) that can stop the aging process. But bits of progress suggest that there might be ways to extend a healthy human lifespan by a significant amount. Here are just a few more data points that could point to a future of living longer and longer.

• Brooke Greenberg is twenty years old, but she has an extremely rare disorder (she's the only person known to have Syndrome X) that hinders her growth so that she appears to be about five years old. Researchers are looking at this girl's DNA to try to figure out if there is a genetic cause and which genes may be behind this unusual aging process. [url]
• The German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg is looking at a glycoprotein called Dickkopf-1 (aka Dkk1) which seems to be involved in the cognitive abilities of elderly brains. The function of this molecule isn't entirely clear, but some researchers are trying to understand it in an effort to determine the mechanisms of declining cognitive abilities as people age. [url]
• The effects of consuming resveratrol aren't fully understood yet, but when honeybees eat this compound, they eat less and live longer. So there's a possibility that resveratrol plays a role in caloric restriction when it's associated with extending lifespans of various animals. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

We recently talked about Aaron Greenspan for his efforts to continue some of the efforts that Aaron Swartz began -- freeing up information to legal documents, in particular. However, back in 2007, we also wrote about Greenspan for being yet another Harvard person claiming that he really invented Facebook, and that Zuckerberg copied from him. We thought those claims were kind of silly. Greenspan did eventually settle with Facebook on a trademark claim (after Greenspan tried to get Facebook's marks cancelled), though last year he tried to claim he had new evidence of copying by Zuckerberg, which all seems fairly silly. As we've noted time and time again, ideas mean little. It's all about the execution. Facebook executed in a way people wanted. Get over it.

That wasn't Greenspan's only long shot legal dispute. He also sued author Ben Mezrich, Mezrich's publisher Random House, and Columbia Pictures, claiming that they all more or less rewrote his own book. Mezrich's book, Accidental Billionaires, became the hit movie The Social Network, and Greenspan claims they both infringe on his own book, which he had trouble publishing, about the origins of Facebook. Greenspan is representing himself (pro se) and hasn't had much luck. The case was easily dismissed by both the district court and the appeals court. The district court reminded Greenspan that you can't copyright facts. I tend to think that Greenspan's legal escapades concerning these things are simply tilting at windmills. There's no case here and he should really move on.

That said, there is a really fascinating tangent to all of this. After the appeals court once again rejected Greenspan's arguments, he went through the process of filing to ask the Supreme Court to hear the case (the chances of this actually happening are very, very, very slim). However, his blog post about his reasons for filing and the insane process that the Supreme Court makes you go through is absolutely worth reading. Basically, he notes that every step of the way there are bizarre, convoluted and ridiculous rules that seem to serve no purpose other than to try to make it frustrating as hell for a normal everyday person to actually appeal to the Supreme Court without hiring an expensive lawyer and/or some really expensive services. Here's just a snippet of a much longer piece, which I highly recommend, despite my feeling that his lawsuits are a complete waste of time.

The first thing to know is that the finished booklet must be 6 and 1/8th inches wide and 9 and 1/4 inches high.

9 and 1/4 inches is a strange number when it comes to page length. Most of us know paper (so long as we're not in Europe or Asia) as being 8 and 1/2 inches wide by 11 inches high, commonly referred to as "Letter" size paper. If you take a standard sheet of Letter paper and fold it over, you get a booklet that is 5 and 1/2 inches by 8 and 1/2 inches. For the Supreme Court's purposes, that for whatever reason doesn't work. (Interestingly, the dimensions of the printed text block easily fit on a Letter sheet of paper, so Rule 33.1 could be said to be designed to mandate slightly bigger margins, and nothing more.)

Well—you might think (as I did)—maybe they sell 12 and 1/4 inch by 9 and 1/4 inch paper in stores (so that when you fold it over lengthwise you get a booklet that matches the Court's required dimensions).

They most certainly do not sell 12 and 1/4 inch by 9 and 1/4 inch paper in stores. It's one of the only things, in fact, that I've ever typed into Google and not found a single relevant result for. However we farm trees to make paper, we do not farm them to make paper of this size. It does not exist in the marketplace.

He goes on to note that the Supreme Court even specifies the weight of the paper, but not the type (which makes a difference in understanding the weight), leading to confusion. Oh yeah, also the filings are encouraged by the Court to be bound together with a specific stitch: saddle stitch. The whole thing is a crazy story -- and while I think this legal filing itself is a waste of time, I really appreciate his sharing the details of some of the insanity it takes to actually file.

Yes, we don't want random crackpots continually inundating the Supreme Court, but it really seems like these archaic rules now serve little purpose other than to make things nearly impossible for anyone who doesn't do exactly this for a living to take part in the process. Basically, it's just like other sets of regulations whose sole purpose really seems to be to prop up a mini industry that has sprung up around them. In this day and age, it seems only reasonable that the rules should be modernized quite a bit.

It's been a little while since we last wrote about the "revenge porn" website IsAnybodyDown which has gone from questionable (and possibly illegal) practice to questionable (and possibly illegal) practice. You may recall that the site first came to our attention when an "advertisement" on the site claimed to be from a lawyer who would get the naked images on the site taken down for a small fee. The problem? Well, the "lawyer David Blade" did not appear to exist. And his emails came from the same IP address as the site's owner (and, no, IP addresses alone do not guarantee they're the same person, but it raises questions). Since then, the guys behind the site, Chance Trahan and Craig Brittain, have made crazy claim after crazy claim often with little basis in reality. There was the attempt to silence criticism via bogus DMCA notices, followed by bogus legal threats.

Back in November, Adam Steinbaugh noted that it appeared that many of the images were sent via tricking people on Craigslist into sending naked pictures, which Brittain seems to believe is the equivalent of permission to post the images. At one point, Brittain posted some emails that showed some of the Craigslist communications came via his own email address. Oops.

It appears that more and more people are becoming aware of this, and realizing that if Brittain is soliciting these images, often by lying to unsuspecting individuals, the legal issues he may be facing are increasing drastically. A reporter in Denver, Brian Maass has spoken with a woman whose images appeared on the site, and the email exchange... came from the same IP address as Brittain and the non-lawyer "David Blade."

Late Friday, CBS4 broadcast Maass' interview with a woman who met another woman on Craigslist named "Jess Davis." Davis corresponded and sent nude photos of herself, and she asked the other woman to send her racy photos in return. Davis also asked for her date of birth and phone number, saying she was looking to have "just some fun." The victim went along with the exchange, believing she was interacting with a woman.

Five days later, the woman's photos were on IsAnybodyDown, along with her contact info. "This is something I didn't want all of the world to see," she told Maass in the interview, in which her face and voice were obscured.

Turns out, the e-mails from jessdavis877@gmail.com came from the same IP address as Craig Brittain's e-mails—just like e-mails from the "Takedown Lawyer" named "David Blade III," which also apparently originated at Brittain's Colorado Springs home.

Given Steinbaugh's earlier reporting on this, this is hardly surprising, but it raises the legal problems Brittain may come up against at some point.

If Brittain created fake identities to acquire womens' photos and then posted them online himself, it's pretty clear that he won't be protected by the federal law that he believes shields him currently, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. That law protects website owners from liability for material posted by their users in certain situations. An attorney who speaks with Maass in the new piece says that by creating fake identities to populate his site with new photos, Brittain's behavior enters the criminal realm.

The Ars Technica report (linked above) that covers the latest Brittain interview also includes a bunch of ridiculous quotes and claims from Brittain, who seems to think he can say just about anything without consequence, such as insisting that the people appearing on his site want to be there.

"You're saying, all those people want to be on your website?" asks Maass.

"I would say so," answers Brittain. "I would suggest they want people to see their pictures... What they don't want is some of the shame, some of the discrimination from people. I would suggest they took the pictures, they obviously want people to see them. They sent a lot of them to random strangers that they had never met."

That's quite a stretch of course. But Brittain then goes even further, suggesting that this is all for the greater good. Yes, putting up naked photos of people that they may have taken willingly, but for a very specific audience, is good for society:

"We actually think the fact they're taking these pictures is a good thing, and an acceptable thing," he says. "We're not trying to shame them or scrutinize them. We're trying to entertain the world. And also to take away a lot of the stigma that's associated with this, because we don't believe these people should be shamed. It may be tough for some of the first people that have been posted. But as time goes on and this gets bigger, this will become more and more of an acceptable thing in society."

That's one way to look at it, though I find it difficult to believe that posting naked images of someone publicly, who had no such intention for those pictures, is unlikely to become a "socially acceptable" kind of thing any time soon.

Earlier in January, the French Ministry of Culture proudly announced a fresh public-private partnership between the French National Library and the privately-held ProQuest, defining how the company will digitize 70,000 books originally published between 1470 and 1700. The agreement sparked outrage among free culture defenders, who denounced a privatization of materials in the public domain:

"While these public private partnerships enable the digitization of these works they also contain 10-year exclusive agreements allowing the private companies carrying out the digitization to commercialize the digitized documents. During this period only a limited number of these works may be offered online by the BnF."

As none of the agreement partners bothered to reply to inquiries from journalists and free culture advocates, the only source of information was a press release from the Ministry of Culture mentioning an official agreement between the Library (Bibliothèque nationale de France, BnF) and ProQuest. The release was highlighting the somewhat obscure branch "BnF-Partenariats" as executives of the contract, and that this agreement is part of a wider initiative: "Early European Books."

The issue here is not commercial use of materials in the public domain but the labyrinthine logic of the agreement. This logic proposes that a client from the public sector (i.e. research and education institutions) will buy a number of works handled by another public institution (i.e. the French National Library), and the profits will reimburse money advanced by a private service provider. A painful situation for our cultural heritage, forcibly entrusted to be the square peg to get into the round monetary hole.

What is unclear, however, are the legal terms under which the digital copies will be handled. In plain English, the BnF has signed an agreement to sell access to digitized copies of books in the public domain. This makes a travesty of its official role: the BnF is supposed to grant access to these works, but the BnF-ProQuest agreement actually blocks access. In the present (whacko) case, the Library – that is, the public institution invested with the power to manage commons, – not only does what is normally the publisher's job, selling, but it also monetizes these works, thus acting as a merchant, which takes work from publishers. The larger questions this raises over exclusivity and ownership of these digital versions are very important. From what's been said to date, it seemingly implies that the digitization of those books means the outcome is a brand new production owned by the ProQuest, the digitization service provider.

Even more strange? ProQuest's agreements elsewhere are quite different, and not nearly as controversial. The BnF-ProQuest agreement is a part of the "Early European Books" initiative. In addition to the French, four other national libraries are a part of the effort: the Royal Library (Denmark), the National Central Library of Florence (Italy), the National Library of the Netherlands, and the The Wellcome Library, London (UK).

The details for each of these agreements, however, are quite different than the agreement in France. Indeed, in every other case, ProQuest digitizes, at its own expense, the works in the public domain operated by the respective partnering national library. It then offers free access to the digital versions of these materials within the country. As ProQuest needs to earn money, it sells the access to its database to other countries (through subscriptions contracted by the universities). According to the BnF-ProQuest agreement, however, no free access to the digital versions is provided other than the very limited version as described above.

Oh, and as if a national library agreeing to sell the country's cultural heritage was not absurd enough, when asked for the details of the agreement the BnF has now admitted that its contract with ProQuest has been misplaced. One might properly note that, so too, has the public domain been "misplaced" with this deal.

[Follow me on Twitter.]

Late last week, we brought to you the epic (if in length only) story of an "attribution" troll going by the name of On Press Inc., which patrolled Twitter, hounding people into properly attributing a Shaun Shane poem using inhuman persistence and a grab bag of legal terminology.

As could be expected, once the secret troll-summoning words were revealed, many people rushed to their Twitter accounts to try their luck. They were not disappointed. Over at Boing Boing, Rob Beschizza tweeted an unattributed "Tongues Made of Glass," and was quicky hit with the expected blast of canned tweets.

On Press must have realized something was up, what with the sudden (and huge) increase in non-attributed poem quoting. For a little while, the On Press accounts fell nearly silent. In a few hours, however, its responses suddenly became a whole lot friendlier.

It would appear that On Press Inc. has realized (thanks to a very public airing of dirty laundry) that its previous tactics weren't earning it any friends, customers or respect. This new approach is bound to be more successful on all counts, if for no other reason than the old way did nothing more than paint both Shaun Shane and On Press Inc. as overbearing thugs, hardly the sort of people anybody wants to comply with, much less support. All in all, I imagine it was a very long and hectic day for whoever's running the On Press Twitter horde. This tweet (my new favorite!) pretty much sums it all up.

[Today?]

So, On Press is to be applauded for turning this whole experience around and using the additional exposure to generate some sales and additional Shaun Shane fans. In fact, someone claiming to be On Press added this comment to the original post late Saturday afternoon.

We'd like to thank you

This is On Press. We actually have to thank you Mr.Cushing. While at first we dimissed your post as simpleminded reactionism, you have brought quite abit of attention to Shane's work. So much so, that we have sold 3219 (as to this hour)of Shane's book in the last two days( more than we do in a month) and have recieved thousands of emails stating how much people like his work. So, by all means keep going. Your the best advertisment we have. Most people seem to not accept your position that using someone's work without credit is acceptable. With much thanks, On Press Inc.

Now, I'm not going to comment publicly on the veracity of those sales figures* because that's beside the point. I have to believe there has been an increase in sales for two reasons: 1. additional exposure and 2. a more pleasant "On Press experience" on Twitter. I'm also not going to comment on the penultimate sentence... yet.

* ಠ_ಠ

While there's a new On Press leaf being turned over on Twitter, it appears that it's the same old On Press (only grudgier) away from that platform. I was first clued in to this by Kendra Albert, who tweeted me a link to her blog post dealing with her On Press experience. She tweeted the poem, along with a link to our story, and received this in response. (The following image is Kendra's.)

All well and good, except that several hours later, a comment from someone claiming to be On Press appeared on a two-week-old post of hers to leave a comment/rant about copyright, infringement, giving proper attribution, etc. Another comment followed (credited to "onpress17"), but this one was a bit nastier.

Here let us speak for ourselves, This is On Press Inc. Tim Cushing (Techdirt) posted Shane's Poem on his Twitter account without credit to Shane. He was told to remove the post. Which is our legal right to demand. He then responded in what can only be characterized as juvenile ranting.He has selectively posted what he wants on his bizarre rambling on his webpage.But we have screenshots of all his conversation. You cannot post Author's work without credit to them. Not only is it illegal but unethical. If you published something and someone put it on the internet without credit to you and you contacted them and they refused to credit you and then post your work on the internet without your credit and then encouraged their friends to post the work without credit to you,w e wonder how you would feel. As we do. Shane should credit for his work. And that is all that was asked of Cushing to do

Finally, onpress17 appeared again to add a comment to her current post.

You post was not for commentary or reporting it was to incite. Which is not Fair Use. We understand that some people have a limited and overly simplistic understanding of Copyright Law, which to be expected of amateurs. But, let us put Mr.Cushings efforts in perspective. Of all the issues we deal with daily, he is quite minor and is hardly the first of his kind that we or other publishers have had to deal with . And we have quite abit of experince with resolving these types of issues. Though they take a little time. Secondly, Mr. Cushing has committed quite a few criminal and civil infractions that we are in the process of bringing to bare against him. But as we stated, legal proceedings take time. We have, and are sure that we will have too in the future, deal with sorts like Mr.Cushings as we have in the past. But, that is the nature of Publishing in this era and this issue will be resolved in our favor. However, we would suggest for you that you become better acquainted with the limitations of Fair Use.

So, it appears that On Press (or people pretending to be On Press) is playing nice on Twitter, but is still just as brutish (and confused) everywhere else. Someone claiming to be On Press also visited Boing Boing's writeup on this story to add the following:

We would really like to see if you'll come out from hiding behind this cowardly shield of words, on some poorly excuted blog that list no way of getting a hold of you and give us some real world contact information. For surely, if you presume you are right then there can be no harm in having us settle this in court. Or perhaps your just a wanna be revolutionary that does nothing more than talk hiding behind some silly childish ranting on a webpage. Or are you really up " to putting your money where your mouth is " as they say. So give us some contact information and stop being so cowardly.

All of this coming from the very anonymous On Press Inc., which has yet to supply anyone with a URL, email address, contact name or anything else. Someone claiming to be On Press also visited Michael Geist's blog to set the record straight on a "misquote," using the name "Tammy." (h/t to Eric Lorenzo). And there's plenty being said in the reviews section of On Press' solo book offering over at Amazon. "Michael Bradshaw" has waded into every opposing review to deliver gems such as these:

"...he (Cushing) acted like some idiotic kid and wrote this fake review. Notice he has not bought the book... And anybody who would go to these lengths rather than first credit an Artist is seriously deranged... Anyone who support this type of unethical childish behavior is as emotionally disturbed as Cushing is ."

"Cushing never read Shane's book he's just an immature idiot who knows how to nothing more than respond like a child when confronted with his immturity."

"Tim Cushing and the other guy have posted fake reviews when Cushing posted Shane's poem without credit and was asked to credit him instead of being a decent human being decide to write a fake review in immature retaliation. Only a moron does stuff like that"

In addition, on the day of the original post, this email was sent to Techdirt's Facebook account. [Interjections in brackets are my comments.]

Ah, Mr. Cushing we are quite amused by your efforts. Your investigation techniques need some work, but they are interesting to review nonetheless. As, for some of the misinformed opinions you've stated in your post ( quite bizarre in it's length) let us correct you. Shaun Shane is dead and died of cancer in 2010 and is buried in Connecticut. [Link to an obituary, perhaps?] He willed all his work and ownership of his copyright to On Press Inc. [Documentation?]

As for Tim Roth, who attempted to verify that you were employed and Techdirt , he is in New York.

[There don't appear to be any Tim Roths registered to practice law in New York. There's a "Timothy Rothwell" in New Jersey. And as for it being "Tim Roth" who called, the voice on the phone (which sounded quite similar to the voice in Shaun Shane's videos) clearly said "James Roth" and the call itself was made using a Texas phone number (the same number belonging to one of the names that has been going around supporting Shaun Shane online, Anne Murphy). It's possible that there is another Tim Roth out there not listed in the official listings for NY lawyers, but who is a lawyer. It would help to see some proof though. For now, it's a misdemeanor to impersonate an attorney in New York. If any impersonation is being done in Texas (where the calls originated), it's a third-degree felony. There may not be any impersonation going on, but we pass along this info as a courtesy to On Press.]

But most importantly after being contacted to remove your post of Shane's poem ,which you used illegally and not in compliance with any copyright law. ( Your use of it on Twitter does not meet Fair Use protection Guidelines; and despite your protest to the contrary, you cannot use copyrighted work - and it is copyrighted - without permission from the publisher) you showed willful intent to incur further infringement of our property and encouraged other to do (quite illegal Mr.Cushing)

[You'll have to point out where exactly I "encouraged others to do" so. I believe your tactics, once exposed, had more to do with any uptick in uncredited poem tweets than anything I said in my post. And, once again, I'd like to see some proof of your claim that On Press holds this copyright. So far, all I've seen is one phrase in the opening pages of a print-on-demand book composed of someone else's poems.

And as for your claim I showed "willful intent to incur further infringement," please take some time to point out exactly where that occurred.]

Additionally, we have just been in contact with Amazon concerning your fake review of Shane's book and have forwarded them the complete conversation with you ( we take screenshots of all conversations involving copyright infringement.) we had on Tweeter and your Twitter post stating that you had just made a review on Amazon in retaliation for being legally contacted to credit Shane or remove the post. Additionally, Twitter can, and does terminate accounts for copyright infringement.

[Good thing you made screenshots because all of your accounts are suspended. In fact, as of the evening of Feb. 18th, I can't find a single one up and running.]

Copyright Infringement is a crime and you cannot use anyone's copyrighted work without crediting them, period. There are no exceptions. We have to say that you have provided with us quite a lot of material to begin prosecution against you for copyright infringement. Also, Mr. Cushing we suggest you become more informed about how legal proceedings are conducted. it takes roughly a month to three months to begin the initial stages of prosecution. On Press Inc.

[I've got nothing to add to this -- other than that there is a whole body of law that talks about limitations and exceptions in copyright law, so to say that "there are no exceptions" is simply incorrect. Moreover, I suggest a crash course on the difference between criminal copyright law and civil copyright law.]

I'd also like to address that last sentence of the self-congratulatory comment left here at Techdirt by On Press.

"Most people seem to not accept your position that using someone's work without credit is acceptable."

["Most people" apparently being "Bob."] Reading the entire post would show that my position is very clearly the opposite. Just like every other writer for Techdirt, I properly attribute the work (and words) of others. Every article posted has links to the source material. Quotations from the source are clearly set off by the use of blockquotes and italics. As I stated in my post, I don't have any problem with seeking attribution. I just didn't care for the method On Press was using. "Using someone's work without credit" has never been acceptable, professionally or privately.

Now, bearing in mind that On Press is still considering naming me in a lawsuit for "copyright infringement, defamation of character and making false claims," there's not much I can do about the offending tweet and faux review. I can't delete them or alter them in any way. The last thing I need is accusations that I'm trying to alter or cover up evidence. As long as there's a legal threat dangling above my head, the tweet and review will stay where they are, unaltered.

Finally, even with this turnaround on Twitter, On Press still has some issues of its own. For one, it continues to claim it's a division of Knopf, despite the fact that Knopf itself told us directly that it has no division by that name. In fact, Knopf itself offered to "release the hounds."

Speaking of Twitter profiles, it appears the background photo On Press is using is a Shutterstock offering. This doesn't mean On Press hasn't paid the license fee (only $19!), but if it just grabbed it thoughtlessly from somewhere on the internet (without attribution), that would be a real shame.

Then there's the issue with its claim of ownership of Shane's work. On Press claims it owns it, despite it never having been registered at the Copyright Office. This doesn't necessarily rule out ownership, but it does make one wish for a bit more proof than an uploaded video/flipbook. If Shaun Shane is dead (as On Press has repeatedly stated), who or what is controlling his work?

Shane's only "published" book is a print-on-demand title from a company that doesn't seem to exist outside of tweets and comments. Without any more information to go on, this book (and its attendant copyright) seems about as legitimate as a scraperbot's Amazon offering compiled from eHow articles and Wikipedia pages. Some sort of chain of evidence needs to be presented before anyone can start filing copyright infringement lawsuits. If On Press has any information related to this, I greatly encourage it to clue the rest of us in on its existence.

Now, On Press has made some great strides in its day-to-day attribution work and I'd like to see it continue down that positive path. I'd also like to see it drop its "division of Knopf" wording and be a bit more open about its relationship to Shaun Shane (or his estate), but I'm not expecting any miracles. I'd also like to see it drop the legal threats but, understandably, it's quite angry with me right now and I don't expect that to change anytime soon. On the bright side, I did receive this little note in my Twitmail late last week.

As someone's who's witnessed the awesome power of the Popehat Signal, I'd hate to be the entity whose legal threats have prompted the lighting.

All in all, though, I'd say more good than bad has come out of this. At the very least, unsuspecting teen retweeters aren't being smacked around by baseless threats involving IP addresses, police departments and lawsuits filed against their parents. While there is evidence that On Press is a bit more "aggressive" away from the confines of Twitter, for the most part it looks like a more positive effort is being made. Old habits die hard, but hopefully the newer, friendlier face of On Press will become the new "normal." Perhaps this will lead to enough book sales that On Press/Shaun Shane can set up an actual web site and offer more than one title. As I've said before, I have no problem with giving proper attribution. I have a big problem, however, with using threats, insults and good, old-fashioned trolling to get these results.

Last year, we wrote about a ridiculous and obviously First Amendment-infringing attempt by some thin-skinned NY politicians to pass a law that would effectively ban anonymous comments online. The mechanism would be that a website would have to remove any comments, upon request, unless the commenter agreed to reveal their name, and connect the comment to their name and home address. As we noted, the Supreme Court has been pretty clear that protecting anonymous speech is a key part of the First Amendment:

Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

It would appear that Illinois State Senator Ira I. Silverstein needs a refresher course on this basic concept, as he's recently introduced an almost identical bill to the New York one. Seriously. The wording is about as close to identical as you could imagine. Here's the Illinois wording.

Creates the Internet Posting Removal Act. Provides that a web site administrator shall, upon request, remove any posted comments posted by an anonymous poster unless the anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate.

Here's the widely mocked NY wording:

A WEB SITE ADMINISTRATOR UPON REQUEST SHALL REMOVE ANY COMMENTS POSTED ON HIS OR HER WEB SITE BY AN ANONYMOUS POSTER UNLESS SUCH ANONYMOUS POSTER AGREES TO ATTACH HIS OR HER NAME TO THE POST AND CONFIRMS THAT HIS OR HER IP ADDRESS, LEGAL NAME, AND HOME ADDRESS ARE ACCURATE. ALL WEB SITE ADMINISTRATORS SHALL HAVE A CONTACT NUMBER OR E-MAIL ADDRESS POSTED FOR SUCH REMOVAL REQUESTS, CLEARLY VISIBLE IN ANY SECTIONS WHERE COMMENTS ARE POSTED.

It kind of makes me wonder who is going around giving state politicians this language.

Meanwhile, Jeff Jarvis notes the ultimate irony that the very same Ira I. Silverstein, just days after introducing that bill to effectively ban internet anonymity, proposed another bill to keep gun owner info anonymous, amending the freedom of information act to exempt firearms ownership data from being available to the public.

Whatever you might believe about anonymous comments and/or gun ownership, it's difficult to put both of these laws together and not see some sort of extreme hypocrisy.

Tim Lee points us to an interesting blog post from a patent lawyer who tries to parse out why software patents feel so offensive to some. The lawyer, Steve Lundberg, who tends to be a software patent supporter (and whose blog posts I've strongly disagreed with in the past) does make some interesting points. Lee highlights the following:

There is one more factor that makes software very unique — because a single person can successfully develop and distribute software applications, the experience with the system is highly personalized for a large number of developers. Software patents, in a sense, and almost unlike all other technology areas, restrict what feels like our treasured personal freedom, and understandably thus generate a visceral reaction to those so affected. In almost all other mainstream industries, inventors do not act as manufacturers, but are employed by them. This decouples and depersonalizes infringement concerns from the inventor/developer. In actual practice, it is extremely rare that a small developer would ever be sued for infringement by any entity other than a direct competitor. In this instance, the developer would be able to quite easily see it coming, but there is a possibility that they could be sued and not see it coming. So, I can understand why smaller developers would feel personally threatened by software patents. And even software developers in large companies often still fancy themselves as independent souls who, in their dreams, find fame and fortune founding a start-up and striking it rich. So, they too, often can take umbrage as much as an independent developer.

Lee responds to this paragraph by almost totally agreeing with a couple of important caveats. First, he notes that Lundberg greatly underestimates how many small and indie developers are hit by patent lawsuits these days. Actually, I'd say even that massively underestimates the problem, because it doesn't take into account all of those who are never sued, but who are hit with threats that can be tremendously damaging to small companies. Lee's other point is also important:

the part about patents restricting “what feels like” freedom. There’s no “feels like” about it. Patents are a restriction on the treasured personal freedom of programmers, which is why so many of us are upset about them.

I think that's true, but again, I'd take it even further. I'm not sure I agree with Lundberg's assertion that this is somehow unique to software developers. I think it's absolutely true that we see more software developers than other patent-intensive fields, and thus we see more such activity, but any use of patents (or copyrights for that matter) are restrictions on the freedom of others by definition. Patents and copyrights are rights to exclude. That's their fundamental property. They are a government granted tool with which the holder can restrict the freedoms of others. There is a calculus involved, over whether or not that restriction on freedom is worth it in the long run. Does it incentivize more inventiveness? Does the benefit outweigh the restriction? That's what we're supposed to be determining.

The problem isn't just that indie developers feel super independent and blindsided by patent disputes, but, rather that they don't see the patents helping in any way, and thus the restriction on freedom is way too costly. A big part of the problem, of course, is that thanks (in large part) to regulatory capture, those who benefit most from patents (and copyrights) have done their best to tilt the law over time such that those key questions are never asked. They've created a world in which we are told to first assume that of course such restrictions create more incentives for invention and that of course the benefits outweigh the restrictions. People are yelled at for even suggesting otherwise, and it's rare to find a serious discussion on those topics. Instead, maybe questions are allowed at the margins about a specific part of the law that is seen as going too far. But the larger questions are never asked.

But for the people who live these things day in and day out, they know intuitively that the restrictions on their own freedoms are much much more problematic than any benefits given from patent law. And that is why they're upset. It's not just that the development and the infringement concerns are linked, but that the overall restrictions on freedom are just not seen to be worth it.

Last week, Techdirt reported on the news that falling numbers of P2P users are being trumpeted as a victory for HADOPI's "three strikes" approach in France, but that it is a hollow victory, since sales of recorded music are still dropping in that country. The French site Numerama points out something else interesting happening there (in French), as revealed by the following tweet from Kim Dotcom:

#Mega Top 5 premium membership countries: 1. France 2. Spain 3. Belgium 4. United States 5. Germany - Thanks a lot for buying!

Now, of course, as Techdirt always emphasizes, correlation is not causation, but it's pretty suggestive that at precisely the same time that P2P use is dropping in France, its citizens should turn out to be the biggest premium users of Dotcom's Mega service. This is, after all, precisely what we and everyone else have been predicting: that people would simply move from P2P services where they can be observed, to others -- like Mega's file-hosting site -- where they cannot.

This interpretation is supported by the other notable fact to emerge from Dotcom's tweet: that after French users, it is Spaniards who are signing up for Mega's premium membership in droves -- another group who have had a punitive copyright infringement law imposed on them recently. This means that in about a year's time, we can probably expect the Spanish department tasked with implementing Ley Sinde to publish figures showing that the number of P2P users is falling -- omitting to note, of course that they, like their French counterparts, have simply moved to alternatives instead.

Now, some will doubtless use these trends to argue that Mega should be shut down just as Megaupload was. But the correct inferences to draw are that HADOPI and Ley Sinde are just an expensive waste of time, and that people don't expect to get everything for free, as the popularity in France and Spain of Dotcom's paid-for Mega service shows. It's just a matter of the recording and film industries offering the public what they want, in a form they want, at a reasonable price. Is that really too much to ask?

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

For those of you who have managed to avoid the viral sensation of February, known as "The Harlem Shake," consider yourselves lucky. People still seem at a total loss how this became "a thing," but it involves the opening 30 seconds of a song released nearly a year ago, called The Harlem Shake, by Baauer, with the first half involving someone in a wacky costume (often involving a helmet) dancing while others around them ignore it, followed by a bass drop and suddenly everyone around is dancing crazily, often involving costumes, stuffed animals (or real animals), people in sleeping bags and much much more. It's gone quite insane (and, yes, we know it's not "the real Harlem Shake" but so what?) with way, way, way, way too many people, companies and organizations all doing their own versions. There were reports of 4,000 Harlem Shake videos being uploaded to YouTube every single day, and over 60,000 being on YouTube already. If you want (and I warn you to be careful), you can spend hours going through video after video. The KnowYourMeme link up top has collected some of the most popular ones. I cannot vouch for how many such videos it takes before you are driven insane, so be forewarned.

For those who have not seen them, this video was basically the first, but this one that quickly followed it more or less established the basic parameters of the meme.



Over the weekend Baauer's song hit number one on the charts and it appears to be doing fairly well around the globe. Also, the song has resulted in a sold out show in NY for Baauer and what is likely to be a fair bit of money. That's because, rather than freak out about others using "his" song (which includes a bunch of samples), Baauer and his label Mad Decent have a deal with INDmusic, which helps indie labels/musicians claim YouTube videos via ContentID and place ads on them. So, combine a top selling song on iTunes, plus allowing the free use of it on YouTube (and monetizing it via ads) and it seems like a tidy profit is being made.

So, for a bit, this was looking like yet another story of how letting people build something on your music was enabling a nice way for one artist to make money, without flipping out about "copyright infringement." But... then we learned that it wasn't quite that simple. As highlighted by The Verge, while Mad Decent and Baauer have mostly let people do what they want with the song, they did send a takedown to Soundcloud over Azelia Banks posting her lyrics over the entire Baauer track, and also posting a video:



That quickly turned into a bit of a Twitter fight, with Banks calling out Baauer: And, from there we get the following exchange: Of course, it seemed like there absolutely had to be more to this, as it was unlikely that Banks put together that song and video so quickly after the meme took off (especially since the video doesn't reference the meme at all). Indeed, in an interview with the Daily Beast Baauer (real name: Harry Rodrigues) explains:

“I’m not happy about it,” says Baauer. “She had a version that we were going to release because I’m a big fan of hers. We knew she likes to beef with producers. So she laid something on ‘Harlem Shake’ and it was so/so. Didn’t love it. And that was a little while ago, and since all this video stuff happened, our plans all changed. Because of that, we decided to just release the song on it’s own with no vocal version. So we told her, ‘Please don’t release your version.’ And she said, ‘Well, I’m going to put it online anyway.’ And we said, ‘Please don’t. We’d really like it if you didn’t.’ And she did.”

Still, while lots of folks are defending Baauer here (in part because Banks does have a reputation for getting into arguments with people, and in part because she also went on a homophobic rant), she did have a point when she tweeted this: Art is supposed to be inspiring, and you should be happy when someone is inspired by your art. In fact, one might argue that Baauer's statement to Banks that "its not ur song" could potentially come back to bite him as well. In that same Daily Beast interview, he talks about how he created the song:

“I just had the idea of taking a Dutch house squeaky-high synth and putting it over a hip-hop track,” he says. “And then I tried to just make it the most stand-out, flashy track that would get anyone’s attention, so put as many sounds and weird shit in there as I could. The dude in the beginning I got somewhere off the Internet, I don’t even know where, and the lion roar just makes no sense.” He laughs. “There’s the sound of flames in there, too, it’s just really low.”

He doesn't know where the "dude in the beginning" comes from -- though, the folks at Reddit have figured it out (because Reddit knows everything). You have to imagine that wasn't licensed, though, if he didn't know where it was from. Who knows about all of the other samples. Personally, I think it's great that he created something by building on the works of others, and was inspired to create something that has become such a huge hit. But you'd think that someone who made the song by pulling bits and pieces from others wouldn't be so fast to sling claims of "ownership" back at someone else who built off of his work. Yes, there's more to it than that and, for the most part, Baauer seems reasonably giddy with all the insanity (and he definitely seemed to do a nice job with his Reddit AMA thanks in particular to this exchange).

It would just be nice if artists who really build on the works of others didn't jump to claiming ownership when others build on their works as well.

A few folks have pointed us to this odd article at the UK's Telegraph, in which it claims that Google is "in discussions with payment companies" to stop funding to "illegal download websites." There are a bunch of problems with this, with the first one being, huh? It's not clear what Google has to do with any of this. The article claims that Google is talking to Visa, Mastercard and PayPal, but why should that be any of Google's concern in the first place. All three of those payment providers are already quite well known for cutting off payments to sites they don't like, including sites accused of being involved in copyright infringement. So what good would further discussions do?

And, of course, really this sounds exactly like Google's response to SOPA. When quizzed about what should be done, Google supported what was called the "follow the money" approach, which was all about getting companies, like Visa, Mastercard and Paypal, to cut off funding to sites deemed to be "illegal." And, that was a component of SOPA -- which Google had hinted would be acceptable (which is yet another point that disproves the whole "SOPA only died because of Google" narrative, since Google would have been perfectly fine with a bill that was just "follow the money.")

If it's true that Google is looking to partner up with these payment processors under some sort of "voluntary" agreement, that's still confusing (what is Google's role here again?), but also quite troubling. The problem, as always, is how do you define "illegal" or sites "dedicated to copyright infringement." Once again, nearly every important technological breakthrough that later became a central piece to how we distribute, promote, consume and monetize content was initially decried for its "infringing" uses. The radio, cable TV, the VCR, the MP3 player, the DVR, YouTube and much much more were all declared "dedicated to infringing uses" by the industry who sought to make them all illegal. Imagine where YouTube would be if such a rule was in place, and their ability to make any revenue was completely barred by such a "voluntary" agreement? Imagine where the VCR would be if no one could sell them since payment processors would refuse to process them?

If this move goes through, it won't be good for the entertainment companies, though it could be good for Google, since it would effectively lock in players like YouTube, and really limit the ability of anyone else to jump into that market. The bizarre part is, of course, that this would be a result of the entertainment industry really pushing Google to do this sort of thing, even though it clearly works to their disadvantage. The end result would be fewer platforms and less competition in the space, giving the few dominant players today much more leverage.

Even so, such a move would still likely come back to bite Google too, because Google benefits from others pushing the innovation envelope as well, creating new markets and services that are good for Google. Cutting off innovative startups by declaring them "illegal" is likely to kill a bunch of good ideas that would have helped the entertainment industry, while still doing nothing of any significance to actually stop infringement.

Either way, if this report is accurate, like with Google caving to Hollywood's demands over search rankings, it won't satisfy Hollywood (nothing will), it won't stop infringement, but it likely will make consumers worse off by killing off important innovations. That's a shame. Furthermore, it would be yet another example of SOPA happening anyway, despite the protests against the law.

Hopefully the rumors (as confusing as they are) are just rumors and Google execs are smart enough not to bow down to such ridiculous pressure.

Maybe there's a scientific explanation for the sort of behavior that leads normally beloved people to suddenly veer into previously unexplored areas of misanthropy and jettison all the goodwill they've built up over a lifetime. It's not necessarily just a case of "old men yelling at clouds." The subject of this piece isn't necessarily old (although, I admit I keep moving those particular goalposts with each passing birthday) or incoherent. He's just... so horribly, awfully, completely wrong.

Terry Deary, author of the Horrible Histories line of children's books, has a problem with libraries. Perhaps urged on by UK Publisher's Association's collective mental breakdown (libraries = "tawdry theft") early last year, Deary has joined the not-really-all-that-large number of voices decrying the existence of libraries and the countless free books contained therein.

"I'm not attacking libraries, I'm attacking the concept behind libraries, which is no longer relevant."

Let's stop right there for a moment. When you've read the next few paragraphs, you'll probably come to the conclusion that Deary is attacking libraries. I just want to let you know that you are not crazy. When someone attacks the underlying concept of something, very rarely does that something escaped unscathed. There's a reason for this. Let's use a metaphor to explain Deary's oxymoronic statement:

Underlying concepts are like the foundation of a house, and when someone like Deary attacks this house's "foundation," he's going to sound like the sort of person that, for the good of humanity, should have several filters installed between his brainstem and his mouth. All clear?

Good. Let's proceed.

[I]t's been 150 years, we've got this idea that we've got an entitlement to read books for free, at the expense of authors, publishers and council tax payers. This is not the Victorian age, when we wanted to allow the impoverished access to literature. We pay for compulsory schooling to do that.

Well, there's a lot of offensive stuff in there, almost enough of it to crowd out the ignorant stuff. "Entitlement to read books for free." To tell you the truth, I barely noticed that "entitlement" because it was immediately overshadowed by the author's entitlement. Who do you think it is that grants you the "entitlement" to earn money for writing books? Copyright is granted -- it's not something that has always existed and will always exist.

I'm particularly amazed (and not in the good way) that you feel "impoverished" people should be happy with whatever the school system manages to stock in its library. God forbid the poor get more than the bare minimum the "council tax payers" provide. They've got survival concerns that outweigh your "giving away a book or two" concerns, Deary. So, they want to read a bestseller while it's still on the list. Fuck them, right? Sorry about your dwindling royalties and all, but couldn't you at least have picked a more socially acceptable target, like Amazon or piracy or literacy rates or something?

And what about all the other books in the library that aren't children's fiction written by Terry Deary? Should these societal leeches purchase their own sets of reference books as well? I'm sure much more time and money went into crafting the Encylopaedia Brittanica and yet, these freeloaders are in the library, not paying for all this information. Should they just be pointed in the direction of the internet, another service most libraries provide? And what if they don't have that service at home? A closed library doesn't do the "impoverished" much good at all.

Please... continue.

"People have to make the choice to buy books."

No, they don't, Terry. Not if there's an option, and certainly not if they can only afford the free option. If you think shutting down libraries will force everyone to start buying books (especially yours), then go ahead and grab a seat on the FAILboat crowded with content industry members that think shutting down piracy will force people to start buying their offerings. It's going to be a long, angry ride to a very disappointing destination.

"People will happily buy a cinema ticket to see Roald Dahl's Matilda, and expect to get the book for free."

I've got some bad news for you and your shipmates, Terry: the library lends out movies as well. Audiobooks. Video games. CDs. And yet you think this is all about how you're losing out on one more royalty every time someone uses their library card.

"Books aren't public property, and writers aren't Enid Blyton, middle-class women indulging in a pleasant little hobby."

Nice. A slam against middle-class women and hobby writers, both of whom deserve no respect and for nothing good to happen to them.

Well, that's probably all we need to hear from this author. It's enough to bury him alrea—

"The libraries are doing nothing for the book industry. They give nothing back, whereas bookshops are selling the book, and the author and the publisher get paid, which is as it should be. What other entertainment do we expect to get for free?"

Really? Plenty of people get TV for free. I know everyone pays a license fee back in your homeland, Deary, but that's because it's a public service broadcaster. Over here in the US, advertising pays for our free TV. Even with the surcharge, the effective amount paid (per person) per hour of broadcasting falls well below the 6.2p per lend royalty that has Deary so upset. Or maybe you've heard of this little thing called radio? Music, talk, sports, religion -- all free.

YouTube -- free. (Oh, but the internet connection costs money, I hear you argue, as if that were even remotely a legitimate counterpoint. Sure, you need an internet connection to reach YouTube, but it's hardly the only site on the web. To make Deary's rhetorical question work, we have to pretend YouTube's offerings are the only content in demand on the internet and that YouTube would much rather sell DVDs than allow people to watch for "free.") And, as mentioned before, libraries are diversifying their offerings, so there's many more forms of entertainment people can expect to get for free.

There's also this:

"Bookshops are closing down, he said, "because someone is giving away the product they are trying to sell. What other industry creates a product and allows someone else to give it away, endlessly? The car industry would collapse if we went to car libraries for free use of Porsches … Librarians are lovely people and libraries are lovely places, but they are damaging the book industry. They are putting bookshops out of business, and I'm afraid we have to look at what place they have in the 21st century."

First is was Barnes & Noble crowding out the indie bookstores. Then it was Amazon, crowding out B&N and the indie bookstores. Now, it's libraries, destroying bookstores in their glacially-paced (150 years+) quest to dismantle the publishing industry and undermine their own existence at the same time. And, for no apparent reason, there's our good friend "The Car Metaphor" thrown into the mix.

We can't give everything away under the public purse. Books are part of the entertainment industry. Literature has been something elite, but it is not any more. This is not the Roman empire, where we give away free bread and circuses to the masses."

Literature used to be "elite." Now, they're simply "entertainment," and apparently should be sold as such. No freebies. And there's that ugly undercurrent of resentment aimed at the "masses," most of whom are presumably too "impoverished" to be considered part of Deary's society.

"People expect to pay for entertainment."

Do they? I doubt it. Again: radio, TV, YouTube, etc. You can't even keep your story straight. First, they "expect" to pay for a movie ticket. Then they "expect" to read the book the movie was based on for free. Your views on what the "common man" expects or doesn't expect seem to be based on whichever strawman you're currently trying to erect.

So, which is it, Deary? Are the people expecting to pay and the library system keeps letting them down? Or do they expect it for free, but find they can't enjoy it with all the whinging battering at their ears (and eyes, in this case)?

Here's the worst part and it goes unstated by Deary, who clearly wishes that no one ever purchase a book of his again: show me an author who didn't take great advantage of the library system during his or her formative years and I'll show you a liar. Anyone who either makes a living writing or at least makes a serious attempt has spent years voraciously devouring anything they could get their hands on. That's how writers develop. And there is no way in hell that Deary purchased every single book he read on his way to becoming a successful author. None. At all.

Considering how many lives the library system has enhanced and enriched, the complaint of an author bemoaning the "loss" of £180,000 hardly registers against libraries' priceless contribution to society. Too bad for Deary that his ill-advised rant will result in the "loss" of even more royalties as discerning consumers (and fans of libraries) start putting their money in the pockets of other authors -- ones who share the same respect and love for this so-called "outdated" institution.

The Spanish Pirate Party points us to a recently released opinion by the European Copyright Society concerning whether or not hyperlinks themselves may be infringing. The paper was written by 19 European legal scholars, concerning a specific case before the European Court of Justice, Case C-466/12 Svensson, which is yet another case of a news aggregator being sued for daring to link its customers to relevant articles. The reporter, Mr. Svensson, argues that even though the aggregator, Retriever, only posted links, they were "making available" the work. The European Copyright Society is not buying it, noting that hyperlinking is much more akin to a footnote:

Clearly, hyperlinking involves some sort of act – an intervention. But it is not, for that reason alone, an act of communication. This is because there is no transmission. The act of communication rather is to be understood as equivalent to electronic “transmission” of the work, or placing the work into an electronic network or system from which it can be accessed.

This is because hyperlinks do not transmit a work, (to which they link) they merely provide the viewer with information as to the location of a page that the user can choose to access or not. There is thus no communication of the work. As Abella J explained, speaking for the majority of the Supreme Court of Canada (in a case concerning hyperlinks and defamation):

“Communicating something is very different from merely communicating that something exists or where it exists. The former involves dissemination of the content, and suggests control over both the content and whether the content will reach an audience at all, while the latter does not.
...
Hyperlinks ... share the same relationship with the content to which they refer as do references. Both communicate that something exists, but do not, by themselves, communicate its content. And they both require some act on the part of a third party before he or she gains access to the content. The fact that access to that content is far easier with hyperlinks than with footnotes does not change the reality that a hyperlink, by itself, is content-neutral — it expresses no opinion, nor does it have any control over, the content to which it refers.”

Basically, since a hyperlink just points you somewhere it's not transmitting the work, there's no copyright violation. The paper goes into significantly more detail, citing case law around the globe to support its position. It also warns the court that while this may seem like a simple issue, it's vitally important to the health of the internet:

The legal regulation of hyperlinking thus carries with it enormous capacity to interfere with the operation of the Internet, and therefore with access to information, freedom of expression, freedom to conduct business, as well – of course – with business ventures that depend on these types of linkages. Europe has developed a significant sector of SMEs, many of whose web operations depend on the use and provision of links. The Court must not under-estimate the importance of its ruling in this case.

Also of note, is that the opinion paper says that the same reasoning applies equally to "framing." This is a bit more controversial, but we've always pointed out that embedding and framing are no different than linking, since they're merely pointing a computer from where to pull information, and the EU Copyright Society agrees:

In principle, we are unable to see why “framing” as it is often called, should be treated any differently for copyright purposes from hyperlinking.

[...]

In so far as there might be technical differences in some cases where the work is made available from the server of a person providing a hyperlink, it is our view that, even were there an act of communication or making available, such a communication or making available is not “to the public” because it is not to a “new” public – it is a public which already had the possibility of access to the material from the web. Just as an improved search-engine that improves the ability of users to locate material for which they are searching should not be required to obtain permission as a matter of copyright law, so providing links or access to material already publicly available should not be regarded as an act that requires any authorisation.

They do say that framing may give rise to other forms of liability, including unfair competition or moral rights, but that is separate from the copyright question before the court.

Considering how much pushback there has been recently in terms of companies arguing that links are infringing, this is nice to see. Here in the US, there's a similar case going on between the Associated Press and clipping service Meltwater. Hopefully common sense wins the day in both cases, and mere linking or framing is not seen as copyright infringement.

Aside from its spectacular location up in the Himalayas, the Kingdom of Bhutan is probably best known for eschewing measurements of Gross Domestic Product in favor of Gross National Happiness:

Since 1971, the country has rejected GDP as the only way to measure progress. In its place, it has championed a new approach to development, which measures prosperity through formal principles of gross national happiness (GNH) and the spiritual, physical, social and environmental health of its citizens and natural environment.

Unfortunately, as Global Voices reports, it seems that humor is not included in the GNH:

Rousing suspicions that Bhutan's government does not appreciate the humor of political satire blog Bhutanomics, the website was blocked on January 12, 2013 from a major internet service provider with no explanation or warning.

In less than one year of existence since launching in March 2012, the group blog has created ripples in Bhutan's political sphere with a series of satirical report cards for politicians and government officials, and as a popular open platform for anonymous government criticism and political analysis.

Blocks happen all the time, and for various reasons. Here's why the current one is worrying:

Suspicions of censorship are heightened because Bhutanomics is only inaccessible on Druknet, the main ISP operated by state-owned Bhutan Telecom. It is still accessible through private ISPs like Tashi Cell and Samden.

Political humor is a tricky thing to pull off at the best of times, but it's especially difficult in a nation like Bhutan trying to preserve its ancient traditions while encouraging its people to embrace modernity in the form of online activity. Let's hope good sense prevails, and the happiness that humor can spread is added once more to the nation's store of Gross National Happiness.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+