A few months ago we wrote about a really bad idea that was being floated in Germany: making companies like Google pay for the use of news snippets in services such as Google News. Unfortunately, that idea has now been turned into a concrete proposal for a new law; remarkably, it is even worse than the original plans.

As Udo Vetter points out in a post entitled "Digitally Castrated" (German original), the emphasis of the proposed modification to German copyright law (available as pdf) has shifted: now the primary targets of the law are not only companies like Google, but also ordinary people who blog or post short excerpts of news stories on Facebook or even Twitter, who may be required to obtain a special new license to do so.

Vetter suggests this is because the German publishers have realised that Google would probably rather close down its Google News site in Germany than pay for each snippet, and so they have decided to go after an Internet group who make up in numbers what they lack in revenue: German users of blogs, Facebook and Twitter.

They are likely to be affected because two aspects of the proposed law are vague. It would apparently apply to anyone who makes money from their online writing, and that seems to include things like a few Google Ads or a micropayment system like Flattr. The other uncertainty is what exactly is allowed in the way of unlicensed excerpts from articles. The proposal explicitly mentions that quotations that are currently legal will remain legal. But as Vetter points out, a recent German court decision established that even very short excerpts could be infringing, which effectively guts that apparent safeguard.

This creates a gray area of what will be lawful for ordinary Internet users. And that, in its turn, will create an opportunity for publishers to send out huge numbers of threatening letters to bloggers and others that have quoted from newspapers and magazines. Since few of the latter will have the resources to defend themselves in court, most will simply give in and pay for one of the new licenses the legislation would create.

This will doubtless have a chilling effect on German blogging, and by extension on the use of quotations from newspapers in German Facebook posts and on Twitter too, since users will hardly be keen to fight major battles against well-funded publishers to establish the exact contours of the new law.

The end-result could be a disaster for German blogging, microblogging and social networks. Freedom of speech would inevitably suffer, as people hesitate to challenge articles published in newspapers and magazines for fear of running afoul of the new rules. Old media will be back in the driver's seat -- exactly as the publishers doubtless planned when they lobbied for this law.

One hope is that the extreme nature of this proposal will shock enough people into protesting against it -- the massive street demonstrations against ACTA showed what the German Internet community is capable of. The other is that, if the worst comes to the worst, and it is passed in its current form, the new copyright law would surely alienate so many users of popular platforms like blogs and social networks that the German Pirate party would find itself propelled to even greater political power.

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

“It is important to note that even though audio technology is installed, no audio is recorded at this time. It will become functional at a later date..."

• The Collusion iPad pen isn't just a piece of plastic in the shape of a pen. This pen-like device uses an ultrasound system instead of the iPad's built-in touchscreen to provide better accuracy. Plus it comes with collaboration software and handwriting recognition, so you can share your drawings and notes with other users. (NB: This Kickstarter project hasn't ended yet.) [url]
• The Cosmonaut is a big stylus that is designed to mimic a dry erase marker. This *was* a Kickstarter project, and now it's currently selling for about $25 (shipping not included). [url]
• The PressurePen is an open hardware stylus for the iPad (and Android platform) that gives users a pressure-sensitive way to draw on a touchscreen. Okay, so how many Kickstarter stylus projects are there?!? LOTS. At least this one is open source.... [url]

While we’re at it, why don’t we save the printers’ jobs too. And bring back Smith-Corona. That company had employees…

I believe artists should be paid. But that does not mean they should be paid the same way they used to be

To be fighting file-sharing is akin to protesting dot matrix printers. File-trading is on its way out. Because it takes too much time to do it. And you don’t fight piracy with laws, but economic solutions. It doesn’t pay to steal if you can listen instantly on Spotify and its ilk.

And please stop bitching about the low payouts… That’s like saying Apple should liquidate and give the proceeds back to its stockholders, which is what Michael Dell so famously said in the nineties. Spotify is a trojan horse. You get hooked, and then you pay for higher quality on your mobile. Facebook stock gets hammered because of its inadequate mobile strategy and you’re not smart enough to see the connection to music??? You can’t get Spotify and its brethren on your handset without paying. And you will. Because you like the convenience of having all your music at your fingertips all the time.

FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and Royal Canadian Mounted Police officials have told industry representatives that IPv6 traceability is necessary to identify people suspected of crimes. The FBI has even suggested that a new law may be necessary if the private sector doesn't do enough voluntarily.

ARIN and the other regional registries maintain public Whois databases for IP addresses, meaning that if you type in 64.30.224.118, you can see that it's registered to CNET's publisher. ARIN tries to ensure that Internet providers keep their segments of the Whois database updated, and because it's been handing out IPv4 addresses blocks every few months, it currently enjoys enough leverage to insist on it.

But for IPv6, ARIN will be handing out much larger Internet address blocks only every 10 to 15 years, meaning it loses much of its ability to convince Internet providers to keep their Whois entries up-to-date. That means it may take law enforcement agencies -- presumably armed with court orders -- longer to trace an IPv6 address such as 2001:4860:4860::8888 back to an Internet service provider's customer.

While on a 1:1 audio call, users will see content that could spark additional topics of conversation that are relevant to Skype users and highlight unique and local brand experiences. So, you should think of Conversation Ads as a way for Skype to generate fun interactivity between your circle of friends and family and the brands you care about. Ultimately, we believe this will help make Skype a more engaging and useful place to have your conversations each and every day.

Skype has provided a great service for years, keeping us connected with friends and family. But there's always been one thing missing—marketers interrupting calls with giant display ads.

When the history of modern Brazil comes to be written, a special place will be reserved for the soybean, the powerful farmers that grow it -- and the deforestation it is driving. And at the center of that tale will be Monsanto, with its patented "Roundup Ready" crop, so called because it has been genetically modified to withstand the herbicide glyphosate, marketed as Roundup.

A recent news story in Nature sketches the twists and turns of that fascinating tale. For example, how the growing of GM soybeans was only legalized in 2005 when it turned out that three-quarters of the crops growing in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul were already using Monsanto's GM soybeans. Apparently, these had been smuggled in from Argentina. Monsanto claims that many soybeans still are, and uses this as a justification to impose an unusual levy on Brazilian soybean farmers:

Since the legalization, Monsanto has charged Brazilian farmers 2% of their sales of Roundup Ready soya beans, which now account for an estimated 85% of the nation’s soya-bean crop. The company also tests Brazilian soya beans that are sold as non-GM -- if they turn out to be Roundup Ready, the company charges the farmers responsible for the crops some 3% of their sales.

Brazil is now the world's second-largest producer of GM crops (after the US), and most of them are soybeans, so this levy resulted in huge additional profits for the company down the years -- and much resentment from the farmers. This led to a legal challenge being mounted in 2009 by a consortium of farming syndicates in the Rio Grande do Sul state. Earlier this year, this was successful, not least because the key patents had expired:

Giovanni Conti, a judge in Rio Grande do Sul, decided that Monsanto's levy was illegal, noting that the patents relating to Roundup Ready soya beans have already expired in Brazil. He ordered Monsanto to stop collecting royalties, and return those collected since 2004 -- or pay back a minimum of US$2 billion.

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

We noticed that government agencies from different countries would sometimes ask us to remove political content that our users had posted on our services. We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it’s not.

This is the fifth data set that we’ve released. And just like every other time before, we’ve been asked to take down political speech. It’s alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect—Western democracies not typically associated with censorship.

For example, in the second half of last year, Spanish regulators asked us to remove 270 search results that linked to blogs and articles in newspapers referencing individuals and public figures, including mayors and public prosecutors. In Poland, we received a request from a public institution to remove links to a site that criticized it. We didn’t comply with either of these requests.

Brazil: In December, we received an electoral court order that resulted in the removal of four orkut profiles for content related to political campaigns.

Canada: We received a request from the Passport Canada office to remove a YouTube video of a Canadian citizen urinating on his passport and flushing it down the toilet. We did not comply with this request.

Pakistan: We received a request from the Government of Pakistan's Ministry of Information Technology to remove six YouTube videos that satirized the Pakistan Army and senior politicians. We did not comply with this request.

Poland: We received a request from the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development to remove a search result that criticized the agency as well as eight more that linked to it. We did not comply with this request.

Spain: We received 14 requests from the Spanish Data Protection Authority to remove 270 search results that linked to blogs and sites referencing individuals and public figures. The Spanish Data Protection Authority also ordered the removal of three blogs published on Blogger and three videos hosted on YouTube. We did not comply with these requests.

United States: We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove a blog because of a post that allegedly defamed a law enforcement official in a personal capacity. We did not comply with this request, which we have categorized in this Report as a defamation request.

We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove 1,400 YouTube videos for alleged harassment. We did not comply with this request. Separately, we received a request from a different local law enforcement agency to remove five user accounts that allegedly contained threatening and/or harassing content. We terminated four of the accounts, which resulted in the removal of approximately 300 videos, but did not remove the remaining account with 54 videos.

We received a court order to remove 218 search results that linked to allegedly defamatory websites. We removed 25% of the results cited in the request.

The NSA IG provided a classified response on 6 June 2012. I defer to his conclusion that obtaining such an estimate was beyond the capacity of his office and dedicating sufficient additional resources would likely impede the NSA's mission. He further stated that his office and NSA leadership agreed that an IG review of the sort suggested would itself violate the privacy of U.S. persons..

So when did this transform from Oatmeal VS FunnyJunk to Carreon VS the internet? I'm going to take a wild shot in the dark here and guess that it's when you announced to a journalist at MSNBC that you were trying to shut down a charity fundraiser which would benefit cancer victims and endangered wildlife. THAT was the moment when the tide of public opinion focused on you instead of FunnyJunk. I never encouraged anyone to attack, harass, or otherwise contact you. In fact in my original letter I blurred out your contact information and I linked to your Wikipedia page instead of your website. If I've directed energy anywhere it's been to the fundraiser page.

Your lawsuit is meritless and it'll probably just get dismissed, but I'm guessing you're just going to keep trying until you find an angle that sticks with a judge. My advice: take a few weeks off, stop saying crazy shit to journalists, and come back when you've calmed down. Write an apology to whomever you feel is appropriate, or just don't write anything ever again.

Maybe start your own charity fundraiser as way of apology. I'd donate.