bikey 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: EU Approves Copyright Extension, Despite Evidence Of The Harm It Does

    bikey ( profile ), 27 Apr, 2009 @ 01:53am

    Re: Burgers in perpetuity

    Are there, can there be, two anonymous cowards, or have we started conversing with ourselves? But yes, why does singing a song one night lead to perpetual income while flipping the burg to perpetual poverty. Lobbying power? Flippers unite!

  • On the post: Swedish ISP Starts Deleting Log Files To Protect Users From IPRED Law

    bikey ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2009 @ 02:03pm

    IPRED

    Hi Tor Arguably. I guess you still have confidence in 'competent national authorities' and 'national law'. I have long abandoned such comforts. Don't the former dream up methods of abuse and then write up memos backing themselves up with the latter? Or am I confused here?

  • On the post: Swedish ISP Starts Deleting Log Files To Protect Users From IPRED Law

    bikey ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2009 @ 09:12am

    ipred

    Doesn't IPRED refer to IP Rights Enforcement Directive(2), the as yet un-enacted EC Directive, pushed by US lobbies, that mandates criminal penalties for IP offences? (There is IPRED1, enacted in 2004 and addressing civil penalties, but the controversial IPRED2 is still waiting in the wings.) Sweden's law (relating to criminal penalties for illegal downloads discoverable through the retention directive) cannot be an IPRED law if there's no IPRED. It is hard enough to follow the fate of this proposed Directive without using its name for only tangentially related legislation, no?

  • On the post: Swedish ISP Starts Deleting Log Files To Protect Users From IPRED Law

    bikey ( profile ), 18 Apr, 2009 @ 08:50am

    Hi Tor, Articles 4 and 6 of the 2006 Data Retention Directive (see below) would appear to suggest that there is a case for mandatory disclosure.
    What's next? See ACTA, and combine it with Data Retention, the mix of BSA, MPAA and RIAA aversion to new business models and equating piracy (patch kind), terrorism and downloading, and and Sarkozy's shenanigans, and the picture is not pretty.

    Article 4
    Access to data
    Art. 4 - Member States shall adopt measures to ensure that data retained in accordance with this Directive are provided only to the competent national authorities in specific cases and in accordance with national law. The procedures to be followed and the conditions to be fulfilled in order to gain access to retained data in accordance with necessity and proportionality requirements shall be defined by each Member State in its national law, subject to the relevant provisions of European Union law or public international law, and in particular the ECHR as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights.
    Article 8
    Storage requirements for retained data
    Member States shall ensure that the data specified in Article 5 are retained in accordance with this Directive in such a way that the data retained and any other necessary information relating to such data can be transmitted upon request to the competent authorities without undue delay.

  • On the post: BSA Tries To Exploit Somali Piracy News In PR Campaign Against Software Sharing

    bikey ( profile ), 14 Apr, 2009 @ 10:19am

    BSA

    BSA will do anything and everything they can to control, scare, intimidate. Seehttp://www.statewatch.org/news/2008/oct/eu-datret-bas.pdf
    for their lobbying paper to back the EU Data Retention Directive. People were asking "what's BSA got to do with lobbying for data retention"... As they say, duh. Latching on to Somali pirates should come as no excuse to anyone.

  • On the post: Lobbyists Get Random Unsuspecting Groups To Rally Against Patent Reform

    bikey ( profile ), 13 Apr, 2009 @ 01:47pm

    patent reform

    You're getting derailed here. What's important is the lobbying, as L. Lessig and anyone else who is informed about the futility of fighting IP creep through normal legal channels well know. They get what they pay for, and they are paying a lot. The purpose of patent law, the state of the country (beyond the few IP holders that represent the country as things stand) - none of these matter to these guys. Read So Damn Much Money, and Ken Silverstein's new book. The lobbysts own the place. Stop sweating the small stuff.

  • On the post: France Passes Three-Strikes Law

    bikey ( profile ), 03 Apr, 2009 @ 03:19pm

    France's new 'law'

    You people have really weird ideas about France and the Civil Code, but that being said, does anyone ever ask themselves why this, why now? Cute Carla whispered something in Nicky's little ear about her 'music business'? France doesn't even have music to protect. EPiaf is long dead and I really can't imagine it's her heirs behind this. US lobbyists need a lot more light shined on their nefarious profession. Never mind due process, the entire west left that behind long ago. And equal protection? Today it's flavor-of-the-month-offense tax avoiders who are denied protection of the 'law' - who will it be tomorrow? Pooper non-scoopers? Smokers? Very sloppy, but France is not alone. You don't hear this before the US congress because RIAA is going straight to the ISP's - through contract 'law'. Why bother with congress when you can guy your way with ISPs, and probably more cheaply.

  • On the post: Obama Administration Claims Copyright Treaty Involves State Secrets?!?

    bikey ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2009 @ 12:59pm

    Re: Trade Secrets/ National Secrets

    ACTA is not about trade rules. It's about making sure nothing that would break IP national monopolies goes over borders. It authorizes all electronic equipment searches by all signatory states' customs officials, and combined with data retention and disappearance of privacy, and high criminal penalties, it will assure that no one downloads or carries anything that these guys think threatens their last claim to hegemony - IP.

  • On the post: Obama Administration Claims Copyright Treaty Involves State Secrets?!?

    bikey ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2009 @ 08:12am

    natsec

    Re rumor quality, see http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/03/obama-declares.html with links. Not all that obscure.

  • On the post: Obama Administration Claims Copyright Treaty Involves State Secrets?!?

    bikey ( profile ), 14 Mar, 2009 @ 08:09am

    national security

    Yes, new boss, old boss same thing only worse. New boss has mental capacity, potential to be much more disappointing as what can we hope for after this.
    Anyway, OF COURSE it's national security - this is the only card the US economy has left to play. If IP fails them, it's lights out. Why isn't this clear to everyone?

  • On the post: The Brain Drain: US Is Losing Immigrants Who Create The Jobs We Need

    bikey ( profile ), 04 Mar, 2009 @ 09:36am

    immigrants

    I think this is a good thing. These countries will profit handsomely and these people will have a better life. What does a bible-thumping nation intent on squeezing a profit out of everything that moves and much that doesn't need with science anyway? Math? Please, what if they understood mortgage contracts? Science? What if they asked Monsanto why they don't research the safety and effects of their products. The last thing we need is math and science. It's (become) anti-American. Let other people do it. Good riddance I say.

  • On the post: France Plans Government Agency To Boot File Sharers Offline

    bikey ( profile ), 24 Feb, 2009 @ 06:46am

    Sarkozy

    Maybe we should just find Mr. S. a new wife - a pirate wife!

  • On the post: France Plans Government Agency To Boot File Sharers Offline

    bikey ( profile ), 24 Feb, 2009 @ 06:46am

    Sarkozy

    Maybe we should just find Mr. S. a new wife - a pirate wife!

  • On the post: Justice Department Increasingly Looking Like The RIAA/MPAA's Legal Team

    bikey ( profile ), 05 Feb, 2009 @ 07:39am

    DOJ

    No more surprising that a recent report in EU observer on the President of China's recent visit to the EU where the topics discussed were: online piracy, climate change and the world financial crisis (in that order). These RIAA/MPAA people are like tapeworms in the gut of democracy (corny, yes?).

  • On the post: Italian Writer Claims She Owns The Rights To The Benjamin Button Story

    bikey ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2009 @ 07:57pm

    Re: Re: wrote and copyrighted?

    There's no such thing as 'registering' the copyright (except to bring an action) outside the US and after 1989.

  • On the post: Italian Writer Claims She Owns The Rights To The Benjamin Button Story

    bikey ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2009 @ 07:55pm

    Re: Re: Public Domain

    Renewal was only relevant when the term was 28 years. After 1976, it was 50 years, and then and then and then, but renewals no longer relevant.

  • On the post: Italian Writer Claims She Owns The Rights To The Benjamin Button Story

    bikey ( profile ), 04 Feb, 2009 @ 11:12am

    wrote and copyrighted?

    Just a detail, but you don't 'write and copyright'. As soon as an idea is in fixed form, it is automatically subject to copyright. The US, alone in the world, requires registration before you can start an infringement action, but this does not 'create the copyright', it just gives you documentation necessary to file an action. Come on guys, this is basic.

  • On the post: Does ACTA Secrecy Violate European Law?

    bikey ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2009 @ 10:55am

    acta

    So sorry for the grammar mistakes - I was hasty. Let's watch what President Obama does - his secretary of agriculture is rumored to have strong Monsanto ties (see films 'World According to Monsanto', 'The Future of Food' , and 'Patent for a Pig' - all on google video) and the copyright people are lobbying for all they're worth. OK, it is war.

  • On the post: Does ACTA Secrecy Violate European Law?

    bikey ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2009 @ 08:02am

    It's not a war. They think they've won. It's an insidious and highly successful on the part of US and to a lesser degree the EU IP (patent, trademark, copyright) rights holders to secure a hold on a world economy filled with things it no longer makes or consumes. This is particularly important now that their banking hold has tanked. It's being done through, get this, the World Customs Organization, because it's so little known that the other countries, who have managed to assert themselves first through WIPO and then through WTO, were taken by surprise. And even if they hear of it "it's secret". The gist: to make customs officials around the world responsible for searching travellers for allegedly infringing items, from downloads to handbags. For an insight into the mentality and to see what's next, here's an interesting quote from a recent article in IP Watch (US IP Attachés Take Hard-Line Position On Overseas IP Enforcement, Posted by William New):
    In October, US Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue announced that the GIPC, which had previously been focused on counterfeiters, would rise to the challenge of what the chamber characterised as a “second threat [from] a growing movement of anti-IP activists drawn from universities, foundations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), ideologically driven interest groups, and even governments.” Maybe it is a war after all...

  • On the post: Breathalizer Source Code Ruling Upheld

    bikey ( profile ), 20 Jan, 2009 @ 07:46am

    due process and trade secrets

    While it may be a (shallow) victory for due process, the effect is that it is more important to protect trade secrets than to prosecute drunk drivers. Isn't there a public policy problem here somewhere? IP is climbing to the top of the legal hierarchy by leaps and bounds. Are we aware of this?

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