Tor 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: EU Council Quietly Adopts ACTA, By Hiding It In An Agriculture And Fisheries Meeting

    Tor ( profile ), 19 Dec, 2011 @ 11:04am

    Re: The EU and Software patents

    Btw. I really recommend this post (in Swedish so please run it through some machine translation) by Henrik Alexandersson an assistant to MEP Christian Engstr?m.

    The report on ACTA by the Parliament's Legal Service has been classified but the committee session tomorrow (incidentally the same session as for the the unitary patent mentioned above) where it is to be discussed is open. This means that those with critical questions about the classified document will not be able to make their voices heard while the ACTA proponents can pretend that there are no objections. And they wonder why people don't have more confidence in the EU...

  • On the post: EU Council Quietly Adopts ACTA, By Hiding It In An Agriculture And Fisheries Meeting

    Tor ( profile ), 19 Dec, 2011 @ 09:57am

    The EU and Software patents

    Speaking of the EU and software patents I hope everyone interested in this matter is following the news at http://www.unitary-patent.eu/ (a site run by french free/libre software organization April).

    The Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) will vote tomorrow about how to move forward with the new unitary patent. There are some amendments that clarifies that software should not be possible to patent. Here is an overview and contact info for members of the parliament who can influence the matter.

  • On the post: More Collateral Damage From SOPA: People With Print Disabilities And Human Rights Groups

    Tor ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2011 @ 04:36am

    I hope you read the comment thread at the Benetech blog. I know many journalists who would have something to learn from the way Fruchterman responds to the comments by Copyright Alliance.

  • On the post: Self-Regulation: Should Online Companies Police The Internet?

    Tor ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2011 @ 03:44am

    Re: Re:

    "There is no difference between a file host and a blog host."

    He/she never claimed there is though...
    There is of course a certain difference between simply forwarding messages and hosting material.

    I think that a bigger mistake by AC lies in him/her not recognizing the drawbacks of a fragmented DNS system. DNS censoring has no significant effect on piracy but leads to problems for the majority of internet users, eg. worse security.

  • On the post: Self-Regulation: Should Online Companies Police The Internet?

    Tor ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2011 @ 03:34am

    Re:

    "Many of these other "services" should be liable for what appears on their websites, and as such, they should be required to police their content."

    What do you mean "police their content"?
    A) Pre-screening any material before it is posted and censoring it if it puts the ISP at any risk
    B) Actively censoring already published material on the ISP's own initiative
    C) Responding to formal notices governed by a legal framework that dictates that false or bad faith notices can lead (not just theoretically but also practically) to serious legal consequences

    If you mean A) or B) what would you like to happen if the ISP censors material that can in fact be legally published? Should it be illegal for the ISP to do so?

    If yes, how should "damned if do, damned if you don't" cases be handled - cases where the ISP would be sued by the rights holder for erring on one side and by their customers for erring on the other side?

    Wouldn't it be best to determine such matters in a court? If yes, why outsource this policing to the ISP to begin with?

  • On the post: The Pirate Party Effect: German Greens Scramble To Draw Up Digital Policies To Hold On To Voters

    Tor ( profile ), 02 Dec, 2011 @ 01:52pm

    It's good news that more parties consider reducing the copyright term. However, it's risky to trust a party that has two wings like that. For example, the Swedish green party had an election platform for the EU parliament similar to this, but one of their candidates who ended up getting a seat then went against the platform of her own party once in parliament. It's the same with the left party in my country. They have a similar platform but you constantly get mixed messages from different people.

    So, although I welcome the extra exposure to these issues I only trust politicians who holds a personal conviction, not those who just follow a platform that others have setup or does something because it seems strategic at the time.

  • On the post: German Court: YouTube Doesn't Need To ID Uploader Who Didn't Profit From Infringement

    Tor ( profile ), 23 Nov, 2011 @ 01:30am

    That's interesting.

    This is based on a specific interpretation of the phrase "commercial scale" in the IPRED EU directive which applies to all EU countries. Here in Sweden the government took the approach to make the law such law that any illegal uploading is per definition said to be commercial scale.

    The problem with "commercial scale" in IPRED is of course that it's never defined. Does it imply that one should distinguish between commercial / noncommercial or that one should distinguish between big scale / small scale. What about things done commercially on a small scale and things done noncommercially on a bigger scale? There are no answers.

    When Sweden implemented IPRED into national law there were those who wanted to translate it into something like "for commercial purposes" - a phrase that was used elsewhere in the legislation and would give a certain consistency. But this was rejected on the grounds that since nobody really knew what "commercial scale" meant anything but a literal translation would create a risk that the law would differ from later case law developed in the EU.

  • On the post: Hackers, ACLU, Consumer Rights Groups, Human Rights Groups, Many More All Come Out Against SOPA

    Tor ( profile ), 21 Nov, 2011 @ 07:05am

    Re: Re:

    Never mind. I obviously read the comment too sloppily.

  • On the post: Hackers, ACLU, Consumer Rights Groups, Human Rights Groups, Many More All Come Out Against SOPA

    Tor ( profile ), 16 Nov, 2011 @ 05:37am

    Re:

    Oh, come on. You don't even understand the meaning of "hacker" and you expect us to take your arguments seriously?

    It's ridiculous to think that artists should dictate copyright law. It's like saying that an industry that receives a subsidy in order to create something that some politicians have deemed to be good for society should get to decide the size and form of that subsidy. Sure, one should of course let such an industry have its say, but it should be seen for what it is - a biased opinion from a major beneficiary of the system.

    The purpose of copyright is to give some benefits to society by restricting certain freedoms. The right people to judge whether it's worth it or not and the extent of those restrictions should of course be the citizens.

    Btw. this question isn't about caring about artists or not. It's about whether we should give up due process, create a systematic structure of economic risk that will hurt and stop many small businesses, send a message to foreign countries that using censorship tools is ok, make the internet infrastructure less secure and give intermediaries strong incentives to censor free speech.

  • On the post: Gamex Pulls The Welcome Mat Out From Under The Pirate Party

    Tor ( profile ), 14 Nov, 2011 @ 09:17am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

    "it could be as simple as having a piracy supporter, or a member of the party working on the event, and not saying anything up the ladder. You never know. When the bosses figure it out, they take action before the start of the show."

    It would have been a plausible explanation if it weren't for the fact that Gamex ran ads in the Stockholm subway where the Pirate Party was relatively prominently featured for hundred of thousands of people to see. I doubt the bosses didn't get to see that ad before they ran it (considering both the importance of it and the cost).

  • On the post: OpenDNS Tells Congress Not To Create The Great Firewall Of America

    Tor ( profile ), 09 Nov, 2011 @ 09:46am

    Re: Re: Re:

    "they are only asking them to obey the laws of the land in the same manner that any other publisher might have to do"

    If the ISP is to been seen as the publisher, do you then also want to apply liability to printing press companies and newspaper boys?

  • On the post: The Connection Between Wikileaks Censorship And PROTECT IP: Censorship Through Cutting Off Service Providers

    Tor ( profile ), 21 Oct, 2011 @ 09:08am

    DOSP

    Maybe we need a new term for this type of attack: Denial Of Service Providers (DOSP)

  • On the post: Righthaven Still Trying To Avoid Paying Any Legal Fees Of Those It Illegally Sued

    Tor ( profile ), 18 Oct, 2011 @ 12:13am

    Re: Trading While Insolvent

    I think the situation is the same in my country (Sweden). If it is at some point clear that a company will eventually need to file for bankruptcy it's illegal for it to transfer funds to anyone else than the creditors.

    I too wonder how this is regulated in the US.

  • On the post: State Department Vindictiveness: Using Single Blog Link To Wikileaks To Investigate Employee Who Published Critical Book

    Tor ( profile ), 30 Sep, 2011 @ 01:14pm

    An analogy

    I guess people who work at American crematories better be careful. I mean, if it's possible to disclose information that has already been disclosed then I guess it must similarly be possible to kill people who are already dead. According to the logic reasoning of the state department crematory staff should be found guilty of murder.

    By the way, in linguistics there is a simple test for telling different kinds of verbs apart. It's possible to say "he painted for an hour" but you cannot say "he died for an hour", i.e. some verbs signify a continuous activity/event whereas others signify a punctual transition from the current state to a final state. I'd argue that "disclose" belongs to the latter class. To not recognize this difference one has to put aside both all reading comprehension and logic.

  • On the post: Righthaven Desperately Trying To Avoid Paying Legal Fees

    Tor ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2011 @ 01:22am

    Public interest

    Here are three more quotes that I found funny/interesting:

    "Consideration should also be given to where the public interest lies."

    "Righthaven must further show that issuing the requested stay would further the public interest. "

    "Denying stay relief, however, necessarily raises the possibility that Righthaven may be forced to file bankcruptcy and liquidation (...). This would deprive the public of this Court's analysis on a host of complex issues concerning the enforcement of copyright protected material displayed without authorization on the Internet."

  • On the post: Righthaven Desperately Trying To Avoid Paying Legal Fees

    Tor ( profile ), 29 Sep, 2011 @ 01:13am

    Re: No winners

    If you by "Righthaven has lost" mean that they will eventually need to file for a bankruptcy and that they are aware of that, wouldn't wasting money in such a situation be illegal? (since there is ground to believe that the money is actually not theirs to waste)
    Or maybe you just meant incurring costs upon the other party in this specific trial.

  • On the post: How Copyright Extension Is Harming Classical Music

    Tor ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2011 @ 01:10am

    Re: Re: I think the original idea behind copyright was not such a terrible thing

    I hear this being pointed out quite often, but I don't think it's a very strong argument. After all, you could say that taxes were originally collected by ancient kings to enrich themselves and the higher classes of society and for that reason all taxes are inherently bad even in the current setting.

    Although there can be problems with both copyright and taxes I don't find that starting point very helpful. Just like the purpose of taxes has shifted over time, so has the purpose of copyright and I think one has to acknowledge that fact.

  • On the post: How Copyright Extension Is Harming Classical Music

    Tor ( profile ), 28 Sep, 2011 @ 01:02am

    Impact assessment

    Here are some quotes from the impact assessment of the term extension by the European Commission:

    many recordings that are not available in retail stores due to limited shelf space can now be made available online. Older or niche European repertoire will be more widely available. While it might be expected that public domain companies would make more recordings available, this has not been the case.
    The impact on consumer choice is also expected to be positive. In the long run, this is because a term extension will benefit cultural diversity by ensuring the availability of resources to fund and develop new talent
    it should be noted that public domain companies do not release their sound recordings on the internet, but instead only sell them as CDs.
    The impact on the quality of the products and services offered to consumers might also be positive. Although competition in offering public domain sound recordings might increase their quality, it is not clear that this is the case.
    The impact of on consumer prices is expected to be minimal. (...) The various pricing models of online music clearly show that whether a sound recording is in or out of copyright is not a relevant factor to determine consumer prices.

    So you see, according to the commission everything is fine. Because of the term extension there will be more cultural diversity, better online services and no negative effects on the price or availability of old music. The only one having the ability to make works available seems to be the record companies and even though nobody will suffer increased costs the report says that performers and record labels could earn a lot more money (it's funny how the kind of creativity that copyright spurs often seem to be creative accounting...)

    It's strange that this report says that relating the protection to the life span of performers would lead to big administrative burden, but it doesn't mention with one word the problems brought up in The Guardian.

    The only negative effect is described in one sentence: ("The impact on digital libraries and other similar services would be negative."), but the report then goes on to say that that flexible solutions to those problems can be found on an ad hoc basis.

    Btw. I find the last quote about consumer prices interesting. It's a bit like saying that if a fitness center suddenly sees the cost of equipment go up by 50%, that won't affect the prices for customers since the they pay for the access to the center and not the equipment itself. As if the cost of running a business wouldn't affect the consumer prices.

  • On the post: Pirate Party Takes 9% Of The Vote In Berlin Elections, Wins A Bunch Of Seats In Parliament

    Tor ( profile ), 19 Sep, 2011 @ 09:37pm

    Re:

    [quote]The Pirate Party's platform is relatively uniform in the various countries where it is organized.[/quote]

    Perhaps concerning copyright policy, but it should be noted that the German Pirate Party political agenda seems to have been much broader than the Swedish counterpart. While the Swedish Pirate Party deliberately refused to take a stance on any left/right issues so as to be able to gather more support and foster cooperation among copyright reformers on both sides of the political spectrum the German sister party seems to be clearly oriented to the left, although I believe they still think of themselves as protecting many liberal values.

    Of course the left/right scale is often not very informative when applied to information politics. For example I have found that some of the best critique of political plans to roll out a mass-surveillance state here in Sweden has come from parties which I would normally never vote for.

  • On the post: Reasonable Anger In Europe Over Ridiculous Copyright Extension

    Tor ( profile ), 14 Sep, 2011 @ 02:45am

    Of course there is a degree of corruption (often more subtle than in the form of direct money transfers of course) behind this. But beyond that, why aren't we hearing more young artists speak up against this? After all, the extension will make it so that a smaller part of what people spend on cultural works will go to them.

    The great liberal thinker Fr?d?ric Bastiat once said: "the State is the great illusion where everyone thinks they can live at the expense of everyone else". The last couple of days I have been thinking about that quote. It seems to applies so well to copyright too - just replace "the State" by "the copyright monopoly".

    The ideas of Fr?d?ric Bastiat is relevant also in the sense that he discussed the fact that we often recognize centralized benefits, but fail to notice distributed costs and lost opportunities that such centralization leads too.

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