Intellectual property, despite the name, doesn’t quite work like regular property. A look at intellectual property markets highlight problems with a pure free-market approach that aren’t necessarily visible with other markets.
Jun 252010
Myth #4 in Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion is Syed Nomanul Haq’s article entitled “That Medieval Islamic Culture was Inhospitable to Science.”
In “Islam and Science,” an article written for the Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science, Nasr attempts to give a broad overview of the relationship of Islam to modern science and technology. He makes some key points regarding to criticism of Western science from an Islamic point a view.
May 092010
The still-in-draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, beloved of some, is hated by many–including Google, apparently.
I’m generally in favor of holding companies liable for their actions — after all, if we treat corporations as “persons” under the law, then they should have responsibilities as well as protections and benefits. But I’m not sure about holding executives criminally liable — perhaps in the case of knowing pollution or conspiracy to cover up product dangers — but not, I think, for actions they are not directly responsible for, as in this case from Italy.
The internet chapter of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty whose text Obama’s administration refused to disclose due to “national security” concerns, has leaked. It’s bad
There has always been an exception to search and seizure law at border crossings. In theory, this is nothing new — attorneys traveling with confidential paper files could also have them searched. But the ease of carrying vast numbers of confidential documents in electronic form raises the bar on this.
There’s a new law journal in town: “The International Free and Open Source Software Law Review (IFOSS L. Rev.) is a collaborative legal publication aiming to increase knowledge and understanding among lawyers about Free and Open Source Software issues. Topics covered include copyright, licence implementation, licence interpretation, software patents, open standards, case law and statutory changes.”
A recently published law review article concludes that experiments with “PatentSim,” “a multi-user interactive simulation of patent and non-patent (commons and open source) systems,” do not support the general justification of our current patent system.
Jun 242009
Especially important to everyone in Canada – but important to everyone, since copyright and IP are increasingly international issues due to attempts at harmonization (WIPO, for example) – comes this expose by Michael Geist on the undue influence pro-copyright lobbyist organizations have had on Canadian policy documents.
On June 10th, France’s version of the Supreme Court struck down parts of a new French law known as HADOPI:
France’s highest court, the Constitutional Council, ruled that access to the internet is a “fundamental human right” this week in striking down a controversial “three strikes” anti-piracy law.
via Is Internet Access a Fundamental Human Right? France’s [...]
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