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I would just like to draw peoples attention to the following article in the Globe and Mail

article

It has a lot of usefull information about the current situation

Why does no one in America talk about the Softimage case? You know, the French couple who mortgaged their business, lives, and home just to defend their rights against Micro$oft... and WON! 'Course, M$ still has yet to pay up the piddly amount of cash. This column has links to and explains the reasons why fighting M$ is a death knell for any company (or perhaps Supreme Court Judge *snark*)
Oh yea, Slashdot rejected this story. Hmmm...

Cyberia by Jack Kapica

I just read this one here:

Worms are a common Internet technology that have been in use since the late 1980s. For example, most search engine operators, such as Yahoo or Google, use worms to index the Internet.

If you need the words to tell them what you're feeling, cut 'n paste these two articles with your "Damn straight" comments afterward.

Articles: one, two.

If you need the words to tell them what you're feeling, cut 'n paste these two articles with your "Damn straight" comments afterward.

Articles: one, two.

This is the problem. When I first read the dmca here on slashdot I kind of supported it. I assumed a "circumvention device" is something like an illegal cable decoder or illegal dvd copying system. I read a few comments on how it may kill software and I thought these guys were nuts. Oh ya, like the FBI is going to go after a linux hacker. Get real. That coudl never happen. I am sick of slashdots socialistic idealogies.

Well, its the corrupt lawyers always look for loopholes and lie through the roof with a laws intention all for money. Its these assholes who falsely interpreted what a circumvention device is. They try to interpret the law and abuse their powers like call the fbi to persue a russian who broke a USA law and then say they did it because of an international treaty. To recieve a warrant of arrest in the states, a lawyer would have to convince a judge first before a warrant of arrest can be made. But in an internation trade treaty you are guilty until proven innocent. Loophole 1 found on a weak definition of a circumvention device and loophole 2 because they can go around the bill of rights with such a treaty. Just call Ashcroft and then throw lots of money into court case and you win hands down.

Anyway back on topic, if we have a judge interpet exactly what a circumvention device is then the dmca will not be a big threat. THe politicians assumed it refered to Chinesse pirates making illegal cable boxes and not speech or lines of code runing few use routines. The idea of a hyperlink, paper or even a TONGUE, yes a tongue is a circumvention device because some can speak on how to circumvent. This is silly and the corrupt lawyer whores are the ones f*cking with people for their own personal profit. I am amazed this kind of prosecution is even legal. There should be some law agaisn't constant legal harrassment. I belief there are a few liberal laws which state that someone can countersue someone else over this but its difficult to prove. You really have to proof that a corporation did this agaisn't you peronally in internal docuements, and big corps will likely illegally destroy its own documents or not submit them. Because they wont submit anything, you therefore have no proof you can't countersue. Kind of like the chicken and the egg theory.

If the canadian government would relise the potential of abuse like this professor has stated, then the law can be explicitly written to specifically what a circumvention device is. Both parties would win and decss would not be outlawed. I am all for banning illegal sattelite and cable boxes but college books, code, and freedom of expression? THis is too much and quite rediculous.

The Canadian proposal acknowledges the need for protection against acts of circumvention, but suggests that the U.S. approach goes too far. It notes that prohibiting the mere distribution of circumvention devices is often unworkable, blocking legitimate activities and altering the copyright balance. It also points out that technical-measures legislation may create the need for a new positive obligation on copyright holders to provide consumers with access to their work under certain circumstances, so that encryption can't be used, for example, to thwart copyright exceptions such as "fair dealing" that users rely upon to make copies of small portions of a work.

So while it is important we get our comments in, it looks like the government already sees the real problems with the DMCA. So let's fire up our word processors and clinch the deal, shall we?

Recently the Canadian Recording Industry Association sent our ISP this ceases & desist letter. Fortunately our ISP called us up and told us that they wouldn't be shutting us down unless they received a court order. We then fired back this response to CRIA pointing out the absurdities of their letter to our ISP.

A good source of info on copyright in Canada is Michael Geist's website. He actually wrote an article entitled Napster north of the 49th parallel outlining the current copyright situation faced by file shares up here.

Matt.

FYI, and as a followup to the general "why doesn't X move to the Great White North", Canada's IP policy is slowly taking shape. It seems that there's going to be a contrast to the US model. How long the difference will/can last has yet to be seen.

The Globe and Mail article.

The government agency itself.

I forgot to add a link to the full Globe and Mail story.

Don't forget that Neil Armstrong used one of those pens to hotwire the ascent stage's arming switch, after he'd broken it off trying to move around the tiny LM cabin in his spacesuit. Let's see ya try that one with a pencil!

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In doing some reasearch, I found a site with various domain name disputes. One dispute [that has been decided] jumped out at me. It seems that a fellow in Germany registered 'scientologie.org' and of course you-know-which-quasi-religious-entity had a hissy fit. In this case, even though that 'religious' entity had a trade mark on SCIENTOLOGIE, the judge dismissed the case...

There is an article here from Globe Technology.

The Scientology crime cult claimed the trademark, and did in fact happen to have registered it.

Here, however, is the rub. A guy named Nordenholz, long before Hubbard, had a book with the unappealing title Scientologie, Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der Tauglichkeit des Wissens (tr: Scientology, Science of the Constitution and Usefulness of Knowledge), and the German renegade Free Zone Scientologists bought the rights to this book from the author's heirs. Apparently, L. Ron Hubbard "borrowed" the name Scientology himself.

The decision is here, as well as the various arguments.

This whole thing has taken almost five years to work out, so the system is broken, but in this case the Good Guys won. Since the Nordenholz rights preceded the rights of the cult, their trademark on "Scientologie" is probably invalid. It's nice to see such a bunch of thugs get the boot from time to time.

Incidentally, and to bring it back to somewhat more relevance, the Free Zone Scientologists state "Are you interested in alternative ways of progressing in Scientology and related approaches to Clearing without the vast expenses and excessive control of the Church of Scientology?" Hmm, sounds like an open source version ;-)

In doing some reasearch, I found a site with various domain name disputes. One dispute [that has been decided] jumped out at me. It seems that a fellow in Germany registered 'scientologie.org' and of course you-know-which-quasi-religious-entity had a hissy fit. In this case, even though that 'religious' entity had a trade mark on SCIENTOLOGIE, the judge dismissed the case...

There is an article here from Globe Technology.

The Scientology crime cult claimed the trademark, and did in fact happen to have registered it.

Here, however, is the rub. A guy named Nordenholz, long before Hubbard, had a book with the unappealing title Scientologie, Wissenschaft von der Beschaffenheit und der Tauglichkeit des Wissens (tr: Scientology, Science of the Constitution and Usefulness of Knowledge), and the German renegade Free Zone Scientologists bought the rights to this book from the author's heirs. Apparently, L. Ron Hubbard "borrowed" the name Scientology himself.

The decision is here, as well as the various arguments.

This whole thing has taken almost five years to work out, so the system is broken, but in this case the Good Guys won. Since the Nordenholz rights preceded the rights of the cult, their trademark on "Scientologie" is probably invalid. It's nice to see such a bunch of thugs get the boot from time to time.

Incidentally, and to bring it back to somewhat more relevance, the Free Zone Scientologists state "Are you interested in alternative ways of progressing in Scientology and related approaches to Clearing without the vast expenses and excessive control of the Church of Scientology?" Hmm, sounds like an open source version ;-)

This technique is not unlike a 3-D optical storage technology in development by University of Toronto chemist, Eugenia Kumacheva.

In her current research, 1000 GB of data has been sucessfully stored on 1 cm^3 of a special polymer, using a laser to write binary material to the storage medium.

Read more about it here.

Here is an item describing a tariff structure that the Canadian copyright board has come up with for the distribution of some music over the internet. It applies only to servers physically located in Canada and has some interesting things to say about the role of ISP's.