I don't think this is very accurate. All other multilateral IPR negotiations are far more transparent: http://www.keionline.org/misc-docs/4/attachment1_transparency_ustr.pdf
I agree. A call to a Congressman's office from a constituent actually means a lot. They don't hear from anyone but lobbyists on most issues.
Yahoo and WIPO Broadcast/Webcasting proposal
on
YahooTV
·
· Score: 1
I think this explains in part why Yahoo has focused so much effort into getting WIPO to create a new global treaty on webcasting. Unfortunately, that's not good news, and my guess is that few people actually doing technical stuff at Yahoo even understand how messed up the webcasting treaty langauge is, and what it would do to the web. More on this here: http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/bt/
Jamie
Yahoo and WIPO Broadcast/Webcasting proposal
on
YahooTV
·
· Score: 1
I think this explains in part why Yahoo has focused so much effort into getting WIPO to create a new global treaty on webcasting. Unfortunately, that's not good news, and my guess is that few people actually doing technical stuff at Yahoo even understand how messed up the webcasting treaty langauge is, and what it would do to the web. More on this here: http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/bt/
This is what I posted to one of the ZDNet forums. Jamie
Who said the government should buy MS Office outright? Ralph and I didn't. Maybe the author of the commentary should read the letter again. There is difference between buying "the code for Microsoft Office outright," and asking OMB to consider "Buying outright the code for office productivity products." I think Dan Farber should have understood that the likely source for such a purchase would not be Microsoft, a company that makes billions off its MS Office platform, but more likely other products, such as those offered by Lotus or Corel, which are pretty good, and not that profitable. In any event, that was only one of a pretty large menu of things the US could look at, including much more incremental steps such as requiring disclosure of file format information (an option he ignored), a relatively modest step that would be quite feasible, and would make competitor's products more interoperable, a major barrier for non-MS products now.
On the issue of putting caps on the number of units purchased by a single company, this is not really an innovation in terms of federal procurement policy or law. FAR 6.202 is designed to promote alternative sources of supply, so as to keep the government from dealing with a monopolistic supplier.
6.202 Establishing or maintaining alternative sources.
(a) Agencies may exclude a particular source from a contract action in order to establish or maintain an alternative source or sources for the supplies or services being acquired if the agency head determines that to do so would-
(1) Increase or maintain competition and likely result in reduced overall costs for the acquisition, or for any anticipated acquisition;
I was pretty surprised that Carl Kaplan did not mention the fact that 60 countries are negotiating a treaty that may set international jurisdiction rules for libel and defamation cases. The NYT continues to ignore this treaty, and here the omission is really pretty stark. http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.ht m
The main thing is that the judgments, which will include both money judgments and "protective measures" (read injunctions), are enforceable in *any* signature member country. There is a public policy exception, Article 28(f), But someone can sue your ISP, so if the ISP has foreign assets, as most of the big ones do, you have to try to get a judge to invole the public policy exception outside the USA, which is very difficult. Jamie
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think this is very accurate. All other multilateral IPR negotiations are far more transparent:
http://www.keionline.org/misc-docs/4/attachment1_transparency_ustr.pdf
I agree. A call to a Congressman's office from a constituent actually means a lot. They don't hear from anyone but lobbyists on most issues.
I think this explains in part why Yahoo has focused so much effort into getting WIPO to create a new global treaty on webcasting. Unfortunately, that's not good news, and my guess is that few people actually doing technical stuff at Yahoo even understand how messed up the webcasting treaty langauge is, and what it would do to the web.
More on this here: http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/bt/
Jamie
I think this explains in part why Yahoo has focused so much effort into getting WIPO to create a new global treaty on webcasting. Unfortunately, that's not good news, and my guess is that few people actually doing technical stuff at Yahoo even understand how messed up the webcasting treaty langauge is, and what it would do to the web.
More on this here: http://www.cptech.org/ip/wipo/bt/
Jamie
This is what I posted to one of the ZDNet forums. Jamie
Who said the government should buy MS Office outright? Ralph and I didn't. Maybe the author of the commentary should read the letter again. There is difference between buying "the code for Microsoft Office outright," and asking OMB to consider "Buying outright the code for office productivity products." I think Dan Farber should have understood that the likely source for such a purchase would not be Microsoft, a company that makes billions off its MS Office platform, but more likely other products, such as those offered by Lotus or Corel, which are pretty good, and not that profitable. In any event, that was only one of a pretty large menu of things the US could look at, including much more incremental steps such as requiring disclosure of file format information (an option he ignored), a relatively modest step that would be quite feasible, and would make competitor's products more interoperable, a major barrier for non-MS products now.
On the issue of putting caps on the number of units purchased by a single company, this is not really an innovation in terms of federal procurement policy or law. FAR 6.202 is designed to promote alternative sources of supply, so as to keep the government from dealing with a monopolistic supplier.
6.202 Establishing or maintaining alternative sources.
(a) Agencies may exclude a particular source from a contract action in order to establish or maintain an alternative source or sources for the supplies or services being acquired if the agency head determines that to do so would-
(1) Increase or maintain competition and likely result in reduced overall costs for the acquisition, or for any anticipated acquisition;
I was pretty surprised that Carl Kaplan did not mention the fact that 60 countries are negotiating a treaty that may set international jurisdiction rules for libel and defamation cases. The NYT continues to ignore this treaty, and here the omission is really pretty stark.
http://www.cptech.org/ecom/jurisdiction/hague.h
The main thing is that the judgments, which will include both money judgments and "protective measures" (read injunctions), are enforceable in *any* signature member country. There is a public policy exception, Article 28(f), But someone can sue your ISP, so if the ISP has foreign assets, as most of the big ones do, you have to try to get a judge to invole the public policy exception outside the USA, which is very difficult. Jamie