Why Do Canada And Europe Copyright Money?

from the questions,-questions,-questions? dept

We've discussed in the past the odd idea that any government should be able to copyright anything it produces, but plenty of governments still do maintain things like "crown copyright" or other similar concepts for content they create. Yet, it looks like some countries have gone one step further. They copyright their money. Yes, Michael Scott points us to a blog post from an American law professor, Eric E. Johnson, who was on a trip to Canada and was surprised to discover that they have copyright notices on their paper currency. Of course, this should make you wonder: if you counterfeit some Canadian money are you also on the hook for copyright infringement violations? Or is there some other reason for the copyright notice. Are they afraid other nations might copy the design without compensation?

Finding the whole thing bizarre, but remembering that I have some Canadian currency from my last trip there, I checked -- and, indeed, in tiny print in the lower right-hand corner, there is a copyright notice. And then... bonus. Tucked in with my Canadian cash was a 5 euro bill as well... and it also appears to have a copyright notice on it right at the top in the center (though, it's tiny). I did a quick search, and indeed, it appears that the design of the euro is also covered by copyright with specific limitations on copying. Of course, I thought that was what counterfeiting laws were for -- so why even bother with copyright?

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EU Parliament Pressured By France, Removes Clause That Bans Kicking People Off The Internet

from the ah,-regulatory-capture-at-work dept

With France passing its new law to kick accused file sharers off the internet based on accusations rather than due process, you may wonder how that could possibly square with the EU Parliament's position from earlier this year that no one should be kicked off the internet without due process, and should only be allowed in "exceptional circumstances." Well, it looks like the lobbyists and the French gov't put enough pressure on the EU Parliament that it's now ditched that clause, even though 88% of Parliament agreed to it the first time around. Forget gov't for the people, the EU Parliament has shown that it's now the gov't for an entertainment industry that doesn't want to innovate. Sad. In the meantime, we're back to asking the basic question that no one in the industry ever answers: how will kicking fans of your content offline make them want to buy anything? It may get some to stop file sharing, but it won't make them buy. It seems the industry has become so confused that it actually thinks stopping file sharing is more important than making money.

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Weird Priorities: Europeans Want To Digitize Books As Quickly As Possible... Just As Long As It's Not Google Doing It

from the yeah-that-makes-sense dept

Sometimes you just shake your head and wonder what people are thinking. Just as German Chancellor Angela Merkel came out against the Google Book settlement, European Commission Information society and media commissioner Viviane Reding declared that Europe needs to speed up digitizing books. Except if Google is doing it. Why? Well, as Copycense points out, it seems that some Europeans are trotting out the moral rights issue. Moral rights on copyright are not accepted under US copyright law, but are standard in Europe. But, again, this seems to show the problems of bringing morality into copyright law. Europe wants to get books digitized. The fastest way to do that is to let Google keep doing what it's doing (and feel free to do separate digitization projects as well -- but Google has a nice headstart). So, how is it "moral" to keep more books offline and unsearchable? According to German academic Roland Reuss in that Publishers Weekly story above about moral rights, "academics have gotten by just fine for the past 500 years under the old system of publishing." Yes, and people were fine having to walk everywhere or ride horses before cars came along too. Who knew progress was immoral? Ned Ludd is alive and well apparently.

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German Chancellor Against Google Book Project... Leaves Out That Germany Tried Funding A Competitor

from the just-saying... dept

German Chancellor Angela Merkel got plenty of attention over the weekend for speaking out against the Google Book settlement, making some odd claims that suggest she's not particularly familiar with what the debate is actually about:

"The German government has a clear position: copyrights have to be protected in the Internet," Merkel said, adding there are "considerable dangers" for copyright protection in the Internet.

"That's why we reject the scanning in of books without any copyright protection -- like Google is doing. The government places a lot of weight on this position on copyrights to protect writers in Germany."

But... what Google's doing is not about scanning books "without any copyright protection." That's a fabrication. Hell, even a German court ruled that Google's book scanning project doesn't violate copyright. You would think that Merkel would be familiar with rulings in her own country. Separately, it seems worth noting that at one point, Germany was heavily involved in Quearo, a European project that was originally designed to compete with Google's book scanning project. While Germany eventually dropped out of that program, it's difficult to claim that Merkel is an unbiased party in this matter, as her government at least initially supported a project to compete with Google in scanning books.

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EU Court Of Justice Says Selling Ads On Trademarked Keywords Is Not Trademark Infringement

from the good-news dept

It seems like it should be common sense that Google isn't violating any trademark laws because some of its customers buy ads using keywords from other's trademarks. Trademark is about consumer protection -- keeping people from getting confused and buying one product believing it's made by someone else. It's only a recent phenomenon that trademark holders have tried to stretch and extend trademark to mean they get to control all uses of it and shut down any use they don't like. But having ads for competing products show up when someone's looking for a brand seems like perfectly reasonable competition. Still, luxury brands, such as LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey), Tiffany, L'Oreal and others keep bringing lawsuits. LVMH won a case against Google in France, but that case moved up to the European Court of Justice, and senior judge there has now stepped in and said that selling ads shouldn't be trademark infringement, though a full decision is still a few months (at least) away. There's also an odd caveat: "Google could be held liable if brand owners could show that Google's ads had damaged their trademarks." What, exactly, does that mean? I'm guessing it's something similar to the already troubling "dilution" standard used in the US, but it seems impossibly vague and open to interpretation (and countless lawsuits).

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Complaints Against Google Book Scanning Project Reach Ridiculous Levels

from the did-you-really-just-say-that? dept

There's a tremendous amount of opposition to Google's "settlement" with authors and publishers over its book scanning project. I'm on the record as being very much against the settlement, but for very different reasons than most people. Frankly, I think Google's book scanning project is an incredibly useful and culturally valuable project, that will help expand culture and knowledge sharing. It's a way to not just preserve culture, but to share it. I can't see how that's a bad thing. In effect it's really no different than Google's search engine in how it works. It's basically building a giant index so that people can search on it, and be pointed to the results that they want. Think of it as the most effective and useful card catalog you could ever have. Did people think the library card catalog violated book copyrights? Of course not...

So my main complaint with the "settlement" is why it's needed at all. Google had a strong fair use case in how it was running the book scanning project, and I saw no reason to cave. In caving, it's only set up plenty of other copyright battles -- with music companies, the press, video companies and more -- all demanding their share of Google's profits, for no reason other than that Google has scanned their works and points more people to it. There are, certainly, other objectionable parts to the settlement, but my main objection is the idea that it's even needed at all.

However, many others are objecting to the settlement for a series of increasingly ridiculous reasons, that make little sense. Gary Reback, the famed anti-trust lawyer who helped bring the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft a decade ago, is working with the Open Book Alliance -- a group that most certainly has admirable goals in terms of its own book scanning project, but which is clearly complaining about the "settlement" because it will give Google a leg up over its own efforts. Reback's filing over the matter makes the claim that that the agreement represents an antitrust issue:

"Google could never have achieved through free-market competition the dominant position in digital books it seeks through the proposed settlement," reads Reback's filing. "Unwilling to compete for share in the open market, Google chose instead to use court process to achieve dominance."

Really? As Danny Sullivan points out, despite Reback's claims, Google's dominant position in the digital book market was achieved via free market competition. To claim that it couldn't have been is simply wrong. It's then flat out misleading to suggest that Google "chose to use court process to achieve dominance" because it wasn't Google that used the process. Remember, it was the Authors Guild and various publishers who sued Google.

Next up, we have the Europeans, who are complaining about the Google book settlement as well. This is hardly a surprise. After all, it's been nearly five years since officials in France declared Google's book scanning project a threat to national French culture, and then got together with other European governments to dump billions of dollars into a ill-defined "competitor" that has produced little of consequence (and, indeed, seemed to have no direction). The competitor has been so useless that the French National Library -- whose boss first raised the alarm about the book scanning project five years ago -- has thrown in the towel and signed a deal with Google to allow the company to scan its books.

So, what's their complaint? Well, it's the same old complaint, that Google's book scanning project is somehow a threat to their culture:

European officials fear that if the Google project goes ahead in the US, a yawning transatlantic gap will open up in education and research.

James Boyle unleashes his wit in response:

"Oh my God! The Americans are about to create a private workaround of the enormous mess that we regulators have made of national copyright policy! They will fix the unholy legal screwups that leave most of 20th century culture books unavailable, yet still under copyright! They will gain access to their cultural heritage -- giving them a huge competitive advantage in education. This MUST BE STOPPED!! No one can be allowed to fix this for any other country because then we would be left alone stewing in our own intellectual property stupidity! We must forbid their progress in order to protect our ignorance."

Again, the settlement deal has tons of problems, and I still can't see how it's necessary or how it helps -- but many of the complaints about it are simply ridiculous.

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Europe Pushing For An Orphan Works Law Also

from the will-it-get-done? dept

Many in the US have been pushing for an "orphan works" law for quite some time -- which would create an exception for copyright infringement if the owner of a work simply can't be found. It's difficult to find any serious reason why an orphan works exception shouldn't be included in copyright law as written, but there are always some who pop up as being against it -- usually because they don't understand what it is (there are some who seem to be purposely spreading misinformation about orphan works bills). Thus, it continually fails to move forward in the US -- even as politicians insist it's necessary. It looks like Europe may be going down the same route these days, as it's now looking at creating an orphan works law as well. Now we'll see if it faces the same misguided opposition.

Still, as William Patry notes in his book, the real shame is that the whole reason we need an orphan works bill in the first place is due to how screwed up copyright law has become since switching from a "formalities" approach to one where everything is automatically covered by copyright. Under the old system (pre-1976 Act in the US), in order to get a copyright, you had to register, and then at certain points, re-register it, to have and keep it covered by copyright. Thus, any such "orphan" works fell into the public domain after a short period of time -- and it worked fine. There was no "orphan works" problem, because those works that no longer that weren't being used for commercial purposes went into the public domain in a relatively short period of time. The most amazing thing, though, is that very few of those supporting orphan works legislation seem to recognize that the whole "problem" is one they made themselves by extending insanely long copyrights to pretty much everything.

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Big Pharma Abusing Patent Laws To Seize And Destroy Legal Indian Generic Drugs

from the helping-the-needy dept

The deeper you look at how pharmaceutical companies use and abuse the patent system, the worse it looks. It's much more horrifying than what's happening in the tech industry in many ways (especially since lives are often at stake). The latest such example highlights the desperate lengths that Big Pharma will go to, in attempts to stamp out perfectly legal competition. India has a legal and thriving generic drug market that was built up initially via a ban on pharma patents in India (which, as an aside, shows again that a ban on patents can actually help create a thriving industry). More recently, India was forced, almost entirely against its own wishes, to implement patents on drugs. Even so, many of its generics are not covered by patents, and there are a number of developing countries that also do not recognize patents on certain drugs. Thus, it should be perfectly legal for Indian generics to ship those drugs from India to developing nations. And... it is. Except that pharma companies have convinced EU trade officials to seize and/or destroy such shipments that pass through EU borders in transit to these developing nations.

Thus, if a legal Indian generic drug maker has a shipment of those drugs to Peru, where the same drugs are also perfectly legal and not blocked by patent law -- those drugs might still get seized because en route to Peru, they may pass through some European countries, where Big Pharma has used its lobbying clout to get customs officials to search for and confiscate any such medicine, claiming they are violating patents in the EU. Because of this, the Indian firms need to spend a lot more money and ship via other means.

To deal with this, India is looking to file a complaint with the WTO, and at least according to the experts in the WSJ article above, India has a strong likelihood of winning. Big Pharma and the border patrol folks are defending their actions, claiming it's to stop counterfeit drugs, but that's not what's happening here at all. These drugs are not counterfeits. They're legal generics, not intended for the EU at all, and they're being confiscated for no good reason other than the fact that Big Pharma doesn't want to compete.

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European High Court Will Examine DRM Anti-Circumvention Rules

from the free-speech-anyone? dept

A European directive from a few years ago included a DRM anti-circumvention clause that even made it illegal to host an "organized discussion" of techniques for circumventing DRM. That seemed excessively broad (and unfairly limiting) to Mikko Rauhala, who set up a discussion site where people could discuss CSS, the notoriously lame copy protection used on DVDs that has been broken for ages. He did it mainly to get the issue into court -- which it did. Two years ago, a Finnish court had an odd ruling on the case, in which it claimed circumvention was okay if the DRM was ineffective. That's because the directive specifically claims that it applies to "effective DRM." Of course, taken to its logical conclusion, one might think that means if you can break DRM, then you haven't violated the anti-circumvention language, because you've proven that the DRM is ineffective. It's a bit of a logical pretzel. So, while I agree that it's silly to make discussion of circumvention illegal, the legal reasoning was a bit twisted.

So, it came as little surprise a year later, when an appeals court overturned the lower ruling. However, from a free speech perspective, this was still quite troubling. Banning any organized discussion about a technology seems tremendously questionable. The good news (as found via Michael Scott) is that the case is now going to the European Court of Human Rights. One hopes they'll recognize this as a violation of basic civil rights. It's troubling enough that simply circumventing copy protection on legally purchased goods is considered breaking the law. It's much worse to say that even talking about it is against the law.

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Did European Court Just Make Search Engines Illegal? 11-Word Snippet Can Be Copyright Infringement

from the bad-bad-bad-bad dept

With the AP being out there claiming that fair use only covers snippets fewer than five words, there are some questions about where the boundaries for "fair use" of "snippets" lies. Unfortunately, a new ruling in Europe seems to be pretty extreme (in a bad way). The ruling found that a snippet as short as eleven words could be copyright infringement. The case involved a clipping service, that would scan in articles (from print publications) and then would give clients very short snippets that highlighted the keywords they were monitoring. In many ways, this sounds like the physical equivalent of any online search engine. The clipping company claimed that it was legal because it was "transient," but the court said that since the service printed the output on paper, it was "permanent." Yikes.

While the online world is a little different, it's not too difficult to see how someone could make a case that a search engine is doing the identical thing to what the clipping company was doing here, and the question of whether or not the result is "transient" or "permanent" is entirely dependent on the end-user -- which was part of why the court found paper to be permanent:

"Since the data capture process is apparently not likely itself to destroy that medium, the deletion of that reproduction is entirely dependent on the will of the user of that process. It is not at all certain that he will want to dispose of the reproduction, which means that there is a risk that the reproduction will remain in existence for a longer period, according to the user's needs,"

Certainly, you could say the same thing about a search engine result (the end-user could certainly store them -- or [gasp!] print them), and then you've got the same problem. No matter how you look at it, this is a bad ruling. It makes little sense from the perspective of publishers, clipping services, users or the entire online world.

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European Publishers Latest To Call For Special Copyright Expansion Over News

from the if-this-is-your-business-model... dept

In the last few weeks, there's suddenly been a big push by folks in the newspaper business to start talking about how copyright law should be expanded to help protect their business. The latest to do this, apparently, is a group of European publishers, including some big names, asking for copyright law to be changed in some way to benefit newspapers. They didn't make specific proposals, but they're likely thinking about the various ideas that have been floating around about stopping aggregators or providing some sort of copyright or copyright-like protection on breaking news.

This whole idea isn't just ridiculous, but it won't help newspapers. It would almost certainly harm them, however.

• First of all, if the only thing protecting your business from failure is government protectionism... you're not doing a very good job at building a real business. And, you won't be able to hold back real competitors from eating your lunch (or, at least, the parts of it they haven't eaten already).
• Next, stronger copyright won't bring more people to your site or get more people to give you money.
• Stronger copyright protection will only harm your online distribution efforts, in making it that much more difficult for others to send you traffic or to participate in the discussion.
• Relying on these things, and thinking that stronger copyright somehow is a business model will just mean that you've opened the playing field wide to those who actually embrace the collaborative, sharing nature of the internet.

So while it would be damaging for those pushing for it, it would still create quite a mess in the meantime. Hopefully European politicians see through this blatant attempt at protectionism and don't let it get anywhere.

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EU Telco Chief: Business Model Failure Leads To Piracy... Not The Other Way Around

from the could-they-be-getting-it? dept

Could it be that some politicians are actually figuring this out? Reader Arhac alerts us to the news that the EU's telecommunications chief, Viviane Reding, gave a speech where she noted that it wasn't "piracy" that was destroying the recording industry's business model, but it was the failed business model that was leading to "piracy":

"In my view, growing internet piracy is a vote of no-confidence in existing business models and legal solutions. It should be a wake-up call for policy-makers."

Of course, it's not clear what sort of solution she's proposing -- and it sounds a bit like she's suggesting putting in place a universal licensing fee for online music, which isn't much of an improvement. Luckily the Pirate Party's Christian Engstrom points out the problem with where that thinking leads, by noting that citizens shouldn't just be thought about as "consumers":

"We are citizens... and we do have certain human rights according to the European convention on human rights which includes the right to information freedom."

Still, given where things are in the US, it's impressive enough to find multiple politicians who aren't just buying the major record labels' story that it's "piracy" that's killing their business models, rather than the other way around.

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Surprise, Surprise: Pharma Abusing IP Laws To Prevent Competition

from the live-by-ip... dept

The deeper and deeper you look into the pharmaceutical market and the way those firms use patents, the worse and worse it looks. There's little evidence that pharmaceutical companies really need the kind of exclusivity that patents provide, but it's become so established an idea, that some actually believe that pharma would disappear without patents. However, the truth is quite different. The chemistry industry -- the precursor to the pharma industry -- actually fought against patents in the early days, knowing that robust competition was what drove innovation and profits. Patents only allowed the leaders to stomp out competition and limit the overall market, increasing their own profits, but slowing innovation and product development.

Thus it should come as no surprise at all that a new report has found that pharmaceutical companies are regularly abusing patents for anti-competitive purposes (thanks Rob Hyndman for the link):

Pharmaceutical companies are manipulating the intellectual property rights system and are "actively trying to delay the entry of generic medicines onto their markets," a top EU official said of an EU inquiry into the pharmaceutical sector released Wednesday. As a result, there has been a decline in the number of innovative medicines getting to the market, it says.

In other words, contrary to the popular myth, patents are actually being used to hold back innovation in the healthcare market.

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The Battle Over Chocolate Bunnies

from the seriously? dept

There are times when I think that intellectual property disputes are actually just "theater of the absurd." The latest such entry involves Europe's High Court needing to weigh in on the trademark-ability of a chocolate bunny. The WSJ writeup on this is rather amusing, including all sorts of little rabbit-related turns of phrase ("little critters have since multiplied" and "hopping mad") as it appears the writer knows how absurd the whole situation is. Amazingly there have been a whole bunch of lawsuits over whether or not such a bunny shape is trademarkable. The company that holds the trademark, Lindt, claims its shape is distinctive, and thus can be covered by trademark. Other chocolate bunnymakers, however, respond that the shape is functional, not decorative, because there are really only so many ways to make a chocolate bunny such that it does not collapse.

It may be surprising to learn that, in this age of automated vehicle assembly and supersonic flight, crafting a hollow, mass-produced chocolate bunny is no mean feat. There are considerations of structural integrity, and the performance capabilities of high-speed foil-wrapping devices....

In court in Austria, Hauswirth called to the stand witnesses from the makers of chocolate-casting machines and foil-wrapping machines.

They testified, said Mr. Schmidt, that "there are certain limits" to the "radius of the ears and so on." You can't just make a bunny any old way you wish.

Of course, as other chocolate bunny makers have also noted, making chocolate bunnies of a similar size and shape has happened for many, many years in Europe -- long before Lindt claimed a trademark on the shape earlier this decade. And, so, for the past decade, there have been numerous lawsuits (with all different kinds of decisions) over the legality of trademarking chocolate bunnies -- eventually reaching Europe's high court today. At issue was whether or not Lindt's decision to trademark the shape was done in "bad faith" and the court has now sent the case back to an Austrian court, saying that they should consider a variety of factors in determining whether or not the initial trademark registration was done in bad faith.

So, rest assured, we still have a few more absurdist acts as we find out whether or not chocolate bunnies are truly trademarkable.

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Why Is It So Hard To Set Up A Pan-European Music License?

from the head-scratching dept

We'd been looking at reports about the ongoing discussions about pan-European music licenses without too much interest, given that licensing bodies only ever seem to do things in their own interests. But one aspect of the talks is a little bit interesting. It's often claimed by these bodies and their supporters that they're these little non-profits working tirelessly on the behalf of musicians and songwriters, ensuring they get paid for their work. It's a convenient appearance behind which these groups hide, using it as an excuse to justify plenty of ridiculous behavior. After all, if you object to anything these groups do (supposedly) on behalf of musicians, you're trying to take away the musicians' "right to get paid", so your opinion can be marginalized and ignored.

But the reality is that many of these licensing groups are nowhere near as innocent as they'd have you believe. Their licensing schemes often do little to actually help musicians make money, and in fact, they can even make it harder for musicians to succeed. Then there are examples like that of SoundExchange, which is sitting on more than $100 million in royalties it's collected, but claims it can't pay out because it can't find the musicians to which it's owed. In addition, where do unclaimed funds end up? The RIAA.

Just for a second, let's ignore the above paragraph and assume the licensing bodies really are working in the artists' best interests. If that's the case, and the artists' best interest constitutes them getting paid, why is it so difficult to set up a pan-European license? Why does it matter who collects the money, as long as it ends up in the artists' pockets? Apple has talked before about how having to set up licensing deals in each EU country before allowing iTunes Music Store sales there means that it's simply not worth the effort in some places, and that having a pan-European license would let it open up iTMS in new places. That would be good for artists, right? More outlets for online sales means more money for them. So why hasn't the pan-European license been done? Infighting over which licensing body gets to collect the fee -- and take a cut? If these licensing bodies are all about the musicians, surely that can't be the reason, since they just want to funnel as much money as possible to the artists.

So maybe, just maybe, the licensing bodies aren't solely interested in artists' welfare and have other motives?

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Software Developer Liability Up For Debate In Europe

from the this-again... dept

A few years ago, there was a lot of attention paid to the question of whether or not software developers should be liable for bugs and security holes found in their software -- with some even suggesting that "lemon laws" should be extended to cover software products, allowing people to return software that was excessively buggy. In a 2005 discussion on the subject, we suggested that adding such liability wouldn't do much good, because software will pretty much always be buggy in some form or another. While we hadn't heard much on the issue lately, it appears that it's back up for debate in Europe, where the European Commission wants to make developers liable for buggy code.

What's really odd here is the reasoning being given, as one of the commissioners backing the plan claims: "more accountability for software makers, and for companies providing digital services, would lead to greater consumer choice." Really? Increasing liability would increase consumer choice? Somehow I doubt it.

While I can understand the argument that buggy software is bad, and it sucks when people buy something that is less than promised, it's difficult to see what a law can do to fix it. This really does seem like a case where the market is better suited to fix the problem. If you build a buggy product, that is just an opening for someone else to build a better product.

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Pirate Bay Verdict May Actually Lead To Pirate Party Official Joining European Parliament

from the you've-started-a-movement dept

While the entertainment industry still really seems to think that the disputed verdict in the Pirate Bay trial was a victory, most folks who can look beyond the immediate ruling have recognized what a horrific loss this has been for the industry. On the technology side, it's done nothing of importance. Even if The Pirate Bay is eventually shut down, there are at least a dozen other sites to step in and take up the slack. On the business model side, shutting down The Pirate Bay will do nothing to fix a seriously broken business model. But, perhaps most important of all, the industry is pushing more and more people over the edge, from indifferent to the industry, to actively working against the industry. I expected the uselessness of the verdict when it came to tech and business models, but I didn't realize that it would energize people on the political side as well.

There's been lots of talk about how the verdict massively increased the number of Swedes joining The Pirate Party, but the big question is whether or not it will be enough people to make a difference, and will they actually follow through. The initial showings are impressive. A new political poll shows that the party's popularity has grown tremendously, to the point that if a vote were held today, The Pirate Party would gain a seat in the European Parliament. It's now become the second largest party for voters in the 18 to 29 age group. This isn't just a random fringe group that the industry (and other politicians) can completely dismiss. It is still small, but what's amazing is how the industry's blatant shortsightedness has given rise to an entire political movement that keeps attracting more and more members. It seems likely that the entertainment industry still doesn't realize what sort of backlash it's creating, but at some point, it might want to start paying attention.

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EU Approves Copyright Extension, Despite Evidence Of The Harm It Does

from the what-a-shame dept

It's a huge shame, but the EU Parliament has voted to extend copyright on performances from 50 to 70 years despite the fact that this breaks the deal made with the public, goes against the entire purpose of copyright law and has been shown to cause significant harm to the music business. The various member states still need to agree to this individually, but it's ridiculous that it could even get this far. This is a huge boost for some record labels and some big name musicians, who will simply pad their earnings at the expense of new and struggling musicians. If you want a sense of how ridiculous the whole thing is, just read this section of the linked article:

The measure must still be passed by individual countries, and even if this is done by this summer, only recordings made in the 50 years before that point will qualify for the extended copyright.

This means that Sir Cliff [Richard] will lose control of income from his first hit, Move It, as well as from Living Doll, his fourth single, written by Lionel Bart and recorded in late April 1959, which sealed Cliff's place as Britain's answer to Elvis Presley.

This will not necessarily dismay him. Sir Cliff was unavailable for comment yesterday at his holiday retreat in Barbados, but when he travelled to Brussels last year for talks on the proposals he said: "I'm absolutely fed up with singing Living Doll but I have sung it constantly since 1959 because every time I sing it live, it generates sales of the original record and royalties to me."

Poor Cliff Richard. He's at his holiday retreat in the Bahamas, consoling himself over the fact he no longer has to sing a song he hates just to generate royalty checks... but his other songs from 50 years ago will just keep paying off.

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Europe Begins Legal Action Against The UK For Allowing Phorm To Proceed

from the a-little-privacy,-please dept

We were quite surprised when the UK gave a basic approval of Phorm's clickstream tracking/behavioral advertising effort -- despite widespread consumer outrage that their internet surfing was being tracked and sold for advertising purposes. And given that simple approval, Phorm has been looking to aggressively expand. However, it appears that other officials may have a different idea. The European Commission has "started legal action" against the UK for allowing Phorm to proceed, saying that it seemed likely to violate European privacy rules. Who knows if this will actually go anywhere, but it seems pretty clear that the rather widespread mistrust of Phorm is making sure that it's not able to do much at all without additional scrutiny.

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Just So We're Clear: More Data Isn't Better Data

from the it's-just-more-work dept

New data-retention policies went into effect in the UK this week, forcing ISPs to store details of all user emails and VoIP calls for a year, just in case law enforcement or the security services want to thumb through them. The government's intent is to mine the data to try and recognize patterns in relationships and contacts that will help them find terrorists and criminals. The idea that all of this data is being stored by ISPs makes privacy activists shudder, and their worry is not unfounded. But it's also important to understand that the idea, that by capturing all this data, the government can easily root out terrorists, is bunk. More data doesn't equal better data; it just makes it a hell of a lot more work to dig out useful information. It also raises the possibility of discovering false patterns that waste law enforcement's time and suck in innocent people. Recently, a guy in Wales found himself in the middle of an armed anti-terror raid on his home after somebody told police that they thought he might be a terrorist because he had soundproofing gear and wiring. He wasn't a terrorist, but rather a musician with a home recording studio. If police will go to such lengths based on unverified, anonymous tips, the thoughts of the conclusions they'll draw from having an entire country's email and VoIP records at their fingers should raise a few eyebrows.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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