machine-envy

In an extraordinary move the WTO has ruled with Antigua that it was illegal for the US to block online gambling. What makes this extra bizzare is that the compensation is to be claimed by allowing Antigua to violate American intellectual property.
The reaction of the US is to rewrite the rules: “In May, the […]

This week’s column at the New Statesman is a reaction to all the silly season stories calling for a complete ban of Facebook/YouTube/the internet.
Some people are so quick to judge. At the beginning of August, the national treasure that is Sir Elton John was reported, albeit by that other great national treasure, the Sun newspaper, […]

Two items of copyright geekery in this morning’s Guardian. Firstly. Alice Gould gives the legal 101 on hijacking”user-generated content” for a traditional media setting (well done Media Guardian for removing that nasty subscription barrier, by the way). Her conclusion:
The law may appear antiquated in the fast-changing world of the internet, but in most cases citizen […]

After James showed me the web is us/ing us video, I wrote about it for my latest openDemocracy piece. It’s the first time I’ve been able to join up my interest in linguistcs with my interest in the information age, and I’m quite proud of the result.
After the Sandinista government took power in Nicaragua in […]

Yesterday was my first day working with the Open Rights Group. It’s going to take me a while to gain pace with the rest of the team, and the bevvy of projects they’re working on both in terms of campaigns (e-voting, more IP stuff, and the European Television without Frontiers legislation are all under the […]

Is this the hardest end of year quiz of all time? I actually worked at openDemocracy for most of this year, and I still only scored 64%. And most of that was thanks to the questions in the internet and copyright section. How much will you score?

I’m pleased to announce that as of 15 January next year, I’ll be joining the Open Rights Group as their new Executive Director!
Suw Charman, ORG’s outgoing Exec Director, has just posted the announcement on the ORG website. I’m looking forward to working with her, ORG’s Ops Manager Michael Holloway, and the incredibly diverse and talented […]

I just finished reading The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper. One of the chapters discusses the idea of Utopian engineering rather than piecemeal engineering.

The Utopian approach may be described as follows. Any rational action must have a certain aim. … To choose this aim is therefore the first thing […]

Some really fab coverage on Gowers in the Guardian and the Observer, starting with this Leader from Friday’s edition:
“…The report was given a guarded welcome by the recently formed Open Rights group which campaigned strongly against extending the 50-year limit, but the war is not won yet. The Gowers report is only a staging post, […]

My interview with Andrew Gowers has gone up on openDemocracy.

“‘Look at the debates that there have been on intellectual property since the arrival of the internet. They have been loud and shallow. They have been between people who say everything’s free and you shouldn’t pay for […]