[NEWS - anonymous p2p to save the day?]
Wired are talking enthusiastically about anonymous peer-to-peer file trading, while CNET report on recent court rulings in US suggesting that providing such services is illeagal.
story on Wired
story on CNET

[NEWS - Student sued by RIAA]
Jesse Jordan, a 19-year-old student in US, has been sued by Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for creating software that allows users to search for files across his college campus. While the RIAA claim that his service is like the highly-publicised file sharing tool Napster, Jesse likens the service he provides to the search engine Google. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the case, the idea of suing a college student has caused outrage, and Jesse has made back most of the money ($10,000 of the $12,000 he paid) through donations to his site.
ChewPlastic.com (Jesse's site)
story on ABC News

[ANALYSIS - Copyright and the public domain]
Matthew Rimmer writes in First Monday about the repeated extension of the extension of copyright in US. In particular, he considers the effects on freedom of speech and economic development.
full paper on First Monday

[NEWS - W3C decision on patents]
Earlier this month, W3C announced its new patent policy. According to Lawrence Lessig (in his blog), this means that "[the W3C] will not recommend a standard that depends upon a patent that is not offered on a Royalty-Free basis". From the tone of the Director's letter, this seems to have been a compromise between commercial and public interest bodies - an attempt to keep everyone on board.
W3C Patent Policy
letter from Tim Berners-Lee
Lessig's blog

[NEWS - Disney to launch disposable DVDs?]
An example of technology designed to increase control over how content is used: Disney are planning to launch DVDs that will play for 2 days only. This also raises environmental problems (the DVDs will then be binned).
story on Wired

[NEWS - courts to rule on DVD copying]
MPAA vs. a co that makes DVD-copying s/w. To be heard this Thursday. It's a DMCA thing.
story on wired

[COMMENT - copy protection is a crime against hummanity]
David Weinberger writes on the effects of hardwiring DRM.
story on Wired

[COMMENT - Why Grokster and Morpheus won, and what next]
Explaination of the court case. Comparison with Napster. Future of P2P filesharing.
piece on FindLaw's Writ

[NEWS - Windows XP successor to hardwire DRM?]
New operating system from M$ will include NGSCB (Next Generation Secure Computing Base), an encryption and permission management system that seems to give content owners the ability to restrict how content is used.
story on Wired

[EVENT - notes from "The Politics of Code", Feb 2003]
I think I should admit to myself that I'm never going to write up all my notes from this... as I've been planning to do so for about 3 months now. For anybody wanting more details, MP3s and presentations from many of the sessions can be found on the event website (click "proceedings").
event website

[NOTES - from "The Politics of Code", Feb 2003]
The session that made the greatest impression was the speech "Liberty by Design: the Public Interest in Code" by Alan Davidson of The Center for Democracy and Technology. These are the notes I made on the talk.

The problem: technical standards are boring, but they can have big effects on society.

For example, Open Pluggable Edge Services (OPES). OPES will allow servers in the centre to change internet content on-route. There are many possible beneficial uses for these, such as translation, virus screening and caching. There are also more worrying possibilities: censoring by the government (without an end user being aware), monitorig use, inserting adverts. Following consultation on this standard, a rule was introduced: the public must be notified if OPES is being invoked, and at least one of the parties involved (content owner or user) must agree to its use.

There are many obstacles to getting social issues considered when standards are being developed. Some of the key ones are:
- not all decisions about them are made in the open
- lack of public awareness of what the issues are
- lack of understanding of the technologies
- lots of different bodies making decisions
- long time horizons from design to impact (2-5 years)
- inertia: once a standard is set it's very hard to change it
- standards set in one country can have global impact
But, with planning, we can lock-in the desired effects

How can we do this?
- get public and NGOs more involved in technical development
- create systematic mechanism's in technical development (e.g. a "policy impact assessment")
- more research on what the issues are and what to promote
- bridge the divide between technology and policy

Center for Democracy & Technology website
event website

[NEWS - protecting the identity of P2P users]
A free application called PeerGuardian is being used by some file traders to protect their identity. The software blocks IP addresses of known "snoops" from accessing the files being traded, so that they are unable to check if it is copyrighted material.
story on Wired

[EVENT - scrambling for safety - 14 May 2003]
An open meeting hosted by FIPR. Covering access to data under the RIPA, and plans to force telcos and ISPs to hold on to more user data.
event details
write-up on BBC
notes from the event, by Owen Blacker

[NEWS - using viruses to block filesharing]
The New York Times reports that the music inductry is looking into using viruses to attack users of file-sharing software. If it's not true, it's a great scare story.
story on New York Times (registration required)

[NEWS - innovation under threat]
Howard Rheingold used the keynote speech at the O'Reily Emerging Technology Conference to warn that innovation is under threat. One of the causes mentioned, as in Lessig's book, was tight control of the radio spectrum.
story on Wired
collected notes on the speech from the Smart Mobs site