Showing posts with label licensing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label licensing. Show all posts

24 July 2014

Royalty Collection Agency SABAM Sued By Belgian Government Over 'Piracy License' Plans

Back in May, we wrote about how the Belgian music royalty collection agency SABAM was taking ISPs there to court over its demand for 3.4% of Internet subscriber fees as "compensation" for online piracy in Belgium. In yet another slapdown for SABAM -- it had previously failed in its attempt to turn ISPs into copyright cops -- the Belgian regulator says SABAM's plan falls foul of the EU's e-commerce directive, as IT World reports: 

On Techdirt.

German Director Proposes 'One-Stop Shop' For Free, Instant, But Non-Exclusive Licenses To Offer Films Online

It's always heartening to come across new ideas for ways to make creations more widely available to the public while allowing artists to benefit. Here's one from the German film director Fred Breinersdorfer, probably best known for his film "Sophie Scholl". In an article that appeared recently on the newspaper site Süddeutsche.de (original in German), he complains about the fact that searching online for his film throws up plenty of unauthorized versions, but precious few authorized ones. 

On Techdirt.

24 November 2013

Universities Struggle To License Their Patents, In Desperation Team Up With Patent Trolls

A few months back, we wrote about the University of California's plan to lock up even more knowledge in the form of patents, in the hope that this would bring in lots of cash. But as Techdirt has reported time and again over the years, patenting research does not bring in more money to fund further research, in fact it probably doesn't bring in any money at all, once you allow for the costs of running tech transfer offices. Moreover, there's evidence that making the results of research freely available is much better for the wider economy than trying to turn them into intellectual monopolies. 

On Techdirt.

19 September 2013

Google Proposes Clever Video Codec License -- But The Real Problem With Patent Pools Remains

A couple of years back, Techdirt wrote about Google's laudable attempt to open source its VP8 video codec, based around technologies it had acquired with the On2 company in 2009. That was not simply a matter of releasing the code, though, because of claims by some that VP8 infringed on their patents. MPEG-LA, the private company that manages the H.264 patent pool, even went so far as to put out a call for patents that might cover VP8, which in turn led to the US Justice Department investigating whether the move violated anti-trust law

On Techdirt.

Innovators, Public Interest Groups & Open Access Supporters Pull Out Of Talks On EU Copyright In Protest

Back in February we reported on a worrying attempt by the European Commission to reframe the discussion about modernizing copyright in Europe purely in terms of licensing, reflected in the name of the initiative, "Licences for Europe". Although originally a series of discussions were promised to "explore the potential and limits of innovative licensing and technological solutions in making EU copyright law and practice fit for the digital age," in practice moderators shut down discussions of things like exceptions or even Creative Commons licensing. As far as the Commission was concerned, it seemed the answer to updating copyright for the modern age was just old-style licensing and nothing else. 

On Techdirt.

31 March 2013

EU Copyright Dialogue: The Great Sham(e)

In an implicit acknowledgement that the Europe-wide protests against ACTA indicated that there was a problem with copyright in the digital age, the European Commission announced back in December what it called "an orientation debate on content in the digital economy." This is what that meant, apparently:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Could Open Source Software Be Put Into The Public Domain Instead?

There are dozens of free software and open source licences -- many would argue rather too many. Different licenses impose different conditions. For example, the best-known and most widely-used is the GNU General Public License, which is designed to ensure that anyone building on GPL'd software and distributing it should make the modified program available under the same license. Others, such as the BSD license simply require the copyright and license notices to be included with any code that is used. 

On Techdirt.

17 March 2013

French Politicians Worry That Free Creative Commons Works Devalue 'Legal' Offers

As Techdirt noted last year, France has a regrettable habit of dreaming up really bad ideas when it comes to the Internet, most famously with the three-strikes scheme, now known there by the name of the body the oversees it -- Hadopi. Guillaume Champeau points us to a piece in the French newspaper Libération, which contains yet more appalling possibilities (original in French). 

On Techdirt.

10 February 2013

Bayer Fights India's Compulsory Licensing Of Cancer Drug By Claiming It Spent $2.5 Billion Developing It

Back in March last year, the Indian government announced that it was granting its first compulsory license, for the anti-cancer drug marketed as Nexavar, whose $70,000 per year price-tag put it out of reach of practically everyone in India. Nexavar's manufacturer, the German pharmaceutical giant Bayer, naturally appealed against that decision, and the hearing before the India Intellectual Property Appeals Board (IPAB) has now begun. Jamie Love has provided a useful report on the proceedings; here's his summary of what's at stake: 

On Techdirt.

VLC Multimedia Player Shows Changing Open Source License Is Hard, But Possible

Licenses lie at the heart of open source -- and many other kinds of "open" too. That's because they are used to define the rights of users, and to ensure those rights are passed on -- that the intellectual commons is not enclosed. Their central importance explains in part the flamewars that erupt periodically over which license is "best" -- many people have very strong feelings on the subject. 

On Techdirt.

Another Reason to Use Open Source: Sane Licensing

A couple of weeks ago, I pointed out how a decision in Norway involving cash registers emphasised one of the advantages of open source - its natural auditability. Here's another interesting situation that points out a further reason for choosing openness.

On Open Enterprise blog.

10 August 2012

Outdated Compulsory Licensing Means Australian Schools Must Pay Millions To Use Free Internet Materials

Recently we wrote about how copyright rules designed for an analog age were causing problems when transposed without modification to the digital world. Here's another example, this time from Australia, where the Brisbane Times' site reports on an increasingly difficult situation in education as a result of outdated copyright approaches

On Techdirt.

15 July 2012

Is The EU's Proposed Reform Of Music Licensing Doomed From The Start?

Music collection societies often figure in Techdirt thanks to their attempts to wring licensing payments from people on absurd grounds, like trying to make them pay for playing music to horses, or for singing old folk songs. But in Europe, there's another issue. Because each country has its own music collection society, digital music startups wishing to operate across Europe must negotiate not one, but dozens of separate licenses – a major obstacle to overcome. 

On Techdirt.

01 April 2012

Open Standards Licensing: Apple's Key Evidence

As regular readers know, there is a struggle going on between the free software community that needs open standards to be RF (strictly speaking "restriction-free", but usually called "royalty-free") and traditional companies based on proprietary software that are pushing for FRAND - Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory - not least because it will allow licences like the GNU GPL to be excluded. The argument is that RF means that any claimed patents within a standard must be made available at zero cost - and that, the proponents of FRAND insist, is unworkable, since companies will not be prepared to "sacrifice" their patents in this way.

On Open Enterprise blog.

28 February 2012

WURFL: a cautionary tale

A few months ago, I wrote about the library management program Koha, and how the irruption of money into the previously tranquil world of open source led to some painful arguments. Sadly, that's not a unique example, as the recent case of WURFL demonstrates.

On The H Open.

17 February 2012

UK Publishers Pretend To Embrace Copyright Reform... In Order To Kill Copyright Reform

One of the bolder ideas in the UK's Hargreaves report was the suggestion that a Digital Copyright Exchange should be set up. The idea here is to promote innovative uses of digital content by making it much easier to acquire the necessary licenses from rightsholders. So it's interesting to see the UK Publishers Association (PA) backing the idea

On Techdirt.

The World Of Open Textbooks Just Became A Little More Crowded -- And A Little More Open

Open e-textbooks are hardly new: Techdirt has been reporting on the pioneer in this market, Flat World Knowledge, for several years now. But a new entrant called OpenStax College is noteworthy for a number of reasons: 

On Techdirt.

21 December 2011

Top Photographer On Why He Doesn't Care If His Stuff Is Pirated

Trey Ratcliff is an extremely successful photographer, who specializes in HDR photography. His blog Stuck in Customs is the top travel photography blog on the internet, with over a million views each week. 

On Techdirt.

24 October 2011

Please Respond to the PDC Consultation (and PDQ)

Last month I wrote about the UK government's "Making Open Data Real" consultation. That's actually just the first part of a double-headed enquiry into open government data. The other part concerns "Data Policy for a Public Data Corporation" (PDC). 

On Open Enterprise blog.

17 October 2011

Fighting Back Against Public Domain Erosion By Growing The Commons

There have been a number of stories on Techdirt recently about governments diminishing the public domain - not just by extending copyright for future works, but also by putting works currently in the public domain back under copyright, both in the US and EU. Reversing that trend – by pushing back copyright's term closer to the original 14 years, say – will be challenging, to put it mildly. 

On Techdirt.