Digital Rights + Internet Governance + Innovation Policy

DVD-Jon Liberates the iPod – Digital Music Wars Take New Direction – Unlocking the Devices

Jon Johansen has done it again! He has has figured out how to improve existing technology by reverse engineering it and building innovative new software that expands consumer choice -- this time for digital music. You may remember in 1999, when 15-year-old Jon Johansen posted DeCSS, a tool created to build a DVD player for the Linux operating system, and started a fire-storm of movie studio lawsuits under the brand new 1998 US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and California trade secrets law. (Jon was also acquitted twice in Norway by the Norwegian Supreme Court). The DeCSS case was my first case as an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and we were all treading on unchartered territory in those days. Since then, the DMCA and other anti-circumvention laws have created a legal quagmire for reverse engineers that has kept us all too busy. ....

2 Privacy Workshops at IGF to Explore Security, Privacy & Globalization

Take a look at these two privacy workshops to be held at the Internet Governance Forum in Athens on 31 October 2006. i) "Privacy and Identity Matters" Chaired by Gus Hosein of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and, ii) "Privacy, Development, and Globalisation" Chaired by Ralf Bendrath of the University of Bremen and WSIS Privacy & Security Working Group. Read more.

IP Justice Comments on 2006 London School of Economics Report to Improve the GNSO

"Many of the proposals in the 2006 LSE Report to reform the GNSO are good - for example, standardized term limits for GNSO Council Members, reducing the number of constituencies from 6 to 3 -- and consolidating the business, intellectual property rights lobby, and internet service providers all in a single "commercial" constituency. This would be an improvement because currently many of the same companies dominate more than one constituency, so are given much greater power within ICANN than other constituencies. For example, companies like Disney, News Corp, and the International Chamber of Commerce dominate both the IPR and business constutiences - giving their interests double weight on ICANN's GNSO Policy Council. ..."

IP Justice’s Top 10 Reasons to Reject the WIPO Broadcast Treaty

1. Eliminates the public domain. 2. Creates obligations that drastically exceed international standards. 3. Chills freedom of expression similarly to U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). 4. Threatens to regulate Internet transmissions of media. Read more .....

IP Justice Statement at WIPO 42nd General Assembly

"IP Justice strongly recommends, that Member States decide against convening a Diplomatic Conference to draft a Broadcast Treaty. At the 15th Session of the SCCR several Member States made clear their objection against moving forward based on the draft proposal. The SCCR Chairman’s decision to convene a diplomatic conference is premature and lacks the consensus necessary for legitimate democratic law-making. ..."

Public Interest Groups Request to US Govt. to Oppose WIPO Broadcast Treaty DipConf

IP Justice signed on to a letter to the US Delegation at WIPO. Other signatories to the letter are the American Association of Law Libraries, American Library Association Association of Research Libraries, CDT, CPTech, Consumers Union, EFF, Free Press, Media Access Project, Medical Library Association, Public Knowledge, Special Libraries Association, and U.S. PIRG

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