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Steal This Wi-Fi | WIRED | Commentary by Bruce Schneier
Whenever I talk or write about my own security setup, the one thing that surprises people — and attracts the most criticism — is the fact that I run an open wireless network at home. There’s no password. There’s no encryption. Anyone with wireless capability who can see my network can use it to access the internet.
To me, it’s basic politeness. Providing internet access to guests is kind of like providing heat and electricity, or a hot cup of tea. But to some observers, it’s both wrong and dangerous.
I’m told that uninvited strangers may sit in their cars in front of my house, and use my network to send spam, eavesdrop on my passwords, and upload and download everything from pirated movies to child pornography. As a result, I risk all sorts of bad things happening to me, from seeing my IP address blacklisted to having the police crash through my door.
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This week, former Red Hat General Counsel, Mark Webbink, discusses his views on Intellectual Property.
Previous installments on the GPLV3, Software Patents, and the Red Hat Patent Promise are available below the fold.
News from the Future of Public Media — Center for Social Media at American University
When college kids make mashups of Hollywood movies, are they violating the law? Not necessarily, according to the latest study on copyright and creativity from the Center and American University’s Washington College of Law.
The study, Recut, Reframe, Recycle: Quoting Copyrighted Material in User-Generated Video, by Center director Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi, co-director of the law school’s Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, shows that many uses of copyrighted material in today’s online videos are eligible for fair use consideration. The study points to a wide variety of practices—satire, parody, negative and positive commentary, discussion-triggers, illustration, diaries, archiving and of course, pastiche or collage (remixes and mashups)—all of which could be legal in some circumstances.
It looks like the head of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Chief Nicholas Negroponte is not only alienating Intel, but Microsoft, too.
A day after published reports quoting Negroponte as saying OLPC XO laptops would dual boot Linux and Windows, Microsoft is denying that the company is pursuing such a plan. According to a statement from a Microsoft spokesman:
“While we have investigated the possibility in the past, Microsoft is not developing dual-boot Windows XP support for One Laptop Per Child’s XO laptop. As we announced in December, Microsoft plans to publish formal design guidelines early this year that will assist flash-based
device manufacturers in designing machines that enable a high-quality Windows experience. Our current goal remains to provide a high-quality Windows experience on the XO device.“In addition, there will be limited field trials in January 2008 of Windows XP for One Laptop per Child’s XO laptop. Microsoft recommends contacting the company directly for any further updates.”
Well, it happens to be true, and it is truly happening, so I guess news like this belongs on this blog.
Microsoft has embraced the open source community over the past few years in a very different way than before, Negroponte said. “And that really helps, because it’s become a little bit less religious than it was a few years ago and that’s really good. In the end, I think, the more people that have software and hardware out there, the better.”
The OLPC laptop currently runs a Fedora-based Linux OS, and Microsoft has offered a version of Windows XP for the laptop project. There had been speculation that OLPC would simply offer two separate laptop PCs, but a dual-boot system could remove the need to offer two separate laptops. Such a device could also reduce the need to have competing low-cost laptops — running Linux or Windows — in the marketplace. Taiwan’s Asustek Computer has already launched an ultra-low cost laptop PC capable of running Windows XP, and executives at the company have touted XP compatibility as an advantage over the XO.
OLPC is also working with Microsoft and possibly the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on combining OLPC laptops with some of the educational programs run by Microsoft in developing countries.
Who makes the call?
In fact, the RIAA does not recognize that you have a legal right under the Fair Use doctrine to rip your CDs into MP3s to listen to them on your computer or digital audio player.
When asked point blank today if the RIAA believes it is legal to make MP3s, spokeswoman Liz Kennedy refused to answer the question and instead sent this boilerplate text from the RIAA’s anti-piracy website:
[T]here’s no legal “right” to copy the copyrighted music on a CD onto a CD-R. However, burning a copy of CD onto a CD-R, or transferring a copy onto your computer hard drive or your portable music player, won’t usually raise concerns so long as:
The copy is made from an authorized original CD that you legitimately own
The copy is just for your personal use.
The RIAA has not and will not say that ripping MP3s for personal use from a lawfully purchased CD is legal, despite Sandoval’s lobbying for the group.
Groklaw - Interview with OLPC’s Founding CTO Mary Lou Jepsen, by Sean Daly
Mary Lou Jepsen will go down in history as the founding Chief Technology Officer of One Laptop Per Child. She has recently announced that she is starting her own for-profit company, Pixel Qi, to commercialize some of the technologies she invented at OLPC while extending them. She calls it “a spin-out from One Laptop per Child.” And so naturally we had questions. Does this mean we will all soon be able to get an XO-like laptop for adults, no matter where we live? Sean Daly had the opportunity to conduct an email interview with Jepsen, and so we were able to get some answers to that and many other questions.
On the continuing question of © and the First Amendment (Lessig Blog)
Some important news in the continuing struggle to reckon the First Amendment and copyright. For those not following this in depth, here’s the story so far:
In Eldred v. Ashcroft, the Court was asked to subject a copyright statute to First Amendment analysis. The Court declined that request. Instead, the Court held that so long as copyright act does not change the “traditional contours of copyright protection,” further First Amendment review is not required.
That standard left open the question of what the “traditional contours of copyright protection” were. In three follow on cases, lower courts have now addressed the question. In all three of these lower court cases, the government has argued that by “traditional contours of copyright protection,” the Eldred court meant simply the “idea/expression” dichotomy and “fair use.” Thus, the only possible First Amendment challenge to a copyright statute, according to the government, is if the statute changes one of these two “traditional First Amendment safeguards,” as the Court in Eldred referred to them.
Machinist: Tech Blog, Tech News, Technology Articles - Salon
There isn’t much to say about this other than, Finally. According to Business Week, Sony BMG has decided to sell some of its digital music without attaching copy-restriction software, making it the final major label to abandon ridiculous, impractical, anti-customer restrictions in its products.
Last year Warner Music, the Universal Music Group, and EMI decided to leave out digital rights management, or DRM, in their songs.
Record labels had once considered these restrictions — which limit how often, or for how long, or where, or on what devices, or in which countries, or during what phase of the moon you can play your songs — necessary to preventing piracy online.
Red Hat CEO Targets Oracle, Microsoft - Breaking News - Technology - theage.com.au
“Here, we are the attacker. If you listen to all the squealing that Microsoft and Oracle do about us, clearly they’re worried about us.”
“We are working to democratize information,” Whitehurst said. “A lot of people don’t see the importance of that. But, ultimately, it is about information freedom and making sure information’s accessible.
“If we don’t fight those battles now, our entrenched competitors will lock up file formats, force you to use their software or force royalties,” he added. “Then the information stored in those formats will no longer be free.”
I’m just glad he stopped short of warning them to lock up their women and children.
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The death of software patents?
Wikipedia Tries Approval System to Fight Vandalism
More on GPL-compliant patent settlement
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