Monthly Archives: January 2011

Can you Copyright a Hair Cut?

Dennis Crouch of Patently-O has a great video out on controlling haircuts: Summary: How can I prevent you from copying my hair cut: Copyright? No, it is functional and the creative aspects are inseparable. Trademark? No, you are not using … Continue reading

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The Politics of Knowing: Wikileaks and Michael Moore get kicked out of the library

American Libraries reports that the Library of Congress is one of the few places you will not be able to access Wikileaks.    The Library of Congress and other federal libraries find themselves in a precarious situation.  Federal institutions and employees … Continue reading

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Toward Increased Cybersecurity: Internet IDs for All Americans

CBS News reports that the Obama administration is developing a program that would offer Internet IDs to all Americans. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt discussed the program, called the National Strategy for Trusted … Continue reading

Posted in privacy | Tagged | 3 Comments

Cairo’s burning: pulling the plug on freedom of speech in Egypt

(Scott Nelson for The New York Times) Around midnight on Thursday, January 26th, 5 out of 6 major internet providers (ISPs) in Egypt shut down within 20 minutes of each other.  The only ISP spared was Noor Data Network, which … Continue reading

Posted in international, social justice | Tagged | 4 Comments

Tweeting Discontent in Spain

Under pressure from the US government and Hollywood, Spain has announced harsher copyright laws (called the Sinde law after Spanish Culture Minister Ángeles González-Sinde). Among other things, these laws will allow judges to order websites taken down for hosting illegal … Continue reading

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Allowing “Piracy”: A Lucrative Venture?

Award acceptance speeches from artists, often contain a thanks to their fans.  Allowing certain liberties can be excellent marketing, but can also bring the artists into a symbiotic relationship with their fans. Recently, Daniel Amitay on his blog showed how … Continue reading

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LitigationVille: Can FarmVille prevent other social media games from using the “-Ville” suffix?

As reported by Mike Masnick on Techdirt, the battle over the “-Ville” sufix in the social gaming realm has begun.  Zynga Inc., the company behind the popular Facebook game FarmVille recently issued a cease and desist letter to the developers … Continue reading

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A Second Helping: the Return of Rustock and all the Spam you didn’t get over the Holidays.

On January 11th, the Register reported that the Rustock botnet awoke from two weeks of inactivity and resumed generating large amounts of junk e-mail (spam) from its international network of infected Windows-based PCs. Rustock, which is believed to be responsible … Continue reading

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Trademarking Tradition: Getting the tm on Baltimore’s Hon

Copyright, trademark, and patents are legal tools designed to allow an individual or business to profit from their executed ideas.  But they are not always used this way.  From companies that exist to buy up patents and sue infringes to … Continue reading

Posted in social justice | Tagged , | 4 Comments

A Love-Hate Relationship: the Government, the Press, and the People

Last week, Mike Masnick posted a comment on techdirt, which described an exercise at the Ronald Reagan Library that suggested to students that the press should self-censor in sensitive situations. Masnick writes, “It really is disturbing to listen to this.” … Continue reading

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