From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Tue Jul 4 19:35:07 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2006 10:05:07 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] Verizon Warning to Finance Sector Message-ID: <44AA7593.1BD5DD51@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> > http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1959094,00.asp Verizon Warns Financial Sector on Internet Fight By Reuters May 8, 2006 WASHINGTON (Reuters)—Verizon Communications warned the financial services industry may not get the secure networks it needs if Congress adopts laws governing high-speed Internet broadband networks, according to a company memo obtained by Reuters on Monday. The financial services industry is weighing whether to wade into a fight over legislation on broadband service, known as "Net neutrality." It fears that without safeguards on pricing for network access, the costs to financial institutions could rise. Verizon, the No. 2 U.S. telephone company, opposes legislation for Net neutrality and sent the memo to its consultants urging them to discuss with banking industry clients the arguments against possible legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. "They are being fed a lot of cock-and-bull, Chicken Little stories about how the future of their industry is at stake because another network industry might have the freedom to price broadband services according to market demand," Verizon's chief congressional lobbyist Peter Davidson said in the memo. He warned that the financial services industry "better not start moaning in the future about a lack of sophisticated data links they need" if Net neutrality laws were passed because the communications industry may not invest in new networks. Verizon and AT&T Inc. have expressed interest in expanding from flat pricing for broadband to selling tiers of service based on the speed, reliability and security. They have pledged not to block access to the open Internet. "Why in the world should broadband network providers, who have invested billions to create those networks, be denied such pricing freedom?" Davidson said. That has raised fears among Internet content companies such as Amazon.com Inc. and Google Inc. that they will be shunted to a slower lane of the Internet if they do not pay more for dedicated access. Davidson argued that that broadband providers are not "going to do anything stupid to antagonize the people they rely on for their money!" A financial industry lawyer has been circulating a memo warning that the sector ignores the Net neutrality debate at its peril and urged companies to push for legislation that would preserve flat broadband pricing for online financial services. Financial services lobbyists have said they are concerned about the issue, and are monitoring it. The House could consider legislation this week that would preserve the ability to surf on the open Internet but does not specifically bar Internet providers from charging new fees to assure reliable service to business users. It is part of a broader communications bill. The Senate is considering its own legislation but only requires a study on Net neutrality. Differences between the bills could prevent any legislation from becoming law this year, analysts have said. From tahir.amin at btopenworld.com Wed Jul 5 00:08:26 2006 From: tahir.amin at btopenworld.com (TAHIR AMIN) Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 19:38:26 +0100 (BST) Subject: [Commons-Law] Data Exclusivity Update Message-ID: <20060704183826.32852.qmail@web86104.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Dear all, In light of he current debate in India on data exclusivity, attached is a paper modeling the impact of the latest government proposals, as well as brief discussions on other potential alternatives. The paper can be downloaded at: http://i-mak-org.blogspot.com/ Comments welcome. Best Tahir Amin Initiative for Medicines, Access & Knowledge (I-MAK) www.i-mak.org (site is under construction) Tahir Amin ___________________________________________________________ Now you can scan emails quickly with a reading pane. Get the new Yahoo! Mail. http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Wed Jul 5 23:46:51 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 14:16:51 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] =?iso-8859-1?q?S=E9gol=E8ne_Royal=2C_Lead_Contender?= =?iso-8859-1?q?_for_French_President=2C=09_Unalloyed_Information_F?= =?iso-8859-1?q?reedom_Supporter?= Message-ID: <44AC0213.D868D470@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [ORG-discuss] Time for Coders to Get Political? Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 09:21:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Glyn Wintle Reply-To: Open Rights Group open discussion list To: ORG discussion list http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1000053 Looks like Stallman may have made a powerfull friend. Ségolène Royal opinion polls show her to be the leading contender for the post of French President. After meeting with stallman she proclaimed: Open standards (like Open Document Format) and the use of free software contribute to the independence, quality and effectiveness of public agencies and local communities. Developments funded by public authorities for their own needs should, as a general rule, be free. Public authorities in France and Europe should promote a legal framework which favors both freedom to use software and the participation of all users in innovation. Policies for research and technological innovation in computing could benefit from from using concepts originating from free software. The education system must teach digital literacy. This education should be based on free software. By giving a privileged legal status to digital restrictions (DRM), the bill "copyrights and related rights in the information society" (DADVSI) is going in the wrong direction. It will thus be necessary to examine from scratch the legal framework created by the DADVSI law at the French level and to contribute to the development of a European and international legal framework more favorable to the sharing of works and knowledge. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ ORG-discuss mailing list ORG-discuss at lists.openrightsgroup.org http://lists.openrightsgroup.org/mailman/listinfo/org-discuss From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Thu Jul 6 06:11:49 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 20:41:49 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] DailyTech on Google Antitrust + Net Neutrality Standards Preservation Message-ID: <44AC5C4D.C7887D9F@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> > http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3159 Google to File Antitrust Complaints Against Telcos If Necessary Tuan Nguyen - July 4, 2006 3:54 PM Google says it's ready to file antitrust complaints if telcos abuse their network control Google spoke to reporters today and warned that if broadband service providers abuse a possible right given by the government, it will step up and file anti-trust complaints (http://today.reuters.com/stocks/QuoteCompanyNewsArticle.aspx?view=CN&storyID=2006-07-04T152432Z_01_L04777905_RTRIDST_0_TECH-GOOGLE-NETNEUTRALITY.XML&rpc=66). The issue boils down to net neutrality, which has been large ongoing issue between broadband service providers, companies, schools and the government. Google says that it hopes that legislators will support net neutrality, which will prevent large telcos and cable companies from creating tiered networks, charging more for a certain type of use than another, even though the data travels the on same network. Google said that it will not hesitate to file anti-trust complaints against any company that abuses their control over network bandwidth and prices. However, this control has not been handed over from the government just yet. Although the US Senate Commerce Committee approved a communications reform last week that allows telephone companies to offer subscription based television services to customers. Vint Cerf, a Google vice president told reporters that "if the legislators insist on neutrality, we will be happy. If they do not put it in, we will be less happy but then we will have to wait and see whether or not there actually is any abuse." Google, like many other content-driven companies -- including Microsoft -- support net neutrality. "My company, along with many others believes that the Internet should stay open and accessible to everyone equally." Several communications and network companies including Cisco, oppose net neutrality simply because their business is based on network control and bandwidth. Last week, DailyTech reported that the net neutrality debate received two new proposals from two groups (http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=2957). The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and the New Yorkers for Fair Use both offered their own proposals on how net neutrality should be handled. Both of the groups offered similar views, saying that US legislators should distinguish the Internet from other types of networks. Tiered networks would be okay as long as the Internet itself remained neutral, said both groups. Although several major telcos have said that the government and companies like Google are concerned over nothing, many companies supporting net neutrality say that given the chance, large telcos would create tiered networks in a heart beat. Without a neutrality bill protecting equal Internet access, Google fears that fair competition would be stifled and prices would soar. "We are worried that some of the broadband service providers will interfere with that principle and will attempt to use their control over broadband transport facilities to interfere with services of competitors," said Cerf. From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Thu Jul 6 06:17:51 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 20:47:51 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] Dana Blankenhorn: Dump the Silo Model / Free the Bits Message-ID: <44AC5DB7.6F7CCD4A@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> (There Is No Spoon. -- Seth) > http://www.danablankenhorn.com/2006/07/dump_the_silo_m.html Dump the Silo Model: Free the Bits There’s a cable silo. There’s a telephone silo. There’s a broadcast silo. There’s a wireless silo. There’s an Internet silo. Each silo has its own rules. Most have their own taxes. Each has its own monopolists. The time has come to break up the silos. Bits are bits. Cable sends digital bits that are turned into TV pictures. Broadcasters are going digital to send HDTV. Telephony switched to bits long ago. Wireless bits are all around us, on both licensed and unlicensed frequencies. So the time has come for the government, and the market, to treat bits as bits. Since everyone is selling bits, all they really need are incentives to sell more. And since there’s no shortage of bits, there is no longer an excuse for content regulation. Put the power to censor at the edge, alongside the power to explore. Europe is already moving in this direction, at least in relation to telecomm. The U.S. Senate, on the other hand, is moving in the opposite direction, toward entrenching the monopolies and forbidding even the people, through their local government, from competing with them. This is a recipe for national economic disaster. It’s regulation in the Mexican style, and I don’t think Canada will take all of us in. Bob Frankston says we should all own our own infrastructure. Bob Cringely calls for people to own their own last mile. I agree, but I’m into simplicity. I say, free the bits. Sugar_free_toffee_bits These are sugar free toffee bits, sold by Girl Scouts every fall. Not free, but reasonable, and for a good cause. Getting from here to there means blowing up a century of laws designed both to control content and to collect taxes, laws based on an assumption of scarcity. Regulators don’t want to free the telecomm bits because they’re on the take, in the form of “stealth” taxes (look at your own bill sometime). The same is true for cable. But the companies that sell these bits are also in on the scam. They make more money by defining bits as “services” and by controlling what those bits do, than they would otherwise. That’s because, by selling services, they’re able to act as monopolists, as gatekeepers, controlling both the customers and the content. If they were selling bits they would have to compete, and all their power would be gone. This dance of definition, taxation and regulation made sense 40 years ago, when technology was analog, spectrum was scarce, and networking was complex. But today anyone can be a network manager for the price of a $100 router. So you should have the power over bits, no one else. You, the consumer, and you, the producer of content defined by bits, should have the power to choose how you send them and choose how you get them, without constraint. When you want to send bits or receive bits, you have the right to a competitive market. And you have the right to define what those bits mean. The market, and the government, exist to serve you, not monopolists. You have the power to make this happen, but only if you seize that power, only if you demand that power, only if you organize with a single, simple demand: Free the Bits. From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Thu Jul 6 07:11:50 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2006 21:41:50 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] Notes from WIPO Barcelona Broadcasting meeting Message-ID: <44AC6A5E.2E2AAB8@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> FYI -- I believe this is a major part of why they're so antsy to get the Stevens Bill this session, here in the States . . . Broadcast flag, go right ahead with their "fundamental corporate rights" and kill IP layer neutrality -- it all dovetails quite nicely. If they can do as they please and trump the internet protocol standards and standards-making processes, they can nevertheless establish a global network of their own design, by international treaty. They need to act quickly while they can, before we figure out their bag. Seth -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Broadcast-discuss] Notes from WIPO Barcelona Broadcasting meeting Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:33:28 -0400 (EDT) From: "Michelle Childs" To: a2k at lists.essential.org CC: broadcast-discuss at lists.essential.org >From Michelle Childs Blog http://downontheriver.blogspot.com/ Notes of WIPO Barcelona Seminar BARCELONA SEMINAR TO DISCUSS BROADCASTING ISSUES On June 21, 2006, I was a panellist at an all day seminar in Barcelona entitled “The Proposed WIPO Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations: From the Rome Convention to Podcasting" For details see: http://www.wipo.int/edocs/prdocs/en/2006/wipo_ma_2006_23.html It was organised by WIPO, the Catalan Broadcasting Council and the Barcelona Bar Association and ‘supported’ by several other EU broadcasters organisations (.Association of Commercial Television in Europe (ACT), Association of European Radios (AER), Association of Spanish Commercial Radio (AERC), International Association of Broadcasting (AIR), European Broadcasting Union (EBU), and the Audiovisual Producers Rights Management Organization (EGEDA). ) While the meeting was in theory open to all, only one weeks notice was given, so it made it very difficult for civil society to attend, and I was the only representative there from consumer/ public interest groups. In addition my talk was cut from a promised 10 minutes to five, though I was allowed to question some of the speakers. Despite the title there was little detail discussion of podcasting, most speakers focused on justifications for the Treaty itself. By the time I arrived ( due to travel delays I missed the opening ceremony and general introductory panels) there was quite a small audience , about 20 or so people. It was worth attending though to hear the coded and not so coded messages from EU Broadcasters, the EU Commission and the WIPO Secretariat on how they think the discussions on the Broadcasting Treaty should play out at the next WIPO meeting in September. Key themes coming out of the meeting: · EU broadcasters very keen to get the Treaty finalised quickly –broadcasters reps spoke of the need to deal with webcasting separately, but to get on with ‘their’ treaty. · EU Broadcasters also want simulcasting included ( i.e protection for the simultaneous transmission on the Internet as well as on terrestrial cable and satellite systems )- without such a right their broadcast protection is ‘meaningless’. · WIPO secretariat see the removal of the controversial webcasting proposal from the main text as removing the final obstacle to agreement to a Diplomatic Conference (DC), at the September meeting. Their message was that it was a time for compromise, on the basis that no one opposes a Treaty , just its contents(!).The final details can be resolved at the DC, where as in past years, many proposals could be made. · EU Commission- All 25 member States ‘without demur’ support a DC. Support for simulcasting is a compromise position given different legal traditions ( see below), not on the principle of granting protection but on extending protection to a new class of beneficiaries. · There is clearly a split between the US and EU on extension of rights to the Internet. Given the strong lobbying from EU broadcasters, it is possible that the Commission could push more strongly in September for the inclusion of simulcasting , but not webcasting in the main text of the treaty. This may be opposed by the US as its excludes pure webcasters such as Yahoo. · Several Delegates mentioned linking the Broadcast Treaty to signing up to the Rome Convention ( which the US has not done) I couldn’t take a verbatim note of proceedings and some notes are based on the translations from the original languages , so double check directly with the speakers if you wish to quote their views. With that caveat (!) below are some points of interest from some of the speakers. The second panel was on Broadcasting in the 21st Century : scenarios and challenges’: One of the speakers was Yahoo Europe ( the main lobbyist for the inclusion of webcasting) represented by its Legal Director , Mr Ventura Barba . In essence he argued that: The only difference between webcasters and broadcasters was the technology used, the business model was the same as was the experience for consumers. They were in the same field and needed the same protection against potential signal pirates. In addition they already dealt with radio and TV broadcasters who were putting pressure on them to guarantee protection. Given that his justification focused on protection against signal piracy I asked him if Yahoo would therefore support a the proposed webcasting treaty which was limited to signal piracy without the broader protections in the proposed Broadcasters Treaty. He said that the signal piracy approach was a start but not the end and not what ‘we deserve’. Other panellists spoke about the need for a Broadcasting Treaty and the need to show that Broadcasters were creators too. They mentioned that Spain's new broadcasting law will give protection to simulcasting, webcasting and podcasting.,( IP Director, PRISA group Madrid.) The copyright Counsel for Alfa- Redi, Lima While suggesting that additions to the Treaty should not be limited to webcasting/simulcasting but`also included 3G radio broadcasting and Digital Terresterial Televison . Care should be taken over identifying the problem. People called pirates in Spain centuries ago were called lords in the UK. It was important not just to think of IP but also consider data protection, civil liability, cultural diversity( especially the UNESCO convention)and the rights of other performers. The Internet is different but the same principles on these issues must apply. This was followed by 30 minute session from Mr Ficsor, Chairman, Central and Eastern European Copyright Alliance (CEECA) Budapest a well known supporter of the Treaty and always dismissive to opponents. True to form he started off by criticizing the reactionaries of the Copyleft movement who exaggerated the effect of the Treaty. A strong defence was needed against those who opposed the Treaty. The Treaty was essential and its adoption urgent as the Rome Convention was old fashioned. However he said the Treaty was only worth having if it had proper protections for broadcaster which included TPMs. (He did acknowledge that the Treaty would also have to have exemptions for public interests if TPMs were included). It should also include simulcasting, webcasting should be dealt with separately. I questioned him on the difference between simulcasting and webcasting, wasn’t it just seeking to protect a limited class of beneficiaries ( traditional broadcasters) rather than any real difference in activities between webcasters and simulcasters ? As such . didn’t all the concerns about the chilling effects of extending protections to the Internet apply to simulcasting as much as to webcasting? He replied with a circular argument. If simulcasting was not protected then Broadcasters would not have signal protection if they choose to simulcast (!), as even though the traditional broadcast signal would be protected, the signal on the Internet would not be. In practice it would be ‘meaningless’ if broadcasters don’t have protection of simulcasting. I spoke on the next panel. This was broadly split between broadcasters who supported the Treaty and artists representatives concerned about the lack of protection of their rights. The European Broadcasting Union appeared to be worried about the future of the Treaty, repeating that the Treaty needed to be finalised urgently , to include simulcasting, but that webcasting should be dealt with separately. Mediaset wanted the Treaty but said that webcasting should be included. There would be no threat to others rights as ‘fair rights’ would be included. I explained the consumer concerns about the Treaty eg for non signatories to Rome, on TPMs , limitations and exceptions and repeated my belief that there was not a substantive difference between webcasting and simulcasting. I pointed out that NGOs had been supportive of a pure signals based Treaty and had provided a draft text. A representative of the artists organisation, Artistas Interpretes Sociedad de Gestion (AISGE) , Madrid opposed a broad treaty, they wanted it limited to a signal based approach. As drafted it could cause conflicts between broadcasters and rightholders. The Treaty was seeking to regulate the highway before the car ( content = car) as artists did not have appropriate international regulation of their rights. The legal representative of Artistas,Interpretes, Ejecutantes (AIE), Madrid supported the Treaty and its extension to simulcasting. She sought to draw a distinction between simulcasting and webcasting. Simulcasting was exactly the same as traditional broadcasting just on a different medium , whereas webcasting goes into other fields e.g podcasting, mobile phones. ( I pointed out that the current draft does not limited it just to simultaneous transmission but allows delayed transmission which could include, VOD, podcasting. ) . She also suggested that it should be a requirement that all countries join the Rome Convention. The EBU rep was questioned about the concerns of artist and consumers. He said it was a ‘dialogue with the deaf’ as there were no concerns, as there were no threats to either groups rights. The final two panels were directly on the WIPO Broadcasting Treaty. The first panel was a pretty fair overview of the discussions to date at WIPO by Professor Delia Lipszyc from Buenos Aires University. The final panel was chaired by Jukka Liedes ( in fluent Spanish), Chair of the SCCR charged with taking forwarded the Broadcasting Treaty. · He was a great pains in a lengthy introduction to make the point that the current document was just a draft and not the final document ( I assume to head off criticisms that he had not included several Latin American proposals in the previous draft.) · But what was clear` was that the need for updating the protection of Broadcasters had been proved, to protect against signal piracy ,and, that the basis of the protection was the investment that broadcasters had made. · There was concern to ensure separation between content and signal. There was a clear demand that there should be no interference with the content system from content holders. There needed to be a balance between multiply stakeholders and the framework must be acceptable to the majority of Governments. (noticeable that he didn’t say all) The Panel included a representatives from the EU Commission, the Permanent Mission of Brazil in Geneva, and IP offices in Bogota, Lima and Mexico. It seemed like it was a last push by Europe through Spanish/Portuguese speaking interlocuters to convince Latin American delegates how great the broadcasting treaty would be. Lima, Mexico and Bogata IP reps supported the Broadcasting Treaty but all made comments on concerns about TPMs and limitations and exceptions. There were several comments about previous Diplomatic Conferences where ‘hundreds’ of new proposals had been made. I assume to make the point that concerns about wording should not delay the DC as changes could still be made at the conference. Julie Samnadda from the EU Commission ( one of the two person team negotiating the Treaty at WIPO) gave a detailed explanation of the EU’s position ( building on the previous Commission response to the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue’s resolution on the Treaty www.tacd.org). It appears to be pretty inflexible on the substantive points. She spoke very quickly so I don’t have all the points. However she is open to the idea ( subject to approval) to provide a briefing at WIPO to civil society on the commissions position, which I will be following up. She gave bullet points on four areas. 1. Commissions Position in the negotiations · The Commission represents all 25 member States plus two Accession States, Bulgaria and Romania at WIPO. · All 25 have agreed ‘without’ demur to go forward with the Broadcasting Treaty, as its important to broadcasters and consumers. · [It is even a virtue!] Commission deeply committed to the multilateral approach rather than a bilateral approach. Many Member States are firm supporters of the UN and WIPO 2. Relationship between the documents as they stand and the Community aquis. · Most of the exclusive rights in the draft Treaty are already a part of Community Law . E.g right of reproduction, making available right, distribution right, legal protection of TPMs. Others are in addition to Community law but not to some of the laws of Member States e.g protecting the pre broadcast signal, a broad right of retansmission. · There is a distinction between the approaches taken between Member States. A number of ‘Northern ‘ MS including Ireland, UK, Denmark, Finalnd , Austria, Sweden, Cyrus and Malta have based their laws on a technology neutral approach – this means that webcasting is already covered in their laws. · ‘Southern’ States including France have a more restrictive approach to creating a new class of beneficiary. As a result a compromise position has been reached on simulcasting. They accept that simulcasting is covered by community law ( as the right of reproduction refers to any form including the Internet) but the caution is over the creation of a new category of beneficiary. · Whether the definition of the protection is based on a description of the beneficiary of the activity is therefore irrelevant to Northern MS as its already covered in their national laws but it is a critical issue for Southern MS. · At an international level Member States are willing to include simulcasting as this is most important to EU Broadcasters. ( Though she didn’t say this the implication is that webcasting would not be acceptable as it creates a whole new class – pure webcasters- rather than just an extension to an existing class). 3.Rights and exception as they are expressed in the present draft and a possible way forward drawing on the community approach · Strong supporters of Berne 3 step test will not move away from that. · EC prepared to export and discuss at WIPO their approach to balancing TPMs and Exceptions and limitations, once have approval of Member States to do so. This refers in part to the ‘2 step test’ in the Copyright Directive in relation to the restriction of the exercise of exceptions and limitations by a TPM. Only if voluntary measures fail can a beneficiary of the E &L appeal to a body who then may remedy the problem. ( note this appeal mechanism approach is strongly criticised by consumer groups in Europe ) 4. Relationship between the Treaty and other areas e.g cultural diversity. · Cultural diversity important issue for Europe as many languages and ethnic groups, do not see it just as developing country issue. Signatory to UNESCO Convention on Cultural diversity. · Do not see protecting broadcasters rights as necessarily in conflict with UNESCO convention. Do not favour provisions inserted into Treaty on this issue which seek to create a hierarchy of norms. eg which Treaty trumps another. Guilherme de Aguiar Patriota, Brazils representative at WIPO made a number of broad points: · Had the impression that the Broadcasters wanted a quick Treaty. They appear latecomers to technological change. They need to adapt their business models to the new reality of the Internet. He does not think that the legal framework will determine the pace of change. · Negotiators at WIPO should be aware that a return to the 96 Treaties - ‘WIPO Internet Treaties’ was not feasible on technological or political terms and because of the involvement of other groups , such as civil society groups , who are attentive to the impact of any new Treaty. Developing countries are aware of the different affects on different levels of development and that new rights may limit their policy space. · The signal in digital form was too important and widespread to be controlled by a very narrowly defined set of broadcasters with exclusive rights. It was important to ensure that the philosophy behind the Treaty was correct and that the object and subject of protection was clearly defined. · 2 main proposals to deal with the Internet. 1) Simulcasting supported by Europe. This option favours the traditional broadcasters, who are attempting to hold onto their business role in a new technological world, which challenges it. 2)Webcasting supported by the US. Seeking to widen beneficiaries to newcomers, who just work on the Internet. Questions about whether such protections should also apply to telecom companies. These rights are untested. · There are however a whole range of other stakeholders e.g authors and public interests whose interests need to be safeguarded. Also concerns about exceptions and limitations. · Broadcasting has an important public and social role in Brazil and there are special regimes that broadcasters have to abide by. Concerns that international treaties override national regulations. · It is not clear what equilibrium will come out of this Treaty. The range of rights and protections for example TPMS are untested in developing countries. It gives greater protections to broadcasters and also need limitations and exceptions for consumers and others. Won’t bind ourselves to the 3 step test as that test was part of the copyright balance this is a new treaty. · A Rome criterion for eligibility is relevant. The US is not a signatory to the Rome Convention. This should be looked at. · Support cultural diversity provisions. · Need to study the duration of the rights given. When do they end- how are they exhausted? Rita Hayes, Deputy Director of WIPO closed the seminar . · She felt there had been a good discussion on the framework for a Treaty. Leave people with one thought, Where do you think we are going? She hadn’t heard anyone say they don’t want a treaty. Calls for different levels of treaty and different ideas about how it will be done. She highlighted the fact that someone ( me) had said that they would agree to the protection of signals , so all were in agreement to a Treaty (implying I assume that NGOs could not object to a DC as we had agreed to signal based treaty – though such a draft has not yet been agreed) · The chair of the SCCR had been given the task of preparing the next draft. This would be prepared on the basis of the documents previously submitted and on new and existing proposals and the discussions at the previous SCCR, which took a full five days. She knew that those discussion included calls for proposals not included to be put in. She was looking forward to what the chairman would do about this (!) · The next draft would be prepared for August so that delegates would have time to review before the next SCCR in September, with a view to making a recommendation for a DC in 2007. · Proposals on webcasting and simulcasting have to be with the Chair by 1st August, who will then prepare a revised document on the two issues. Discussions on this will take place at a SCCR after the General Assembly. · On the Broadcasting Treaty there has to be the will to move forward. Many more proposals are\ likely to be made and can be discussed at the DC , as in past DCs. Issues have been discussed and there is a realisation that there is a need to look at broadcasting organisations and to deal with their rights. Need to compromise can’t deal with all issues at SCCR but can move forward to DC in 2007 and deal with them there. She is though, speaking as a member of the Secretariat and realises that it is a member driven organisation and it is for Member States to agree (!). -- Michelle Childs -Head of European Affairs Consumer Project on Technology in London 24, Highbury Crescent, London, N5 1RX,UK. Tel:+44(0)207 226 6663 ex 252. Mob:+44(0)790 386 4642. Fax: +44(0)207 354 0607 http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, DC 1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA .Tel.: +1.202.332.2670,Fax: +1.202.332.2673 Consumer Project on Technology in Geneva 1 Route des Morillons, CP 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland Tel: +41 22 791 6727 _______________________________________________ Broadcast-discuss mailing list Broadcast-discuss at lists.essential.org http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/broadcast-discuss From yuvaraj.a.r at gmail.com Fri Jul 7 08:37:02 2006 From: yuvaraj.a.r at gmail.com (Yuvaraj Athur Raghuvir) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 08:37:02 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Getting licence for patent protected technology standard in India? Message-ID: <10505d5c0607062007q57c2558bu2e28791e82766ae3@mail.gmail.com> Hello, A friend of mine was enquiring on the current legal standing of Indian IP Laws. His company wants to use patented technology standard to provide value added implementation to their clients. The patent owner indicates that a) India does not fall under a region where they can licence the technology b) Requirement of a subsidiary with assets in a region where the patent owner can award the licence. Clearly, the organization is in India and does not have a subsidiary that has assets elsewhere. So, what is the way out of this dilemma? Moving forward, in the services industry this would become a common issue. So, are there any precedents in Indian IP legal regime that can help in building confidence in the Foreign Patent Owner's mind? Regards, Yuva -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060707/f0b647c1/attachment.html From dev.gangjee at law.oxford.ac.uk Fri Jul 7 17:04:44 2006 From: dev.gangjee at law.oxford.ac.uk (Dev Gangjee) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 12:34:44 +0100 Subject: [Commons-Law] Getting licence for patent protected technology standard in India In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <20060707113444.50A2B9E076@webmail222.herald.ox.ac.uk> An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed... Name: not available Url: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060707/caa97b41/attachment.pl From yuvaraj.a.r at gmail.com Fri Jul 7 18:44:57 2006 From: yuvaraj.a.r at gmail.com (Yuvaraj Athur Raghuvir) Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 18:44:57 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Getting licence for patent protected technology standard in India In-Reply-To: <20060707113444.50A2B9E076@webmail222.herald.ox.ac.uk> References: <20060707113444.50A2B9E076@webmail222.herald.ox.ac.uk> Message-ID: <10505d5c0607070614x5832e34amdaca49a9da7e86a0@mail.gmail.com> Hello, One suggestion I have so far is to use contract law to protect the usage in India. However, the loss of IP is probably more than how much the contract law can ensure. I donot know for sure but thats what I would expect given that Indian Service Industry would have limited capacity to repay damages sought. The technology in question, I believe, does not have patent protection in India. However, I think the question is not about whether or not such a protection exists in India but the confidence if such a move would help protecting against piracy. Has there been any case law that can illustrate: a) infringement b) duration of closure that is reasonable - months not years c) substantial penalty for infringement in recent history of the IP in India? I think this would be a general problem that Service Industry in India would face moving forward. There are many international patents that need implementation and servicing that can generate substantial revenue for the Service Industry. For this a comprehesive treatment would be required back by fast action in the legal system. Else, this gap cannot be closed forcing the industries in India to struggle at the lower end of the value chain. And that end is getting quite crowded these days. Regards, Yuva -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060707/2a526532/attachment.html From anilg at iimahd.ernet.in Fri Jul 7 10:12:45 2006 From: anilg at iimahd.ernet.in (anil gupta) Date: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 10:12:45 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Getting licence for patent protected technology standard in India? In-Reply-To: <10505d5c0607062007q57c2558bu2e28791e82766ae3@mail.gmail.com> References: <10505d5c0607062007q57c2558bu2e28791e82766ae3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44ADE645.5040207@iimahd.ernet.in> well, it is possible that the concerned company did not file patent in india and thus can not assert its rights in india. The licensee may not adhere to the conditions and thus cause loss to th patent owner. But then there are examples where in such cases, patent owners have confidentiality agreements and other contracts enforceable under the contract law. the matter is really for the interested company in india to convince the patent owner that they will abide by their confidentiality agreements anil Yuvaraj Athur Raghuvir wrote: > Hello, A friend of mine was enquiring on the current legal standing > of Indian IP Laws. His company wants to use patented technology > standard to provide value added implementation to their clients. The > patent owner indicates that a) India does not fall under a region > where they can licence the technology b) Requirement of a subsidiary > with assets in a region where the patent owner can award the licence. > Clearly, the organization is in India and does not have a subsidiary > that has assets elsewhere. So, what is the way out of this dilemma? > Moving forward, in the services industry this would become a common > issue. So, are there any precedents in Indian IP legal regime that can > help in building confidence in the Foreign Patent Owner's mind? > Regards, Yuva > >------------------------------------------------------------------------ > >_______________________________________________ >commons-law mailing list >commons-law at sarai.net >https://mail.sarai.net/mailman/listinfo/commons-law > > -- - Prof Anil K Gupta K L Chair Professor of Entrepreneurship, Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad 380015, India anilg at sristi.org ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Personal Page: http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/~anilg/ Sristi Page: http://www.sristi.org, GIAN Page: http://www.gian.org National Innovation Foundation (NIF): http://www.nifindia.org www.Indiainnovates.com Phone Numbers: (0) +91 (79) 632 4927, 630 8357, 6309973 Fax Numbers: +91 (79) 630 7341, 630 6896 Fortitude is the capacity to say 'yes' when the whole world wants to say, 'NO, it cant be done' -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060707/76b61e06/attachment.html From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Mon Jul 10 21:12:26 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 11:42:26 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] Stevens Bill Fast Track Maneuvers! Message-ID: <44B27562.9A7590D8@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> Copyright 2006 Access Intelligence, LLC. All Rights Reserved Telecomweb news break July 6, 2006 Thursday LENGTH: 762 words HEADLINE: Communications Reform Bill Gets Fast Tracked BODY: In a rarely seen legislative maneuver, the sweeping communications reform bill recently approved by a key Senate committee (TelecomWeb news break, June 30) has been re-designated as a House of Representatives proposal, ostensibly to accelerate the floor voting process during this Congressional session. After three days of markup covering 214 amendments, not only was the Senate's Communications, Consumers' Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 renamed the Advanced Telecommunications and Opportunity Reform (ATOR) Act, but the bill's S. 2686 designation also was refiled in the House hopper as H.R. 5252 - the same numerical designation as the smaller, less-comprehensive Communications Opportunity, Promotion, and Enhancement (COPE) Act of 2006 already heading for the House floor. Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the Senate Commerce chairman who has vowed to get the bill passed but has expressed some concern about its floor vote chances, employed the seldom-used re-numbering/refilling parliamentary technique to speed up Congressional consideration of the massive 135-page, 20,000-word bill that was approved by a 15-7 committee vote last week. As a result of the maneuver, House members will not be required to hold separate hearings on the Senate-originated bill, but instead the two H.R. 5252 proposals can head directly into House-Senate conference committee sessions for federal lawmakers to hammer out terms toward a single piece of legislation acceptable to both bodies. "It is one of the legislative tools that can be used to quicken passage," said Joseph Benckle, a spokesman for the Senate committee. A wide range of issues on the bills still could provide hot debate and tough negotiation points for the legislators, including national video franchise streamlining, universal service fund linkages with broadband deployment, network neutrality, Internet Protocol services regulation, spectrum management policies, antitrust measures, telecom taxation exemptions and local/state/federal jurisdictional questions. Most recently, several leaders of municipal government associations expressed their disappointment with several provisions included in the new H.R.5252 bill as reported out of committee, despite having had discussions with the staff prior to the markup. In a joint letter to Stevens and Sen. Daniel K. Inouye, committee co-chairman, some unacceptable items were listed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National League of Cities, the National Association of Counties, the Government Finance Officers Association and the National Association of Telecommunications Officers and Advisors. They dislike the committee's adoption of two taxation-oriented amendments - one disallowing any new cellular telephone taxes (passed by a 21-1 vote) and another creating a permanent moratorium on Internet access service taxes (passed by 19-3 vote - and the rejection of an amendment mandating network build out requirements on new video franchisees (defeated by a 12-10 vote). Besides saying that the lack of a reasonable build-out requirement is of grave concern, the groups also are unhappy with a modification of the "video service provider" definition to exclude satellite service integrated with landline services (something that would benefit the likes of AT&T and other telcos or cablecos trying to combine the two services). "It would be unfortunate if the bill's positive attributes were unable to garner floor time for the lack of having sixty senators supporting consideration," the groups' letter remarked about a possible close call in floor voting. "However, unless we receive assurances that the tax amendments and the modification to the video service provider definition will be removed during floor debate, we will have to urge our members to oppose the bill. Build-out will be the subject of other floor amendments." Two weeks ago, the National Governors Association (NGA) also said it opposed Congressional efforts to preempt state authority in the Senate bill. "The cumulative impact of these measures on states' sovereignty runs counter to our federal system while applying a federally-mandated "one-size-fits-all" approach to a state and local issue," NGA maintained. "The potential fiscal and legal impacts on states of these wide-ranging preemptive measures and pending amendments have never been the subject of any Congressional hearing or debate in this Congress. The measure's sweeping preemptions threaten the long-standing partnerships between the federal government and states in determining the nation's communications policy." Celia Viggo Wexler Vice President for Advocacy 202-736-5745 From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Wed Jul 12 21:13:36 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:43:36 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] New EU Patent Fight Starts Today in Brussels (July 12) Message-ID: <44B518A8.3F088B8C@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Patents] New EU patent fight to break out in Brussels on Wednesday (July 12) Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 15:18:29 +0200 From: Florian Mueller To: NEW EU PATENT FIGHT TO BREAK OUT IN BRUSSELS ON WEDNESDAY (JULY 12), SAYS CAMPAIGNER FLORIAN MUELLER European Commission hearing on the future of European patent policy pits the same opposing camps against each other as the proposed software patent directive that the EP voted down one year ago Brussels (July 10, 2006) - Florian Mueller, the founder of the award-winning NoSoftwarePatents campaign that helped to defeat the EU software patent directive last year, expects a new fight over European patent policy to break out on Wednesday. On that day, the European Commission will hold a public hearing on the future of the European patent systems in Brussels (http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/patent/hearing_en.htm). A little over a year after the European Parliament threw out the "directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions", the same opposing camps are at loggerheads again. This time around, the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA), a proposal for an international treaty that would establish a new European Patent Court, is at the center of the dispute. In front of approximately 250 politicians, public servants and journalists, the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII, http://www.ffii.org) and Mueller will speak out strongly against the EPLA, while representatives of such large corporations as Nokia and lobbying organizations close to Microsoft will demand the EPLA's ratification. In his blog (http://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/florian-mueller-blog/), Mueller predicts that EU internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy "is determined to back the EPLA" (http://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/florian-mueller-blog/mccreevy-epla/). According to Mueller, McCreevy was a driving force behind the software patent directive, and "Microsoft and the other usual suspects" have already lobbied members of the European Parliament to support the EPLA. In his speech at the Wednesday hearing (http://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/florian-mueller-blog/hearing-speech/), Mueller is going to state that the EPLA "is just another attempt to give software and business method patents a stronger legal basis in Europe than they have now. [...] From a software patents point of view, the EPLA would have far worse consequences than the rejected patentability directive would have had: not only would software patents become more enforceable in Europe but also would patent holders in general be encouraged to litigate." Mueller also complains about an expected "doubling or tripling of the total cost of litigation" per patent dispute in Europe. The legal status of software patents in Europe is contradictory. While the existing written rules, which go back to the year 1973, disallow patents on computer programs "as such", the European Patent Office (EPO) and various national patent offices have granted tens of thousands of software patents. However, European patents, even if granted by the EPO, can only be enforced country by country as of now, and national courts declare many EPO software patents invalid when their holders try to use them against alleged infringers. Critics argue that the EPLA would create a new court system that would be under the control of the same group of government officials who already govern the EPO, and that the judges appointed by those people would support the EPO's granting practice and its broad scope of patentable subject-matter with respect to software and business methods. Last week, the European Commission published a preliminary evaluation (http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/docs/patent/preliminary_finding s_en.pdf) of the responses it received to a patent policy questionnaire published in January. The Commission's questionnaire addressed different policy initiatives, first and foremost the unitary "Community patent", a patent that would be valid across the entire EU. But the Commission's preliminary findings indicate that disagreement over the language regime of such a Community patent has thus far prevented the EU from moving forward with the project. The Commission's analysis shows that industry organizations show a strong preference for the EPLA instead. The Commission will listen to approximately 40 speakers at the hearing on Wednesday, and will formulate a policy recommendation after the summer. Mueller wrote (http://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/florian-mueller-blog/ecj-epla/) that one of the next steps will be for the European Commission to ask the European Court of Justice for an opinion on whether the ratification of the EPLA requires direct involvement on the part of the EU or whether any EU member states would be free to conclude the EPLA on their own. The EPLA's proponents would prefer to eliminate the need to reach a decision at the EU level, fearing that the European Parliament might once again wreck their plans. CONTACT INFORMATION Florian Mueller fmueller.nosoftwarepatents at gmail.com fixed line +49-8151-21088 mobile phone +49-171-2632226 -- Subscription management: http://www2.aful.org/wws From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Wed Jul 12 21:14:31 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:44:31 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] FFII Compares EPLA with US Fed Circuit Court of Appeals Message-ID: <44B518DF.6205067A@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [ffii] FFII statement at EU patent policy hearing Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:18:10 +0200 From: Jonas Maebe To: news at ffii.org PRESS RELEASE -- [ Europe / Economy / ICT ] ================================================ FFII statement given at EU patent policy hearing ================================================ Brussels, 12 July 2006 - The FFII today asks in its speech at the EU patent policy hearing for addressing the European patent problems at the core: the malpractice of the European Patent Office (EPO). The FFII is particularly concerned about how the proposed European Patent Litigation Agreement would put the only future European patent court under EPO control. In the US, a single centralised patent court led to the proliferation of software and business method patents. Europe must not make the same mistake. Honourable Chair, Ladies and Gentlemen, The FFII represents 3,500 IT companies and 100,000 IT individuals. I will speak on behalf of the FFII constituency. As has been said by other speakers, the EPLA will make litigation 2-3 times more expensive. Numbers come from the EPO. What does this mean for SMEs? It means that if you are an SME and have a patent, it will become harder to enforce your patent because litigation just became 2-3 times more expensive. It also means that if you are an SME and accused of patent infringement, it becomes harder to defend yourself because litigation just became more expensive. And if you cannot defend yourself, you will be forced to license, even if the patent is weak or invalid. Granted patents that are invalid are a plague, yet 50% of all patent litigation concerns patent validity. That means every second trial relates to a problem that should not be there in the first place. Every second patent trial is a trial which could be 100% cheaper for all parties involved if the organisation responsible for the granting of patents would have taken it's full responsibility, but also if these patents would never have been filed. Patent inflation is not a victimless crime. The victims are SMEs, even more so if litigation becomes 2-3 times more expensive. But instead of fighting patent inflation and work on the problems at the EPO, we are now focussing on litigation. Why is that so? Maybe the answer lies close to what the Commission recently said in the Extended Consultation documentation, where the Commission strongly criticised the European Patent Office over attempting to define European patent policy. I quote: "Whilst being basically a patent granting office, the EPO has ambitions to steer patent policy at European and international levels. It has a business culture of its own with very little understanding for what happens in Brussels in a more global context. Initiatives from Brussels implying changes to the existing multilateral European patent system are considered as an attack on the holy writ. The EPO has close ties with national patent offices and far less with the ministerial level in Member States. Recently the EPO has become subject to growing criticism by MEPs and various EU Member States for a lack of political accountability." End quote. Now, if lack of political accountability is considered a problem, why give EPO even more power? The EPLA would remove all national patent courts and put a single European-wide court in its place. However, the judges of this European-wide court would be appointed by the people who run the European Patent Office. Moreover, these judges could hold positions at the European Patent Office in parallel. Further, every six years these judges can be re-appointed if they live up to the expectations of, again, the very same people who run the European Patent Office. EPLA puts an executive organisation in charge of running the judiciary. This is unacceptable. Tax offices, city planning departments and social assistance offices do not re-appoint judges deciding over their work, and there is no reason why a patent office should be exempted from this rule. An executive must not control the judiciary. The Commission, if anyone, must know that. Why this extremism? Petty differences between EPO and national interpretation and patent practice need not EPLA to be resolved. European judges can themselves find out if e.g. the special term "edible fruit" is disclosing prior art compared to the general term "vegetables". But the more serious, EPO also thinks programs for computers are inventions, even if EPC and its national implementations say that they are not. This is a fundamental difference. It has been said the centralised US court "Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit" was the driving force behind the introduction of software and business method patents in the US. Maybe this is the most important reason why EPO needs EPLA, but is it what Europe needs? The answer from the European Parliament last year was No. Thank you ======================================================================== Links ======================================================================== * EU patent policy hearing agenda http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/indprop/docs/patent/final_agenda_en.pdf * Commission criticises EPO's behaviour and lack of accountability http://wiki.ffii.org/ComEPOPr060710En * EPLA analysis showing EPLA will be more expensive for SMEs http://wiki.ffii.org/EplaAnalysisEn * Permanent link to this press release http://wiki.ffii.org/PatHearing060712En ======================================================================== Contact Information ======================================================================== Erik Josefsson FFII representative +32-484-082063 ehj at ffii.org (Swedish/English) Benjamin Henrion FFII Brussels +32-2-414 84 03 (fixed) +32-484-56 61 09 (mobile) bhenrion at ffii.org (French/English) Jonas Maebe FFII board member jmaebe at ffii.org (Dutch/English) ======================================================================== About the FFII -- http://www.ffii.org ======================================================================== The FFII is a not-for-profit association registered in twenty European countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the public benefit, based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 850 members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions concerning exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing. _______________________________________________ FFII Press Releases. (un)subscribe via http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/news, or contact media at ffii.org for more information. From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Wed Jul 12 21:37:51 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 12:07:51 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] FSF Europe: MS Paying for Blocking Interoperability Message-ID: <44B51E57.217D72BF@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] Commission to Microsoft: Preventing interoperabilityhas a price Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 13:07:06 +0200 From: press at fsfeurope.org To: press-release at fsfeurope.org Commission to Microsoft: Preventing interoperability has a price FSFE welcomes the decision by the European Commission. "Microsoft is still as far from allowing competition as it was on the day of the original Commission ruling in 2004. All proposals made by Microsoft were deliberately exclusive of Samba, the major remaining competitor. In that light, the fines do not seem to come early, and they do not seem high," comments Carlo Piana, Milano based lawyer of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) regarding the decision of the European Commission to fine Microsoft 1.5 million Euro per day retroactively from 16. December 2005, totalling 280.5 million Euro. Should Microsoft not come into compliance until the end of July 2006, the daily fines could be doubled. These fines are a reaction to Microsofts continued lack of compliance with the European Commission decision to make interoperability information available to competitors as a necessary precondition to allow fair competition. FSFE has supported the European Commission from the start of the suit in 2001. Having made similar statements during the hearing, Microsoft commented to the press last week [1] that 300 engineers are currently working "day and night" to fulfill the request of the public authorities. "If we are to believe Microsofts numbers, it appears that 120.000 person days are not enough to document its own software. This is a task that good software developers do during the development of software, and a hallmark of bad engineering," comments Georg Greve, president of the FSFE. "For users, this should be a shock: Microsoft apparently does not know the software that controls 95% of all desktop computers on this planet. Imagine General Motors releasing a press statement to the extent that even though they had 300 of their best engineers work on this for two years, they cannot provide specifications for the cars they built." Many companies run a mixed network of Windows, GNU/Linux, Unix and other operating systems (OS). The Windows products understand each other, and all the other operating systems can talk to each other. It is the connection between the two worlds that was deliberatly obfuscated a few years ago by Microsoft, and that the Samba project is working on. During the main hearing at the European Court of Justice toward the end of April, the president and founder of Samba Dr. Andrew Tridgell presented the work of the Samba Team work. Among other things, he demonstrated a box for roughly 100 EUR. If Microsoft did not hide its interoperability information, that box would already be capable of administrating hundreds of users. A small 100 EUR box could do the same task that is currently done by an entire PC for 1.000,- EUR. "Dr. Tridgell demonstrated easily what kind of innovation is locked out of the market by Microsofts refusal to interoperate with other vendors. In this case, the price of that refusal are domain controllers that are ten times more expensive than necessary, and the price is paid by everyone: private businesses, public authorities and society as a whole," Georg Greve summarises. He concludes: "When will society refuse to legitimise such business practices by buying from companies that exhibit such behaviour?" [1] http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2006/07/04/216779/Microsoft+working+%e2%80%9cday+and+night%e2%80%9d+to+meet+EC+deadline.htm About the Free Software Foundation Europe: The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a charitable non-governmental organisation dedicated to all aspects of Free Software in Europe. Access to software determines who may participate in a digital society. Therefore the Freedoms to use, copy, modify and redistribute software - as described in the Free Software definition- allow equal participation in the information age. Creating awareness for these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues of the FSFE. The FSFE was founded in 2001 as the European sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation in the United States. Further information: http://fsfeurope.org _______________________________________________ Press-release mailing list Press-release at fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/press-release From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Fri Jul 14 00:22:10 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 14:52:10 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] CPTech Comments at EU Patent Hearing Yesterday (July 12) Message-ID: <44B6965A.12CFD7E6@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: [Ecommerce] CPtech's intervention at EU Patent Hearing 12th July Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 06:24:58 -0400 (EDT) From: "Michelle Childs" To: ip-health at lists.essential.org, ecommerce at lists.essential.org,a2k at lists.essential.org I was a speaker at the hearing yesterday. My intervention is below. There was no real debate on broader issues, other than one other intervention from CARE on ethical issues. The day mostly focused on discussions about the Community Patent, the European Patent Litigation Agreement and the London Protocol. I will do a fuller note shortly. As suspected most speakers pushed for a quick ratification of the European Patent Litigation Agreement and the London Protocol. Of the larger companies that spoke only Nokia was much more wary of the EPLA on costs and procedural grounds. FFII and Florian Muller spoke out strongly against the EPLA ( see previous posts for their interventions). The Common politicial position on the Community patent was opposed by many as too costly and even supporters of the Community Patent thought that it was unlikley that there would be quick progress on it. Unsurprisingly Commissioner McCreevy finished the day by saying that DG Int Mrkt would work on the EPLA and the London Protocol ( though there are some institutional issues that have to be overcome before they can do so). He would give one further push to finalise the Community Patent, but was deciding on the best time for this. He also confirmed that following the defeat of the 'software patent directive' he would not push for another directive in this area during his term in office. Cptech’s Intervention at the EU Commissions Public Hearing on Future Patent Policy 12 July 2006 Introduction The Consumer Project on Technology (Cptech) thanks the Commission for giving us the opportunity to intervene in these proceedings. Our comments draw on our fuller written response to the original questionnaire. The primary aim of the Community patent is broadly to make patents cheaper to obtain and easier to enforce. This is fine if and only if the current patent system functions well. We do not believe that it does. While there will remain a number of key questions about the mechanisms, institutions and accountability, the push for a Community Patent will be resisted by public interests groups unless the Commission deals with 4 prior issues: 1) Opening up discussions and decisions on patent policy to more stakeholders and acknowledging other interests than rights holders. Many of the initiatives taken by the Commission in this field are done in close cooperation with major rights holders, making the proposals one sided. It is often forgotten that citizens and consumers are key stakeholders in discussions about the future of the patent system. A poorly functioning patent system impedes not just innovation but also access. Today is a good start. 2) There must be a clear agreed statement of the purpose and objectives of policy in this area. The Commission has made a start but it almost exclusively equates more protection with economic growth and innovation. Patents are only one tool and should only be used if the benefits outweigh the costs and are superior to alternative mechanisms. 3) The Community should acknowledge the limited role for patents in the economy, and develop a better understanding of how to set appropriate limits. There is a need for a more econometric approach to patent policy. We would like the policy to be developed on the basis of independent studies on the real problems of the patent system. Specifically the costs patents represent to society should be taken into account. If patents were costless, they would not be controversial. But they do present costs to society, and in some cases, unacceptable costs. These include excessive prices for certain patentable inventions (such as Herceptin, the high priced and often rationed cancer drug, and second line AIDS drugs in newer EC Member States), restrictions on the supply or inability to meet the demands of the market (such as Tamiflu), patent thickets that make it difficult to adopt standards for new technologies in the areas of computing and telecommunication devices, and many other areas. A good patent system recognizes and addresses the issues of costs and benefits, by limiting the use of the patent system only to those areas where the benefits outweigh the costs, and secondly, by limiting the rights associated with a patent, in order to address well known problems. CPTech believes there are several areas where the evidence suggests patents should not be used. These include: (1) business practices, (2) software, (3) certain areas in medicines where the patent system is an unneeded and unwelcome barrier to the use of innovations, such as recommended doses of medicines or surgical procedures on humans, to mention only a few areas. The Commission should also look at developing new approaches to ensure greater public benefits, whilst rewarding inventors. For example: Remunerative versus exclusive rights. Increasingly, experts are considering more formally the benefits in certain areas of treating patents as a right to remuneration, rather than a right to exclude. 4) When the patent system is used, there must be a robust and effective mechanism to address abuses, and the public interest in more liberal use of the inventions. This does not just involve competition powers. The limitations and exceptions to rights must include public authority to authorize both remunerative and non-remuneration non-voluntary uses of inventions, and to place constructive obligations on patent owners. Only if the Commission deals with these issues, via legislation where necessary, can they then turn to implementing the policy objectives via the Community Patent or other means. -- Michelle Childs -Head of European Affairs Consumer Project on Technology in London 24, Highbury Crescent, London, N5 1RX,UK. Tel:+44(0)207 226 6663 ex 252. Mob:+44(0)790 386 4642. Fax: +44(0)207 354 0607 http://www.cptech.org Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, DC 1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20009 USA .Tel.: +1.202.332.2670,Fax: +1.202.332.2673 Consumer Project on Technology in Geneva 1 Route des Morillons, CP 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland Tel: +41 22 791 6727 _______________________________________________ Ecommerce mailing list Ecommerce at lists.essential.org http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/ecommerce From lawrence at altlawforum.org Sat Jul 15 11:17:43 2006 From: lawrence at altlawforum.org (Lawrence Liang) Date: Sat, 15 Jul 2006 11:17:43 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Response to the Proposed Copyright Amendment Message-ID: The Indian Government is planning to introduce a significant amendment to the Copyright Act 1957. A few of the key proposed amendments include: 1. Introduction of Digital Rights Management (DRM) 2. Amendment to Sec. 52(1)(j) on Œversion recordings¹ 3. Introduction of provisions enabling access for persons with visual disability A few of us have been working on a response to the proposed amendments, as well as revisiting some of the existing provisions from a public interest perspective. It is important to note that India is under no legal obligation to introduce some of the proposed amendments including DRM. We also note that it is important for the government to recognize and rely on flexibilities of the Berne Convention and the TRIPs agreement which enable access to knowledge and information, by ensuring easy access to copyrighted materials in respect of educational, private or general use, and via any media or form. For instance, we note that the present amendment seeks to promote greater access to knowledge and information for persons with any sensory disabilities. This is a welcome move, especially if enacted with a thorough review of the details of the need, and the enabling provision thereof. Another very important section is the one that enables the making of versions recordings in India. This provision has extensively enhanced the Indian music landscape. It has led to a transformation in the distribution and creation of cultural goods. One significant economic aspect of these provisions is worth noting: in the early 1980s, as audio cassettes proliferated, a number of small companies were able to use Section 52(1)(j) to produce and sell vast numbers of so-called Œversion recordings¹ in hitherto under-served languages and genres. It is also the section that has resulted in the Œremix¹ culture that we have witnessed in the past few years. The proposed amendment significantly increases the cost of making a version record. This document has been sent to the Government, and is endorsed and supported by a number of educational and research institutions, consumer groups and disability rights organizations. For more details please see To download a copy of the document Achal Prabhala Nirmita Narasimhan Lawrence Liang (Reviewers) From prashant at nalsartech.org Tue Jul 18 10:10:47 2006 From: prashant at nalsartech.org (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 10:10:47 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] POST 7/11, GOVT TARGETS 'EXTREME' WEBSITES, BLOGGERS ON THE BLINK Message-ID: <20060718101047.846te3owetr4gso4@www.nalsartech.org> POST 7/11, GOVT TARGETS 'EXTREME' WEBSITES, BLOGGERS ON THE BLINK Source: The Indian Express http://www.indianexpress.com/printerFriendly/8719.html MUMBAI, NEW DELHI, JULY 17: The fast-growing community of online bloggers has borne the brunt of the government's decision to block some 20 websites in a post-Mumbai show of force. Some of the websites that have been blocked are Dalitstan.org, Clickatell.com, Hinduhumanrights.org and Hinduunity.com. But the most harried Internet users were the bloggers, who couldn't access Blogspot.com, Typepad.com or Geocities.com pages. Sources in ISPs in Delhi as well as Mumbai confirmed that the one blog government has asked them to block is Princesskimberly.blogspot.com. It seems the order posed technical problems, resulting in a blanket ban on all blogs. You cannot block a single page on blogspot.com, which is why all of them are getting blocked, said Neha Viswanathan, Regional Editor, South Asia, Globalvoicesonline.org from London. The Indian order was issued on July 13, sources in the Ministry of Telecom confirmed, though the Computer Emergency Response Team (India), part of a global cyber-security network set up three years ago, did not announce the bans officially. Only sources in several ISPs such as Spectranet and Airtel confirmed that they had received the site-blocking order. R Grewal, a spokesperson for Spectranet confirmed: We received a list of over 20 websites to block from the Department of Telecom, and this (Blogspot.com) was one of them. Apparently, all the websites blocked are said to express 'extreme religious views.' MTNL officials said they were handed a 22-page document detailing the sites to block a month ago. 'It came from the National Informatics Centre (NIC). It was the first time that they had done something of this nature,'' says RH Sharma, sub-divisional engineer for MTNL in Delhi. Government sources confirmed late in the evening that some websites have been blocked based on police reports that they were fuelling hatred. They denied that the Mumbai blasts had anything to do with censorship and that security checks on the blocked sites were on since before the terrorist attacks. http://www.nalsartech.org/tikiwiki/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=16897 From aprabhala at gmail.com Tue Jul 18 13:40:59 2006 From: aprabhala at gmail.com (Achal Prabhala) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 13:40:59 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Worldebook Fair Message-ID: <3bda1f230607180110v7ac723c5yc567b0016424ad16@mail.gmail.com> July 4th-August 4, 2006: Download your selections from 1/3 million free eBooks.... http://worldebookfair.com/ http://worldebookfair.com/Collections.htm The terms are a little complex, owing to the origin of these books (from several independent collections) but in general they don't seem to mind what you do with them, though they do impose a (more or less) blanket ban on commercial use. As much as this is useful, I wonder if I'm right in thinking that it is mainly a good means of distributing (and therefore creating access to) little-known works for which there is no existing commercial market? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060718/e7c5e5c6/attachment.html From k.ravisrinivas at gmail.com Tue Jul 18 21:49:29 2006 From: k.ravisrinivas at gmail.com (ravi srinivas) Date: Tue, 18 Jul 2006 21:49:29 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] blocking blogs Message-ID: The powers that be are so ignorant (or arrogant) that they block access to all blogs in blogspot.com,sites like geocities. Do they realise that in the process many bloggers who have nothing to do with terrorism or hatred against india are denied freedom of expression.In india there are metroblogs and other collaborative blogs. In fact many bloggers expressed their solidarity on 11/7 and expressed their condolences to the victims of terrorist attack. Blogging has grown by leaps and bounds and bloggers inform the world through the blogs in times of crisis.Tamil bloggers raised money for tsunami victims.Some bloggers visited the affected places, wrote about the relief operations. Will the govt. block access to web as you can find the weirdest and craziest ideas and topics in the web. What the govt. fails to realise is that there are methods to overcome this mindless blockade. Have not heard of the King of Canute ravi srinivas -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060718/35f7acbe/attachment.html From clifton at altlawforum.org Wed Jul 19 11:38:04 2006 From: clifton at altlawforum.org (Clifton) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 11:38:04 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Book release - "Scarred" by Dionne Bunsha, 21st July, Bangalore Message-ID: <44BDCC44.6070108@altlawforum.org> Dear All, Aalternative Law Forum (ALF) and People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL-K) would like invite you to the Book release of 'Scarred', by Dionne Bunsha. Dionne Bunsha has been covering the Gujarat pogroms and its aftermath and the collection of her writings go to make up this very important book. For the occasion we thought it would be useful to reflect on the situation, four years after Gujarat also in the context of the rapidly changing situation in Karnataka.For this we have a panel comprising: Dionne Bunsha Gauri Lankesh, Lankesh and Komu Souharda Vedike Parvati Menon ( Frontline ) The discussion will be moderated by Clifton D' Rozario Date : 21.007.06 at 6.00 pm Place: Xavier's Hall, II Floor, Ashirwad, St Marks Road ( The small road next to the petrol bunk, Opposite SBI) 'Scarred' is an intense, moving narrative of the aftermath of the communal violence in Gujarat 2002, which etched deep faults in Gujarat's social landscape. It looks at both the larger as well as the closer picture to understand what happened in Gandhi's Gujarat. "Beautiful... Scarred is not dark, it is one assured step inside the darkness, to explore the light... It's straight-forward, honest to the core, a reporter's authentic notebook on the scars that have refused to heal." - Tehelka From clifton at altlawforum.org Wed Jul 19 11:38:04 2006 From: clifton at altlawforum.org (Clifton) Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2006 11:38:04 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Book release - "Scarred" by Dionne Bunsha, 21st July, Bangalore Message-ID: <44BDCC44.6070108@altlawforum.org> Dear All, Aalternative Law Forum (ALF) and People's Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL-K) would like invite you to the Book release of 'Scarred', by Dionne Bunsha. Dionne Bunsha has been covering the Gujarat pogroms and its aftermath and the collection of her writings go to make up this very important book. For the occasion we thought it would be useful to reflect on the situation, four years after Gujarat also in the context of the rapidly changing situation in Karnataka.For this we have a panel comprising: Dionne Bunsha Gauri Lankesh, Lankesh and Komu Souharda Vedike Parvati Menon ( Frontline ) The discussion will be moderated by Clifton D' Rozario Date : 21.007.06 at 6.00 pm Place: Xavier's Hall, II Floor, Ashirwad, St Marks Road ( The small road next to the petrol bunk, Opposite SBI) 'Scarred' is an intense, moving narrative of the aftermath of the communal violence in Gujarat 2002, which etched deep faults in Gujarat's social landscape. It looks at both the larger as well as the closer picture to understand what happened in Gandhi's Gujarat. "Beautiful... Scarred is not dark, it is one assured step inside the darkness, to explore the light... It's straight-forward, honest to the core, a reporter's authentic notebook on the scars that have refused to heal." - Tehelka From shekhar at crit.org.in Thu Jul 20 13:50:54 2006 From: shekhar at crit.org.in (Shekhar Krishnan) Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 13:50:54 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Mumbai in White, 26 July 2006 Message-ID: <1153383654.16583.362.camel@localhost> OBSERVE "MUMBAI IN WHITE" ON 26 JULY 2006! College students, and all citizens of Mumbai! Wear white on July 26th. White for peace and a memorial to the dead. If you wear uniform, or you don't own anything white, wear a white band! The seven blasts on suburban trains on July 11 shocked Mumbai and the world. Yet Mumbaikars not only kept calm, they went out of their way to help the injured and the families of the dead. Despite Mumbai's inherently cosmopolitanism and its peaceful character, we must actively take measures to ensure that this spirit of resilience and generosity endure. There are always communal elements that will try to vitiate the atmosphere by attempting to target innocents. Mumbai needs to stand together and defeat the attempts of terrorists and communal forces to grind down the city's sense of unity. We must make certain that no more innocent lives are lost. Colleges and citizens' organisations of all hues and sectors have united to urge that we observe July 26, the first anniversary of the floods in which 447 Mumbaikars lost their lives, as a day on which to say "Salaam Mumbai". We appeal to every citizen to wear white on WEDNESDAY 26 JULY 2006, to work, to go anywhere, in memory of those who lost their lives in the blasts as well and to express their commitment to peace. On that day, students from more than 30 city colleges in Mumbai will read a Pledge of Peace in all colleges at 3.00 P.M. exactly. There will also be two public meetings at colleges held at 2.30 P.M. 1. National College, Linking Road, Bandra (West), Mumbai 400051 2. Burhani College, Nesbitt Road, Mazgaon, Mumbai 400010 We request colleges, organisations, NGOs, offices, temples, churches and mosques to please spread the word. Please come to the public meetings and read the pledge of Peace wherever you are. Please remember to wear white on that day! Dr Subadra Anand Principal, National College, Bandra +91.22.2646.1424 Dr. Sabira Dossa Principal, Burhani College Ms Ferrukh S. Waris Burhani College +91.22.2371.2449, +91.93234.69013 Representatives of all colleges in Mumbai Varsha Rajan-Berry Peace Mumbai +91.22.5582.1141/51, +91.98206.03704 -- Shekhar Krishnan 9, Supriya, 2nd Floor Plot 709, Parsee Colony Road no.4 Dadar, Mumbai 400014 India http://www.crit.org.in/members/shekhar http://www.mit.edu/~shekhar http://www.goosebumpgraphics.org From prashant at nalsartech.org Mon Jul 24 09:26:54 2006 From: prashant at nalsartech.org (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 09:26:54 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Pirates of Caribbean gets a taste of piracy Message-ID: <20060724092654.68y66gk8woj4sggg@www.nalsartech.org> Pirates of Caribbean gets a taste of piracy Shriya Bubna / Mumbai July 24, 2006 Video piracy has punched holes in the Indian collections of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, the latest offering from Hollywood to release in the country. The film has recorded the biggest ever opening weekend in the Hollywood history, and may still miss out on several viewers as pirated VCDs and DVDs of the movie have made their way to the local black markets. Thanks to the thriving pirates of Dubai as well as home-grown fraudsters, pirated prints of the film flooded the market on the day of the India release itself. The bane of the movie - sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl - is its delayed release in India last Friday; it opened globally on July 6. Other recent Hollywood blockbusters released in India - the two Spiderman movies, the Harry Potter series, Superman Returns - had escaped a similar fate as their release in India coincided with their global opening. Bollywood pegs the losses in revenue due to piracy at Rs 1,700 crore a year. As many as 70 per cent of the market is serviced by piracy while only 30 per cent is serviced by legitimate products. The Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA), consisting of the six big Hollywood studios, loses an estimated Rs 375 crore in revenue to piracy each year in India. While the cost of a pirated CD may be only Rs 50, pirates operate on a profit margin of nearly 800 per cent since the CDs are copied. From prashant at nalsartech.org Mon Jul 24 09:28:34 2006 From: prashant at nalsartech.org (Prashant Iyengar) Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2006 09:28:34 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] IIT law school opens doors Message-ID: <20060724092834.06zgoiu1jbqcgwow@www.nalsartech.org> IIT law school opens doors July 23: The country’s first intellectual property rights law school opened at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, today, with authorities promising more in the days ahead. The Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law will also operate from the IIT’s Calcutta campus at Salt Lake before moving to the institute’s new complex at Rajarhat, scheduled to come up in 2008. While the law school will kick off its current session with 55 students in its two programmes, it plans on ramping up the “headcount” to 800 by 2011, with the Calcutta campus accommodating at least 300 by 2009. “Once we start introducing new courses, the student headcount will go up sharply,” said project leader K. Chakravarti. “There is a tremendous demand for lawyers specialising in intellectual property in India and, therefore, we are confident there will be a tremendous response to programmes on these lines,” Chakravarti said. The law school now offers two programmes: a six-semester, three-year, full-time residential course for a bachelor of law degree with specialisation in intellectual property rights, and a three-semester, one-and-a-half year, part-time non-residential programme for a postgraduate diploma. “We are currently offering the postgraduate diploma programme at Calcutta only, but will introduce it in our Bhubaneswar campus next year, as we feel that the demand is quite high in that part of the country. Kharagpur, too, will have the diploma programme shortly,” Chakravarti said. Next in line is an integrated six-year, dual degree B.Tech LL.B programme, for which the human resource development ministry has already given its approval. The law school also plans to introduce LL.M and PhD programmes in the near future. “The funding for all the initiatives, including creation of physical infrastructure, will come from the Union government, which has promised to match (alumnus) Vinod Gupta’s pledge of $1 million. They have been extremely enthusiastic about the project and have fast-tracked it to its completion,” said S. K. Dube, director, IIT Kharagpur. The IIT also signed a technical collaboration agreement (TCA) with George Washington University (GWU) in January to facilitate student and faculty exchange, joint research and curriculum development. “The TCA with GWU will soon place the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law among the top law schools of intellectual property in the world. “No other institute teaches IPR law as a full-fledged course. We will also teach law related to technology, which is also not taught anywhere in India,” said Probir Kumar Gupta, the law school’s head. Top http://www.telegraphindia.com/1060724/asp/nation/story_6516590.asp ** From anivar.aravind at gmail.com Tue Jul 25 01:06:02 2006 From: anivar.aravind at gmail.com (Anivar Aravind) Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2006 01:06:02 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Bangalore to Host the 4th International Conference on GPLv3 In-Reply-To: <35f96d470607241235t57016f7bxbf6ce7e409c02c1b@mail.gmail.com> References: <35f96d470607241230w7e7a3250mc4f08fb802c968c0@mail.gmail.com> <35f96d470607241235t57016f7bxbf6ce7e409c02c1b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <35f96d470607241236p1d1933fdp285be34921b69a51@mail.gmail.com> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Bangalore to Host the Fourth International Conference on GPLv3 India will host the Fourth International GPLv3 Conference in Bangalore, this August 23-24, 2006. A part of the world-wide drive to create awareness about the upcoming version three of the GNU General Public License (GPLv3), the two-day conference is expected to draw delegates from across the communities - legal, bureaucrat and academia. While the first day will see Richard M Stallman and Eben Moglen, the original architects of the GPLv3 license, communicating latest updates on the GPLv3 final draft, the second day holds panel discussions on localisation, awareness and adoption of GPLv3 and threat of Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). The event to be held at the Indian Institute of Management - Bangalore is a sequence to the Third International GPLv3 Conference that took place in Barcelona, Spain. Similar events have already been held in the USA and Brazil. The international GPLv3 conferences are part of a year-long public consultation process to update the GNU General Public License (GPL). The version 3 of the GPL, essentially, takes into account changes in terms of legal and technical environment, in which software licenses operate, and the need to increase protection against new threats such as software patents and Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). The worldwide awareness drive for GPLv3, is to ensure that, all users of software distributed under its terms, have the freedom to examine, share, and modify that software. For registration kindly visit GPLv3 conference website http://gplv3.gnu.org.in For Details, kindly contact: Arun M (FSF-I) arun at gnu.org.in Prof Rahul De' (IIM-B) rahul at iimb.ernet.in Abhas Abhinav (FSUG-Bangalore) abhas at deeproot.co.in Venue: IIM-B Date: 23, 24 August, 2006 Contact numbers: Abhas Abhinav (FSUG-Bangalore) #080-41124785 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- "Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. `Don't bother us with politics', respond those who don't want to learn." -- Richard Stallman Anivar Aravind http://movingrepublic.org From jeebesh at sarai.net Wed Jul 26 19:35:45 2006 From: jeebesh at sarai.net (Jeebesh Bagchi) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 19:35:45 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Judge, alternative medicine and a teenager.. Message-ID: <9A6A66DF-A121-4046-B839-100D72019D3B@sarai.net> This case may interest some people on this list. b, j http://www.forbes.com/business/businesstech/feeds/ap/2006/07/22/ ap2897439.html Associated Press Judge Orders Teen to Cancer Treatment By SONJA BARISIC , 07.22.2006, 11:13 PM A judge has ruled that a 16-year-old boy fighting to use alternative treatment for his cancer must report to a hospital by Tuesday and accept treatment that doctors deem necessary, the family's attorney said. The judge on Friday also found Starchild Abraham Cherrix's parents were neglectful for allowing him to pursue alternative treatment of a sugar-free, organic diet and herbal supplements supervised by a clinic in Mexico, lawyer John Stepanovich said. Jay and Rose Cherrix of Chincoteague on Virginia's Eastern Shore must continue to share custody of their son with the Accomack County Department of Social Services, as the judge had previously ordered, Stepanovich said. The parents were devastated by the new order and planned to appeal, the lawyer said. Stepanovich said he will ask a higher court on Monday to stay enforcement of the order, which requires the parents to take Abraham to Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters in Norfolk and to give the oncologist their written legal consent to treat their son for Hodgkin's disease. "I want to caution all parents of Virginia: Look out, because Social Services may be pounding on your door next when they disagree with the decision you've made about the health care of your child," Stepanovich said. Phone calls to the Cherrix home went unanswered. The lawyer declined to release the ruling, saying juvenile court Judge Jesse E. Demps has sealed much of the case. Social Services officials have declined to comment, citing privacy laws. After three months of chemotherapy last year made him nauseated and weak, Abraham rejected doctors' recommendations to go through a second round when he learned early this year that his Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph nodes, was active again. A social worker then asked a judge to require the teen to continue conventional treatment. In May, the judge issued a temporary order finding Abraham's parents neglectful and awarding partial custody to the county, with Abraham continuing to live at home with his four siblings. ------------------------------ http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD% 2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149189600372&path=! news&s=1045855934842 Judge lifts orders in teen's case Cancer patient doesn't have to report to hospital; trial set next month to settle dispute BY SHAUN BISHOP TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jul 26, 2006 Judge lifts orders in teen's case ACCOMAC -- A Chincoteague teenager's fight to use alternative medicine to treat his cancer will get another chance after a judge suspended an earlier ruling forcing him to undergo traditional treatment. "This is the best moment that I've ever felt in my life. I feel so happy," Starchild Abraham Cherrix, 16, said outside the courthouse. "Now I'm feeling free, I'm feeling like I have my rights back and I'm feeling like I'm in America once again," said the teen who has said conventional treatment made him so ill he never wants to go through it again. Attorneys representing the Cherrix family said the eventual outcome of the case could have broad implications for the decision-making powers of parents in Virginia. "This is a huge victory for this family, but as far as we're concerned, this is a huge victory for all Virginians," said John Stepanovich, an attorney for Cherrix's parents, Jay and Rose Cherrix, who support their son's decision. In a hearing yesterday, Accomack Circuit Judge Glen Allen Tyler suspended two key judgments the Accomack Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court made in the case last week. As a result: * Cherrix did not have to go to a Norfolk hospital yesterday afternoon and submit to tests and treatment prescribed by doctors, as ordered last Friday by the juvenile court. * His parents regained custody of their son. The juvenile court had given partial custody to the county's Department of Social Services, which supported requiring him to undergo the hospital treatment. It was an emotional victory for the Cherrix family, which has been fighting to allow Abraham to use an organic diet and herbal supplements as treatment for Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymph nodes. The teen's case began after he sought the alternative remedy under advisement from a clinic in Mexico when the cancer returned in February. He had gone through chemotherapy when the cancer was first discovered a year ago. After his case was reported to the local Department of Social Services, Juvenile Court Judge Jesse E. Demps ruled last Friday that Cherrix would have to undergo treatment at Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters in Norfolk yesterday afternoon and ordered his parents to consent to the doctors' orders. Jay and Rose Cherrix appealed the rulings on Monday and were granted yester- day's hearing. "I felt like we had Abraham back and we were a family again," said Jay Cherrix, his father. Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell also filed a brief in the circuit court supporting the family's request to stay the juvenile- court judge's rulings. McDonnell filed a similar brief in juvenile court during their appeal Monday. Tyler set the trial date for Aug. 16 in Accomack Circuit Court to decide whether the social-services department can force the teen to undergo conventional cancer treatment. Attorneys for the Cherrixes said they plan to present expert witnesses, including clinicians from the Mexico clinic that is supervising Abraham's treatment. "It's being portrayed out there that he's just sort of waiting around on his deathbed," Stepanovich said. "He's under a treatment that he chose . . . and he's doing great." The case has attracted national media attention as Cherrix has appeared on CNN and NBC's "Today" show, among other programs. In court yesterday, Stepanovich said going to the hospital for chemotherapy would do irreparable, irreversible harm to Cherrix and would essentially render moot the family's right to appeal the order that he receive hospital treatment. Carl Bundick, a lawyer from the Department of Social Services, agreed that a stay would be appropriate given the circumstances, but urged the judge to schedule another hearing promptly. "We're wanting the child to be treated appropriately," Bundick said. A juvenile-court hearing two weeks ago was closed to the public, but Tyler said yesterday that since the family had been discussing the case with the media, he did not see a reason the Aug. 16 trial should be closed. Abraham Cherrix said he remains confident that he will get a favorable ruling, and he believes people around the nation are watching and hoping for a similar outcome. "This could happen to anyone," he said. "This is something the government can do, and you've got to let people know this can't happen." Contact staff writer Shaun Bishop at sbishop at timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6578. From sunil at mahiti.org Wed Jul 26 22:56:47 2006 From: sunil at mahiti.org (Sunil Abraham) Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 22:56:47 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] =?utf-8?q?Derek_Bambauer=E2=80=99s_last_Berkman_fel?= =?utf-8?q?lows_talk?= Message-ID: <1153934808.19945.14.camel@localhost.localdomain> Dear Friends, Nice post of Ethan's blog which shows how hardware/software vendors can compensate for poor engineering by using copyright law. Cheers, Sunil http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/?p=906 July 26, 2006 Derek Bambauer’s last Berkman fellows talk Filed under: Berkman, Geekery — Ethan @ 11:52 am Derek Bambauer is spending his last hours in Cambridge - literally - giving a final presentation at the Berkman Center. The lunch ends at 1:30pm, and he’s off to Detroit at 2pm to start a new career teaching intellectual property law at Wayne State law school. For his parting shot, he previews a paper he’s writing with Phil Malone on how the law currently limits - undesirably - software security research. He’s more clear, at this stage of his research, about the problem than about its potential solution. Testing software and internet infrastructure for bugs and weaknesses, finding potentially dangerous exploits, is, Derek suggests, exciting, intellectually engaging and important to cyber-security as a whole. (Simpson Garfinkel challenges this assertion later in the discussion…) But it’s legally risky to get involved with this sort of testing - you open yourself to civil law suits with large damage awards, and to possible criminal charges that could include prison time. Derek argues that the current state of regulation is hampering the state of computer security research. For a case study, Derek looks at Mike Lynn, a researcher for Internet Security Systems. Lynn found what was described as “the holy grail” of internet security bugs, a bug Cisco’s Internet Operating System which allowed hackers to remotely damage Cisco routers, which have a reputation for being impregnible. Lynn alerted Cisco, which issued a patch… but Cisco wasn’t strongly pushing adoption, and Lynn believed they were dragging their heels so as not to damage their reputation for security. So Lynn decided to present his results at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas in the summer of 2005, on behalf of ISS, his employer. Cisco put strong pressure on ISS not to let Lynn make the presentation - eventually, Lynn decided to resign from ISS and make the presentation anyway. In the aftermath, Cisco threatened to sue Lynn claiming his power point presentation violated copyright by presenting snippets of copyrighted code. They further claimed that this information was a trade secret. (The copyright argument is likely entirely bogus, Derek thinks - this is a classic fair use scenario.) Jennifer Granick acted as Lynn’s lawyer and negotiated a settlement - Lynn wouldn’t release the specific exploit code, and Cisco would drop the suit. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a “happy” outcome… though Lynn did lose his job and had his life radically transformed. Derek suggests that “you don’t need to win a case to be successful, you just need to create a chilling effect.” A second story adds a layer of complexity to the situation: Snowsoft, a team of security researchers, were trying to get Hewlett Packard to purchase their services. They discovered a buffer overflow in HP/UNIX, and another researcher published the bug they found to theBugtraq list, along with code to use the exploit. HP responded with their full wrath, threatening criminal extortion charges. Snowsoft found themselves in an unusual situation - did HP want to prevent publication of this information to protect their reputation? Or did they want to benefit from Snowsoft’s discovery without compensating Snowsoft for their work? In general terms, security researchers are multiply vulnerable. They can run afoul of the DMCA, the Computer Fraud and Abuse act, intellectual property laws surrounding copyright, patents, trademark and trade secrets, and also copyright law, if reverse engineering violates the End User License Agreement. In some cases, experimenting with systems could cause vulnerability under tresspass or extortion laws. Derek argues that the safe harbors to protect this sort of exploration are insufficient - they’re narrow and untested in the courts. And power is strongly on the side of software vendors - you’re breaking their stuff, and most judges will conclude that they’ve got a right to protect access to their property. As a result, it’s virtually impossible to get third party insurance as a software tester. There’s major legal risk without mitigating devices like insurance. Derek acknowledges that there are debates within the security community about the details of intrusion testing. When do you let a company know you think you’ve found a vulnerability? When can you publish this information? 30, 45 days after warning the company? If Sony in installing rootkits on people’s machines, do you owe Sony anything before revealing that they’re distributing malware? The fear Derek is trying to tackle is that security testing moves entirely underground - firms find weaknesses and sell them to the eastern european Mafia rather than reporting and publishing them. To prevent this, he explores some possibilities: making it harder for EULAs to override fair use, to prevent reverse engineering; shifting the burder on fair harbor provisions so the software companies must prove that you’re outside of fair harbor; potentially creating a trade association that allows a group of people to cooperate and ensure their activities against liability. Much of the interesting pushback on Derek’s presentation came from Simpson Garfinkel, a security researcher and world-class skeptic. He points out “some of the people who call themselves security researchers are involved with extortion” - do we want to be encouraging people to find key vulnerabilities in software when some of them are explicitly doing so as a way of threatening and extorting companies? Instead of trying to protect people creating exploits, Simpson believes we should look closely at the fact that most software licenses protect software companies from any and all liability. If Cisco could be sued due to documented limitations and failures in their software, they’d likely have a very different attitude about independent software testing and would work closely with anyone who released a bug to get it patched and limit liability. Simpson’s other interesting idea involves patenting exploits - if you’ve figured out a novel way to break software, patent it so other software testing firms need to license it from you. He admits that this certainly doesn’t stop the bad guys from using your techniques, but can create a revenue stream for folks engaged in this industry other than extortion. It will be interesting to see where Derek goes with this - it’s not clear that the problems he sees are as clear to a critic like Simpson. On the other hand, I think he’s made the case that there are instances where independent software testing is desirable, which means wrestling with these issues is likely to be worthwhile. I hope he’ll bring us up to date the next time he comes to visit from Detroit. Bon chance, Derek! -- Sunil Abraham, sunil at mahiti.org http://www.mahiti.org "Vijay Kiran" IInd Floor, 314/1, 7th Cross, Domlur Bangalore - 560 071 Karnataka, INDIA Ph/Fax: +91 80 51150580. Mob: (91) 9342201521 UK: (44) 02000000259 From aidslaw2 at lawyerscollective.org Thu Jul 27 18:15:08 2006 From: aidslaw2 at lawyerscollective.org (aidslaw2 at lawyerscollective.org) Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 18:15:08 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Patent Oppositions Filed against 3 Drugs Message-ID: <05da01c6b17a$7fac69d0$1400a8c0@LCHAUBLR.com> Dear Friends, In the continuing struggle to ensure that patents are not granted at the cost of human lives, we are pleased to inform you that health groups in India have recently filed three more pre-grant patent oppositions against essential medicines. Copies of these oppositions can be obtained at the Lawyers Collective website at http://lawyerscollective.org/lc_hivaids/amtc/folder.2005-12-20.2101894352 Today, in the Patent Office in Chennai, the Indian Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS (INP+) and the Karnataka Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS filed an opposition against Novartis's patent application for ATAZANAVIR (subsequently licensed to Bristol Meyers Squibb), a critical second-line protease inhibitor. The opposition is based on four grounds: (1) that a prior patent discloses the compound that is claimed in the ATAZANAVIR application, and thus is not "new" under Indian law; (2) that the application is not "inventive" and is not patentable under Indian law; (3) that the application describes a "new form of a known substance" and is thus not an "invention" under Indian law; and (4) that the applicant has failed to provide the Patent Office with certain information that it was required to submit. If successful, this opposition will pave the way for generic companies to produce affordable versions of this critical second-line drug. And last week, INP+ and the Uttar Pradesh Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS filed an oppositon against Glaxo's patent application for AMPRENAVIR in the Delhi Patent Office. AMPRENAVIR is the base molecule for the important protease inhibitor FOSAMPRENAVIR, and thus the grant of patent for AMPRENAVIR could allow Glaxo to prevent other manufacturer from producing generic versions of FOSAMPRENAVIR. This opposition is also based on the ground that the application is not "new," that it is not "inventive," and that it is just a "new form of a known substance." Additionally, the oppostion is based on the grounds that the application is merely a "new use of a known substance," and thus not patentable under Indian law, and that it is, at most, a "mere admixture" and is thus unpatentable. Finally, also last week, INP+ and the Tamil Nadu Network People Living with HIV/AIDS filed an opposition against VALGANCICLOVIR, a critical treatment for CMV retinitis, a common AIDS-related opportunistic infection that can cause blindness. This oppostion is based on the procedural grounds that the application concerns an invention from before 1995 and is thus unpatentable in India. India incurred its obligations under TRIPS as of 1 January 1995, and thus any inventions that pre-date 1995 are considered "public domain" in India and thus are not patentable. We are hopeful that the PLHA groups will prevail in their struggle for access to the medicines that sustain their health. We are also hopeful that other health-related groups will take this information and broaden the fight against patents on essential drugs by opposing patents on their own. Should you have any further questions or comments, please feel free to contact us at the information below. In solidarity, Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit For more information please contact: Chan Park aidslaw2 at lawyerscollective.org Anand Grover aidslaw at lawyerscollective.org Prathiba Siva aidslaw at lawyerscollective.org Regards, Chan Lawyers Collective HIV/AIDS Unit #4A, MAH Road, Tasker Town, Shivajinagar, Bangalore - 51 Telephone: (080) 4123 9130/31/41125273 Fax: (080) 4123 9289 Bangalore Project Office: aidslaw2 at lawyerscollective.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060727/ff966987/attachment.html From pparanagua at gmail.com Fri Jul 28 03:54:55 2006 From: pparanagua at gmail.com (Pedro Moniz) Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2006 19:24:55 -0300 Subject: [Commons-Law] =?iso-8859-1?q?Brazil=B4s_FGV=3A_A2K_Project?= Message-ID: Dear Colleague, We are honoured to announce the official launch of the A2K (access to knowledge) English version website of Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) School of Law in Rio de Janeiro, from the Centre for Technology and Society (CTS). Please take a look at www.a2kbrasil.org.br and feel free to pass it forward and to make your comments on the posts. To read the entire message, click on "leia mais". Kind regards, Pedro de Paranaguá Moniz Project Lead - Centre for Technology and Society (CTS) Coordinator of the law courses at FGV Online FGV School of Law in Rio de Janeiro www.direitorio.fgv.br FGV DIREITO RIO Praia de Botafogo, 190 / 13º andar Rio de Janeiro - RJ, Brazil CEP 22.250-900 tel. +55 21 2559-6065 / fax +55 21 2559-5459 paranagua (at) fgv (dot) br -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060727/8d43084a/attachment.html From aashish.thomas.john at gmail.com Sun Jul 30 05:12:39 2006 From: aashish.thomas.john at gmail.com (Thomas John) Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 05:12:39 +0530 Subject: [Commons-Law] Call for Submissions: The Indian Journal of Law and Technology In-Reply-To: <9f8713210512190046l36405797ge5be1b907b2f1a9d@mail.gmail.com> References: <9f8713210512190046l36405797ge5be1b907b2f1a9d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9f8713210607291642ofa79dd8y7849fb38d9112b87@mail.gmail.com> The Indian Journal of Law and Technology (IJLT) is a peer-reviewed journal managed and published by the Law and Technology Committee of the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. IJLT is edited by a student editorial board, although article selection is handled by peer reviewers, and is the only journal in India that deals with domestic and international legal issues pertaining to technology. Its first issue, which was published at the end of 2005, contains articles by Prof. Yochai Benkler, Cédric Manara, Burt Braverman, Shamnad Basheer, Sudhir Krishnaswamy and Lawrence Liang, dealing with issues ranging from copyright and cultural production to VoIP regulation, and the second issue, featuring a special comment by Prof. Donald Chisum, is expected to be published in September 2006. We strongly encourage articles, notes and book reviews pertaining to any aspect of law and technology with an impact or potential impact on the developing world and invite submissions for the third issue of the journal, which will be published in May 2007. The submission deadline is September 30, 2006 and submissions can be e-mailed to ijltsubmit at nls.ac.in in .doc or .rtf format, preferably with a brief résumé and a 200-word abstract. More information about the journal, including its mandate and subscription rates, can be found at http://www.nls.ac.in/students/IJLT/. Please feel free to e-mail the Editorial Board with regard to any questions about submissions or membership of our Article Review Board. For any other general enquiries, please e-mail the Law and Technology Committee at ijlt @nls.ac.in. Regards, Thomas John Chief Editor The Indian Journal of Law and Technology -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/commons-law/attachments/20060730/d10e71cb/attachment.html From seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org Sun Jul 30 19:27:14 2006 From: seth.johnson at RealMeasures.dyndns.org (Seth Johnson) Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 09:57:14 -0400 Subject: [Commons-Law] Extremadura, Spain: 100% GNU/Linux in a Year Message-ID: <44CCBABA.19AF3034@RealMeasures.dyndns.org> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Extremadura (Spain) moves 100% to free software and open standards Date: Sun, 30 Jul 2006 15:28:43 퍭 From: Alberto Barrionuevo To: FFII bxl Hi all, the regional Government of Extremadura, one of the most advanced regions worldwide in the adoption and promotion of FLOSS, has decided few days ago: 1) To adopt as official document formats OpenDocument (ISO 26300) and PDF/A (ISO 19005-1:2005). The last one only for document that have to preserve the printing aspect. 2) To migrate the whole administration IT infrastructure to gnuLinex, the local Linux flavour based on Debian. All that with a deadline of one year. Further info: http://www.archivodocumental.com/estandares/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=56&Itemid=38 (in Spanish but with all the links at the end) http://localfoss.org/node/193 (English) Translation of the press conference for the presentation of the initiative: ---- All the computers of the Junta of Extremadura (goverment state of Spain) will be running free software within a year. This project makes the Regional Government the first Public Administration to adopt standards upheld by international organizations, that favour "technological innovation and the reduction of user dependency The councillor said during his speech for the press... The councillor for Infrastructures and Technological Development, Luis Millán de Vázquez de Miguel, met the press this Friday to inform about the agreements reached in the last board meeting of the Government held last June 25. In said meeting, it was agreed that all the computers of the Junta of Extremadura would have to be adapted to free software office tools and gnuLinEx (the local flavour of Debian GNU/Linux) within one year. Thus, as from now on, all workers of the public administration must use open document formats (ISO/IEC DIS 26300) for their office applications for information and creating administrative processes, as well as PDF/A (Portable Document Format ISO 19005-1:2005) for Exchange Documents, when guaranteed unalterable visualization is required. Vázquez de Miguel has underlined the fact that the Junta de Extremadura "is the first Public Administration to adopt these standards" and that all the international organizations related to ITCs agree that this is the most important step towards "technological innovation, the reduction of user, company and public administration dependency on proprietary, non-compatible applications, and the increment of interoperability between systems and applications on a global scale." The councillor explained that a version gnuLinEx, adapted for the public administration, will be established as the obligatory operating system in workplaces of the civil servants of the Junta and that the OS will be gradually introduced to all administrative organizations of the Junta de Extremadura. The deadline for the plan "is one year counting from the date the agreement is approved", Vázquez de Miguel said, and he added that at the end of the period, all the computer work carried out by the civil servants of the Junta must be done so on the GnuLinEx operating system and that all additional software must be open source or be distributed under a free license. "This is an important initiative that the Junta de Extremadura has been working on for a long time, accumulating experience and analysing the impact on our organisation so as to guarantee its success", the councillor declared. He underlined the fact that the agreement will have "a profound impact". According to Millan, there are a number of advantages of switching to free software and even more when used by the Public Administration, with important consequences. Amongst others, the councillor pointed out the long life of documents, which will guarantee the conservation of all the administrative documents for longer periods of time. It will also improve the relationship with the general public due to the fact that, by conforming to standards and free software, the public is not obliged to acquire proprietary software. According to de Millan, free software also improves security, autonomy and rationalises public spending. In this respect, the councillor pointed out that adopting free software will allow the administration to "not be so exposed to the tensions of enforced migrations", allow the administration to be have a say in the choice of the applications and reduce the economic costs of support. There is also a plan of migration support that is being prepared at the General Direction of Telecommunications and Networks, which addresses issues for system administrators and computer managers of each Council, that offers a wide range of information and allows to develop communication tasks amongst employees and adaptation training processes. The Junta has also received collaboration offers, for example from El Corte Inglés through their Expert Center (including a cooperation agreement signed by the Junta de Extremadura and the computing division of El Corte Inglés), Intel, and other large companies, such as Bull España S.A. "with which we have especially interesting agreements" due to the large body of practical knowledge this project is going to generate and its application to other administration and organisations. For the future, Vázquez de Miguel has announced that at the end of August the project will be presented un New York at the United Nations. A month later, it will also be presented in "The City of Knowledge" of Panama and in other related countries. Background The Council of Infrastructure and Technological Development carries out, within its area of competence, The Global Project for the Society of Information and Knowledge of Extremadura, the aim of which is to guarantee the universal access of the citizens of Extremadura to new technologies and communications so as to improve their quality of life. According to the councillor for Infrastructures and Technological Development, Luis Millán Vázquez de Miguel, the year 2002 signified a change in development of the project when gnuLinEx was created and used as general-purpose operating system for public education in the Autonomous Region of Extremadura. "A software that has evolved the technical aspects and the implementation of computer standards, backed up by European institutions and international standardization organisations", remarks Vázquez de Miguel. The councillor highlights the fact that the situation of free software in the region has had "strong influences" in international press, which have been following what has been happening in the region, covering matters related to the application of the information society. He also points out that, in the area of the public administration, "we in the middle of the development what we call the Modernization, Simplification and Quality Plan for the Administration of the Autonomous Community of Extremadura (2004-2007)". For this plan, Extremadura relies on the Regional Intranet, "the foundation of the interdepartamental communications of the Junta de Extremadura". For Vázquez de Miguel, to make a headway in the integration of the Information Society in modern day Public Administration and in the global society, it is fundamental "guarantee the control and administration of aspects so important as technological independence, interoperability between computer platforms, homogeneous information systems, computer security for information systems, real technological innovation and conformance to open and free standards." More info http://www.linex.org ------------ Saludos, Alberto. -- Alberto Barrionuevo F.F.I.I. +34 639708494 abarrio(@)ffii·org PGP 1024D/46D729BA "Se debe proteger la innovación, no los monopolios" http://economic-majority.com - - - Miembro de EstándaresAbiertos.org http://www.estandaresabiertos.org Member of Open Document Fellowship http://opendocumentfellowship.org Corporative member of ODF Alliance http://www.odfalliance.org _______________________________________________ bxl mailing list (un)subscribe via http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/bxl and http://aktiv.ffii.org/. If you subscribed via the latter, you can unsubscribe only by going to both.