Copyright behind closed doors

Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation announced earlier this week that they are “reluctantly” dropping their lawsuit against the U.S. Trade Representative, which sought information on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) being secretly negotiated by the U.S. and a dozen other countries. The public-interest groups made the decision to withdraw the litigation after the Obama Administration Read More …

Down on strikes

The copyright industries had high hopes for France’s three-strikes law. At the World Copyright Summit in Washington last week, speakers had nothing but praise for the government of President Nicolas Sarkozy, who championed the law and railroaded it through the legislature. And they were crushed when, on the second day of the conference, the French Read More …

Burying The Lede

I was curious about what was happening in Iran this morning in the wake of this weekend’s massive protests over the disputed election results. So I logged on and went to NYTimes.com. The lead story carried a Tehran dateline, the byline of two Times reporters, and news that, for the most part, was several hours Read More …

Three-strikes strikes out

Well you can forget about that pontential showdown between Paris and Brussels over France’s three-strikes law. The French Constitutional Council on Wednesday struck down the provision allowing the government to order people cut off from the Internet for repeatedly downloading copyrighted material illegally, before the law could even be challenged in the European Court of Justice. Read More …