Kernel Space

• AMD OverDrive Overclocking To Finally Work For Radeon Navi GPUs With Linux 5.5 Kernel

  While most Linux gamers don’t appear to be into GPU overclocking, one of the limitations of the Radeon RX 5000 “Navi” series support with the AMD open-source driver to date has been no overclocking support. With the upcoming Linux 5.5 kernel that is set to change.

  With the Linux 5.5 kernel there is slated to be the “OverDrive” overclocking support in place for Navi graphics processors with the AMDGPU kernel driver.

• EXT4 On Linux 5.5 To Support Encryption On Smaller Block Sizes

  For the past four years going back to Linux 5.5 has been EXT4 native file-system encryption making use of the kernel’s FSCRYPT framework that is shared between several file-systems. That support has continued to improve with time and with Linux 5.5 another limitation will be dropped.

  One of the lingering limitations of the EXT4 encryption code is that it hasn’t worked where the file-system block size is different from the system’s page size. But beginning with Linux 5.5, a different block size compared to the kernel’s page size will be supported while still allowing encryption to be enabled. Namely this will help those preferring non-default block sizes for better efficiency on different storage devices or other reasons.

• Lenovo X1 Extreme 2nd Generation To Have Better Touchpad Input On Linux 5.4

  The Synaptics RMI(4) mode is the modern protocol used by the hardware for touch input handling and should yield a better input experience for users with less quirks.

  With the enabling of RMI mode for this laptop just requiring its LEN0402 ID to be added to a list, it was safe for the current Linux 5.4 cycle (and for back-porting to stable series) rather than needing to wait for Linux 5.5.

Instructionals/Technical

• How To Install Icinga on CentOS 8

• How to Install and Configure Apache on Debian 10

• How to create an S3 Bucket (Object Storage) on Amazon AWS

• Lightweight Media Player Parole 1.0.5 Released! (How to Install)

• Installing Vagrant (Laravel Homestead) on Fedora

• Blog Post Length: Fun with Shell Pipelines, GNUplot and Matplotlib

• How to Install & Use Megatools in Ubuntu 18.04,19.04 & 19.10?

• How to View Logged Users in Ubuntu Linux?

• Install VirtualBox 6.0 on Ubuntu 18.04 & 19.04 Disco Dingo {Linux}

• Things To Do After Installing Fedora 31

Wine or Emulation

• Don’t blaze it too hard for the release of Wine 4.20

  Wine, that wonderful software that enables you to run Windows-only software and games on Linux has a new release out with Wine 4.20. Nice.

• Wine-Staging 4.20 Adds Undocumented D3D9 Internal Function For The Sims 2

  Wine 4.20 came out last night while out today is Wine-Staging 4.20 as this experimental blend of Wine with more than eight-hundred extra patches on top.

  Wine-Staging 4.20 comes in slightly smaller than its predecessor due to upstreaming a number of patches around Winebus, Wineboot, DSDMO, Wine.inf, and other bits, but Wine-Staging is still carrying a weight of more than 830 patches compared to upstream.

  Wine-Staging 4.20 has updated some of its NTDLL patches and the Winebuild Fake DLLs work while adding just one new patch.

• Wine staging 4.20 release

  Binary packages for various distributions will be available from:
  
  https://www.winehq.org/download
  
  Summary since last release
  * Rebased to current wine 4.20 (832 patches are applied to wine vanilla)
  
  Upstreamed (Either directly from staging or fixed with a similar patch).
  * dsdmo: Added dll
  * winebus.inf: Add new INF file and copy it to the INF  directory.
  * winebus.sys: Implement AddDevice().
  * wineboot: Create a root-enumerated device object for winebus.
  * winebus.sys: Initialize and teardown the HID backends while the bus 
  FDO is still extant.
  * ntoskrnl.exe: IoInvalidateDeviceRelations() receives the parent PDO.
  * wine.inf: Remove registration for the winebus service.
  * ole32: Implement returning a name in IEnumSTATPROPSTG.
  
  Added:
  * [46735] The Sims 2 demo needs Direct3DShaderValidatorCreate9() 
  implementation
  
  Updated:
  * winebuild-Fake_Dlls
  * ntdll-NtContinue
  * ntdll-MemoryWorkingSetExInformation
  
  Where can you help
  * Run Steam/Battle.net/GOG/UPlay/Epic
  * Test your favorite game.
  * Test your favorite applications.
  * Improve staging patches and get them accepted upstream.
  
  As always, if you find a bug, please report it via
  
  https://bugs.winehq.org
  
  Best Regards
    Alistair.
  

Games

• Rick And Morty Virtual Rick-ality | Linux Gaming | Ubuntu 19.04 | Steam Play

  Rick And Morty Virtual Rick-ality running through Steam play.

• Will Google’s Stadia Game Streaming Platform Be A Dud?

  On November 19, Google is expected to finally launch the company’s long awaited game streaming platform, Google Stadia. Stadia is being heralded as the vanguard of a new push to eliminate your local game console, and shift all of the computing and processing power to the cloud. The shift to game streaming is likely inevitable, the only problem is that Stadia may be a little ahead of its time. And, like so many Google projects (like Google Fiber), game developers are apparently worried that Google may waffle on its commitment to the project…

• Google Stadia’s Upcoming Launch Looking Increasingly Incomplete

  Google Stadia is set to debut on November 19. That launch already had several caveats, however, including the fact that not everyone who pre-ordered the Founder’s Edition bundle will receive their hardware in time for the platform’s debut. Now the company has said that many of Stadia’s multiplayer-centric features won’t be ready in time for the game streaming platform’s launch either.

  The additional information about Stadia’s launch arrived during an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session with Stadia product director Andrey Doronichev and Beri Lee, who “look[s] after the Publisher experience on Stadia,” on Reddit. Doronichev and Lee revealed that many of Stadia’s features aren’t ready in time for launch and said that several won’t make their debut until some time in 2020.

• Stadia looks to be very limited at launch and not just the amount of games

  The official launch of Stadia is only days away, so Google recently hosted a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) and we have some more details to share about it.

Desktop Environments/WMs

• K Desktop Environment/KDE SC/Qt

  • KPublicTransport Backend Selection

    At Akademy earlier this year I presented the current state of KPublicTransport, and mentioned a remaining privacy-relevant issue in there for giving its users full control about which backend service to query. This has now been addressed, with a way to list and chose backends globally or per request.

• GNOME Desktop/GTK

  • Molly de Blanc: GNOME Patent Troll Defense Fund reaches nearly 4,000 donors!

    A lot has happened since our announcement that Rothschild Imaging Ltd was alleging that GNOME is violating one of their patents. We wanted to provide you with a brief update of what has been happening over the past few weeks.

    Legal cases can be expensive, and the cost of a patent case can easily reach over a million dollars. As a small non-profit, we decided to reach out to our community and ask for financial support towards our efforts to keep patent trolls out of open source. More than 3,800 of you have stepped up and contributed to the GNOME Patent Troll Legal Defense Fund. We’d like to sincerely thank everyone who has donated. If you need any additional documentation for an employer match, please contact us.

Distributions

• Top 15 Best Security-Centric Linux Distributions of 2019

  Being anonymous on the Internet is not particularly the same as surging the web safely, however, they both involve keeping oneself and one’s data private and away from the prying eyes of entities that may otherwise take advantage of system vulnerabilities in order to harm targeted parties.

  There is also the risk of surveillance from the NSA and several other top-level organizations and this is why it is good that developers have taken it upon themselves to build privacy-dedicated distros that host an aggregate of tools that enable users to achieve both online autonomy and privacy.

  In as much as these privacy-centric Linux distros are targetted at a niche in the Linux community, many of them are robust enough to be used for general-purpose computing and many more can be tweaked to support requirements for virtually any specific user base.

  A common factor across almost all privacy-centric Linux distros is their relationship with Tor given that many of them come with Tor’s solid anonymity network service built-in and this, in turn, gives users an environment for them to live in safely without any data logs whatsoever, unlike most VPN providers that will still log your real IP address while still being able to see whatever data you may be transmitting at the point of exit of VPN servers.

• Debian Family

  • Updated Debian 10: 10.2 released

    The Debian project is pleased to announce the second update of its stable distribution Debian 10 (codename buster). This point release mainly adds corrections for security issues, along with a few adjustments for serious problems. Security advisories have already been published separately and are referenced where available.

    Please note that the point release does not constitute a new version of Debian 10 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old buster media. After installation, packages can be upgraded to the current versions using an up-to-date Debian mirror.

    Those who frequently install updates from security.debian.org won’t have to update many packages, and most such updates are included in the point release.

    New installation images will be available soon at the regular locations.

  • Debian 10.2 Released With The Latest Security Fixes

    Debian 10.2 is out this morning as the latest point release to the “Buster” series.

    As is usually the case with Debian point releases, Debian 10.2 has been christened to bundle up all of the latest security fixes affecting the massive Debian package set.

  • Debian GNU/Linux 10.2 “Buster” Released with More Than 100 Bug & Security Fixes

    The Debian Project announced today the availability of the second point release to its latest Debian GNU/Linux 10 “Buster” operating system series, Debian 10.2.
    Coming a little over two months after the first point release, Debian GNU/Linux 10.2 “Buster” is here as a new installation medium for those who want to deploy the operating system on new computers or reinstall and don’t want to download hundreds of updates from the repositories after installation.

    Debian GNU/Linux 10.2 “Buster” contains a total of 115 changes, consisting of 66 miscellaneous bug fixes and 49 security updates for various core packages and applications included in the main archives. These have already been released to those who have the operating system installed and up to date.

    “Please note that the point release does not constitute a new version of Debian 10 but only updates some of the packages included. There is no need to throw away old buster media. After installation, packages can be upgraded to the current versions using an up-to-date Debian mirror,” said the Debian Project.

  • Debian Linux 10.2 released and here is how to upgrade it

    he Debian GNU/Linux project has released an updated version of its stable Linux distribution Debian 10 (“buster”). You must upgrade to get corrections for security problem as this version made a few adjustments for the severe issue found in Debian version 10.1. Debian is a Unix-like (Linux distro) operating system and a distribution of Free Software. It is mainly maintained and updated through the work of many users who volunteer their time and effort. The Debian Project was first announced in 1993 by Ian Murdock.

  • Debian Project Drafts General Resolution on Init-System Diversity

    Debian “is heading toward a new general resolution to decide at what level init systems other than systemd should be supported,” reports LWN.net.

    “I’m absolutely convinced we’ve reached a point where in order to respect the people trying to get work done, we need to figure out where we are as a project,” writes Debian project leader Sam Hartman. “We can either decide that this is work we want to facilitate, or work that we as a project decide is not important.”

Devices/Embedded

• Mobile Systems/Mobile Applications

  • States to expand Google antitrust probe into search and Android businesses

  • Huawei P30 and P30 Pro update hub (Update: Android 10 rolling out in EU!)

  • Sony announces Android 10 update plans for 8 smartphones, rollout starts next month

  • Xiaomi Mi A3 receiving November security update, Android 10 a long way to go (Download link inside)

  • Delving into the Android OS/Qualcomm vulnerability (Includes interview)

  • Steps to recover the deleted WhatsApp messages on Android phone

  • Google’s Android version of iMessage is here. But there’s a catch

  • Android Circuit: New Galaxy S11 Leaks, Moto Razr’s Radical Fold, Samsung’s Mysterious Screen

  • PinePhone “BraveHeart” Limited Edition Linux Smartphone is Now Available for $150

    Pinephone is a Linux smartphone powered by an Allwinner A64 processor, and running one of the various Linux mobile distributions such as PostmarketOS or Ubuntu Touch among others.

Free, Libre, and Open Source Software

• 4 critical growth opportunities for open source

  I recently served on a panel about growth opportunities in open source at the Open Source India conference in Bengaluru. As you might expect, my fellow panelists and I approached the topic from widely varying perspectives, and I came away with the feeling that we may have confused many in the audience rather than enlightening them. With that in mind, I thought it would be useful to consolidate the panel’s ideas about open source growth opportunities, drawing upon many of the points put forth in the session as well as my own thoughts.

• Web Browsers

  • Like a BAT outta hell, Brave browser hits 1.0 with crypto-coin rewards for your fave websites

    The privacy-focused Brave web browser has reached version 1.0, available now for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android.

    Brave, an open-source browser based on the Google Chromium project, is notable for two things. First, it blocks ads, trackers and cross-site cookies by default. This feature is called Shields. An icon in the toolbar tells you how many items are blocked, with numbers in the 30s and 40s common.

    If the site is either well-behaved and you want to allow ads to be displayed, or so badly behaved that it does not work with Shields on (and you are desperate to see the content), you can disable Shields for a site by clicking the icon.

    The second feature is more radical, and aims to provide an alternative way of funding web publishers via the BAT (Basic Attention Token) cryptocurrency. Users can opt-in to Brave Rewards, which means they see ads in the browser (by default 2 per hour), published by Brave rather than by the sites you visit, for which they earn BATs. You can spend BATs by donating to websites that you like (currently around 300,000 are registered), via an auto-contribute feature, or use them as you wish. BAT is built on the Ethereum platform, and a token currently trades for around $0.25.

• Linux Foundation

  • The ONNX format becomes the newest Linux Foundation project

    The Linux Foundation today announced that ONNX, the open format that makes machine learning models more portable, is now a graduate-level project inside of the organization’s AI Foundation. ONNX was originally developed and open-sourced by Microsoft and Facebook in 2017 and has since become somewhat of a standard, with companies ranging from AWS to AMD, ARM, Baudi, HPE, IBM, Nvidia and Qualcomm supporting it. In total, more than 30 companies now contribute to the ONNX code base.

• Programming/Development

  • The 30 Best Python Libraries and Packages for Beginners

    Python Libraries and Packages are a set of useful modules and functions that minimize the use of code in our day to day life. There are over 137,000 python libraries and 198,826 python packages ready to ease developers’ regular programming experience. These libraries and packages are intended for a variety of modern-day solutions.

    [...]

    OpenCV, a.k.a Open Source Computer Vision is a python package for image processing. It monitors overall functions that are focused on instant computer vision. Although OpenCV has no proper documentation, according to many developers, it is one of the hardest libraries to learn. However, it does provide many inbuilt functions through which you learn Computer vision easily.

  • How to Extract Data from PDF to Excel

    To be honest, if you’ve only got a handful of PDF documents to extract data from, manual copy & paste is a fast way. Just open every single document, select the text you want to extract, copy & paste to the Excel file.

    Sometimes when you need to copy a table, you may need to paste it to Word document first and then copy and paste from Word to Excel to have a structured table.

    Obviously, this method is tedious when you have tons of files. It would be much better to let dedicated tools to automate the whole job.

Love and Death in the Age of Revolution

It’s unlikely that many TV viewers will remember that veteran Welsh actor, Vincent Regan, played Colonel Edward (“Ned”) Despard in the show Poldark, which is based on the novels of Winston Graham, and that traces the life and times of a British soldier during the time of the American Revolution. Ned Despard is a minor character in the TV series that ran on the BBC for five seasons, and, while it won some applause, a reviewer in the Guardian noted that in the final episode, “There were times when as a viewer you just didn’t know whether you were coming or going.” Historian Peter Linebaugh, a contributor to CounterPunch, has made Despard into a kind of major minor figure in his tome Red Round Globe Hot Burning (University of California Press; $34.95). The book is subtitled “A Tale at the Crossroads of Commons & Closure, of Love & Terror, of Race & Class, and of Kate & Ned Despard.”

The Joshua Tree is Us

For hundreds of years, the Joshua tree has been a source of inspiration for not only Americans but people all around the world. Its branches reaching to the sky reminded early settlers of the biblical story of Joshua raising his arms in prayer. My prayer, today, is that it’s not too late to save this American treasure so that future generations may likewise be inspired by its majestic beauty.

Soap Operas as Teaching Tools

A friend of mine, a physician who works the longest hours of anybody I know, makes only one exception from her demanding schedule in New York. Once a week, she returns home early to watch a new episode of her favorite Brazilian soap opera.

[...]

By identifying themselves with the protagonists’ dreams and problems the viewer establishes an immediate connection with them. “I think people like stories that continue so they can relate to these people. They become like a family, and the viewer becomes emotionally involved. Viewers respond in two ways: One, that the stories are similar to what happened to them in real life, or two, thank goodness that isn’t me,” said H. Wesley Kenney when he was a producer of the TV series General Hospital.

In Colorado, state officials have developed a telenovela called “Crossroads: Without Health, There Is Nothing,” specifically aimed at conveying health messages to the population. One of the producers’ aims was to increase the number of health-insured kids in the state since almost half of the 150,000 uninsured children (many of them Spanish-speaking) were eligible either for Medicaid or the Child Health Plan Plus program. Following the airing of the telenovelas, there was a substantial increase in the number of children applying for insurance. That same program was used by the Baltimore Child Health Plan to educate Spanish speakers on how to navigate the health care system.

“We’re trying to get people to get related with this character and then feel, it’s such a shame that we lost her just because she didn’t know in time what to do and how to take care of herself, because she could have saved her life” said Julieta Ortiz, who plays one of the main characters in that telenovela.

Noel Ignatiev and the Great Divide

One of the finer scholars of his generation, a mighty class warrior, and an unapologetic emblem of his ideological tendency has joined the pantheon of great revolutionaries. Noel Ignatiev, whose classic monograph How the Irish Became White and an anthology co-edited with John Garvey, Race Traitor, belong on every shelf in Trumpland, passed away on November 9, 2019.

Science

• Correlation Found Between Left-Handedness and Genetic Markers Associated with Neurological Disease

  Left-handedness is a uniquely human trait, with 90% human populations globally being right-handed since the Paleolithic (extending from 3.3 million years ago to the end of the Pleistocene). A feature of motor control, the prevailing theory is that handedness is a consequence of language being “lateralized to the left hemisphere”; “lefties” are known to have more bilateral or language activation in the right hemisphere. It is also known that left-handedness is associated with several neurological disorders, including schizophrenia. But up to now no good neuroanatomical localization of the trait were known. Also unknown was the genetic basis (if any) for left-handedness (although it is known to “run in families”).

Health/Nutrition

• New Global Health and Climate Crisis Report Warns of Future ‘Where a Child Has to Fight Simply to Survive’

  “Without immediate action from all countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions, gains in well-being and life expectancy will be compromised.”

• As Superbugs Infect Millions and Kill Tens of Thousands Each Year, CDC Chief Warns Post-Antibiotic Era ‘Already Here’

  “On average, someone in the United States gets an antibiotic-resistant infection every 11 seconds and every 15 minutes someone dies.”

• New EPA Rules Aim to Reduce Toxic Emissions. But Many “Cancer Alley” Chemical Plants Won’t Have to Change.

  Environmental groups had been waiting nearly three years for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to comply with a federal judge’s orders to update Clean Air Act rules governing emissions of various toxic chemicals.

  The agency finally proposed those new rules last week, saying they would reduce emissions of ethylene oxide, a carcinogen that the EPA recently determined is more dangerous than the agency once believed.

Security (Confidentiality/Integrity/Availabilitiy)

• IPFire 2.23 – Core Update 138 is available for testing

  Just with the release of IPFire 2.23 – Core Update 137, we are making the next update available to address and mitigate recently announced vulnerabilities in Intel processors.

• White Screen of Death: Admins up in arms after experimental Google emission borks Chrome

  An experimental feature silently rolled out to the stable Chrome release on Tuesday caused chaos for IT admins this week after users complained of facing white, featureless tabs on Google’s massively popular browser.

  The issue affected thousands of businesses’ terminal servers, with multiple users on the same server experiencing “white screen of death” at the same time.

Defence/Aggression

• Celebrating Peace: A Work in Progress

  Veterans For Peace, an organization that speaks truth to war like nobody else, is attempting to reclaim Armistice Day, the Nov. 11 holiday that was flipped on its head 65 years ago when it was renamed Veterans Day — and became a celebration not of the end of war but of its perpetuity.

• The Right-Wing Coup in Bolivia Is Exactly the Opposite of What Democracy Looks Like

  The case of Bolivia should sound the alarm for a manufactured coup at the expense of democracy. Not only was Evo Morales elected by a majority, he offered to run the elections again to prove it before mobs of right-wing opposition—fueled by the U.S. in material aid and alliance—burned Morales’ sister’s house, held another elected official hostage at gunpoint, and basically

• ‘They Choked Me. They Threw Me Down.’: CodePink’s Medea Benjamin Assaulted by Right-Wing Venezuelan Opposition and Threatened With Arrest

  “This intimidation shows how the U.S. security forces work hand-in-glove with the right-wing forces in Latin America who are trying to stop progressive movements that empower the poor.”

• Russian Telegram-based outlet claims to have found voice message from Blagoveshchensk school shooter

  Baza, a Russian investigative outlet based on the social app Telegram, has published what it describes as an audio message recorded by the construction and housing student who shot four of his classmates and himself on the morning of November 14. The authenticity of the message has not been confirmed, and Baza is known for publishing inside information quickly but without standard accuracy checks.

• Tragedy, take two One year ago, a school shooting shook Russia, and officials vowed to take action. Now, after another shooting, almost nothing has changed.

• Russian Investigative Committee arrests security CEO, opens negligence case following school shooting

  The CEO of the company Sirius-A, which provides security for the Amur College of Construction and Housing and Communal Services in Blagoveshchensk, Russia, has been arrested following a November 14 shooting at the college. The local Investigative Committee’s announcement of the arrest indicated that the CEO hired a guard who was not licensed for his job. That guard then allowed the armed shooter to enter the college unhindered.

• Two die in school shooting in Russia’s Far East

  Two people have died and another three were injured in a school shooting on Thursday in the Far Eastern Russian city of Blagoveshchensk. 

• US and Corporations Key Factors Behind Most Violent Year Yet in Mexico

  This year has been the most violent year on record for Mexico, with almost 26,000 intentional homicides between January and September. Following the murder of nine US citizens last week, US president Donald Trump offered to send the US army to “help” fight drug cartels in Mexico. The comment lacked awareness of the already disastrous outcomes of the so-called “war on drugs” in Mexico and of the role the US and transnationals have played in fomenting the levels of human rights abuses here.

• Mexico’s LeBaron Massacre and the War That Will Not Cease

  Just as the post-mortem analyses of the botched capture and release of El Chapo’s son, Ovidio Guzman, was dying down, Mexico suffered another atypical act of violence. The execution of three women and six of their children in the state of Sonora shocked the public in Mexico and the United States, where the family held dual citizenship, and once again put President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on the defensive.

• 2 Dead in California School Attack; Gunman Shoots Himself

  A student gunman opened fire Thursday at a Southern California high school, killing two students and wounding three others before he was captured in grave condition after shooting himself in the head, authorities said.

Environment

• Incinerating Logic: Bush Fires and Climate Change

  Despite the Internet, connectivity, and linking technologies, distance has not shrunk the Australian sense of self, an often provincial appraisal of the world seen in slow motion and stills. Whether it’s the “flower revolution” or Michel Foucault, trends and ideas are often delayed, and seem almost cutely anachronistic by the time they make landfall down under. Wedded to the insatiable urge to reap, rent and remove from the earth, and you have the ultimate myopic: Australia, the exceptional country, outside the stream of history and, dare it be said, the inconveniences of science.

• To Confront Climate Change Humanity Needs Socialism

  Humans may not survive. Reports from the UN’s Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change provoke images of land masses drowning, fleeing populations, starvation, terrible droughts, terrible storms, migrating diseases, new deserts, and intolerable heat. It’s an “ecological Armageddon,” says one expert. We hear about “the sixth extinction,” the geologic epoch that is our own. It’s called the “Anthropocene.” The name suggests human activity and human responsibility.

• Climate Confusion, Angst, and Sleeplessness

  Climate change is a nagging issue for many people because it is so big, diverse, and overwhelming, as big as the planet itself. So, how to explain climate change?

• Welcome to a World in Which All Hell Is Breaking Loose

  The Situation Room, October 2039: the president and vice president, senior generals and admirals, key cabinet members, and other top national security officers huddle around computer screens as aides speak to key officials across the country.

• ‘Mother Nature Does a Mic Drop’: Venice City Council Chamber Floods Minutes After Members Vote Down Climate Crisis Amendment

  “From the ‘you can’t make this stuff up’ department.”

• Energy

  • ‘Beginning of the End of Climate-Wrecking Fossil Fuel Finance’: World’s Largest Public Bank Ditches Oil and Coal

    Environmentalist Bill McKibben called the decision a “truly amazing win.”

  • Eurostar: The high-speed rail link turns 25

    Eurostar trains have since carried more than 200 million passengers.

Finance

• We’re Suing South Carolina For Driving People Into Poverty

• Warren Suggests Corporate Media Ask Working People, Not Just the Very Rich, About Her Wealth Tax

  “Okay, I get it, we have now done the billionaires. How many of the 43 million Americans who are struggling with student loan debt have you seen interviewed?”

• Sanders, Lee, and Tlaib Lead Effort to Tax Huge CEO-Worker Pay Gaps

  A new congressional bill would deliver heftier IRS bills to corporations that overpay their top executives at the expense of their workers.Institute for Policy Studies experts have advocated for such policies since the 1990s, the decade CEO pay at big U.S. corporations began soaring into the stratosphere.

• ‘OK, Billionaire’: Warren Campaign Shrugs Off Mega-Rich Investor Who Called 2020 Candidate ‘Disgraceful’

  “Some billionaires don’t like my Two-Cent Wealth Tax? I’m shocked.”

• Trump’s Fight to Keep His Tax Returns Secret Has Nowhere Left to Go But the US Supreme Court

  “We are so close,” said Trump critics after an appeals court decision.

• Meet America’s New Underclass

• Japan’s blockchain enabled next-generation financial transactions to start in 2020

  Japan’s blockchain enabled next-generation financial transactions are planned to start in 2020. On November 7 2019, Mitsubishi UFJ Trust and Banking Corporation (MUTB), the second largest in trust business in Japan, announced the establishment of the Security Token Research Consortium consisting of 21 companies, and the development of next-generation financial transaction services using blockchain technology.

  They state that, “By combining security token and smart contract technology, as well as collaborating with external programmable money, which is expected to be adopted in the future, the Service will enable efficient financial transactions on our program base with the aim of making it possible to do fundraising and management on one platform, managing a “variety of financial products” (bonds, securitized products, etc.) “anytime” (24 hours a day, 365 days a year), “anywhere” (accessible without an exclusive terminal), and with “anyone” (including individual retail investors and overseas investors).”

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• Trump’s Drug Deal Goes to Congress: Impeachment, Day One

  It’s almost always kind of a circle jerk when congressional committees interrogate those involved with the Executive Branch. One can’t help but think that many of the folks doing the questioning have dreams of being part of that branch some time in their political career. This applies to members of both parties. Most of the politicians and bureaucrats who are in the hearing room share a basic mindset. They believe in US exceptionalism and most of its wars. They tend to ignore the bloody reality of the nation’s history and act as if its mission truly is blessed by their god, which for most of them is some version of Jesus Christ, although not one that the New Testament necessarily agrees with. In other words, there are lots of rich men ignoring that admonition from Jesus about camels, eyes of needles and rich guys getting into heaven. Most of them probably believe they’ll defy the odds. If they can’t buy off St. Peter, they’ll take him out. Kind of like what Wall Street and its friends just did in Bolivia.

• Confirmation of Steven Menashi to Federal Appeals Court ‘Should Send Shockwaves Across America’

  Approval of Trump nominee called “disturbing,” “offensive,” and “another dark day” for nation’s judicial system.

• Why Aren’t People in the US Rising Up Like Those Elsewhere in the World?

  The waves of protests breaking out in country after country around the world beg the question: Why aren’t Americans rising up in peaceful protest like our neighbors?

• ‘Shame on Facebook’: Ad Campaign Condemns Company’s Sponsorship of Federalist Society Dinner Honoring Brett Kavanaugh

  “Brett Kavanaugh is an imminent threat to reproductive rights and health care access. But that doesn’t seem to bother Facebook.”

• Senate Democrats Join GOP to Back ‘Automatic Austerity’ Bill That Would Gut Social Programs, Hamstring Bold Policies

  “One priority of a Sanders or Warren White House absolutely must be politically crushing the deficit scolds within the Democratic Party.”

• Examining Trump World’s Fantastic Claims About Ukraine

  In fantasy sports, participants draft their own dream teams out of the rosters of existing players. That’s what Donald Trump has done with Ukraine.

• Analysis of Primetime MSNBC Programs Finds Sanders Received ‘Least’ and ‘Most Negative’ Coverage of Top 2020 Democrats

  “MSNBC has close ties to a Democratic establishment that finds the politics of Biden (and even Warren) more palatable than Sanders’ ‘political revolution.’”

• To Solve Multiple Crises at Once, Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez Unveil ‘Green New Deal for Public Housing’

  “This bill shows that we can address our climate and affordable housing crises by making public housing a model of efficiency, sustainability, and resiliency.”

• White Nationalists Are Running the White House

  What follows is a conversation between journalists Michael Edison Hayes, Jared Holt and Marc Steiner of The Real News Network. Read a transcript of their conversation below or watch the video at the bottom of the post.

• Stephen Miller’s White Wedding

• To Save ‘Democracy in Peril,’ 150 Civil Rights Groups Release Visionary Blueprint to Restore and Protect Voting Rights

  “All we need is the will, determination, and responsible leadership of elected and other public officials to come together and address this crisis.”

• NYT Recycles Polling to Tell Dems Once More: Move to the Right

  Last week, the New York Times (11/8/19) published yet another article about polling and the Democratic presidential hopefuls, a year before the general election: “Democrats in Battleground States Prefer Moderate Nominee, Poll Shows.” In the second paragraph, writers Jonathan Martin and Katie Glueck declared,

• As Lula Emerges From Prison, US Media Ignore How Washington Helped Put Him There

  The Brazilian Supreme Court reversed a 2018 ruling on November 7, upholding the principle of innocent until proven guilty in the 1988 Constitution and declaring it illegal to jail defendants before their appeals processes have been exhausted. Within 24 hours, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was released to an adoring crowd of hundreds of union members and social movement activists who had maintained a camp outside the police station where he was held, shouting “good morning,” “good afternoon” and “good night” to him for 580 consecutive days.

• Social-media influencers: Incomes soar amid growing popularity

  The report looked at sponsored content on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and blogs, examining negotiated rates from 2014 to 2019.

  From micro-influencers – people with fewer than 100,000 followers – to celebrities, it found that there was good money to be made.

• ‘We Don’t Want Any Dictators’: Bolivians Flood Streets to Protest Right-Wing, Anti-Indigenous Coup

  “Anti-Indigenous racism is at the heart of what’s happening in Bolivia.”

• Oppose the Military Coup in Bolivia. Spare Us Your “Critiques”

  It would be hard to point to a country whose president has more democratic legitimacy than Evo Morales. Nobody can seriously dispute that he won the first round of the presidential election on October 20 by a landslide. He received 47% of the vote in an election with 88% turnout, as most polls predicted. That doubles the percentage of the eligible vote that US presidents generally receive. I’ll say a bit more about that below, but it’s crucial to note that he was elected to his present term (which does not expire until January) with 61% of the vote in an election with roughly the same turnout.

• Why the Corporate Media Won’t Call It a Coup

  No establishment outlet framed the action as a coup; instead, President Evo Morales “resigned” (ABC News), amid widespread “protests” (CBS News) from an “infuriated population” (New York Times) angry at the “election fraud” (Fox News) of the “full-blown dictatorship” (Miami Herald). When the word “coup” is used at all, it comes only as an accusation from Morales or another official from his government, which corporate media has been demonizing since his election in 2006.

• What’s happening in the impeachment inquiry: A timeline

  The US House of Representatives announced an impeachment inquiry into US President Donald Trump on Sept. 24, 2019, sparked by a whistleblower complaint that warned of “urgent concerns” regarding the president’s actions in Ukraine. Since the investigation was launched, House investigators have heard testimony from multiple officials, including both political appointees and career foreign service staff.

  Below is a timeline of key events, which will be updated as the impeachment process continues. [...]

• “Embarrassing Prevarication and a Remarkable Display of Ineptitude”: A New I.G. Report Details Political Targeting at State

  A new inspector general report released on Thursday reveals that a purge of individuals Trump allies viewed as insufficiently loyal to the president began in the earliest days of the Trump administration. And arguably, it was a failure to crack down on this targeting that fostered an environment in which the dismissal of an experienced career diplomat like Yovanovitch failed to garner any real attention, let alone alarm, until a whistle-blower complaint launched the impeachment inquiry.

  “[The Trump administration] came into office—at least as far as State is concerned—convinced that the career service was biased against the Trump Administration,” a former high-ranking State Department official told me. “This team, in my view, has simply never understood that the career service works for whoever is the president. And they have acted badly. And probably will continue to do so.”

Privacy/Surveillance

• Three Common Privacy Misconceptions That Companies Love

• ‘This Should Probably Be Illegal’: Rights Advocates Target Lawmakers and Lobbyists With Facial Recognition Technology in US Capitol

  “It’s terrifyingly easy for anyone—a government agent, a corporation, or just a creepy stalker—to conduct biometric monitoring and violate basic rights at a massive scale. We did this to make a point.”

• Federal Court Rules That Border Officers Can’t Arbitrarily Search Our Electronic Devices

• Federal Court Says ICE, CBP’s Suspicionless Searches Of Electronic Devices Is Unconstitutional

  There’s a bit more Constitution in the “Constitution-free zone.” A federal court in Massachusetts has ruled [PDF] border agents can no longer perform suspicionless device searches. This ruling aligns itself with the decision handed down by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year. If the government wants to dig into travelers’ phones and laptops without a warrant, it needs to show it believes contraband will be located on the seized device.

• Maryam Namazie and Afsana Lachaux, Joint Winners of 2019 Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize

  Maryam Namazie and Afsana Lachaux were joint winners of the 2019 Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize for their campaigning work in support of women under Sharia laws. The award recognised the links with Sharia and religious laws and violence against women.

• Sharia law in Britain shows women are traumatised and humiliated in a system weighted against them

  As part of the One Law for All campaign, we will be holding a protest outside the Court of Appeal to let the government and the public know that minority women will not tolerate being trapped in marital captivity and treated as subjects of their so called religious communities rather than as citizens with equal rights.

• Supreme Court refers Sabarimala temple issue to larger bench, no stay on women’s entry

  The Supreme Court said restrictions on women in religious places weren’t limited to Sabarimala alone, and that they were prevalent in other religions too.

  Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi read the verdict on behalf of himself and Justices AM Khanwilkar and Indu Malhotra; he said the larger bench would decide all such religious issues relating to Sabarimala, the entry of women in mosques and the practice of female genital mutilation in the Dawood Bohra community.

• Sabarimala verdict: A timeline of temple entry issue ahead of Supreme Court verdict today

  The Sabrimala verdict will be delivered by a constitution bench comprising Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Rohinton Fali Nariman, A M Khanwilkar, D Y Chandrachud and Indu Malhotra at 10:30 am today.

  Here is a brief timeline of the Sabarimala Temple Case: [...]

• Indian Court to Set Law on Women’s Entry in Temples, Mosques

  The court deferred a decision on petitions seeking a review of its 2018 ruling to lift a ban on women of menstruating age entering the temple’s grounds.

  Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said seven judges will take up issues relating to women entering any house of worship.

  Gogoi said the question of whether women of all ages should be allowed into Sabarimala is part of a larger debate that includes issues like allowing Muslim and Parsi women to enter religious practices and female genital mutilation in the Dawoodi Bohra community.

• Significant case on women’s rights following break up of marriage at the Court of Appeal

  As part of the One Law for All campaign, we will be holding a protest outside the Court of Appeal to let the government and the public know that minority women will not tolerate being trapped in marital captivity and treated as subjects of their so called religious communities rather than as citizens with equal rights.

• A woman’s stalker compromised her car’s app, giving him the ability to track and immobilize it

  Stalkerware is now a factor in the majority of spousal abuse cases; since stalkerware compromises mobile devices, and since these devices can be used to control a wide range of other devices (vehicles, thermostats, medical implants, door locks, etc), an abuser can leverage their stalkerware infections to turn their victims’ lives into digital Kafka novels.

• ‘Annoying’ a cop could be illegal soon in this upstate county

  Under a proposal that was approved by the Monroe County Legislature, someone who annoys, alarms or threatens a police officer or other first responder could be arrested and sentenced to a year in jail or forced to pay a $5,000 fine.

  The legislature approved the bill by a 17-10 vote on Tuesday. The county executive will now hold a public hearing and decide whether to pass it into law.

  The bill sparked outrage among groups such as the New York Civil Liberties Union.

• The Case for Internet Access as a Human Right

  The new study, published this week in the Journal of Applied Philosophy, comes courtesy of Dr. Merten Reglitz, a lecturer in global ethics at the University of Birmingham. In it, Reglitz makes the case that [Internet] access is an essential part of keeping those in power accountable.

  “Internet access is not merely a luxury for those who can afford it,” Reglitz said. “It is instead highly conducive to a multitude of crucial human interests and rights. Internet access is a uniquely effective way for lobbying and holding accountable global players like global governance institutions and multinational corporations.”

• Google Is Basically Daring the Government to Block Its Fitbit Deal

  Google’s plan to buy Fitbit took chutzpah from the start. The company was already being investigated by Congress, state attorneys general, and federal antitrust regulators, a reflection of growing alarm over a conglomerate whose dominant market share is built on unrivaled access to personal data. Now it was announcing a $2.2 billion acquisition of a firm with troves of the most intimate details of its users’ physical health, from their heart rate to their exercise routines to how many hours they sleep at night. Fitbit was apparently worried enough about the threat of the deal being blocked that it negotiated a $250 million breakup fee in case of “a failure to obtain Antitrust Approvals.”

• Facebook is receiving a record number of government data demands

  The social network Facebook received a record number of government requests for user data during the first half of 2019, according to its latest Transparency Report.

  The report indicates that government data demands surged 16 per cent to 128,617 during the first six months of 2019, compared to the second half of 2018.

• Mark Zuckerberg says TikTok is a threat to democracy, but didn’t say he spent 6 months trying to buy its predecessor

  Facebook once tried to buy Musical.ly, the Chinese lip-syncing app that was eventually acquired by the Chinese tech giant ByteDance and merged with its app Douyin to form the viral video app TikTok, according to reports from BuzzFeed and Bloomberg.

  Three sources familiar with the talks told BuzzFeed’s Ryan Mac that Facebook spent the second half of 2016 trying to buy the Shanghai-headquartered Musical.ly in an attempt to break into the Chinese market. These sources said the talks were “serious” but never came to fruition, with Facebook unable to close the deal.

• Tencent Music Earnings Surge 31% In the Latest Quarter

  Tencent Music Entertainment Group has released its third-quarter financials for 2019, with revenue surging a staggering 31% and beating the expectations of Wall Street analysts.

• Love of cash hinders India’s move to digital economy

  One of the key objectives of the note ban was to discourage the use of cash, but India continues to see a surge in currency in circulation even as economic growth has slowed to a six-year low.

  Central bank data shows that since the controversial demonetization gambit, currency in circulation has grown, rising 17 per cent to 21.1 trillion rupees (USD 295.7 billion) as of the end of March 2019.

• Warrantless searches of devices at ports illegal, court rules

  Tuesday’s ruling in U.S. District Court came in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of 11 travelers whose smartphones and laptops were searched without individualized suspicion at U.S. ports of entry.

  ACLU attorney Esha Bhandari said the ruling strengthens the Fourth Amendment protections of international travelers who enter the United States every year.

  The ACLU describes the searches as “fishing expeditions.” They say border officers must now demonstrate individualized suspicion of contraband before they can search a traveler’s electronic device.

• Popular UK health websites share sensitive user data with Google, Facebook, dozens more

  Not good. An important new investigation from the Financial Times reveals symptoms, drug names, and terms like ‘abortion’ are shared with hundreds of third parties.

  The scariest ones in this list aren’t just Google, Amazon, Facebook, Oracle, Scorecard, or OpenX, but the ones you’ve never heard of, who receive even less scrutiny over data privacy and security practices.

• European privacy regulators raise ‘concerns’ about Privacy Shield

Civil Rights/Policing

• Peak Hubris

  “Hubris” is defined as rash and foolish pride, a dangerous overconfidence, manifested with arrogance.  The Deep State vaunts our “exceptionalism”, and since Reagan’s “City on a HIll” trope Americans have been assured by all succeeding Presidents that ours is the “indispensible nation”. The word describes the way America sells itself to the world, and has for generations.

• Trump Administration Forgoes Petition to Supreme Court in Jane Doe Case

• “What About the Children?” Youth Rights Before Parental Police States

  “What about the children?!” Some haggard disembodied voice wails from my flickering TV set, jerking me awake from the Ambien-grade slumber that any more than 15 minutes of C-Span inevitably delivers. It’s happened a thousand times before. The voice almost always belongs to some sobbing middle-aged white woman, overdressed like June Cleaver for some senate hearing on the dangers of one victimless crime or another, online prostitution or E-cigarettes or satanic Portuguese techno, always something new, always something to be terrified of. Part of me feels for the woman, I really do. She’s usually lost a child to something or other. She’s clearly in pain. But another disgraceful part of me wants to tell her to shut the fuck up and take some goddamn responsibility for your own life. Because, beneath the theatrics, 9 times out of 10, this pearl-clutching stock character is really saying “I couldn’t find the time to parent my dead child, so now the police state has to pick up the slack!” And the Wall Street whores of Washington take their cue and start passing more pointless legislation.

• Adidas explains why it put the Russian flag upside down on its new uniforms for the national soccer team

• Watch the CIA Get Away With Torture

  In the aftermath of 9/11, Americans might generously attribute their embrace of the “dark side,” as former Vice President Dick Cheney described torture, to a collective nervous breakdown. It’s a chapter in our recent history detailed in Jane Mayer’s bestseller, “The Dark Side,” and more broadly in the entertaining and fallacious movie, “Zero Dark Thirty,” but it remains a national shame yet to be confronted by holding those responsible accountable. The end credits of Scott Z. Burns’ expository epic, “The Report,” in theaters Friday, inform us that many associated with the enhanced interrogation techniques (EIT) program remain on staff at the CIA or were even promoted, such as current Director Gina Haspel.

• We Investigated the Crisis in California’s Jails. Now, the Governor Calls for More Oversight.

  Faced with a surge of homicides in some of California’s largest jails, inmates held in inhumane suicide-watch conditions and elected sheriffs who rebuff state inspectors, Gov. Gavin Newsom is crafting plans that would give the state more power to oversee local sheriffs and the lockups they run.

  The measure will be part of a broader criminal justice reform package he plans to introduce next year, he told The Fresno Bee editorial board last week. Also on the table: adding “step-down facilities” to bolster rehabilitation and reentry options for people being released from custody and, ultimately, shuttering one of the state’s 35 prisons.

• Algeria: Escalating Repression of Protesters

  Algerian authorities have arrested scores of pro-democracy movement activists since September 2019. Many remain detained on vague charges such as “harming national unity” and “undermining the morale of the army.” The authorities should immediately and unconditionally release the peaceful activists and respect the rights to free speech and assembly of all Algerians. 

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Congress Says The FCC Is Trying To Run Out The Clock On Wireless Location Data Scandals

  US wireless carriers have spent much of the last year under fire for hoovering up your location data, then selling that data to any nitwit with a nickel. More recently they’ve been busted even selling access to E-911 location data, which is increasingly even more accurate in tracking users than traditional GPS. We’ve noted repeatedly that lax ethical standards result in this data often being abused by dubious third parties, or used illegally by law enforcement or those pretending to be law enforcement.

Monopolies

• USMCA deal close, but not ‘imminent,’ Democrats say

  Democrats say a deal to update the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is close, but not “imminent,” as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

• Now a Senator Is Investigating the Sexist Apple Card Debacle

  Responding to several allegations that husbands tend to received higher credit limits than their wives, Goldman Sachs representatives have repeatedly stated to Gizmodo and other outlets that the company is blind to gender, race, marital status, and familial relationships. They surmise that the wives in question had perhaps been banking as secondary cardholders under their husbands’ accounts, ergot, they would not have accrued as long of a debt payment history. But you can certainly take it up with customer service.

• Google to offer personal banking accounts next year

  Google is preparing to launch a personal checking account service in the United States as early as next year, following moves by some big tech rivals to increasingly expand into consumer finance.

  The consumer checking accounts will be offered through the Google Pay app, initially in partnership with Citigroup and a small credit union at Stanford University.

• Porn Site Says PayPal Ban Will Hurt More Than 100,000 Performers

  PayPal Inc. is blocking transactions at Pornhub, a move the adult-video site says will halt payments to “over a hundred thousand performers who rely on them for their livelihoods.”

  PayPal took steps to stop the Pornhub transactions after a review of the situation, the online-payment giant said. “We have discovered that Pornhub has made certain business payments through PayPal without seeking our permission,” it said, without elaborating on the nature of the transactions.

• PayPal abruptly cuts off Pornhub’s payroll, leaving performers with few payment options

  It seems like a reach to expect the hundred thousand performers to switch over to a single type of cryptocurrency for their paychecks, though, and direct deposit may also be dicey for some: a number of banks refuse to serve sex workers, according to this list compiled by Survivors Against SESTA. Pornhub explained last year that PayPal was a key alternative to banks: “PayPal specifically is a method of payment that many people, who may not have the luxury of a bank account, rely on to get paid,” the company wrote.

  PayPal’s decision to drop Pornhub appears to have been sudden, as some have expressed dissatisfaction on having to scramble to find a way to receive payments (though Pornhub seems to be helping out): [...]

• Delhi HC Gives Expansive Interpretation to Section 79 of IT Act: Issues Global Blocking Order Against Intermediaries

  On October 23, a single judge of the Delhi High Court – Justice Prathiba M Singh – issued an interim injunction directing Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other unnamed intermediaries to take down on a global basis, defamatory content uploaded on their platforms against Baba Ramdev (‘Judgment’). The Judgment is significant as it went beyond the conventional mode of ‘geo-blocking’, whereby the take-down of URLs is limited to specific geographic locations.

• La Sierra University: Abolish Intellectual Property Law

  Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 276. This is my speech delivered for the Troesh Talk, part of the Business Colloquium course, at the Tom and Vi Zapara School of Business at La Sierra University Nov. 12, 2019. I was invited by Associate Dean Gary Chartier, who runs the Colloquium. The audience consisted mainly of business and grad students.

• Patents and Software Patents

  • Magic Leap rattles money tin, assigns patents to a megabank, sues another ex-staffer… But fear not, all’s fine

    Augmented reality hype-merchant Magic Leap has had to whip out its begging cap, sorry, sorry, its once-in-a-lifetime investment chest again for venture capitalists to top up with with millions of dollars.

    Having burned through $2.6bn – that’s billion – on its way to producing an AR headset that has so many limitations it seemingly has zero chance of becoming a consumer device, the upstart has announced it is now part way through series E funding.

    That’s just a Silicon Valley way of saying it’s on a fifth formal round of begging to banks and venture capitalists to help it keep going before the biz finally starts making money. In reality, it is the manufacturer’s eighth funding round, with the most recent being a cash influx of $280m in April this year. That money appears to be running out, or just simply not enough, just six months later.

    And while things were already looking perilous for the company that continues to promise the Earth yet has persistently underwhelmed, failed to hit deadlines and often flat-out spewed BS, there is some troubling news that has just emerged.

  • Munich appeals court schedules ruling on Nokia’s anti-antisuit injunctions against Continental for December 12

    Just a quick follow-up to yesterday’s report on the appellate hearing in Munich on Nokia’s anti-antisuit injunctions against Continental:

    The Munich I Higher Regional Court’s press office told me today that a ruling has been scheduled for December 12.

    I still predict the same outcome: reversal. The court’s position on the irreconcilability of an antisuit–including anti-antisuit–injunction with German law didn’t appear to change at any moment during the hearing that lasted well over two hours. What I attribute the delay to is simply that this appeals court–at least when it comes to patent cases–tends to write very comprehensive opinions. Those judges won’t necessarily address each and every argument they don’t have to reach. But unlike their U.S. counterparts, they do cover a lot of ground beyond the shortest path to a particular outcome when fundamental questions are at stake. Earlier this year, an injunction Qualcomm had won and enforced against Apple in Germany was tossed on three independent grounds, any single one of which would have been self-sufficient.

    The practical effect of this target date is that Continental can’t make a third attempt at a U.S. antisuit injunction for another four weeks. Meanwhile, on December 10, the first Nokia v. Daimler trial will be held in Mannheim (there have been first hearings in three Munich cases, but the second hearings there are the actual trials and the soonest one of them will take place in February). In all those years I’ve seen only one bench ruling in Mannheim, so realistically, there won’t be any German patent injunction in place against Daimler before sometime in January. Meanwhile, a renewed motion for an antisuit injunction in the U.S. could be resolved if a motion to shorten time succeeded–which it might if a Mannheim injunction loomed large after the December 10 trial, especially since the issues have been briefed before, even if not by Sharp and Conversant.

  • Munich appeals court likely to reverse Nokia’s anti-antisuit injunction against Continental: Judge Koh may have to rule on third antisuit motion soon

    Before we go to today’s Munich appellate hearing, let me just say that this week’s Component-Level SEP Licensing conference in Brussels exceeded expectations, which applies to the quality of the presentations of those who strongly advocate component-level licensing obligations under antitrust and contract law as well as of those who are skeptical of, or even adamantly opposed to, at least one of those legal bases–everyone I invited was terrific. I’ll publish the slides no later than this coming weekend. Now, the latest from Nokia v. Continental.

  • UK – ANAN KASEI & RHODIA OPERATIONS V. NEO CHEMICALS AND OXIDES

    Anan Kasei Co. Ltd & Rhodia Operations S.A.S. v Neo Chemicals and Oxides Limited & Neo Performance Materials Inc, Court of Appeal, London, 9 October 2019, [2019] EWCA Civ 1646

    In this judgment, the Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by Neo Chemicals and Oxides (Europe) Limited (previously Molycorp Chemicals and Oxides (Europe) Limited) and Neo Performance Materials Inc (together “Neo”) relating to the sufficiency of European Patent (UK) No. 1 435 338 (the “Patent”) owned by Anan Kasei Co. Ltd (now Solvay Special Chem Japan, Ltd) and exclusively licensed to Rhodia Operations S.A.S. (together “Rhodia”).

    In doing so, the Court of Appeal has provided further guidance on the law of sufficiency, in particular insufficiency due to ambiguity (or uncertainty), and excessive claim breadth. In the same judgment, the Court of Appeal allowed two procedural appeals by Rhodia regarding the joining of Neo’s parent company to the proceedings.

  • Logo Placement Relevant for Infringement in Design Patent Cases

    Note here that my gloves are the cheap liners, the lawsuit focuses more on the expensive gloves and clothing that have the heat-reflective material on the inner liner. My gloves also show a different pattern than the original accused HeatWave product.

    In the case, Columbia asserted both a design patent (US.D657093) and a utility patent (US.8453270) and the case resulted in a partial victory for Columbia — Jury award of $3 million in damages for design patent infringement but a determined that the asserted utility patent were invalid.

  • Guest Post: The real puzzle in Campbell Soup v. Gamon Plus

    However these claims are interpreted (a matter of much dispute in this case), they are each clearly directed to what we might call a “multi-article” design. Each design defines parts of the shapes of separate articles—a dispenser and a can.

    The problem is that the design patent “primary reference” requirement was created in the context of—and implicitly assumes—a single-article design. The lesson in Durling and Rosen was that you can’t create a Franken-article to serve as a primary reference. If the patent (or application) claims a design for a table, you can’t splice parts of different tables together to form a single, hypothetical table. You have to find a table that actually exists (or a sufficient description thereof) in the prior art.

    But what happens when the design extends over separate articles? Gamon Plus (and Judge Newman, in dissent) seem to argue that there must be a single reference that explicitly discloses both articles being used together in the same way. That can’t possibly be right—especially on the facts of this case.

  • 6 things readers should know about Liconsa v. Boehringer Ingelheim

    Our friends from the EPLAW Patent Blog recently published an interesting blog commenting on the judgment of 29 March 2019 from the Court of Appeal of Barcelona (Section 15) where, among other aspects, the requirements for requesting the limitation of a European patent before the Spanish Patents and Trademarks Office (“SPTO”) were discussed. As explained in such blog, the Court came to the conclusion that the limited patent published by the SPTO was not enforceable because the judicial authorization foreseen in article 105.4 of the new Patents Act had not been obtained. For the readers’ benefit, it will be helpful to remember that, according to that article 105 “4. If judicial proceedings on the validity of the patent are pending and without prejudice to the provisions of article 120, the request for limitation, addressed to the Spanish Patent and Trademark Office, must be authorized by the Judge or Court that handles the proceedings.”

    To avoid confusion and possible misunderstandings among the public, a few clarifications are in order:

    The first clarification is that although that blog might convey the impression that the Court of Appeal of Barcelona (Section 15) had the last say on this debate, in reality that judgment is not final. This is because BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM (“BI”) filed an appeal, which is pending before the Supreme Court.

    [...]

    Finally, the debate explained in these blogs is a “one-off” that will not arise again in future cases. This is because the facts of the case were unique in the sense that the parties were trapped in the transition between the old and the new Patents Acts and the debate arose because of the different transitional regimes established for different provisions of the new Patents Act.

• Trademarks

  • In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different: Chanel in trade mark dispute over GABRIELLE mark – again

    In December 2017, Chanel Limited applied to register the trade mark CHANEL’S GABRIELLE in respect of goods in classes 9, 14 and 18. Gabrielle is the first name of CoCo Chanel, its founder.

    The application was partially opposed by Catherine Sidonio, based on the UK trademark registration for the mark GABRIELLE for various goods, including those in class 25. She claimed that the respective goods were similar and that the marks were similar, so much so that CHANEL’S GABRIELLE gave the impression of a collaboration between the parties.

    This is not the first time the parties have come across one another and Chanel referred to a previous decision (BL-O-646-17), in which the same parties had played “inverted roles”. In that decision, it was held that there was no likelihood of confusion between the marks GABRIELLE and GABRIELLE CHANEL for identical goods in class 25.

    Sidonio produced a variety of evidence, including copies of “Coco Chanel” posters that related to three films produced in 2008-2009, web prints showing clothing items branded with “GABRIELLE BY MOLLY BRACKEN”, and a web print stating the French brand origin of MOLLY BRACKEN, which was launched in 2008.

    [...]

    The opposition failed in respect of sunglasses, sunglasses frames and lenses (in class 9) and jewellery; charms; decorative pins; brooches; medallions (in class 14). The opposition succeeded in relation to cufflinks and tie pins (in class 14) and handbags; vanity cases (not fitted), briefcases articles of luggage, wallets, purses (not of precious metal or coated therewith), leather shoulder belts; bags; sporrans; credit card holder; card holders; and key holders (in class 18).

  • Needless Trademark Spat In Canada At Least Has Exactly As Polite Ending As You’d Expect

    It probably shouldn’t be all that surprising that there is a decent volume of trademark disputes that occur over restaurant menu items. Somewhat like the craft beer industry, the restaurant industry has for a long, long time looked toward creative output for menu items as a way to stand out. Because there are only so many ways you can name food or a dish, occasionally this creative naming practice causes trademark issues.

  • High Court TM Profit Award Standard May Be Coming

  • The bad faith conundrum in the EU continues – KOTON, SKY, ANN TAYLOR, NEYMAR, CAFÉ DEL MAR

    Bad faith is on the rise – whether in reality or as a useful weapon against trade marks is another question. Recently, both the General Court (GC) and the Court of Justice (CJEU) have had several opportunities to consider whether trade marks had been filed in bad faith. The tendency seems to become stricter and to focus more on balancing the interests of the trade mark owner and the competition in the market.

  • Ferrero succeeds in enforcing its rights in the Tic Tac container before Italian court

    It was just a few months ago that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) (BMB v Ferrero, C‑693/17 P) sided with well-known foodstuffs manufacturer Ferrero by upholding the invalidity of a registered Community design right for comfit boxes and containers pursuant to Article 25(1)(e) of Regulation No 6/2002. This was due to a conflict with Ferrero’s international trade mark (below) representing the container of its Tic Tac comfits.

    [...]

    Among other things, in 1973 Ferrero obtained two Italian 3D trade mark registrations for said container. In 1974, it obtained the corresponding international trade mark registration for one of these trade marks (which it had relied upon in the design case mentioned in the opening).

  • BEAST MODE vs. BEAST MODE SOCCER

    The mark was registered early-on for “coaching services.” However, Copeland-Smith also wanted a registration covering t-shirts and soccer balls. (The amended application disclaimed rights to SOCCER except as part of BEAST MODE SOCCER.)

    The problem for Copeland-Smith is that other folks have their own registered Beast-Mode marks. This include’s former NFL’r Marshawn Lynch’s BEAST MODE apparel line. [beastmodeonline.com].

    [...]

    Factor 6 – number and nature of similar marks — Copeland argues that Lynch’s mark is weak because “Beast Mode” is a well known American slang referring to using “high effort or energy in exercise or sport.” (Citing the UrbanDictionary). (I’ll note that several UrbanDictionary definitions refer directly to Lynch. E.g., “beastmoed: to go crazy like marshawn lynch does.”) (I’ll also note the following definition “Patent: To take an existing commodity and claim ownership over its production rights.”)

    On appeal, the Federal Circuit again agreed with the TTAB’s factual conclusion that Factor 6 favored denial-of-registration. The court noted that Copeland-Smith produced a “large quantity of evidence”, but that the evidence lacked “quality.”

• Copyrights

  • Rome court rules that iconic photograph of judges Falcone and Borsellino is not a photographic artwork

    However, according to the Rome Court of First Instance (decision 14758/2019), the photograph above is not sufficiently original to be considered a photographic artwork protected under Article 2 of the Italian Copyright Act (Law No 633/1941).

    The decision was issued in the context of proceedings brought by Gentile against RAI – Radiotelevisione Italiana, the Italian national public broadcasting company, over the unauthorised use of the image.

    The Rome court pointed out at the very outset that, historically, photographs were not protected by copyright under Italian law. This choice, which dates back to 1941, “was determined, on the one hand, by the importance of the role of pictures to the cultural industries, so that limiting as much as possible any monopoly on them would be preferable; on the other hand, by the difficulty of finding a creative quid in photographic works which would allow to distinguish the technical nature of the process from to the photographer’s personal contribution in reaching the final result”.

    The choice of Italian legislature, however, was at odds with the Berne Convention, and the law was eventually amended.

  • Academic Publishers As Parasites

    This is just a quick post to draw attention to From symbiont to parasite: the evolution of for-profit science publishing by UCSF’s Peter Walter and Dyche Mullins in Molecular Biology of the Cell. It is a comprehensive overview of the way the oligopoly publishers obtained and maintain their rent-extraction from the academic community: [...]

  • Should Doxxing Be Illegal?

    There has been a debate over the past few years about the legality of “doxxing,” which would loosely be defined as identifying individuals and/or their personal information which they’d prefer to remain secret. This is coming up in a variety of contexts, including effort to unveil the whistleblower who first called attention to President Trump’s questionable call with Ukraine’s President. However, we also noted in passing, last week, that the new privacy bill from Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Anna Eshoo contained an anti-doxxing clause…

  • Taylor Swift provoked fans to go after her rivals and now they’re being doxxed

    Taylor Swift wants the rights to her own music — and she may have just crossed an ethical line to get it. On Thursday afternoon, Swift asked her gigantic army of fans to get in touch with music industry talent manager Scooter Braun and former label boss Scott Borchetta to “let them know how you feel” about their attempts to keep her from performing her old hits on TV or using them in an upcoming Netflix documentary.

    That request, of course, would require Taylor’s fans to know how to get in touch. So fans promptly began doxxing the pair, publishing what appear to be Braun and Borchetta’s private contact information — including phone numbers and a physical home address — on Twitter.

  • Taylor Swift Says Scooter Braun, Scott Borchetta Are Blocking Her From Playing Old Hits at AMAs

    Swift says in her posts that the Big Machine team told her she would be allowed the use of her old songs only if she agreed not to re-record them in the future — a non-starter for her, she says — and if she affirmed she would not speak negatively going forward.

    Embedded in her plea to fans to make their feelings known to Braun and Borchetta is what might be referred to as burying the lead: Swift says Netflix has been working on a documentary about her for several years. “This isn’t the way I had planned on telling you this news,” she writes.

    Normally, performing older material live when the master recordings are held by someone else shouldn’t require permission, except Swift claims that Borchetta and Braun are contending that a performance of them on the AMAs constitutes “re-recording them before I’m allowed to next year.”

  • Who will win the media wars?

    This binge is the culmination of 20 years of creative destruction (see Briefing). New technologies and ideas have shaken up music, gaming and now television. Today many people associate economic change with deteriorating living standards: job losses, being ripped-off, or living under virtual monopolies in search and social networks. But this business blockbuster is a reminder that dynamic markets can benefit consumers with lower prices and better quality. Government has so far had little to do with the boom, but when it inevitably peaks the state will have a part to play, by ensuring that the market stays open and vibrant.

  • Troll Lawyer Shows Up In Court To Explain His ‘Dead Grandfather’ Excuse, Gets His ‘Fitness To Practice’ Questioned By The Judge

    Just a few days ago, copyright troll lawyer Richard Liebowitz was being threatened with jail time for refusing to provide a judge with some evidence his grandfather had died. If that doesn’t seem like something most judges would demand, you’re right. It takes a special kind of lawyer to drive a federal court judge to start demanding proof of death from an attorney.

  • Universal Music Claims Copyright Over Newly Public Domain ‘Yes! We Have No Bananas’

    As you’re probably aware, on January 1st of this year, we actually had a public domain day in the US for the first time in over two decades. Prior to that Congress (with the help of Hollywood lobbyists) had worked to continually extend copyright law whenever new works were due to go into the public domain. These extensions still seem to violate the spirit of the copyright clause in the Constitution, given that it is granting Congress permission to create such monopolies only so much as those monopoly rights “promote the progress.” Any reasonable interpretation of that clause means that copyright law should be allowed in cases where it creates the incentive to create. But it’s difficult to see how extending copyright law decades after the work has been created does anything to incentivize that work in the first place.