Bonum Certa Men Certa
← UPC Roundup: War on the Appeal Boards, British Motion Against the UPC, Fröhlinger Recalled, and Fake News About Spain | The Sickness of the EPO – Part IV: Cruel Management That Deliberately Attacks the Sick and the Weak →

Links 23/2/2017: Qt 5.9 Alpha, First SHA1 Collision





GNOME bluefish

Contents





GNU/Linux



Free Software/Open Source





Leftovers



  • Health/Nutrition



    • US Business, Government Work To Bring Down ‘Dangerous’ UN Panel Report On Access To Medicines – And Change The Debate In Geneva
      Calling it flawed and narrow and seemingly threatened by its contents, the leading United States business group and US government IP specialists are working to limit the impact of a recent United Nations report that made recommendations for the decades-old problem of ensuring affordable medicines reach people when they are under patent in a way that does not threaten innovation. One step in countering the UN report? Change the discourse in Geneva and elsewhere.

      [...]

      The IP Attaché program places US diplomats in many offices around the world “to advocate US positions on intellectual property matters for the benefit of US stakeholders,” as stated in a program brochure. They not only raise issues with foreign governments and provide training and raise public awareness, but they also help US stakeholders doing business in foreign markets. The main focus is foreign laws, foreign courts, and IP enforcement.


    • German-Backed Report Lays Out Strategy For R&D Into New Antibiotics
      In the face of the lack of attractiveness of investing in research for new antibiotics for the pharmaceutical industry, and the general lack of funding for research and development for novel antibiotics, a new report commissioned by the German Federal Ministry of Health calls for countries to take action. In particular, the report proposes a global union for research and development, a global research fund, and a global launch reward. And access and pricing are key components of the strategy, it says.

      The report [pdf] titled, “Breaking through the Wall – A Call for Concerted Action on Antibiotics Research and Development,” was written by the Boston Consulting Group for the German Federal Ministry of Health.


    • Side Event On UN High-Level Panel On Access To Medicines Next Week At WTO
      As the World Trade Organization intellectual property committee meeting next week is expected to discuss the report of the United Nations Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines next week, a group of developing countries is convening a side event to engage in discussion with members of the panel. The report included several direct recommendations to WTO members.

      The side event [pdf], organised by Bangladesh, Brazil, India, South Africa, the Secretariat of the UN High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines, and the South Centre, is scheduled to take place on 1 March.




  • Security



  • Defence/Aggression



    • Terrorism Denial on the Left
      At the end of last year I attended a large conference of social science academics and researchers in Melbourne. Speaking on a plenary panel in front of hundreds of attendees was the director of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Australia’s primary refugee advocacy organisation. He opened the plenary by describing the Australian government’s treatment of asylum seekers, decrying the cruelty of Australia’s policy of offshore detention toward refugees, and the need for a more humane approach. He pointed out that funding for refugee services had been cut by a seemingly callous government that was indifferent to the plight of refugees. These are all legitimate — if familiar — points in the debate about this topic. However he then went on to say that all of this was happening whilst we spent billions of dollars on a “fictitious war against terror”.


    • What's With The Assumption That Criticism Equals Hate?
      Take the term "Islamophobia." It is anything but phobic to fear that pernicious Islamic ideology -- which calls for the death or conversion of "the infidel" and a world without individual rights -- will have negative effects on our society and our lives.




  • Transparency/Investigative Reporting



    • South Korea presidential candidate calls for 'WikiLeaks' operation
      A South Korean presidential candidate known for his left-leaning populist views is proposing a government-run operation similar to WikiLeaks, the international organization that publishes classified information on its website.

      Lee Jae-myung, the mayor of Seongnam and a politician with the liberal Minjoo Party of Korea, appeared to be suggesting a new policy, South Korean news service Money Today reported.

      Lee, 52, said South Korean government staffers who leak information to the press should be protected before they are fired.




  • Environment/Energy/Wildlife/Nature



    • First national 'bee map' charts their decline – but hopes to stem the trend
      Scientists have compiled a map detailing wild bee activity across the US, but the picture it paints isn’t great.

      It’s no secret that bees are struggling to stay aloft. The precise reasons are up for debate, but many experts agree that a perfect storm of pressures from pesticide use, the rise of monocrop agriculture, declines in natural habitat, and global warming are squeezing many bee populations out of existence.


    • Standing Rock Under Siege: Officials Begin Arresting Protesters
      Law enforcement officials began arresting protestors at the Oceti Sakowin campsite in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, just after 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday, hours after the deadline Gov. Doug Burgum set for the camp to clear contractors can finish the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. Protestors vowed to stay as long as any Standing Rock Sioux tribe elders wanted to stay.

      Several activists and media organizations broadcast Facebook Live feeds from a scene that is shaping up to be a bitter end to months-long resistance to the pipeline. As of 6 p.m. ET, thousands of people watched Facebook Live streams that showed protesters braving the snow, sleet and rain to make one last stand against what they see as desecration of the sacred land of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. While violence appeared minimal, BuzzFeed News reported one man broke his hip while clashing with police on Highway 1806.


    • Police begin arresting, removing last DAPL protesters
      Hundreds of police in riot gear and carrying night sticks arrested several of the final Dakota Access Pipeline protesters remaining on federal land in violation of orders to vacate by the governor. Protesters consider the land to be indigenous property, Standing Rock, under treaty.


    • Last Remnants of Dakota Access Pipeline Protest Camp Are Engulfed in Flames
      Some of the last remnants of the Dakota Access pipeline protest camp went up in flames Wednesday as opponents of the project set fire to makeshift wooden housing as part of a leaving ceremony ahead of a government deadline to get off the federal land.

      The camp has been home to demonstrators for six months as they tried to thwart construction of the pipeline. Many of the protesters planned to go peacefully, but authorities were prepared to arrest others who said they would defy the deadline in a final show of dissent.

      About 150 people marched arm-in-arm out of the camp, singing and playing drums as they walked down a highway. It was not clear where they were headed. One man carried an American flag hung upside-down.






  • Finance



    • New WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement Seen Benefiting Developing Nations, Global Trade
      As of 23 February, the following WTO members have accepted the TFA: Hong Kong China, Singapore, the United States, Mauritius, Malaysia, Japan, Australia, Botswana, Trinidad and Tobago, the Republic of Korea, Nicaragua, Niger, Belize, Switzerland, Chinese Taipei, China, Liechtenstein, Lao PDR, New Zealand, Togo, Thailand, the European Union (on behalf of its 28 member states), the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Pakistan, Panama, Guyana, Côte d’Ivoire, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Kenya, Myanmar, Norway, Viet Nam, Brunei Darussalam, Ukraine, Zambia, Lesotho, Georgia, Seychelles, Jamaica, Mali, Cambodia, Paraguay, Turkey, Brazil, Macao China, the United Arab Emirates, Samoa, India, the Russian Federation, Montenegro, Albania, Kazakhstan, Sri Lanka, St. Kitts and Nevis, Madagascar, the Republic of Moldova, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Senegal, Uruguay, Bahrain, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Iceland, Chile, Swaziland, Dominica, Mongolia, Gabon, the Kyrgyz Republic, Canada, Ghana, Mozambique, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines, Nigeria, Nepal, Rwanda, Oman, Chad and Jordan.




  • AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics



    • Ellison holds edge in DNC race survey


      As Democrats head to Atlanta this weekend to vote on their party’s next chair, the race to lead the Democratic National Committee chair is coming down to its two leading candidates.

      Rep. Keith Ellison (Minn.) has the edge over former Labor secretary Tom Perez in The Hill’s new survey of DNC members. But while both men claim they are close to securing commitments from the majority of the 447 voting members, neither candidate is assured victory.

      The Hill has identified the stances of 240 DNC members, either through their private responses to a survey circulated over the past week or from public endorsements.

      Out of those who responded, Ellison leads with 105 supporters to Perez’s 57. The remaining major candidates have less than a dozen supporters each, while more than 50 DNC members remain undecided.



    • More Than 90 Percent of U.S. Opposed to Donald Trump’s Immigration Ban According to AI Research
      The vast majority of Americans are opposed to President Donald Trump’s immigration ban, according to new research that significantly contrasts with traditional polling on the subject.

      Research by BrandsEye, an artificial intelligence data analysis firm, showed that 91 percent of Americans were critical of Trump’s recent executive order on immigration in conversations on social media. The findings highlight the limitations of current opinion polls, according to the firm’s CEO, which generally found opinion to be more evenly divided. A Reuters/Ipsos poll at the end of January found that 49 percent of people agreed with the order, while 41 percent disagreed.




  • Censorship/Free Speech



    • Swedish Library Outlaws Factual Book on Migration, Offers Hitler's Mein Kampf
      Political correctness gone wrong can yield surprisingly worrying results. A Swedish library has landed in hot water for freely offering Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf to its readership, while stopping books that question Sweden's established view of immigration. This has evoked troubling hints at censorship in a country that takes pride in its openness.


    • Kenya's Censorship King: Head Of Film Board Accused Of Overstepping


      Ezekiel Mutua is the head of Kenya's film board. He's really just supposed to rate films and other media. But over the past year, he has undertaken a censorship crusade expanding his mandate into the Internet, music and even forcing the cancellation of a lesbian speed-dating event.
    • Skepta fans angered over censorship of Brit Award performance


    • Brit Awards 2017: Skepta Performance Censorship Sparks Social Media Backlash


      Brit Awards viewers were left unimpressed during Wednesday’s (22 February) live show, after Skepta’s performance was heavily censored.

      The grime artist was one of several British stars to take to the stage during this year’s ceremony, performing his song ‘Shutdown’, taken from his Mercury Prize-winning album, ‘Konnichiwa’.

      However, despite the fact that Skepta’s performance was aired after the 9pm watershed, the audio was cut several times throughout his time on stage, due to his repeated use of the word “pussy”.


    • Universities and the Threat of Censorship
      During the last few years, we have witnessed a very worrying period for free-speech within universities. In 2015 alone we witnessed 30 universities banning newspapers, 25 banning songs, 10 banning clubs or societies, and 19 worryingly banning speakers from events. Not only that, we have witnessed various feminists, human-rights advocates and LGBT-Rights defenders indicted as encroachers of acceptable propriety and consequently indicted as ‘unfit for a speaker platform’.


    • Techdirt's Readers Kept This German Comedian Out Of Prison


      Remember Jan Böhmermann? The guy who caused a major diplomatic spat back in April when he read out a satirical poem about Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the notoriously thin-skinned Turkish president, on a German comedy show?

      Usually, what happens on Central European state-run TV stays on Central European state-run TV. Not this time. “Erdogate” went massively viral: there were protests in the streets of Istanbul. Techdirt covered it at length. Even a guy named John Oliver did a segment on it.

      Now Erdogate’s back in the news, with a number of media outlets reporting that a German court just permanently enjoined Böhmermann from reciting his own poem. Sucks for him, right? Actually, no. Bad as it is, things are usually a hell of a lot worse for people in his position.


    • Another Free Speech Win In Libel Lawsuit Disguised As A Trademark Complaint
      Unless the Supreme Court decides to weigh in on this long-running SLAPP lawsuit (highly unlikely -- and unlikely to be appealed to that level), it looks like it's finally the end of the line for Dr. Edward Tobinick and his quest to silence a critic of his questionable medical practices.


    • Students speak out against censorship
      The recent incident at Guangdong’s Southern Weekly appears to be galvanizing Chinese from diverse backgrounds. Earlier today, we reported how the second open letter voicing support for the newspaper has been signed not just by journalists but by lawyers, academics, artists, writers, students, migrant workers and others.

      This afternoon another open letter surfaced on Chinese social media, this time attributed to students at Guangzhou’s Sun Yat-sen University. The letter, which includes the names of 18 signers identified as students of the university, bears the title: “Today, We Are Not Without Choices: An Independent Call from Sun Yat-sen University Students on the Southern Weekly Incident.”


    • Vice goes inside Syria to show what media censorship really looks like
      Inspired by President Trump, Kellyanne Conway and Sean Spicer, the press frequently invokes the specter of ominous reality control as exercised by the bad guys in George Orwell's "1984."

      No surprise, book sales are through the roof even if many journalists may not have actually read the classic they cite. But, forget Trump: if you want truly odious propaganda in action, which makes Conway look like a Franciscan Sister, check out Bashar al-Assad's Syria.

      A recent Vice Media dissection of the situation is part of Friday night's 5th season premiere of Vice's newsmagazine show on HBO. It's a two-part episode, featuring "Assad's Syria," which is fronted by correspondent Isobel Yeung, and "Cost of Climate Change," hosted by Vice founder Shane Smith.

      It's all very strong, especially Yeung's effort that entailed dangerous reporting throughout Syria. For sure, there has been great reporting in the country. But this goes well beyond much of the sporadic American media accounts, which have tended to focus on the battle over Aleppo and the nation's unceasing humanitarian disaster resulting from a civil war with atrocities on all sides.


    • Music Industry Wants Piracy Filters, No Takedown Whack-a-Mole


      A group of prominent music groups including the RIAA has asked the Copyright Office to help solve the "broken" and "ineffective" DMCA law. The current takedown provision results in a never-ending game of whack-a-mole, they say, arguing that automated piracy filters are the way forward.


    • Google Report: 99.95 Percent Of DMCA Takedown Notices Are Bot-Generated Bullshit Buckshot
      Google, being the search giant that it is, has been banging the drum for some time about the silly way the DMCA has been abused by those that wield it like a cudgel. Here at Techdirt, we too have described the many ways that the well-intentioned DMCA and the way its implemented by service providers has deviated from its intended purpose. Still, the vast majority of our stories discuss deliberate attempts by human beings to silence critics and competition using the takedown process. Google, on the other hand, has been far more focused on statistics for DMCA takedown notices that show wanton disregard for what it was supposed to be used for entirely. That makes sense of course, as the abuse of the takedown process is a burden on the search company. In that first link, for instance, Google noted that more than half the takedown notices it was receiving in 2009 were mere attempts by one business targeting a competitor, while over a third of the notices contained nothing in the way of a valid copyright dispute.


    • Google: 99.95% of Recent ‘Trusted’ DMCA Notices Were Bogus


      In comments submitted to a U.S. Copyright Office consultation, Google has given the DMCA a vote of support, despite widespread abuse. Noting that the law allows for innovation and agreements with content creators, Google says that 99.95% of URLs it was asked to take down last month didn't even exist in its search indexes.


    • Why The DMCA's Notice & Takedown Already Has First Amendment Problems... And RIAA/MPAA Want To Make That Worse
      The Copyright Office's study concerning Section 512 of the DMCA (the notice-and-takedown/safe harbors part of the law) had its second comment period end this week -- which is why you're seeing stories about how the RIAA is suddenly talking about piracy filters and notice-and-staydown. Via our think tank arm, the Copia Institute we filed our own comments, pointing out the already problematic First Amendment issues with the way the current notice-and-takedown system works. Remember, there's a very high standard set by the Supreme Court before you can take down expressive content.


    • New MTRCB chief says no to censorship
      Don’t be fooled by the cool and calm demeanor, Rachel Arenas is tough as nails and seems raring to pursue her new job as the chair of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB).

      At first glance, Arenas, a former representative of Pangasinan, seems more than primed to face the intrigues that come with the territory.

      [...]

      A long-term objective is to “revisit the law” governing the MTRCB. Specifically, she is looking into the different bills that have been filed in Congress, that pertain to the board’s mandate. “Our Technical Working Group is in the process of reviewing the bills and drafting our comments,” she explained.


    • Judge Pauses Enforcement of IMDb Age Censorship Law


    • Judge Pauses Enforcement of IMDb Actor Age Censorship Law


    • Judge blocks California law that allows actors to delete their age from website


    • ‘Rosset: My Life in Publishing and How I Fought Censorship’


    • Censorship and art don’t mix


    • London's first alt-right art show since Trump's election to be met with protests


    • Benefactor of controversial LD50 art gallery denies interest or involvement in its activities




  • Privacy/Surveillance



    • Sen. Wyden Wants Answers From New DHS Head, Introducing Legislation To Create Warrant Requirement For Border Phone Searches
      There aren't many rights extended to anyone in the "Constitution-free zones" we like to call "borders." You may have rights 100 miles inland, but the government's needs and wants outweigh citizens' and non-citizens' rights wherever immigration officers roam. According to the Supreme Court, warrants are required for cell phone searches. But neither the Constitution nor Supreme Court rulings apply within 100 miles of the border, where the government's needs and wants are considered more important than the protections they can avail themselves of everywhere else in the country.

      Senator Ron Wyden is looking to change that. Rather than cede more ground to the rights-swallowing concept of "national security," Wyden is looking to change the laws governing the "Constitution-free zones."


    • Federal Bill Introduced To Add A Warrant Requirement To Stingray Deployment
      House Oversight Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz, along with his Senatorial counterpart Ron Wyden, is tackling something he promised to act on after he was finished excoriating the leaky Office of Personnel Management for ruining the lives of millions of Americans: Stingray devices.
    • Pentagon mulling split of NSA, Cyber Command


    • Peter Thiel's Palantir allegedly helped NSA spy programme XKeyscore, new Snowden documents reveal
    • Peter Thiel company reportedly helped NSA spy program
    • Palantir has a couple of new software for spy agencies, here are some details
    • New details emerge about Palantir’s custom software for spy agencies


    • NSA denies ‘blanket’ spying on spectators and athletes at the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City


      The National Security Agency has denied it indiscriminately spied on spectators, athletes and others who attended the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002.

      The denial came in a document filed last week in a U.S. District Court in Utah, where a group of Salt Lake City residents filed a complaint in 2015 alleging the U.S. government engaged “in widespread, indiscriminate communications surveillance, interception, and analysis, without warrants and without probable cause” during the Games that took place just months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
    • NSA denies spying on everyone in SLC during the 2002 Olympics


    • Coalition Slams DHS Plans To Demand Social Media Passwords
      Starting last summer, we noted that the Department of Homeland Security had quietly tested the waters to expand the information it requested of travelers entering the United States, to "optionally" include social media handles. By December it was officially in place. And then, just days into the new administration, the idea was floated to expand this program even further to demand passwords to social media accounts.
    • Tinder boss predicts AI will find your matches within five years
      Sorry about that. But more and more it seems that developers are looking at ways to use AI to find you that special someone. 420 Friends, which launched this week is a dating app that specialises in finding you that special someone.


    • The Ousting Of Trump's National Security Advisor Shows Just How Dangerous 'Lawful' Domestic Surveillance Is
      Those who thought the domestic surveillance Ed Snowden exposed was perfectly acceptable and lawful are finding it much harder to stomach with Trump in charge. The Lawfare blog, which routinely hosts articles supportive of government surveillance activities, has taken on a new tone over the past few months. The lesson being learned: if a power can only be trusted in certain people's hands, then it really can't be trusted in anyone's. This belated realization is better than none, but one wonders if the drastic change in tone would have followed an election that put Hillary Clinton in the White House.

      That's not to say the first month of Trump's presidency has borne any resemblance to a "peaceful transition of power." The federal government isn't just leaking. It's hemorrhaging. Underneath the recent ouster of Mike Flynn, Trump's former National Security Advisor, is something disturbing.

      What's disturbing isn't the surveillance -- although in "normal" circumstances it might be. Flynn was dumped because recorded phone calls captured him discussing sanctions with Russian officials. This domestic surveillance isn't unheard of. The fact that this information -- including the content of the calls -- was leaked to the public is more notable.
    • When the NSA Feared Psychics Could Make Cities Lost in Time and Space
      A classified government document opens with “an odd sequence of events relating to parapsychology has occurred within the last month” and concluded with an alarming question about psychics nuking cities so that they became lost in time and space. If this sounds like a plot out of science fiction, it is - but it’s also a NSA memo from 1977.

      The first “event” raised by the NSA note is a CIA report which mentioned KGB research into parapsychology. According to this, the KGB used hobbyists and non-governmental researchers to talk to western scientists. This allowed the KGB to collect useful information without putting themselves into a position to accidentally leak confidential information to westerners. According to the NSA note, this tactic yielded “high grade western scientific data.”


    • NSA will continue to disclose zero-day bugs under Trump... for now [Ed: Repeating what the NSA says (stenography) even though it is already, under Obama too, hiding serious flaws and exploits these]




  • Civil Rights/Policing



    • Amos Yee blames Donald Trump for his extended incarceration in U.S. jail
      Yee made his first appearance at an immigration court in Chicago on 30 Jan. The blogger claimed that the American authorities backtracked on their promise to release him from the American jail after his first hearing. His next hearing is set for 7 March.

      Yee landed in Chicago O-Hare Airport on 16 Dec with a tourist visa and was detained by the US authorities when they discovered text messages between him and a US-based Singaporean activist, Melissa Chen, about his bid for political asylum in America.


    • PNG Customary landowner: SABL exploits human rights
      Customary landowner Anna Sipona from Malmal Village in west Pomio said the SABL is a strange concept to the people of Pomio that promotes human rights abuse.

      Representing the silent majority in the affected villages in west Pomio, Sipona said the SABL issue is not just about land and logging but about the human rights of women and children.


    • Need for PNG parliament to enact whistle blower legislation
      Justice Ambeng Kandakasi highlighted this recently when handing down a decision on a case involving a “whistle blower” who was sacked by his superiors.


    • Danish man who burned Quran charged with blasphemy
      A man who filmed himself burning the Quran has become the first person to be charged under Denmark's blasphemy law in 46 years. The 42-year-old filmed himself burning a copy of Islam's holy book in his back yard in December 2015. He then posted the video on the anti-Islamic Facebook group, "Yes to freedom - no to Islam" along with the words, “Consider your neighbour: it stinks when it burns."


    • Another 'Terrorist' Swept Up By The FBI, Which Had To Purchase $20 Of 'Terrorist' Supplies To Keep The 'Plan' In Motion
      Perhaps no entity generates more fake news than the FBI's counterterrorism unit. Several times a year, a press release is issued announcing the bust of a so-called terrorist. Almost invariably, the "terrorist" has been handcrafted through the relentless intercession of undercover FBI agents.

      [...]

      Undercover agents began working with/on Hester shortly after this arrest. Seizing on his anti-government social media posts [good lord], the agents told Hester they could put him in touch with someone with direct terrorist connections. This "direct connection" was just another FBI agent. It was the FBI that suggested acquiring weapons. And it was the FBI who chose to take Hester seriously, despite his nonexistent terrorist group ("the Lion Guard") sporting a name that had been pulled from a cartoon his children watched.

      It was also an FBI agent who suggested that even thinking about planning a terrorist attack was an irrevocable act -- and that entertaining second thoughts about committing acts of violence would be rewarded with acts of violence.




  • Internet Policy/Net Neutrality



    • Missouri The Latest State To Let Telecom Monopolies Write Awful, Protectionist State Law
      21 states have passed laws hamstringing the rights of local communities when it comes to improving broadband infrastructure. Usually dressed up as breathless concern about the taxpayer -- these bills have one purpose: protect the telecom mono/duopoly status quo -- and the campaign contributions it represents -- from the will of the people. Countless towns and cities have built their own next-generation networks, usually because nobody else would. But these bills, usually ghost written by ISPs for politicians with ALEC's help, either ban locals from making this decision for themselves, or saddle these operations with enough restrictions to make them untenable.




  • DRM



    • Mashable Says You Shouldn't Own What You Buy Because You Might Hurt Yourself
      The news site Mashable has apparently decided that you, the general public, are simply too dumb to actually own the stuff you thought you bought because you might just injure yourself. We've written about so-called "right to repair" laws and why they're so important. There are a variety of issues, but the most basic one here is about property rights. If you buy something, it's supposed to be yours. It doesn't remain the property of whoever first made it. And they shouldn't then be able to deny you the ability to tinker with, modify, or repair what you bought. However, Mashable's Lance Ulanoff (last seen here being completely clueless about the importance of anonymity online because he, personally, never could see a reason why someone might want to speak truth to power without revealing who they are), has decided that because you might be too dumb to properly repair stuff, the entire "right to repair" concept "is a dumb idea."

      The article can basically be summed up as "I have a friend, and her iPhone wasn't repaired properly, so no one should be able to repair your iPhone but Apple." Really.




  • Intellectual Monopolies



    • Copyrights



      • China's Latest Target For Online Crackdown: Live-Streaming Foreigners
        Perhaps the Chinese government feels that it has the domestic population sufficiently under control now that it can move on to tightening up the rules for foreign visitors.


      • 8 things hidden in 400 pages of copyright secrets
        Much of the content, including arguments from key players, is redacted.


      • Former RIAA Executive Attacks Fair Use


        This week has been dubbed fair use week by a whole bunch of organizations (mostly universities and libraries) as a chance to celebrate the usefulness and wonder that is fair use in protecting free speech, enabling creativity and inspiring innovation. As we've said many times in the past, fair use is an incredibly important concept -- if often misunderstood -- so it's good to see these organizations working together to better educate the public on why fair use is so key.

        However, not everyone is so enthralled with fair use. The MPAA and RIAA are apparently so frightened by fair use that they, and some of its friends, have been posting weirdly uninformed screeds against fair use over the past few days. Some are more silly than others (such as one that tries to claim that the MPAA has never been against fair use, ignoring that the MPAA's long-time boss Jack Valenti once declared -- totally incorrectly -- that fair use wasn't in the law), but let's focus on the one that comes straight from a former RIAA top exec.








← UPC Roundup: War on the Appeal Boards, British Motion Against the UPC, Fröhlinger Recalled, and Fake News About Spain | The Sickness of the EPO – Part IV: Cruel Management That Deliberately Attacks the Sick and the Weak →

Recent Techrights' Posts

Biggest "AI Companies" (Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft) Borrowed (Additional Debt) About $100,000,000,000 in a Year
Who will be held accountable for all this?
In 2009 Microsoft Was Valued at ~150 Billion Dollars, Now They Tell Us Microsoft Lost ~1,000 Billion Dollars in Value. Does That Make Sense?
Or Microsoft lost 700 billion dollars in "value" in less than two weeks
Microsoft Stock Crashed When Alleged Vista 11 Numbers Disclosed
And last summer Microsoft indicated that it had lost 400 million Windows users
It's Not About Speed, It's About the Message (or Its Depth)
Better to write news than to just link to news if there's commentary that the news may merit
 
Converting FOSDEM Talk on Software Patents in Europe Into Formats That Work for "FOS" and Don't Have Software Patent Traps
transcoded version of the video
Links 07/02/2026: More White House Racism, "Europe Accuses TikTok of Addictive Design"
Links for the day
Silent Mass Layoffs: It's Not the Revolution, It's the Loophole and the Hack ("Low Performers" or "Underperformers")
Layoffs by another approach
Mark Shuttleworth (MS) Pays Salaries to Microsoft (MS) Employees
Canonical selling Microsoft
Links 07/02/2026: Windows TCO Rising, Lousy Patents Invalided
Links for the day
Microsoft Leadership: Stop Taxing Us, Tax Only Poor People
Does Microsoft create jobs?
In Case You've Missed It (ICYMI), Google's Debt More Than Doubled in a Year
Wait till it "monetises" billions of GMail users with slop
PIPs and Silent Layoffs at IBM (and Red Hat) Still Going on, It's "Forever Layoffs" (to Skirt the WARN Act)
American workers out
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 06, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, February 06, 2026
Stressful Times for Team Campinos ("Alicante Mafia") at Europe's Second-Largest Institution
Keep pushing
Growing Discrimination in the European Patent Office (EPO)
it's a race to the bottom, basically
Google News Drowning in (or Actively Promoting) Slopfarms Again
LLM slop is a nuisance
Gemini Links 07/02/2026: "Choosing a License for Literary Work" and "Social Media Is Not Social Networking (Anymore)"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/02/2026: Git and Email Patches; MNT Pocket Reform
Links for the day
Geminispace Net Growth in 2026 About a Capsule a Day
A pace like this means net gain of ~300 per year, i.e. about the same as last year
Benjamin Henrion Warned About the Illegal and Unconstitutional Unified Patent Court (UPC) in FOSDEM 2026
Listen to Benjamin Henrion
Economies Crashing Not Because of Slop Improving 'Efficiency' (That's a False Excuse) and 'Expensive' (Read: Qualified) Workers Discarded in Race to the Bottom
Actual cocaine addicts are pushing out moral people
IBM's CEO Speaks of Layoffs, Resorts to Mythical (False) Excuses
This has nothing to do with slop
Links 06/02/2026: Voter Intimidation and Press Shutdowns in US, Web Traffic Warped by LLM Sludge
Links for the day
Does Linux Torvalds Regret Having Dinners With Bill 'Russian Girls' Gates?
See, the rules that govern the Linux Foundation and its big sponsors aren't the same rules that apply to all of us
IBM: Cheapening Code, Cheapening Staff, Cheapening Everything
IBM's management runs IBM like it's a local branch of McDonald's. IBM is a junk company with morbid innards.
GNU/Linux Measured at 6% in One of the World's Largest Nations
Democratic Republic Of The Congo
Linux Foundation Operative Says We and Our Software All "Owe an Enormous Debt of Gratitude" to a Software Patents Reinforcer
The only true solution is to entirely get rid of all software patents
Mobbing at the European Patent Office (EPO) - Part IV - EPO Can Get Away With Murders, Suicide Clusters, and Systematic and Prolonged Bullying by 'Team Campinos' ("Alicante Mafia" as Insiders Call It)
Nobody in the Council or the EU/EC/EP gives a damn as long as laws are broken to fabricate 'growth'
Jeff Bezos Isn't Just Killing the Washington Post, He's Killing Thousands of News Sites/Newsrooms (in Dozens of Languages) That Rely on It for Many Decades Already
Not just slopfarms; even the Ukraine-based reporters are culled by Bezos, who's looking to please the dictators of the world
Central Staff Committee Confronted António Campinos for Giving His Cocaine-Addicted Friend Over 100,000 Euros to Do Nothing, Just Pretend to be Ill, While Cutting the Salaries of Everybody Else
"On the agenda: Amicale framework & Financial assistance for courses"
How to Win Lawsuits in 5 Simple Steps
Keep issuing threats every week and send 60 kilograms of legal papers to the target
More Than 99% of "AI" Companies Aren't AI, They're Pure BS
We need to discard those stupid debates about "AI" and reject media that gets paid to participate in such overt narrative control (manipulation like The Register MS)
AI Used to Save Lives, Now "AI" is a Grifting Scheme That Burns the Planet and Will Crash the Economy
What the media calls "AI" (it gets paid to call it that) is the same stuff that could instead be dubbed "algorithms"
Living in Freedom When 'False Flag Operations' Like EFF Get Captured by Billionaires to Take Freedom Away
There are many ways to think of Software Freedom
Amutable is a Microsoft Siege Against Freedom in GNU/Linux, Just Like the People Who Brought You 'Secure Boot' Controlled by Microsoft
Do whatever is possible to avoid Amutable and its "products"
Growing Focus on Publication
Over the past ~10 days we always served more than a million Web hits per day
"Going to be a large number of Microsoft layoffs announced soon"
Everybody knows a giant wave of layoffs is coming Microsoft's way
End of the 'GPU Bubble' and NVIDIA Finally Admits It Won't Bail Out Microsoft OpenAI Anymore
circular financing (financial/accounting fraud)
Corrupt Media Won't Hold Accountable Rich People for Role in Pedophilia
Journalistic misconduct or malpractice is a real thing
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 05, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, February 05, 2026
EPO Management ("Alicante Mafia") Not Properly Sharing Information on Scale of Strikes by EPO Staff
disproportionate (double) deductions in salaries against people who participate in strikes, which are protected by law
Gemini Links 06/02/2026: Slop/Microslop, Home Assistant, and Valid Ex Commands
Links for the day
Blackmail evidence: Debian social engineering exposed in ClueCon 2024 talk on politics
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Bitcoin crash: opportunity or the end game?
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Changes at the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)
SRA is basically a waste of money
Claims That IBM Will Lay Off 20% (or 15%) of Its Workforce This Year Unless It Finds a Way to Push Them All Out by Threats, Shame, Guilt
Where are the articles about IBM layoffs?
IBM Isn't a Serious Company Anymore, It's a Ponzi Scheme Operated by a Clique and It Misuses Companies It Acquires to Prop Up or Legitimise the Scheme
IBM seems like it's nothing but a "Scheme"
Google News Drowning in Slop About "Linux" (Slopfarms Galore)
Google should know better than to link to any of these slopfarms, but today's Google is itself a pusher of slop
Links 05/02/2026: EU Commission Gutting Net Neutrality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/02/2026: NixOS Books and Monochrome Emojis
Links for the day
Links 05/02/2026: Canadian Government Uses US LLMs to Override Expert Opinions, NVIDIA Troubles Due to Enablement of Mass Plagiarism ('Piracy') Misleadingly Obscured as "Hey Hi"
Links for the day
Explaining the Letter From JUDGE SYKES FRIXOU, Threatening Me Around the Time GNOME's Nat Friedman Lost His CEO Job at Microsoft GitHub and His Best Friend Got Arrested for Strangulation
this letter (with annotation) is critical
Linuxiac Not Rehabilitated, It's Still Full of LLM Slop (Part of a Trend)
The Web as a resource/source of information is perishing
"Sponsored by Azul" to Write Fake 'Article' About Azul, Quoting Azul Itself
The "journalism" industry [sic] became so utterly corrupt
JuristGate is for sale: three billion Swiss francs for a domain name
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Like Microsoft and IBM, the 'Alicante Mafia'-Governed EPO Does PIPs Nowadays (at the EPO, It's "Professional Incompetence Procedure")
So "PIPs" are definitely in the EPO and we saw letters sent to staff
Time for Change, More New Articles, Less Curation
The oligarchy wants to gut the real press and replace media with slop and social control media (or social control media with slop in it, i.e. their own voices, mechanised)
Gemini Links 05/02/2026: Coercion, Antibiotics, and LVDT Project
Links for the day
Almost 1,600 EPO Employees Went on Strike Last Week
There is another strike coming 2.5 weeks from now
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 04, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, February 04, 2026