End intellectual property – Copyrights, patents and trademarks are all important, but the term ‘intellectual property’ is nonsensical and pernicious “There are four areas of US federal law linked under the rubric of ‘intellectual property’ that we ought to keep separate in our minds. In an essay published in The Politics of Law (2010), Keith Aoki… Continue Reading
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Category Archives: Intellectual Property
Will Blockchain Revolutionize Scholarly Journal Publishing?
The Chronicle of Higher Education: “Since the 1990s, some academic netizens have predicted that open access will upend scholarly journal publishing, yet an oligopoly still dominates the $25-billion industry. Orvium, a European start-up, recently joined those taking on the giant players. It offers a publishing and business plan based on blockchain — a coding structure… Continue Reading
WIPO Lex provides free of charge access to legal information on intellectual property
“WIPO Lex is a global database that provides free of charge access to legal information on intellectual property (IP) such as treaties administered by WIPO, other IP-related treaties, and laws and regulations of some 200 countries. WIPO Lex aims to achieve the objective set forth in Article 4(vi) of the WIPO Convention, that is, WIPO “shall assemble and… Continue Reading
In Groundbreaking Decision, Feds Say Hacking DRM to Fix Your Electronics Is Legal
Motherboard: “The new exemptions are a major win for the right to repair movement and give consumers wide latitude to legally repair the devices they own. The Librarian of Congress and US Copyright Office just proposed new rules that will give consumers and independent repair experts wide latitude to legally hack embedded software on their… Continue Reading
Publishers Escalate Legal Battle Against ResearchGate
Inside Higher Education: American Chemical Society and Elsevier are again suing academic networking site ResearchGate in an attempt to stop it distributing copyrighted research papers. “ResearchGate, a popular for-profit academic social network that makes it easy to find and download research papers, is facing increasing pressure from publishers to change the way it operates. On… Continue Reading
Open Data, Grey Data, and Stewardship: Universities at the Privacy Frontier
Borgman, C. L. (2018). Open Data, Grey Data, and Stewardship: Universities at the Privacy Frontier. Berkeley Technology Law Journal, 33(2), 287–336. “As universities recognize the inherent value in the data they collect and hold, they encounter unforeseen challenges in stewarding those data in ways that balance accountability, transparency, and protection of privacy, academic freedom, and… Continue Reading
Image rights metadata in Google Images
Google Blog: “As part of a collaboration between Google, photo industry consortium CEPIC, and IPTC, the global technical standards body for the news media, you can now access rights-related image metadata in Google Images. It’s traditionally been difficult to know the creator of images on the web, as well as who might own the rights.… Continue Reading
Security Risks of Government Hacking
Schneider on Security: “Some of us — myself included — have proposed lawful government hacking as an alternative to backdoors. A new report from the Center of Internet and Society looks at the security risks of allowing government hacking. They include: Disincentive for vulnerability disclosure Cultivation of a market for surveillance tools Attackers co-opt hacking… Continue Reading
The Story of the American Inventor Denied a Patent Because He Was a Slave
The Story of the American Inventor Denied a Patent Because He Was a Slave, Paleofuture (Aug. 28, 2018) Brian L. Frye “The world of invention is famous for its patent disputes. But what happens when your dispute wasn’t with another inventor but whether the Patent Office saw you as a person at all? In 1864, a… Continue Reading
Federal judge blocks publication of 3-D printed gun blueprints
Washington Post: “A federal judge ruled in favor of more than a dozen attorneys general on Monday to block the release of blueprints for 3-D printed firearms online. The Seattle court order effectively criminalized publication of the gun design files, banning Texas-based company Defense Distributed from posting them on the Internet. The decision presents a new hurdle in the company’s fight to make… Continue Reading
Intellectual Property Fair Use For Me, But Not For Thee
Above the Law – Fair use is for everyone and benefits rightholders just as it benefits consumers. “A common misconception about fair use in copyright law is that it is relied upon solely by consumers. The reality, however, is that everyone uses fair use, including large rightholders like movie studios and publishers. Even while rightholders… Continue Reading
New on LLRX – The 6 Types Of Cyber Attacks To Protect Against In 2018
Via LLRX – The 6 Types Of Cyber Attacks To Protect Against In 2018 – Lizzie Kardon’s article is a timely guide to the different methods by which cyber attacks are launched and the tools used to deliver them. As the goals and objectives for such attacks differ, it is critical to employ accurate and… Continue Reading
