Yale A2K: Introduction + measuring A2K

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The first day of the Yale A2K conference saw a great many interesting presentations. Luckily, most of them are summarised in the conference wiki, thanks to the thrifty students doing this important legwork.

For example, Jack Balkin gave an overview of the many different topics that the slogan "A2K" refers to.  Davinia Ovett showed how Access to Knowledge relates to human rights – and why the protection of intellectual monopoly powers (IMPs) is not a human right.

The following panel I attended was about measuring Access to Knowledge. This is an important one: You can’t manage what you can’t measure.

The upshot is that presently there is a lack of economic theory upon which to build research. This is being worked out. Researchers will need to focus on a micro-level perspective. It’s no use to describe the situation of access to knowledge on  a country-by-country basis, when there are enormous differences and inequalities within each country.

 While the Yale Law school with its great resources provides great organisation, there is one thing I am sort of missing: As far as I can tell, there is noone attending from the conservative side of the debate.  This usually livens the discussion even more.

But then, there’s no lack of opposition in the world outside the conference venue.

 

Yale A2K rocks – where to get the details

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The Yale A2K conference has started today in the afternoon, and what a whale of a conference it is.

Even during the opening panel and a short coffee break, I have already run into a number of people I was (and am) extremely keen to meet. Academics such as Yochai Benkler and Sisule Musungu mingle with high-level activists like Jamie Love, as well as politicians – and a good number of really bright students.

So far, the panels have been really good. Concise and high-class presentations, bright questions. This is going to be a lot of fun.

Since I actually want to follow the conference, I won’t summarise each presentation or panel. There are others who do this much better. The organisers have done great work, which includes a conference wiki that is being updated as the conference proceeds. (Great! Every conference should have that.)

Also, William New of IP Watch is here. Though his article is not yet online as of this posting, he will surely be covering this event in his usual excellent and detailed fashion.

Conference related information can also be found at Lawmeme.

Run-up to Yale A2K conference

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Today I arrived in New Haven, CT, USA, where I will be attending the Yale Access to Knowledge conference. The schedule promises very interesting panels and discussions.

I am excited about the opportunity to personally meet some of the most forward-thinking people in copyright and patent reform. On Sunday, I will be moderating a panel on "Licensing Frameworks for A2K".

Besides that, I will of course be blogging the conference.

The conference will start tomorrow (Friday) afternoon, presumably amid some degree of confusion: Tomorrow, Hu Jintao, the president of the People’s Republic of China, will be visiting Yale. That means security hassles of all sorts, as well as demonstrations.

Speaking of security hassles: As I passed through US immigration checks today, having answered the same nonsensical questions over and over again ("What is the purpose of your visit?"), I was of course fingerprinted.

While being submitted to this treatment normally reserved for criminal suspects, I could not help but hum the last lines of the US national anthem:

‘Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

 

Growing resistance to excessive German copyright reform

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As heise.de reports (German), the parliamentary group of the German Social Democrats is getting queasy about the draft copyright reform. The government recently agreed on a draft.

The concerns voiced by centre-left MPs are not for the faint of heart. They recommend that the copying of works for private purposes should remain exempt from punishment.

They are also toying with the idea that the protection of rights-holders might actually come with obligations, such as enabling the "technology-neutral" use of "content" (presumably referring to having online music work in other players than just iTunes).

While this has the conservative Christian Democrats and the rights-holders lobbies going up the wall, some of the most inane provisions remain in place: Namely, the law is going to severly restrict what libraries can do with the media they have bought.

Why the publisher’s guild considers it a good idea to keep readers away from books is beyond me. The heise.de article quotes a nice statistic: People who use libraries regularly buy nine books per year on average. People who don’t buy a full 1.1.

It seems that the publishers have hired the music industry’s marketing consultants.

 

‘Open Source DRM’ vs. Free Software: RMS, Lessig in Register

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The Register is running a nice, long article on Free Software and DRM. It has Richard Stallman’s view on DRM in general, as well as Lawrence Lessig’s sort-of-endorsement of Sun’s "open DRM" in particular.

 While the matter under discussion is hardly breaking news, the article sums the problem up nicely.

Those who prefer their information only moderately pre-chewed might want to read Ciaran O’Riordan’s summary of DRM and the GPLv3. (He has another one of those on patents right here.)
 

New EDRIgram

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The new EDRIgram is out. Contents are:

1. Article 29 asks for safeguards on data retention
2. US wants access to retained traffic data
3. Free parental control software in France
4. Changes in the Slovenian Intelligence Agency Act
5. Lie detectors in Russian airports
6. UK teachers are spied in classrooms
7. Legal actions against file-sharers in Europe

 

My fabourite is No. 5. Dig this:

Meant to identify terrorists or other types of criminals, a lie-detecting
device developed in Israel, known as "truth verifier," will be first
introduced in Moscow’s Domodedovo airport as early as July. The technology,
already used by UK insurance companies, is said to be able to detect answers
coming from imagination or memory.

And you thought that being fingerprinted upon entering the US of A was a pain.

New prose highlight from Tom Giovanetti

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My favourite think tank, Tom "I won’t say who pays my bills" Giovanetti, has taken the time to do a little writing on the Yale A2K conference coming up in two weeks. 

This blog entry shows Tom at the top of his game. Don’t miss it.

Among about a bazillion other things, Tom takes issue with the FSF Europe lanyard I gave him at the last WIPO PCDA meeting:

  Expect to see lots of laptops running Linux, Free Software nametag lanyards, "A2K Now" tee shirts and other shallow symbolism of the Free Culture movement.

I’d really love to know if he’s ever used that lanyard for purposes other than strangling the neighbour’s dog.

Of course, Tom is an absolutely legitimate representative of creator’s interests. After all, he is an author himself, who has written this little world-changing book.
 

Deutschlandradio streams in Ogg Vorbis

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To my great joy, today I discovered that two of my favourite radio stations – Deutschlandradio Kultur, and Deutschlandfunk – have recently started streaming their broadcasts in the truly free Ogg Vorbis format. (Better quality, too 🙂

Since these are public radio stations, they’re not just doing their listeners a favour. They are in fact fulfilling their obligation to make their broadcasts available to the public, as in "really everyone". I hope other radio and TV stations will follow them soon.

I’m glad that I can finally get this dish of my internet radio diet without suffering the sour taste of patent-encumbered mp3. How about writing them a nice email about it? It’s good to be able, for once, to commend instead of criticise.

WIPO broadcasting / webcasting treaty: Draft text published

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As Thiru reports, WIPO has published a draft text for the proposed broadcast treaty. This treaty, if adopted, is going to establish a new layer of monopoly powers. Working somewhat like copyright, these monopoly powers would be given to a broadcasting institution merely for broadcasting something.

Weirdly, there is the idea of a "webcasting right": A monopoly that would be given to someone for spreading content on the web.  

Richard Stallman has aptly described (.pdf, see p. 6) these powers as "skunk odor powers":

So what kind of power is it?  I think it is like the power of skunk odor: it sticks
to whatever it touches, and once it’s on you, you practically can’t get it off.  So
how about "skunk odor power"?

Well, what would this power look like? Would I be given a sort of copyright on Richard’s quote above, just for redistributing it here? As I said: Weird. 

Though this "webcasting right" is only a voluntary opt-in, its adoption by a few major players (EU, US, Japan) would in practice make it mandatory for everyone. 

Now Thiru tells me that WIPO has published two texts: One "Draft Basic Proposal" and one "Working Paper". The first one is the "Winners" paper, where the things go that the WIPO Secretariat wants in the treaty. The second is the "graveyard" paper, where all the ideas go that don’t suit the Secretariat (or those most effectively lobbying them).

There seems to be little logic behind the decision about which idea was put into which paper – unless one would assume that anything the US wants goes in. Proposals by Brazil and Chile, concerning the protection of competition and the public domain, didn’t make the winners paper.

IP Watch on horrors of German copyright law

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The usually excellent IP Watch is running a story on the effects of the proposed new German copyright law. The article centers on the chilling effects the draft law would have on research.

One researcher’s scenario: 

 “I will not be able to just use our highly sophisticated university
network to read that publication,” said Rainer Kuhlen, professor of
information science at the University of Constance and member of the
German UNESCO Commission [UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization]. “Instead, if the draft German copyright law is enacted,
I have to leave my office, drive there and do it on the spot, possibly
only to see that I even cannot print out a copy.”

A publisher rep responds: 

“Publishers shouldn’t be expropriated for the sole benefit of public
research,” says Pascal Oberndoerfer, lawyer at the Institute of
Copyright and Media Law in Munich. “But there is a legitimate interest
of researchers to use a book they bought via their intranet.”

<rant> Publishers spreading idiotic talk of "expropriation" should indeed be expropriated and left to stare at the empty walls of a white room in a straightjacket until they have regained their senses far enough to accept the fact that people reading books are not their enemies, but their customers.</rant>

Unfortunately, I take it that the current draft is pretty final. Since Germany has no opposition to speak of at the moment, I’m not counting on too many changes. So we will get an impractical law, with the consequence that people will get used to breaking it.