Cold Pizza Piracy

While waiting for inspiration to write my next article, I stumbled upon this ColdPizza Parody by Scott Lazar and others. I can’t help but think that translating a normal license to another area ends up as a hilarious parody makes a somewhat sorry statement about the current state of the "cultural industry."

As usual, the comments of the readers are adding a lot to the experience. This is a reaction to having admitted making a Pizza omelette:out of Cold Pizza:

    You will pay dearly for that, Mr. RealProgrammer. The PIAA (Pizza Industry Ass. of America) does not find it amusing that you would pirate the hard work of their members. Creative people making almost minimum wage put many years of total effort into that recipe, and they have a right to insist that you only use the ingrediants as intended. The PIAA expects you to identify yourself and pay prompt restitution forthwith. Failure to do so will result in legal action against you and any of your friends or family with which you have shared in this abominable piracy of fine pizza ingrediants. Our legal firm, "Dewey, Cheetam, and Howe" will be in contact with you as soon as they can compel your grocery store to identify you. We believe our motto says it all: "The PIAA: All your pizza are belong to us!" 

 

I think their correct name is "United Pizza Industry Technologies of America (PITA)", though. 😉

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EU Database Directive: Hooray to faith-based legislation?

In February 1996, aEU directive called "Directive on the legal protection of Databases" was adopted to create a copyright-like 15 year monopoly on databases to "to protect their investment of time, money and effort, irrespective of whether the database is in itself innovative."

Roughly ten years later, the European Commission published an evaluation of the effect this directive has on databases. In their press release from 12 December 2005, they state:

    On the basis of the information available, the evaluation finds that the economic impact of the 'sui generis' right on database production is unproven. However, the European publishing industry, consulted in the online survey, argued that 'sui generis' protection is crucial to the continued success of their activities. In addition, most respondents to the online survey believe that the 'sui generis' right has brought about legal certainty, reduced the costs associated with the protection of databases, created more business opportunities and facilitated the marketing of databases. 

 

So what is going on here?

The evaluation indeed states that in 2004, the EU database production has fallen back to pre-Directive, in other words pre-Internet levels. It also shows that the US database industry, unencumbered by a similar Directive, has grown faster in the same time. Unsurprisingly, the database industry that survived the Directive and can now use it to lock-out competition are arguing wildly in favor of the Directive and its necessity. So the evaluation also says that since undoing the Directive might cause a discussion, it might be better to not touch it.

In essence, the conclusion of the evaluation could be reformulated as:

    "This has harmed our Database industry, but the remaining players like the quiet that not having competition gives them; and they have enough money to be listened to. Additionally, if we undid the Directive, people might lose their faith in the ‘Church of IPR‘ and its most fundamental belief: ‘More Monopoly equals More Innovation.’ We might then have some explaining to do on other Directives, like IPRED2 and the next attempt for software patents that we are going to start sometime soon. So better not touch it."

 

Now the European Commission is soliciting comments from "stakeholders" until 12 March 2006, a fact that James Boyle celebrates in his article for the Financial Times as a step to sanity. The question is: Will these comments see more recognition than those solicited on software patents, which were essentially ignored?

To do him justice: James Boyle also says that his cheers are limited because "while the report is a dramatic improvement, traces of the Commission’s older predilection for faith-based policy and voodoo economics still remain."

Does anyone still remember the TV show "X-Files"? One indeed cannot help but wonder whether the people behind the Database Directive have this poster on their wall:
[ I want to Believe ]

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COLDPLAY hates Mozart, the damn pirate!

Digital Restrictions Management, as the experts call it, or DRM for short, is working hard to demotivate people from giving money to the musicians they listen to, as David Pakman, President & CEO, eMusic.com Inc.; Managing Director, Dimensional Associates, Inc.. recently explained in his article on GROKLAW. The article explains in relatively simple terms why DRM ultimately is a bad idea for musicians and the music industry. The Register also features an article "Music sales slide despite RIAA’s crushing blows against piracy", explaining how the music industry is increasingly falling victim to its own pro-DRM "anti-pirate" policy. But DRM does not end there.

Pamela Jones now published an excellent article about DRM and how it gives people the choice between not listening to music, breaking the law or subjecting to the digital equivalent of random cavity searches. She also explains how DRM really only is yet another anti-competitive tool for the proprietary software industry to reinforce their stranglehold on economy and society.

The examples she uses are Mozart, who by modern recording industry standards would be considered a pirate and probably would have ended up in jail long ago, and COLDPLAY, for whose DRM-ridden CD’s she suggests to insert the following message instead of the lengthy DRM promotion blurb without any useful or specific information:

    Coldplay: This CD is only for customers who use Microsoft products and only on players that are blessed by Microsoft, and for customers who are willing to accept DRM controlling how they can use the CD. If you use a Mac or GNU/Linux, you are excommunicated. And if you look for an alternative, we reserve the right to tip off the RIAA and then it'll be off with your head. Don't like it? We don't care. Watch us sitting in our offices not caring. 

 

And even though PJ claims to have no technical skills whatsoever, she certainly possesses enough common sense to not follow the advice from the Coldplay shop help:

    STEP 1: Firewalls If you have a personal firewall or are behind a corporate firewall, you may experience problems either downloading the track(s) or acquiring a license to play the track. You can try temporarily disabling your firewall or speaking to your Company's IT support to see if they can resolve this. 

 

Turn off the firewall on a Windows machine connected to the internet? Let’s have a look at this "Securing Windows" page from 30 September 2005:

    In fact, the current "survival time" (the average time for an unprotected system to be attacked and compromised) is only 9 minutes. This means that a newly installed unprotected operating system connecting to the Internet for the first time will, on average, be attacked within 9 minutes and compromised in some way. That further implies that there is insufficient time for a new system to connect to the Windows Update site and download the latest security and critical updates from Microsoft before the system is attacked and compromised. Yes, the Internet is a dangerous place for the unwary. 

 

I wonder whether 9 minutes is enough to listen to the entire COLDPLAY CD. Probably not. But as this is an average time, it means some people will be infected earlier, some later. After 40 minutes, most people should be properly infected and their machines should have become slave nodes to the Spammers out there on the internet. So the next time you get a particularly nasty spam: It may just have been a COLDPLAY customer who only wanted to listen to the CD they bought in the store.

PJ’s obvious answer to this "Thou Shalt Use Microsoft, or there are hassles ahead" policy is to basically exclude herself from the cultural exchange of humankind that is abused in such ways by the rights-holding industry in combination with the proprietary software industry.

And then I get such interesting, qualified and thoughtful feedback from those who consider Microsofts business practices a good idea:

    Subject: microsoft Message: stupid asshole, you should be glad that microsoft exists; is this the way you want to be remembered by history, fagett!!! Email: king.george@england.uk 

 

Spelling mistakes, homophobic and rather unimaginative. A lot like DRM, in a way.

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When doing good does bad

I am a fan of critical analysis and thinking, of going beyond and below superficial appearances and "what everybody knows." And in some cases, such articles dare to be questioning what most people take for granted based on nothing but percieved political correctness.

One such article by Paul Theroux titled "The Rock Star’s Burden" was recently published by the New York Times. It also got translated to German by the Süddeutsche Zeitung and was published in the Wednesday issue this week under the title "Die Hybris des Mr Hewson".

The German subtitle summary chosen for the German publication roughly translates to "Wanting to do good, but doing bad: Bono and other celebrities are doing more harm to Africa than they are actually helping end the suffering." The article indeed does not lack clarity:

    There are probably more annoying things than being hectored about African development by a wealthy Irish rock star in a cowboy hat, but I can't think of one at the moment. [...] It seems to have been Africa's fate to become a theater of empty talk and public gestures 

 

[TIMEOn the base of Mr Theroux’s experience as a teacher in Africa, in particular in Malawi, also using his experience as a travel writer, his article is a response to the Time Magazine award "Persons of the Year 2005" given to Paul David Hewson a.k.a. Bono Vox as well as Bill and Melinda Gates for their engagement in Africa.

Paul Theroux indeed also finds very clear words about the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation in Africa:

    Mr. Gates has said candidly that he wants to rid himself of his burden of billions. Bono is one of his trusted advisers. Mr. Gates wants to send computers to Africa - an unproductive not to say insane idea. 

 

So if you haven’t done so already, go and read the article, it is worth it.

But there is another layer to this that Paul Theroux missed or did not want to go into: Not only is the actual work these three are doing essentially useless, in the case of Mr and Mrs Gates it is indeed positively harmful in the medium term, and in the case of Bono it is countermanded and then some by the political engagement of his agent.

I should explain this.

For Bill Gates it is straightforward: Naturally, all machines shipped by Bill Gates are loaded with Microsoft Windows, in other words proprietary software. Like all proprietary software, it remains and puts the user under the control of the proprietor of that software. CNN once quoted Bill Gates in the following way:

    "Although about three million computers get sold every year in China, people don't pay for the software," Gates reportedly said. "Someday they will, though. And as long as they're going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."

 

What is true for China is also true for Africa. So in his own words, what Mr Gates is doing is addicting the African population and struggling economy to the products of his company. This sounds much like the cigarette industry distributing gratis cigarettes. Others have plainly compared it to the model of drug lords. And since little children always look good on TV, these cigarettes computers preferrentially go to schools in Africa.

In the case of Bono, it gets a little more complicated: Everyone who has been following the WIPO Development Agenda or FSFE’s work at WIPO in general will know a little bit about the global system of limited monopolies such as Copyrights, Patents and Trademarks.

Many people have pointed out that this system is indeed designed in a way to ensure that poor countries remain poor. Louise Szente from South Africa described it in the "Study on Intellectual Property Rights, the Internet, and Copyright of the UK Commission on Intellectual Property with the following words:

    Woe is the life of the modern day student living in 'Darkest Africa' for obviously we are still being kept in the slave quarters of the world. Harsh words? My friends, try and live in a society where such Acts as the Intellectual Property Acts of the world impedes your advancement in life." 

 

And once starting to look into these issues, one quickly notices a rampant extremism, one that only benefits two groups: the so-called rights-holding industry and a few superstars. Everyone else loses. And the poorer you are, the more you lose in relation. In case you hadn’t noticed: Africa is indeed very poor at the moment.

Bono Vox is a superstar. Through his agent he pushes for ever more Copyright, ever longer monopolies, ever stronger enforcement. His name is used by the record industry to push for more, more, more.

In case you are interested in some background on the big picture, check out Information Feudalism by Peter Drahos and John Braithwaite in which they describe how the "Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)" agreement came to pass. And in case you wonder where all this is headed, check out FSFE’s IPRED2 information page. But while IPRED2 is (still) European only, much of this legislation in fact happens on a global level, so it also affects Africa.

In essence: thanks to the life-long work of all three "Persons of the Year 2005," no matter how much money you pump into the region in the form of donations or governmental development programs, much of it will be quickly transferred out of country to the rights-holders, be they proprietary software companies or big music business.

Therefore I would like to thank Mr Paul Theroux for daring to question what superficially seems like a good idea, good enough at least to fool the TIME Magazine. As far as Bono is concerned, I hope he will one day concede that he has enough money and use his political influence to help change the system that holds Africa and the rest of the world in its grip. Mr Bill Gates will hopefully give his money without dictating a choice that leads nowhere but into dependency. And the TIME Magazine will maybe one day recognize the role of people like Richard Stallman, who surely is not as photogenic, but whose lifelong work contributed more to the overall improvement and benefit of humankind than that of anyone else I know.

I know these may be unrealistic wishes, but heck, it is Christmas and I really tried being a good boy. 😉

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Microsoft “gets” 2 million EUR per day for X-Mas

Whatever you were wishing to receive for X-mas, I am pretty sure it was not a fine of 2 million EUR per day.This however is what Microsoft is finally about to receive in response to its failure to comply with the European Commission antitrust ruling.

According to stories reported on several sites, including Bloomberg, the European Commission is finally running out of patience with Microsoft: After Microsoft lost their appeal to delay execution of the sanctions on 22. December 2004, so exactly one year ago, Microsoft has then dragged its feet for an entire year and even filed yet another lawsuit against the Commission to further play for time.

That is precisely what the Free Software Foundation Europe expected in its press release on 7. June 2005, and I can only congratulate the European Commission and in particular Ms Kroes, who was quoted in the Bloomberg article saying:

    "I have given Microsoft every opportunity to comply with its obligations. However, I have been left with no alternative other than to proceed via the formal route to ensure Microsoft's compliance.'' 

 

She’s right. The Commission indeed was unbelievable patient in waiting for Microsoft to finally begin competing with its competitors. But whether or not the fine of 2 million EUR per day is going to influence their behaviour significantly remains to be seen. The monopoly probably makes them more than that, so Microsoft may just calculate that paying the 2 million EUR per day is worth retaining their stranglehold over European economy. They did after all pay somewhere in the area of 3000 million EUR to get SUN, Novell, CCIA and Real Networks out of the case, reducing the support of the European Commission.

But it is still a good sign, and the first time the European Commission actually has to use this instrument, AFAIK. While this is not the kind of history that I would like to make, I guess it can count as a genuine Microsoft innovation.

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Fellowship signatures

I noticed that some people started using Fellowship signatures.

Karsten Gerloff and myself go for the "keep it short & simple" approach:

    Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (www.fsfe.org) 

 

Ciaran O’Riordan already goes for a little more fancy:

    Ciaran O'Riordan, ___________/ Support FSFE's campaigns against IPRED2 http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _/ and software patents by joining the Fellowship ___________________________/ and encouraging others to do so http://fsfe.org 

 

But the coolest signature I have seen so far was by Sebastian Fontius, who also did the Firefox Throbber and some Desktop Backgrounds:

    : Sebastian Fontius : https://www.fsfe.org/en/fellows/smc `--------+----------+--------------------------------------------------. [] | "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little | [][][] | temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." | || : Benjamin Franklin, 1759 : 

 

This makes it possible to show what we stand for with every email we write — and possibly get others interested in our issues. Ultimately, building awareness is one of our most important tasks: Only if we can make enough people aware of these issues and get them to stand up for their freedom will we be able to maintain it in the long run.

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RMS Interview: Free Software as a Social Movement

For your pre-Christmas reading, and to possibly evade the stress this season usually brings, ZNet carries a very interesting interview with Richard Stallman, titled "Free Software as a Social Movement". For those familiar with his writings, much will be familiar, but it is a good summary and reference for newcomers.

It also seems to contain some new insights, like RMS no longer calling "Open Source" a movement of its own, separate from Free Software:

    The ideas of Torvalds led by 1996 to a division in the community on goals. One group was for freedom, the other for powerful and reliable software. There were regular public arguments. In 1998 the other camp chose the term "open source' to describe their position. "Open source' is not a movement, in my view. It is, perhaps, a collection of ideas, or a campaign. 

I do not know for sure how much of these ideas really came from Linus Torvalds, and how much was contributed by Bruce Perens, Eric Raymond, Tim O’Reilly and others. But I think this is a much more adequate description of the difference between "Free Software" and "Open Source" than referring to them as different movements.

 

Even more remarkable is that the ZNet responsibles seem to have read and understood Richards points, and his explanation why ZNet themselves should use Free Software, as the article carries the following note on top and bottom of the page:

    ZNet has begun to explore the possibility of converting to free software. If you would like to help in this effort, please go to the Free ZNet Project forums, register, and introduce yourself. 

 

Excellent! It would be worth helping them if you can. So if you feel like helping them migrate to Free Software, check out their Free ZNet Project forums.

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IPI to the rescue of Microsoft… NOT!

Many of you will already know our good friend Mr Thomas Giovanetti of the of the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) from the WIPO reports of Karsten Gerloff ( "WIPO is not about creativity", "Free Software commies", "Lawrence Lessig is whining") and the comments of Brian Gough ("Tom G infringing BBC copyright").

As I heard today, on 28 November 2005 the European Court told the IPI to get lost with their application to become third party in the Microsoft vs European Commission antitrust case.

You may know that the Free Software Foundation Europe joined the antitrust investigation against Microsoft to make sure the Free Software perspective and interests were represented and soon afterwards involved the Samba Team in the proceedings. Together, the Samba Team and FSFE have provided essential arguments for the European Commission to come to its historic antitrust ruling.

When Microsoft appealed against this ruling at the European Court, the FSFE became third party, representing the Samba Team. In the joint Samba/FSFE task force, we have managed to help supply the arguments needed to turn down Microsofts request for more time to allow competition. We then repeatedly unmasked Microsofts bogus specification licensing proposals as the attempts to play for time they were. At some point, Bloomberg even credited the FSFE for a 0.2% drop in Microsoft shares.

Around this time, the IPI asked to join the case. Guess which side they wanted to support? Yup, right in one: IPI of course asked to defend the convicted monopolist. They were one of three organisations describing themselves as

    not-for-profit-corporations 'think-tanks' whose missions involve the promotion globally of strong intellectual property rights in the technology sector, including software and information technology, as a means of encouraging innovation and economic development. 

 

The organisations were: International Intellectual Property Institute (IIPI), the Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) and the Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF). The European Court was pretty clear that if they are what they say they are, they had no legitimate interest in this case. In fact the Court ruling states that:

    45 It is quite clear that IIPI, IPI and PFF have not shown an interest in the result of the case within the meaning of the case-law above. 

Indeed one could ask where that sudden interest came from. The sponsor list of the PFF gives an idea. It lists, among many others, Disney, HP, Google, Intel, Cisco, SUN, Time Warner, and of course Microsoft. The sponsoring lists for IPI and IIPI are secret, but most likely contain a lot of overlap, in particular where Microsoft is concerned.

 

The fourth party that tried to be admitted to the court in support of the monopoly was the International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners, Inc (IAMCP). At least they were up-front about whose interests they represent, or were they? They indeed tried to argue that they represent the interests of their members. They seemed surprised to find that the European Court is able to read, as the bylaws of the IAMCP do not contain anything about representing the interests of its members.

So their application was shot down just like that of IIPI, IPI and PFF. Furthermore all four were ordered to not only cover their own expenses, but also those of the European Commission and the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) who had to spend time in dealing with their attempt to come to the aid of the convicted monopolist.

Coincidentally, the FSFE/Samba joint task force under coordination of Italian lawyer Carlo Piana completed today 12 pages of answers to a set of questions by the European Commission about the Microsoft Work Group Server Protocol Program (WSPP), the latest attempt of Microsoft to dodge the bullet of actually having to compete with its competitors.

Now we’re waiting for the next round.

Meanwhile, please do not forget to spread the word and

Fellow Me: Say NO! to Vienna Manipulations

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LACFREE 2005

As you may know, I am currently in Recife and Olinda in the Brazilian Northeast. While most people come here for vacation on some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, I hardly found time to enjoy any of these pleasures, because LACFREE 2005 has kept me quite busy.

Firstly it is probably a small miracle that I am here, at all: From the FSFE event page, you may have noticed that LACFREE was originally scheduled to take place about two months ago, but was postponed just one week before it was supposed to take place. Although it required an unusual overhead of discussion, I finally did have my ticket at the time, and only thanks to the very excellent organizers of the III. Encontro de Software Livre do Amazonas (ESLAM) picking up that ticket on short notice was I able to join their conference in October.

Unfortunately, this second attempt was not really much more efficiently organized, I only received my tickets on Friday before catching my flight from Porto Alegre on Monday. From what I heard in the usual exchange between conference participants, everybody was very much in the same position and many people did not get their tickets, at all.

To my great dismay, this also included Nagarjuna G, president of the Free Software Foundation India, who broke off another trip early in order to make it back to India in time to retrieve a visa. After having to spend a night in Delhi and, the consulate would not grant his visa as he did not have a ticket, and looking at the web page of the event, he found that his name had been removed without even telling him. He then went back to Mumbai, where he lives.

Both Federico Heinz, president of FSF Latin America, and myself were most upset about this and considered for a moment to not go to LACFREE. After giving it some thought, we did decide to go for multiple reasons. The Free Software community in the Brazilian Northeast had very few events, and almost none with international context so far. Why should they pay the price for the organisational problems? Also, refusing to share knowledge with others at the conference would not have benefitted anyone. And finally, Nagarjuna himself asked Federico and myself to please go and make the best of it.

But since this also happened to other speakers that were originally invited, there are quite some names on the list who did not appear in person. So I ultimately found myself participating in four workshops: one about the Free Software Foundations and our international network, one about Free Software in Education and Culture, one about Legal issues of Free Software and one about Free Software and eGovernance, totalling in four speeches and 10hrs of panel time in just three days.

Additionally, I gave interviews to a Pernambuco state newspaper, explained the background of the Vienna Manipulations to a community radio and asked people to Fellow Me: Say NO! to Vienna Manipulations.

Most amazing during the legal panel was a speech by video conference of Victor Vazquez Lopez for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO): Mr Lopez correctly explained the four freedoms of Free Software, explained a little bit on the GNU General Public License (GPL) and how Copyleft was a perfectly viable model of using Copyright. And I am not afraid to admit that I was stunned to see his presentation being more correct than speeches by some Free Software advocats.

Naturally, that does not yet solve all the problems WIPO has, and we still have a lot of work ahead of us until WIPO will be the World Intellectual Wealth Organisation we think it should be, but it is a good sign.

Now the event is almost over, and as always it was great to spend time with the Brazilian Free Software community, and besides memories of an intensive event, I will take home a bound copy of the Brazilian Free Software migration guide, version 1.0, which the Brazilian government put under the GNU General Public License (GPL).

And maybe I’ll even get to see some beach tomorrow, after three extremely stressful days I am inclined to think that I deserve it. In any case: Someone has to put the Fellowship beach-wear to a practical test.

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Fellowup on Vienna Manipulations

There has been quite a bit of very positive response to the GROKLAW article and the "Fellow Me: Say NO! to Vienna Manipulations" call. Thanks a lot to everyone who has written, raised awareness and joined the Fellowship!

Also, thanks to those who improved the Fellow Me button — here is another version by Leon Brooks from Australia:

The source is available here.

From the discussions here at LACFREE it seems that many people have still not heard about this, so please keep spreading the words and putting the buttons on web sites.

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