Older blog entries for mk (starting at number 4)

Spent yesterday at the Royal Courts of Justice. The defendant in the Sony v Channel lost the case, though the judge was excellent. See the obligatory Register article, with nice quote from me at the bottom. Obligatory article from the Register. Nice quote from Yours Truly at the bottom.

Mr Justice Jacobs was highly critical of Sony's case (though he agreed that the statute law was entirely with them). He noted that they could monopolise the Playstation games market through their copy-control mechanism, and he didn't like this at all. His ruling probably confirms the prohibition on DeCSS, criminalises the commercial sale of devices based on DeCSS, and certainly confirms that privately importing digital goods is a no-no.

On returning to Cambridge, I went to the Computing Society's talk, which was given by David Braben, author of Elite and now a PS2 games developer. We had a great old discussion of the piracy issue in the pub afterwards. As luck would have it I was to be giving a talk to the Computing Society this term about these sorts of issues; I'll have a lot more material now.

Didn't quite make it back home last night, which is good, cause the walk to the office is a killer (not that I slept at the office).

My euroDMCA article is bringing in interest.

Spent some time on the phone to journalists today in connection with the court case tomorrow. Someone who made a Playstation mod chip is being sued by Sony under the old-style anticircumvention laws the UK put on the books in 1988, long before DMCA.

If you want to attend the court, just to say you were there at the first anticircumvention case in England, then you want the High Court in London, at 9am. The plaintiffs are various parts of Sony Corporation. Wear blazer and tie or suit and tie.

Scarily, the poor chap would be innocent under the DMCA or the European Copyright Directive (EUCD / euroDMCA).

Have to get that article about circumvention rolling.

... posted the final draft of my paper on the Takedown provisions of the EUCD (the European DMCA). Get it from www.openrevolt.org.

I'm now about to start work on the anti-circumvention clauses. Fun.

On the tech front, I'm writing something to help get rid of telnet access (a thing notifying people recorded as using telnet that they want SSH).

Finished first draft of letter to my Member of Parliament. Letter asks five questions about the upcoming UK implementation of the EUCD (the European DMCA). Letter to be published on OpenRevolt.org once I've sent it.

Spent some time reworking one of my articles on the EUCD, and learning two songs, in Brazilian Portuguese and Russian, just for the hell of it. Ok, just because I needed an excuse to test the speakers after an office reorganisation.

Tidied my desk

I've now started putting up my criticisms of the European Copyright Directive (EUCD), which is the EU version of the DMCA, on one of my websites.

Those interested can go to www.openrevolt.org .

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