Right after the “six strikes” Copyright Alert System (CAS) launched, I heard from a few people saying that it was actually likely to increase their file sharing activities, in part because it clearly laid out the “risks” of doing so. In other words, r… Continue reading →

A few weeks back, we wrote about the Indian Supreme Court’s rejection of Novartis’s attempt to use “evergreening” to prolong its patent on Gleevec, sold as Glivec in India. That term refers to the trick of making small changes to a drug, usually one … Continue reading →

Seeing in color is often taken for granted, even though about 10% of the human population is colorblind in some way. There aren’t really that many ways to correct for colorblindness, but presumably, once the technology exists for giving people the abil… Continue reading →

The political debate in Canada is heating up, with the Conservative party recently launching a series of attack ads aimed at the new Liberal party leader, Justin Trudeau. Whatever you think of these kinds of ads — and I am of the mind that it su… Continue reading →

The photographers are freaking out again. After last year’s excitement with Instagram’s changes to its terms of service, now it’s the UK’s Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (ERR) Act that’s getting people worked up. Here, for example, is a post on th… Continue reading →

Post-Boston bombing, everyone’s talking about surveillance and privacy. Those doing most of the talking seem to think we need more of the former and less of the latter. And there’s no getting these legislators and law enforcement officials to shut up … Continue reading →

A few weeks back, we wrote about Andy Baio’s excellent video concerning the limits of fair use, in particular his awful and soul-wrenching experience being sued for infringement in a situation that was almost certainly fair use. Baio eventually settled… Continue reading →

When we have talked about game developers messing with pirates in the past, I’ve actually found it quite entertaining. As much as I hate Ubisoft, it made me smile when they released a version of one game that filled the audio up with vuvuzellas if it … Continue reading →

Via Groklaw, we learn of Barnes & Noble’s excellent filing with the FTC and DOJ concerning the problems of today’s patent system, and some suggestions on how to fix it. You can read the full filing on the FTC’s site. In recent years, the FTC has… Continue reading →

Apparently Homeland Security’s Immigration & Custom’s Enforcement (ICE) team has found a new tech issue to overreact to and overhype. shutslar points us to a story of ICE agents raiding 25 smartphone repair shops in South Florida for daring to re… Continue reading →