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TechDirt Feb 03 12 We recently pointed out that a bunch of Polish politicians wore Guy Fawkes/Anonymous masks in Parliament to protest ACTA:
It appears that some politicians in Bulgaria thought that was a good idea, and have done the same thing:
It's really quite fascinating how much of a meme this has become within politics. While some still like to pretend that Anonymous is just a bunch of vandalizing kids, it certainly seems that some of what Anonymous stands for is having a real impact. I still think that the DDoS attacks are dumb and do more harm than good, but it's quite fascinating to see the wider ideas of what Anonymous is fighting for percolate all the way up into politics around the globe. Full story...
Summary of Parts One and Two: The essential balance of copyright between incentives for creators and the feeding of a rich and unlicensed public domain has been undone by a long series of misguided efforts to save copyright by making its rules both stronger and less enforceable at the same time.
Most people will be familiar with Moore's Law, usually stated in the form that processing power doubles every two years (or 18 months in some versions.
We know it's bad for our health, but somehow we just can't get enough of artery-clogging fried foods because they taste so good.
We've written a few times that the end goal behind ACTA and TPP is to put in place frameworks by the US and Western Europe for certain things, and then pressure the key developing nations to join in based on the framework that has already been established.
Bloomberg Law has put together a short video about Adam Yauch and the sampling lawsuit filed against the Beastie Boys the day before his death.
For years we've argued over and over again that stricter enforcement does nothing to slow down or stop infringement.
Okay, here's a bit of a two-fer. With all of the attention that Amanda Palmer has been getting for her massively successful Kickstarter campaign, we had some commenters here questioning whether or not she would freak out if people then shared her music.
While there have been some claims that Google has supported CISPA (whereas the company does not appear to have taken an official position), at least one top person at Google is not all pleased with the bill.
There have been plenty of studies showing how -- especially in developing nations -- patents for pharmaceuticals serve to keep important drugs (which are cheap to manufacture) out of reach for the patients who need them most.
The more you dig into Google's new copyright transparency reports the more eye-catching info you find.