Tag policy

Ένα Σοβιετικό Ίντερνετ

Το BBC γράφει για τη προτεινόμενη νομοθεσία που ψηφίστηκε σήμερα στο Ευρωκοινοβούλιο και που δύναται να μετατρέψει ίσως το σημαντικότερο τεχνολογικό και --- ενδεχόμενως --- πολιτισμικό δημιούργημα των τελευταίων σαράντα ετών σε ένα εφιαλτικό μέσο παρακολούθησης και ελέγχου της ελευθερίας της έκφρασης και επικοινωνίας. Για όσους επιθυμούν πιο πρακτικές εξηγήσεις του τι σημαίνει αυτό, σκεφθείτε ένα διαδίκτυο όπου εφαρμογές όπως το Skype ή ο Firefox απαγορεύονται από τον νόμο, εκτός κι αν έχουν ελεγχθεί και εγκριθεί από κάποια αρμόδια αρχή. Ένα διαδίκτυο που όλες οι δραστηριότητες καταγράφωνται και οι επικοινωνίες παρακολουθούνται νόμιμα, που η έννοια της ιδιωτικότητας έχει καταλυθεί πλήρως. Παρ'ότι το νομοσχέδιο ψηφίστηκε σήμερα, δεν είναι αργά: Μπορείτε να επικοινωνήσετε με τον Ευρωβουλευτή σας και να α) ζητήσετε να σας εξηγήσει πως εκλαμβάνει αυτός ή αυτή το νομοσχέδιο, εφ'όσον γνωρίζει το περιεχόμενο του, β) να σας δηλώσει την άποψή του και πως ψήφισε και τέλος να του δηλώσετε την αντίθεσή σας με αυτό και τους κινδύνους που εγκυμονεί η έγκρισή του. Διαβάστε το άρθρο του BBC καθώς και το άρθρο στο FFII. Σχετικά είχε γράψει πρόσφατα και το Fist Full of Euros, το άρθρο του οποίου σχολιάσα εδώ.

Steps Towards Irrelevance

Mary Jo Foley, Microsoftphile and tech writer (since the company's early years) writes, when asked about the future of Microsoft's leadership once Bill Gates retires:
There's always been this dichotomy between "Bill's guys" and "Steve's guys." Steve's guys have MBAs and their roots are in sales. Bill's guys have been traditional technologists. The people who are more like Steve will probably get more power and will run the show, so I wonder who's going to be the tech champion for Bill's guys. I think that's going to be a big cultural and noticeable change once Gates is out from his day-to-day duties.
That's funny. Microsoft has been pretty much excellent in marketing and sales for many years, but mediocre (or even poor in some cases) in engineering and technology. If "Bill's guys" have been running the show all these years, how will "Steve's guys" help Microsoft overcome its pretty obvious technological problems without squandering its strategy? I'm guessing if Steve Ballmer is going to stay --- which he probably is --- Microsoft will probably move a bit faster, but still quite gradually, towards irrelevance. It's not salesmen and marketers that make or break a company like this. It's not technologists either. It's visionaries, pioneers and innovators. Microsoft never really had many of those in positions of power, and it desperately needs them to compete in today's market. Innovation and a solid vision for the future have always been at the fringes of corporate policy at Microsoft or in Bill Gates' books and lectures. Sadly, I doubt the 'MBAs' and 'salespeople' that are going to run the show in Redmond for the next few years have any clue as to what any of that mean.

Νομοθετικοί Ακροβατισμοί στον Βωμό του Διαδικτύου

Αναστάτωση έχει προκαλέσει τις τελευταίες ημέρες η προσπάθεια της κυβέρνησης να ελέγξει την έκφραση στο διαδίκτυο, ενδιαμέσω ενός γελοίου, τόσο νομικά, όσο και επιστημονικά ή ηθικά, νομοσχεδίου. Η αναστάτωση αυτή, πέραν της έκφανσης της στα ελληνικά ΜΜΕ (τα οποία δε παρακολουθώ και για τα οποία ακούω από φίλους) είχε ως αποτέλεσμα έναν σημαντικό όγκο σχετικών […]

Charlie says 95, Ars says 50. Well, I say 30.

The lunacy of extended copyright and patent terms, the most threatening aspect of modern society with regards to freedom of information, progress, innovation and business comes to Europe, courtesy of Mr. Charlie McCreevy, the EU's Internal Market Commissioner. What Mr. Creevy seems to completely ignore is that the European Union is a completely different market and a different socio-political entity to the U.S., where extended copyright terms are already in place and the patent hell has already resulted in a vastly diminished cultural output1. And while in the United States there's increasing concern among academics, lawyers and even corporations (with the exception of the few colossal ones that stand to benefit) regarding the country's IPR legislation, many of the corporations controlling cultural output globally are European and would certainly like to see things change in Europe too. Given the radical change that the music 'industry' has been facing in the past decade, a proposal for the extension of the copyright term for music to 95 years by Mr. Creevy seems like a thinly concealed attempt by panicked record companies to hang on to whatever legislative vehicles are available to them in order to conserve a flawed and harmful (for everyone, but them) status quo. If anything, the copyright term should be reduced and should be accompanied by an overhaul of the intellectual property rights mechanism that --- to this day --- keeps musicians from enjoying the wealth that they deserve by forcing them to share the vast majority of the profits of their work with dozens of intermediaries, IPR management, marketing and promotional companies (the 'industry').
  • The main argument here is that with a more liberal legislative framework governing intellectual property in the United States, the cultural output of value, other things being equal, would be considerably higher to what it is under the dominance of a handful of multinationals and the unabated commercialisation of the main forms of art.

We will be paying artists directly.

One of my favourite sites leveraging social knowledge to benefit its users, last.fm announced yesterday that listeners will be able to stream full tracks and albums online for free on the site. And to top it all off, they will be paying artists directly from their advertising revenue. Yay!

USAspending.gov

There's not much to write about this besides the fact that it's --- at first glance --- great. On one hand it's a token of public accountability and transparency sorely missing from many European governments, yet on the other I'm quite certain it conceals or downright omits any mention of several billions spent 'in vain' under the guise of classified research or military programmes. Yet even with those flaws, it's better than nothing.

Η πραγματική διαφορά μιας τάξης μεγέθους.

Ήταν μέσα του καλοκαιριού του 2004, ένα μήνας προ των Ολυμπιακών της Αθήνας, όταν οι κάτοικοι του Παρισιού άρχισαν να μαθαίνουν — και να αποκτούν — υπηρεσίες ADSL2+. Εκείνη την εποχή η Βρετανία προσπαθούσε να συνειδητοποιήσει πως είχε καταφέρει να παραμείνει πίσω από αρκετές χώρες της δυτικής και βόρειας ευρώπης στο παιχνίδι της ευρυζωνικότητος. Ήταν, […]

Inflaming the Middle East

The Israeli-Palæstinian conflict is now more than sixty years old. It’s clear to all, but the most extreme nationalists (of both involved nations) or naïve idealists (globally) that the only viable solution, at least for the coming decades, would be a two-state division of what is currently Israel and its occupied territories. That is the […]

DRM, privacy, the way the net is turning out to be!

Well, I have managed to correlate several – seemingly unrelated – things again to my own surprise. Think for a sec. about the way the unipolar governing of the world by — currently — the US, personal freedom/privacy, the power provided to the world by electronics and computing. I just watched Colossus: The Forbin Project, […]