][ stefano maffulli

To embed laws into the architecture is the stupidest thing the humanity is doing. How come nobody is lobbying Congress to build cars whose engine has been built not to exceed speed limit? Because everybody would think it’s just a stupid idea. Nonetheless Google is accepting to build automatic filters in YouTube that censor videos, [...]

Tags: copyright, lessig, mafiaa, takedown, Video

Did you think Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) can be good for society? If that’s your opinion, you better start looking at facts. Ars Technica reports that
Some Kindle users are angry because Amazon blocked them from their Kindle accounts, thereby blocking them from accessing their already-purchased media. Even if these stories are exaggerated, they once again [...]

Tags: amazon, crap, drm, itunes, kindle, yahoo

Tags: defectivebydesign, drm

Notizia di inizio 2008: Sony BMG sta pensando di vendere file musicali via internet senza schemi fastidiosi di restrizione, i Digital Restrictions Management. E così Sony si unisce alle altre aziende del settore: Universal, EMI e Warner che per indebolire Apple danno diritti ai loro clienti. Le major hanno capito che ci piace [...]

Tags: defectivebydesign, drm, fsf, tcp

Politecnico di Torino and Regione Piemonte have launced SeLiLi, Servizio Licenze Libere, a service to offer information and consulting services on legal, technological and economical matters regarding copyright licenses. Given the credibility of the Politecnico and in particular to the group that maintains the Creative Commons licenses I think they can do a good [...]

Tags: business, competition, free software business, fsf, ftf, non-profit

Ballano sui carboni ardenti, mi pare. Ci sono un po’ di commenti in giro su come l’accordo MS/Novell sia in difficoltà .’  Leggo su ArsTechnica:
Microsoft has decided that the Novell support certificates that we distribute to customers will not entitle the recipient to receive from Novell, or any other party, any subscription for support and updates [...]

Free Software is first about ethics, not only licenses nor development models.  Ethics in business has started to be considered as an important item and it’s not unusual nowadays to see Corporate Social Responsibility mentioned in business reports. 

That’s why I think that to qualify a Free Software Business we need to measure its orientation to doing good to freedom in the digital society.  I’ve talked about this topic also in the past and I’m still convinced that consideration like the following from Roberto should come after looking at the companies missions and CSR reports. 

we ended up classifying OS firms as those that:

• sponsor, support, facilitate an open source project, that is a
  project that has a license compatible with the OSD definition, in a
  direct or indirect way.
• the sponsoring/support must be continuous, that is it should not be a single, one time contribution.

I am aware that it’s not easy to measure ethics or freedom in digital society.  Neither is easy to measure sustainable development, but many have been suggesting ways for many years despite difficulties   Probably this could be a role for FSFE’s future activities?

Roberto si chiede: come faranno a guadagnare questi che producono film in modo collaborativo e li distribuiscono via Internet?
Più ci penso e più ho l’impressione che la domanda sia sbagliata perché posta così non c’è risposta. Ho molti amici del giro di creativi, anche registi. Le loro esperienze con il mondo analogico non sono [...]

PI: Denunciati 11 utenti P2P italiani
Mi viene in mente solo Bracardi che urla «In galera!?»
Giorgio Bracardi

Dal blog di Quintarelli colgo la segnalazione di un breve commento del prof. Larry Downes sulla rivoluzione digitale.’  Come tutte le rivoluzioni impone cambiamenti:
The revolution will be televised…on YouTube | Stanford Center for Internet and Society
the result will be a new legal infrastructure better suited to the new economic realities of information and the technology [...]