While nobody in the United States seems to be willing to do anything about the country’s bizarre patent system, one guy is going to try and screw this system.

Michael Doyle claimed recently that he and two of his fellows were first to invent and patent the “interactive web”, while they were working for the University of California back in 1993. He said that the software, designed at the UC’s San Francisco campus, allowed doctors to view embryos over the nascent web, and was recognized to be the first program allowing people to interact with the images inside of an Internet browser window.

Michael Doyle is currently fighting in East Texas, which has a record of giving over to patent trolls, in most cases because their side of the argument is considered the easiest for juries to understand. Doyle is suing nearly everyone, insisting that he must get trillions for royalty payments for almost every modern web technology. Meanwhile, this isn’t the first time Doyle launched a patent case, and he used to win them. For instance, his organization Eolas Technologies has already won the case against Microsoft, perhaps winning over $100 million from the software giant.

This new case pits Doyle against attorneys of Amazon, Yahoo, Google, and YouTube, as well as against the father of the Internet: it turned out that Sir Tim Berners-Lee himself has flown in for the case, since if Michael Doyle won, it would be the end of the Internet as we know it. As a result, everyone will have to pay to patent troll in the United States.
The global web standards group W3C has contacted the patent office and sent a letter signed by Sir Tim, where he warned that unless the Eolas patent was invalidated it would have caused the disruption of global Internet standards, as well as caused damage to the operation of the web.

Although the PTO originally rejected the Eolas patent claims, Michael Doyle and his attorneys insisted that they had the right to claim, and in the end the PTO changed its mind. This fact is currently used by Doyle as proof that others agree he had invented the web. In response, the tech companies sued in the case asked the judge to transfer the case to California, where it would have been laughed out of court, but they were refused to do so. The case in question is also embarrassing for the University of California, since the latter could make a lot of money if Michael Doyle wins.

By:
SaM
February 11th,2012

Recently, the Hard Drive Productions (a porn studio) launched a lawsuit against Internet users who allegedly downloaded their videos. However, the case in question has taken quite an interesting turn: one of the defendants, accused of downloading a porn video, insisted that copyright legislation can’t be applied to adult clips, because they are not copyrightable.

The defendant in question is a woman from California. Her petition for declaratory relief points at a provision of the American Constitution defining the purpose of copyright, which reads: “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries”.

Meanwhile, such acronyms as P.O.V. or M.I.L.F. aren’t associated with such keywords as “science” and “useful arts”, so they can’t be qualified under copyright legislation. This means that copyright works only for the content that promotes the progress of science and the useful arts. The brief of the woman’s lawyer also notes that early Circuit law in California held that obscene works didn’t promote the progress of either science or the useful arts, and therefore can’t be protected by copyright.

The defendant has underlined this point a few times, pointing out that Hard Drive’s work didn’t promote the progress of science or the useful arts. In addition, the porn studio has judicially admitted that its content is adult pornography which depicts obscene material. The brief also said that plaintiff was informed and believed, and thereon alleged that to create the work, the studio and its partners and employees violated legislation that prohibited pimping, pandering, solicitation and prostitution, as well as any claims of conspiracy. The conclusion is that Hard Drive’s work is not copyrightable.

Meanwhile, it isn’t the first lawsuit Hard Drive Productions launches over copyright, and their affairs may be regarded by some as suspicious: for instance, last summer a California judge smashed the studio’s claims that almost 200 alleged pirates could be sued together. Later, the company tried a different approach by going to Washington judge with a case including 1,500 defendants and a grudge against the EFF.

By:
SaM
February 10th,2012

A number of European countries see online censorship implemented, including Italy, the Netherlands, Finland and some others. The Internet service providers in those countries are required to block access to several websites like The Pirate Bay. However, WordPress came with a simple solution to the problem – they have released a plugin that allows users to set up a proxy site and be able to access blacklisted domains.

The plugin in question is called RePress. It has been written by the hosting outfit Greenhost and lets everyone having a WordPress blog to launch a proxy for websites included into the ISPs’ blacklist, such as Wikileaks and The Pirate Bay.

After you add this plugin to your WordPress blog, it will begin working as a proxy and unblock any censored site you want. Anyone having a WordPress site and the ability to install new plugins can do that. Afterwards, you will be able to maintain a list of sites you would like to keep open freely available on the Internet. This should be interesting for US citizens as well, as they now face the possibility to see SOPA or PIPA enforced one day. The developers hope that Internet users outside the Netherlands would use the plugin to unblock The Pirate Bay, because this site is currently in danger of being censored after a court-ruling. In the Netherlands, residents could then unblock sites for people from such oppressive regimes as Iran, Syria or even the United States after SOPA is enforced.

New copyright bills SOPA and PIPA are meant to defend the interests of the entertainment industry, but the observers agree that in reality they would only cause grave and undeniable damage to the open Internet and all netizens, starting from the end-consumer to the cutting edge developers and inventors. The aim of RePress creators is to make this impossible.

This plugin has already been praised by a number of political figures, including European Parliament member Marietje Schaake, who claimed that was a fantastic opportunity for human rights activists and a great way out for Internet users who faced technological censorship and repression. As usual, the plugin is absolutely free and it won’t be a problem for you to find it online and install if you know what WordPress is and how plugins work.

By:
SaM
February 1st,2012