It’s official: John Deere and General Motors want to eviscerate the notion of ownership.
The MPAA is in discussions with the major movie studios over ways to introduce site blocking to the United States. TorrentFreak has learned that the studios will try to achieve website blockades using principles available under existing law. Avoiding another SOPA-style backlash is high on the agenda.
The Bitcoin Foundation recently announced they had hired a firm to lobby the US congress on Bitcoin and cryptocurrency in general.
The firm, Thorsen French Advocacy, was hired to "introduce Bitcoin and the Bitcoin Foundation to key lawmakers and staff, explaining the benefits that Bitcoin offers for global financial inclusion, consumer privacy, monetary stability and human liberty", the Bitcoin Foundation said in a press release at the time.
However, the Bitcoin Foundation's choice to hire Thorsen French is a concerning one for the community.
Late last night, a tweet was spread far and wide showing that a DMCA notice had blocked a file from being shared on a Dropbox user's account.
On Thursday morning, the House Judiciary Committee held its latest in a long series of hearings concerning potential copyright reform -- sometimes referred to as "the Next Great Copyright Act" after the Copyright Office kicked off the process with a talk on that topic (I'd quibble with the word "great" in there given how things are going so far). The latest hearing focused on Section 512 of the DMCA, better known as the "notice and takedown" provisions, or, more broadly, as the "safe harbor" provisions, which (mostly) protect service providers from being held liable for infringement done by their users. You've heard all of the arguments concerning this on both sides before -- and we had a post describing 5 myths likely to come up during the hearings (which did not disappoint).
I'm always amazed when lawyers send clearly bogus DMCA notices. It shouldn't be hard to figure out that doing so ends badly. I'm doubly surprised, however, when it comes from big companies that should know better.
Bill Introduced to Re-Legalize Cellphone Unlocking
Democrats and Republicans may not agree on much these days. But the notion of allowing consumers to unlock their cellphones appears to have some bipartisan support.
A bill was introduced Thursday that would make it once again legal for consumers to unlock their cellphones in order to switch carriers.
Source: allthingsd.com