Towards Evidence-based Copyright and Patent Policymaking at the OECD
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an organisation of 34 developed-country governments that work together to promote economic progress and trade through information sharing and research. This week it turned its attention to copyright, patents and other forms of so-called intellectual property, at a workshop on...
Open Wi-Fi Is Not a CopyCrime: EFF's Primer on Open Wi-Fi and Copyright
Every day cafes, airports, libraries, laundromats, schools and individuals operate “open” Wi-Fi routers, sharing their connection with neighbors and passers-by at no charge. The City of San Francisco recently deployed a free, public Wi-Fi network along a three-mile stretch of Market Street. Sometimes people use those connections for unauthorized activities....
Twitter Steps Down From the Free Speech Party
FIRST Act Amended to Make Open Access Provision Actually Pretty Good
Finally, some good news from Congress this week. Patent and surveillance reform may be suffering setbacks, but open access may be recovering thanks to a new provision passed yesterday that mandates a solid public access policy for NASA, NSF, NIST, the National Weather Service, and the Office of Science of...
EFF to Copyright Office: Fair Use Can Help Fix the Orphan Works Problem
EFF and Public Knowledge have submitted comments to the Copyright Office, urging it to clarify the legality of using so-called "orphan works"—works that may or may not still be restricted by copyright, but for which the rightsholder is difficult or impossible to identify and locate. The orphan works...
Hacking the Patent System: A Guide to Alternative Patent Licensing for Innovators
Update (January 2016): There’s a new, expanded edition of Hacking the Patent System for 2016.
EFF is proud to participate in the launch of a new guide to alternative patent licensing. The guide was prepared by the Juelsgaard Intellectual Property & Innovation Clinic at Stanford Law...
To Bassel On His 33rd Birthday
Twitter Steps Down From the Free Speech Party
In 2012, when Twitter announced in a blog post that it was launching a system that would allow the company to take down content on a country-by-country basis—as opposed to taking it down across the entire Twitter network—EFF defended that decision as the least terrible option. After all, when...
New Ninth Circuit Opinion Calls into Question Blind Reliance on License Plate Camera IDs
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has put police on notice: an automatic license plate reader (ALPR) alert, without human verification, is not enough to pull someone over.
Last week, the appellate court issued an important opinion in Green v. City & County of San Francisco, a civil...
