cearta.ie – Page 146 – the Irish for rights

Lessig (left) writes:

huge and important news: free licenses upheld

So for non-lawgeeks, this won’t seem important. But trust me, this is huge. … the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (THE “IP” court in the US) has upheld a free (ok, they call them “open source”) copyright license, explicitly pointing to the work of Creative Commons and others. … the Court has held that free licenses such as the CC licenses set conditions … on the use of copyrighted work. When you violate the condition, the license disappears, meaning you’re simply a copyright infringer …

The decision in Jacobsen v Katzer is excellent news, to be sure; but isn’t it obvious? It may be “huge”, in the sense that this is the first time that a court has actually said this; but this has always seemed obvious to me (which is why I use a Creative Commons licence on this site). What am I missing?…

Privacy, Oz-style

13 August, 200817 September, 2008

| 1 Comment

| Media and Communications, Privacy

If the unlamented Privacy Bill, 2006 were to make an unwelcome return from limbo, the Oireachtas could do worse than to revise it in the light of a recent Australian example.

First, the balanced and detailed Privacy Act, 1998 (Cth) (as amended and consolidated) is an excellent starting point for any legislative development of Irish privacy law. The range and detail of its coverage, and its focus on protecting against invasions of privacy across the board, and not merely by media, make it a far more compelling protection of privacy than the flawed Irish Bill. …

University fees? Yes, Minister

12 August, 200816 August, 2008

| 3 Comments

| college funding, Irish Society, Universities

Whenever I hear discussions of the funding of universities, my thoughts turn first to a classic Yes Minister (BBC | imdb | wikipedia) episode (imdb | synopsis | wikipedia | YouTube) in which the worthies in Sir Humphrey’s Oxford College lobby him against the pernicious effects of government funding policies. Much of that sketch is relevant to the current debate in Ireland about third-level tuition fees (Irish Times | RTÃ‰ News), where it seems to me that two separate issues have been conflated (or confused) in some quarters. Moreover, one of these issues needs to be resolved before any of the other elements of the current debate can be properly addressed.

In 1996, when the Government “abolished” third-level fees, what actually happened was a little more complicated. …

Privacy 3 – 0 Press

7 August, 20084 December, 2020

| 7 Comments

| Freedom of Expression, Media and Communications, Privacy

Football, via Wiki Commons. Some own goals are comical; others are crucial; but rarely are they as wilfully self-inflicted as the three own goals which the press has recently conceded to privacy. …

Say it ain’t so, Bill; say it ain’t so!

6 August, 200823 November, 2010

| 1 Comment

| Copyright

Even if no kid ever actually pleaded with ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson (pictured) (“Say it ain’t so, Joe; say it ain’t so”) to deny his involvement in throwing the 1919 baseball World Series (dramatized in the movie Eight Men Out), it’s still a good line, and entirely apposite to title a post mourning the passing of the best copyright blog on the net.

Last Friday, William Patry announced the demise of his wonderful blog ~~(including – I am sorry to say – the deletion of his hugely informative archives)~~ (see update, below):

End of the blog

I have decided to end the blog, after doing around 800 postings over about 4 years. I regret closing the blog and I owe readers an explanation. There are two reasons.

…

A public service announcement

5 August, 200820 December, 2008

| No Comments

| advertising, General

From today’s Guardian:

What does a heart attack feel like?

… The “Hollywood heart attack” is dangerously misleading and because of it, many of us ignore the real symptoms until it is too late. … The Hollywood heart attack … involves dramatic chest clutching and collapse. But in reality, symptoms vary. They can be woolly, ambiguous and easy to ignore. It is very common to have a central chest pain that can spread to the arms, neck and jaw. You may feel sweaty, light-headed, sick or short of breath. You may simply feel a dull ache, mild discomfort or heavy sensation in your chest that makes you feel ill. Or there may be a chest pain that spreads to your back or stomach. Some people say the pain was like bad indigestion. …

Free Speech, even for Kevin Myers – Update

18 July, 200819 September, 2008

| 1 Comment

| Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, Media and Communications

The controversy about the article by Kevin Myers in last week’s Irish Independent rumbles on. And as I said in my last post, that is all to the good. It is the frank and open debate of the points he makes in the article that will best serve his critics, not an over-reaction to his rhetoric.

Here’s a sample of the online reaction: …

Free Speech, even for Kevin Myers

16 July, 200819 July, 2008

| 9 Comments

| Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society, Media and Communications

Kevin Myers (pictured left) is a mordant and trenchant journalist, possessed of contumacious views and caustic expression. He is a classic contrarian, articulating non-populist positions with style and vigour. Sometimes he does this with Swiftian ridicule and satire; sometimes with polemic and overstatement; and sometimes with acerbic and penetrating insight. When he gets it right, he is one of Irelandâ€™s best exponents of sharp and biting political commentary and analysis.

Though I rarely, if ever, agree with him, I am always challenged by what he writes. Sun Tzu, in The Art of War, advised that one should know the enemy. In that spirit, I read Kevin Myers: I seek him out because I know that I will usually disagree with his views. And the fact that he can challenge my views, or a contemporary consensus, is, in many ways, the best justification for freedom of expression. When he takes a strong position, it challenges those of us who disagree with him to understand our own positions, marshal our thoughts, and understand precisely what we believe and why we believe it, the better to explain why we disagree with him.

However, last week, Myers crossed the line from commenting on the news to making it.…