inCommunicado - eric eggertson

Update:  At the request of the Flickr member whose illegitimate use of others’ photos prompted this story, I’ve deleted his name from this post.  (He asked nicely.)
A short blog post by Vancouver web developer and photographer Kris Krug caught my eye back in February. He accused a fellow Flickr user [name deleted] of claiming credit […]

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As if we needed another example of a company getting all shirty about its intellectual property, Paramount fired a legal salvo at a fan site that leaked a photo of a film (perhaps that’s too artsy a term) due for release this summer.
The Movie Blog’s John Campea describes Paramount’s blunder here and refers to the […]

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I’ve never met him, but I hate Sanford Wallace.
In the mid ’90s, I had just talked my spouse into an e-mail account and was helping her figure out how it could help her writing career.
That’s when Sanford Wallace entered our lives, and started peppering her with the same e-mail every day. (Photo from O’Reilly Media […]

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After years of receiving dubious e-mails from various government figures, relatives of royalty, and lawyers with lofty connections in Nigeria, I’ve received a legitimate business offer from a very nice woman in the Netherlands.
It seems Maryann Jacob recently discovered a metal box with $15 million in U.S. currency, and wants my help in stealing it […]

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A Canadian Recording Industry Association report tells us what common sense has told us all along - people who take the time to download and share music files are also likely to buy music. Copyright lawyer and e-freedom advocate Michael Geist analyses the report. Unlike other research reports mentioned by CRIA, this one includes full […]

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Cory Doctorow is hot on the trail of someone using a Rogers e-mail address, who is purporting to be a Canadian lawyer. The writer’s inability to spell "lawyer", "Queen’s Counsel" and "libel" was the first tip-off that "Don Deveny" might not be a real lawyer.
After checking with various provincial law societies, Doctorow found no such […]

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Colin McKay - Is Traditional Public Opinion Polling Dying a Slow Death?
Colin McKay - Abramoff, Op-eds, and the "Invisible" Hand of the Free MarketBusiness Week and others reveal payments for editorial mentions of a lobbyist’s clients in op-ed pieces placed by think-tank analysts.
Scott Baradell - Media Orchard Presents: The 10 Worst Spins of 2005
David […]

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Legislation for Canada’s do-not-call list was passed in November, but it will take almost two years for the telemarketing regulations to be put into effect.Says Canwest News:
"Last-minute changes to the Telecommunications Act, passed just
before the federal election was called, will let Canadians add their
phone numbers to a national do-not-call list. Telemarketers are
prohibited from calling numbers […]

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You could see this one coming a mile off.
CNet News’ Dawn Kawamoto is reporting a security company warning of a flaw in Apple iTunes security. (In an update, she notes it affects only iTunes 6 for Windows.)
Says privacy rights advocate Cory Doctorow:
I’m not surprised. An objective of good security is to protect users
from attackers […]

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A recent decision by the Supreme Court of Canada confirms that Lego has no patent protection here as it fights to keep market share. Having had its patent expire, Lego was trying to argue that the shape of the blocks’ connecting knobs are distinct and should be treated as a kind of trademark.
But Lego has […]

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