Informational Capitalism

In The Law of Informational Capitalism, Prof. Amy Kapczynski of the Yale Law School reviews two books, Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism and Julie Cohen’s Between Truth and Power: The Legal Constructions of Informational Capitalism to document the legal structures on which the FAANGs and other "big tech" companies depend for their power.

Below the fold, some commentary on her fascinating article.

Trade Pacts and Trade Secrets

I already pointed out that:

The TPP chapter leaked by Wikileaks mandates that countries “judicial authorities shall, at least, have the authority to [...] order the destruction of devices and products found to be involved in" any activity that circumvents controls that manufacturers build into their software or devices. This makes the equipment white hats use to find vulnerabilities in, for example, things in the IoT subject to destruction.

Now, Glynn Moody at Techdirt points to a column in The Globe and Mail by Dan Breznitz, professor of Innovation Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. Breznitz explains that the TPP not merely greatly increases the intellectual property protections for both copyrights and patents, but also for trade secrets. Below the fold, details of some of the ways in which added protection for trade secrets is a catastrophically bad idea.

Patents considered harmful

Although at last count I'm a named inventor on at least a couple of dozen US patents, I've long believed that the operation of the patent system, like the copyright system, is profoundly counter-productive. Since "reform" of these systems is inevitably hijacked by intellectual property interests, I believe that at least the patent system, if not both, should be completely abolished. The idea that an infinite supply of low-cost, government enforced monopolies is in the public interest is absurd on its face. Below the fold, some support for my position.

Rare good news on Intellectual Property

Two recent pieces of good news on the intellectual property front:

• The Hargreaves process in the UK has resulted in copyright reform legislation which has passed Parliament and is due to receive Royal Assent this month. Among the numerous improvements it contains are that data mining is included in the right to access, that libraries can make fair dealing copies for their readers, and that sound and video are treated the same as text in most cases. Of particular importance is that in most cases contracts will not be able to override these permissions.
• In the recent Octane Fitness case, the US Supreme Court changed the rules for awards of fees in patent cases to deter patent trolls. The first such case has just been decided, and an obvious patent troll has not merely lost the case, but has had to pay for the victim's lawyers! Congratulations to FindTheBest CEO Kevin O'Connor for fighting back. Here's hoping that the loss of his RICO suit against the troll can be reversed on appeal.