Amazing quote from Paul Pullman author of the book The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ in reply to a question if his book was offensive: No one has the right to live without being shocked; no one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book, [...]

It’s always amusing (and a bit worrying) to read the reactions to claims that fictional characters may be gay. In the beginning of last year articles like Of course Tintin’s gay. Ask Snowy caused an uproar. And now the pressure is on Sherlock Holmes. He has always been a bit suspicious. His relationship to Dr [...]

In what is an incredible attempt at Copyfraud and general corporate bullying the nasty International Olympic Committee once again attempts to use its power of intimidation to stamp on an individual photographer (via BoingBoing). On August 12, 2008 Richard Giles posted the photo Beijing Olympics Water Cube below onto his flickr account under a Creative [...]

Despite needing sleep the presentation in disruptive technology presentation in Uppsala went well. The discussion focused on integrity and social networks and presented some of the early early results of the emerging research project. Now its onwards to Barcelona for the 6th Communia Workshop Memory Institutions and the Public Domain… This is going to be [...]

No proof should be necessary that a modicum of freedom for writing and printing is one of the strongest Pillars of support for free Government, for in the absence of such, the Estates would not dispose of sufficient knowledge to make good Laws, nor Practitioners of Law have control in their vocation, nor Subjects knowledge [...]

The Straits Times reports that Singapore is joining the group of countries considering (or implementing) the three strikes law to fight illegal copyright violation. Or as the newspaper buts it: terminating Internet access of hardcore pirates who refuse to quit despite repeat warnings. Three strikes is already in force in South Korea and has been [...]

This post is in support of the Norwegian’s struggle for preserving internet freedom. The question concerns the choice to implement the Data Protection Directive (2006/24) into Norwegian law. Since Norway is not an EU member state they have the right to reserve themselves and not implement directives. The protest for digital privacy is an attempt [...]

In case anyone missed it President Sarkozy recently decided to attack the Burka In our country we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity,” Mr Sarkozy said to applause in the parliament’s ceremonial Versailles home. The burka is not a religious sign. It [...]

This is good news. The Quintessence of Ham writes that the lawsuit against Zotero has been dismissed. I’m delighted to announce that this morning the Fairfax Circuit Court dismissed the lawsuit filed against Zotero by Thomson Reuters. The lawsuit had claimed that the Center for History and New Media “reverse-engineered” Thomson Reuters’s EndNote software to [...]

A post on Slashdot this morning dealt with a juror who posted twitter comments about a trial (while it was in progress) and the effects of this may be to declare the trial a mistrial. “Russell Wright and his construction company, Stoam Holdings, recently lost a $12 million dollar lawsuit brought by investors. But lawyers [...]

Tomorrow I am off to Iceland! This is really cool even though I wish I was staying there for a longer period of time. But it’s cool enough. I fly up tomorrow, have meetings on Tuesday and fly home early on Wednesday. The meetings should be very interesting since I am there to participate in [...]