A Victory for Software Innovation

A new article (Paul Matthews, New Zealand Computer Society) reports that the latest version of New Zealand's new patent bill has once again excluded software from patentability.
This is a great move in itself, but what's even more significant is that the people leading the charge against software patents are actually the 2 largest software companies in New Zealand. This means that the companies (and not just individual high-profile developers) are the ones who are aware of the counterproductive effects patents have on innovation. If only US software companies were like that...
On a slightly related note, Pink Floyd's former manager has spoken out (Barry Collins, PCPro) against trying to stop online music sharing.
What's significant is that it's coming from the manager of a band that sold music under the conventional labels — it's not coming from an independent musician (i.e. outside the system) like Jill Sobule. What's even better is that the arguments against preventing file sharing are both economic and societal in nature — he knows that the most efficient production point is where the price equals the marginal cost of the good, and as the marginal cost of pretty much any digital software/files is $0, the price should follow suit. In addition to this, he realizes that the law is useless as a deterrent because the idea of copying as being wrong has not entered (and will not enter) the social consciousness; on the other hand, frivolous lawsuits will just make consumers resentful.
That said, I must disagree with what quoted economist Will Page says about file sharing sites damaging legitimate sites like Spotify. Looking at the data of pre- and post-DRM-free iTunes vs. music downloads on file sharing sites, iTunes sales shot up like anything after DRM was removed and all songs were set at $0.99, while file sharing music downloads fell off the charts when this happened. People will obtain goods legally if it is easier/more convenient than doing so illegally, and download data supports this.

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Pay-to-Pirate

This comes from this article (Reuters through Yahoo! Movies) on how many sites hosting copies of movies are now charging customers to access them.
It's a rather strange turn of events, and one that I do not support, because now, these sites are actually taking revenue from the studios that produced these movies despite offering little to distinguish their copies from the original copies. That said, the benefit to consumers is probably that these uploaded copies are free of the DRM that comes with the original copies — that's what makes them worth buying.
That said, a quote by a Paramount executive (or so the article implies) caught my eye.

But the public needs to know that with such pirated convenience comes the risk of having credit card information ripped off, and problems with spyware contamination are even more common.

What?
They're concerned about spyware contamination on people's computers?
Yes, ripping off credit card information is a real problem, but the spyware contamination bogeyman is nonsense for 2 reasons.
One is that this spyware likely only affects Windows computers. Hence, *nix and Solaris users are probably safe.
The other is that it is positively hypocritical for a Paramount executive to be concerned about spyware contamination through illegally downloaded movies after the Sony-BMG DRM fiasco. After the Sony-BMG music installed rootkits to ensure that the music was legitimate and then wreaked havoc on the user's computer, I have more faith in illegally downloaded movies and music than in DRM-locked movies and music (ideal, of course, would be legally downloaded DRM-free movies and music).

In semi-related news, this article (Mike Masnick, Techdirt) talks about a new appellate court ruling that allows Congress to retroactively reestablish (was that redundant?) copyright over works already in the public domain. Upon reading it, I almost barfed. I can't really add anything to the discussion as the article is very comprehensive and thorough in its explanation and analysis, so I will just ask you to read the article itself (and if you are feeling bold (or bored), read the actual ruling itself, posted right below the article content).

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Why Open-Source is not Socialism

I was thinking of writing something on this for a few days, but I got lazy. Then, I saw this (Glyn Moody, The H Open) article, and it gave me the perfect motivation to actually write this.
I'll first sum up what he says, as he covers most of the important stuff. Follow the jump to read more about Linux, Microsoft, capitalism, socialism, cars, and the music industry.
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