Joe Karaganis' Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week

from the double-honors dept

Sat, Oct 6th 2012 12:00pm — Joe Karaganis

Hello Techdirt community! Mike invited me to share my favorite posts this week.

This is a double honor since it allows me to honor my own first-ever Techdirt post: Crime Inc. Inc.--a shocking expose of the conspiracy to hype criminal conspiracies about piracy. Is Crime Inc. Inc. the most interesting post of the week? No. Maybe not in the top ten. But it is a contribution to the important Techdirt tradition of shaming bad journalism. And it is the longest post of the week.

More generally, this was a bonanza week for posts about international copyright politics, which are a big part of what I get from Techdirt. Post-after-post, it's the best running account of the global politics of intellectual property, the Internet, and innovation. It's incredibly important. Among this week's bounty, there's:

Tim's rundown of the maximalist copyright law recently passed in Panama, which has all the hallmarks of being written by US entertainment industry lobbyists and includes such perennially bad ideas as the protection of transient copies stored in computer memory. (Panamanian parliamentary staff Techdirt readers: call me)
Glyn's accounts of the latest copyright heterodoxy to emerge from the European Parliament: a proposed break with the basic principle of automatic copyright embedded in the Berne agreement.
Mike's relentless hammering on issues of transparency and participation in international policy-making, from WIPO's refusal to provide the Pirate Party with observer status (in contrast to other NGOs); to the US's selective advocacy of transparency at the ITU (in contrast to its obsessive secrecy with regard to the Trans Pacific Partnership negotiations); to, for good measure, the ITU's secretive, telco-backed efforts to assert a role in Internet governance.
Zach's account of the battle over the Guyanan government's decision to buy pirated textbooks from schools, as a cost saving measure. (Guyanan cabinet staff Techdirt readers: call me).

Finally, I really enjoyed the piece about Mike's receipt, a couple weeks ago, of Public Knowledge's coveted IP3 award for contributions "in the three areas of "IP"—intellectual property, information policy and Internet protocol." Oh wait. No one at Techdirt has written about that. Well, I'll be the first. Congratulations, Mike. It is richly deserved.

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13 Comments

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dr evil, 6 Oct 2012 @ 12:03pm

first and 'here here'
that is all
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- Some Other Guy (profile), 7 Oct 2012 @ 7:37am
  
  Re: first and 'here here'
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hear,_hear
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Oct 2012 @ 5:50pm

UK Obama Care
Patients starve to death on hospital wards
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9591814/Patients-starve-and-die-of-thirst-on-hos pital-wards.html

Forty-three patients starved to death last year and 111 died of thirst while being treated on wards, new figures show.
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- Richard (profile), 7 Oct 2012 @ 5:04am
  
  Re: UK Obama Care
  Lay off will you.
  
  The NHS may not be perfect - but it is far better for the majority of people than what you have in the US.
  
  No one in Britain, apart form a few right wing nutters, would change our system for the US one.
  
  Note that the article you link to is NOT suggesting that we switch to your "let the poor die in their homes" system - although we do want to improve what we have.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2012 @ 6:12am
    
    Re: Re: UK Obama Care
    Two items
    
    1. The health care system is not suppose to kill people but to help them.
    
    2. This is where the US health care system is headed except bigger and more destructive.
    
    One additional comment. The new source is from a major UK news paper.
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    - Richard (profile), 7 Oct 2012 @ 9:57am
      
      Re: Re: Re: UK Obama Care
      1. The health care system is not suppose to kill people but to help them.
      
      By and large it doesn't. Of course you can find individual bad cases in any place you look - if you try hard enough - but I and other family members have spent time in three different NHS hospitals in the last two and a half years and have never experienced or seen anything even vaguely resembling the cases in that report.
      
      This is where the US health care system is headed except bigger and more destructive.
      
      None of Obama's plans are taking US healthcare anywhere near what the UK NHS provides - whiuch is actually a pity.
      
      The new source is from a major UK news paper.
      
      This newspaper is a byword for right wing bias. It is usually referred to as the Torygraph. Even this report does not (to British eyes) appear to be critical of the general principles of the NHS - just pointing out particular failings that need to be remedied.
      
      When the US Healthcare system starts actually trying to serve everyone equally regardless of their means you can start talking. Until then bear in mind that the NHS is OUR system and we like it. No party in the UK that stood on a platform of changing to the US system would ever win even a single seat in parliament. OK we accept that sometimes there are failings - and they need to be fixed - but these are local issues and WE will deal with them ourselves thank you. Do not try pulling these reports out of the British context and trying to make a point that is relevant to US politics because you will make the UK readership really angry.
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      - Richard (profile), 7 Oct 2012 @ 10:16am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: UK Obama Care
        For comparison - see this report about the failings of private hospitals...
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2012 @ 6:04am

Poetic Justice... Fair use style...
I know it would be inviting a legal onslaught even if that onslaught onslaught could be defended with fair use, but some one should take their piece, reshoot interviews with you and Mike then re-edit in the new footage as commentary on it then release it on YouTube. I personally would love to see that.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2012 @ 7:34am

the coalition government is doing it's damnedest to kill off the nhs as far as ordinary people are concerned, which would then allow the best treatment to be available for the rich and famous for free instead of them having to pay for it as at the moment, kill off the unions, which is what Thatcher started (her pet hate and main goal as Prime Minister) ignoring the fact that the unions have done and still do good for business by ensuring a safe workplace and safe working practices (that instills confidence in investors) and that workers are treated fairly, rather than as the present changes that are to be made where a company can sack a worker for no reason and not give compensation, make people work longer before being pensioned off so that there is greater chance of people paying more into the system in taxes and contributions but dying and not drawing their pension, forgetting that whilst people will be working longer, there will still be less jobs for the youngsters. the UK has been totally fucked up by this government and as usual those paying the price didn't cause the problems (started in the USA!)or deserve to be penalised either.
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Anonymous Coward, 7 Oct 2012 @ 10:51am

Obamacare?
I guess Congress had nothing to do with it, huh? It's all one man's fault, right?
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Watchit (profile), 7 Oct 2012 @ 3:58pm

Gratz on the IP3 award Mike! :D
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