DailyDirt: The Newest Of The Old

from the urls-we-dug-up dept

Perhaps the most striking thing about archaeological finds is just how fragile and unlikely they are. When you realize the circumstances that had to align to give us each tiny glimpse into our prehistoric past, you can't help but think about all the artifacts we'll never get to see, lost as they are to decay or destruction or inaccessibility. Each find is precious and can teach us something new (except when it turns out to be fake).

• The "band of holes" is a bizarre feature in Peru, made up of thousands of small man-made depressions in the earth, spanning a mile across sloped ground. Proposed explanations have included defensive structures and (of course) ancient aliens, but the latest and most promising idea is that they were a tallying system to measure tribute to the Inca empire. [url]
• You've probably heard about the teenager who used star maps and Google Earth to discover what might be a lost Mayan city, but probably isn't. The latest development is a new explanation for the features seen in satellite imagery: they might be a marijuana grow op. [url]
• A stone age axe recently uncovered in Australia is the oldest known axe that has an attached handle, predating the next most recent example by 10,000 years. It also predates the agricultural revolution by some 30,000 years, leaving archaeologists puzzling over its exact purpose. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: ancient tools, archaeology, band of holes, inca empire, lost mayan city, peru, stone age

Peru's New Data Retention Law Gives Police Warrantless Access To Real-Time And Historical Mobile Phone Geolocation Data

from the every-step-you-take,-I'll-be-watching-you dept

Techdirt has written a number of posts about the introduction of data retention laws around the world, as well as about the successful legal challenges that are being brought against them. Here's another such law, this time from Peru, which has a particularly nasty twist, as the EFF reports:

The Peruvian President today adopted a legislative decree that will grant the police warrantless access to real time user location data on a 24/7 basis. But that's not the worst part of the decree: it compels telecom providers to retain, for one year, data on who communicates with whom, for how long, and from where. It also allows the authorities access to the data in real time and online after seven days of the delivery of the court order. Moreover, it compels telecom providers to continue to retain the data for 24 more months in electronic storage. Adding insult to injury, the decree expressly states that location data is excluded from the privacy of communication guaranteed by the Peruvian Constitution.

Of course, as the famous example of Malte Spitz showed in 2011, the stream of geolocation data from a mobile phone provides an incredibly detailed picture of where someone goes, and even what they are doing when cross-referenced with other personal digital information. It's pretty much equivalent to placing a tracking device on someone.

The EFF post goes on to point out that the move contradicts a variety of human rights obligations that Peru has undertaken to comply with. However, that is unlikely to move the Peruvian authorities much, just as it carries little weight with other countries that have brought in data retention laws. Unfortunately, the underlying problem is deeper than bad laws like Peru's: it's that surveillance in general, and blanket data retention in particular, have become normalized around the world. Until that is addressed, it remains a constant battle to challenge the laws that reflect that approach.

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Filed Under: data retention, mobile data, peru, privacy, real-time, warrants

Yet Another Music Collection Society Corruption Scandal May Lead To Real Copyright Reform In Peru

from the good-signs dept

Over the years, we've covered story after story after story of horrible practices by music collection societies. These organizations, often (though not always) granted a monopoly in countries to collect and distribute money to musicians, all too often seem to be riddled with corrupt practices, sometimes to extreme levels, such as in Spain, where the management of the collection society was accused of diverting nearly half a billion dollars away from actual artists to "friends" of the directors of the organization. While you would hope that these kinds of stories are rare, it appears that when you give one organization the power to collect and distribute money, temptation to cheat is quite strong. Even in organizations, like those in the US, where the practices are more strictly monitored, and generally considered above board, there are widespread stories of collusion and diverting money from small independent artists to big famous artists. A couple years ago, Jonathan Band put together a whitepaper that went through a very long list of examples, showing the parade of horror stories associated with collection societies around the globe.

It appears that we have one more such story to add to the list, but there's at least some chance that some good will come out of this particular horror story. This one takes place down in Peru. Last time we had checked in on Peru, there were efforts under way to put in place very bad copyright legislation, copying the approach in SOPA to place copyright liability on service providers. It looks like that didn't take -- but what has happened is a scandal with that country's collection society, the Peruvian Association of Authors and Composers (APDAYC).

In recent years, the Copyright Office had accumulated several investigations and even sanctions against the APDAYC, but little has this done to make matters change. In early March, there was confirmation that the APDAYC was applying questionable rules for measuring popularity and distribution of royalties among its associates, which persuaded the Indecopi Copyright Commission to order the temporary suspension of the current directors of the company. In response, the APDAYC called the decision “unfair and illegal” and announced that they were willing to exhaust all possible means of defense and had already filed an appeal which has put the decision on hold.

Apparently this has created something of a scandal in Peru, and may have kickstarted some good copyright reforms focused on increasing user rights (too frequently mislabeled as "limitations and exceptions"). In fact, some of the proposals will put things like fair use on par with the ability to exclude granted by copyright law. Some of the proposals are also about reforming how APDAYC works, but it has also opened up the possibility of these other important public-focused reforms:

As a result, there are currently thirteen bills pending that seek to change different parts of Legislative Decree 822, copyright law of Peru. Some of these bills propose changing specific rules on how collecting societies operate, stemming from the allegations in recent months against the APDAYC. Therefore, there is an intent to change the method of electing its governing board, banning re-elections, avoiding direct and indirect conflicts of interest, and the obligation of having to convincingly demonstrate their legitimate representation of works that they charge for.

However, there are also proposals for even deeper reforms. Some proposals include new exceptions and limitations for domestic purposes, non-profit activities, libraries, small businesses and religious activities. Our copyright law, published in 1996, has been changed very few times and has almost always worked in favor of a more rigid and maximalist system. For the first time in eighteen years, there are many bills that seek to put the rights of users at the same level as those of the authors. Regardless of the outcome , the mere discussion of these issues is very necessary and welcome in a country that is moving forward in many cultural aspects and is eager to have better access to culture and knowledge.

So perhaps yet another story of corruption in a collection society will actually help spur beneficial copyright reform, not just cleaning up questionable practices within such an organization, but also increasing the rights of the public that have been yanked away by over-aggressive copyright law.

Filed Under: collection society, copyright, corruption, fair use, peru, user rights
Companies: apdayc

Peruvian Congress Finalizes And Approves New Computer Crime Law In Secret Session, With No Public Discussion

from the transparency,-what's-that? dept

Like many countries, Peru has been working on a law to deal with various kinds of crimes that involve computers and the Internet in some way. But as Access Now reports, this process has just been concluded in a pretty outrageous fashion, displaying deep contempt for the Peruvian people:

On September 12th, the infamous cybercrime law project known as "Ley Beingolea" appeared at the top of the National Congress of Peru's list of projects to debate, despite many criticisms and requests from civil society for open dialogue. What followed next was even more incredible: after some debate on the floor, at 11 a.m. all Congress members went into recess. Five hours later, a completely new text entered into discussion and was passed by the Congress, without any public review.

Given this genesis behind closed doors, with no opportunity for the public to comment on it or point out its flaws, it will come as no surprise that the results are problematic, with plenty of potential for abuse:

Most of these criminal offenses affect fundamental rights such as access to knowledge, freedom of expression, and other criminal law principles such as the need to determine precise conducts to punish (typicity) and the proportionality of sentences. Many of the laws provisions -- such as illegal personal data traffic (art.6), identity theft (art. 9), and the abuse of computer mechanisms and devices (art. 10) -- are poorly and vaguely worded, turning legitimate and common behaviors like investigative journalism, creating a Twitter parody account, or selling network analysis devices into crimes.

This one is symptomatic of the new legislation's attitude towards the digital world:

The new formulation of the criminal offense of discrimination -- which, according to experts, has been rarely used in its original form -- punishes any person who discriminates against one or more person or group of people, or promotes discriminatory acts because of race, religion, sex, genetics, family status, age, disability, language, ethnic and cultural identity, garment, political opinion or opinion of any kind, or economic condition, with the aim of annulling or undermining the recognition, enjoyment, or exercise of a right. The only "digital" difference here is that when the discrimination takes place using information technologies it is considered an aggravation of the same offense, just as with violent discrimination acts. In practice, this will lead to tougher penalties for those who commit the same crime merely for their use of technology in its commission.

Leaving aside the issue of whether a law against discrimination based on garments is really necessary, the key point here is that the mere act of using a computer is seen as aggravating an offense. That's not just ridiculous -- a computer is simply a tool, like a pen or a hammer -- it's also really foolish for a developing country like Peru, which should be offering every encouragement to its people to use technology, not frightening them away from it with ill-thought-out and poorly-worded legislation, as here.

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Filed Under: computer crime, peru, public input

Peru Proposes Default Internet Censorship Requiring Opt-in To View Pornography

from the wonder-where-they-got-that-idea-from dept

Techdirt has run a number of posts about David Cameron's dangerous plans to apply default online censorship and make porn opt-in in the UK, supposedly to "protect the children". Now it looks like Peru is following suit (original in Spanish):

The Bill No. 2511/2012-CR (pdf) introduced by Congressman Omar Chehade and the Nationalist caucus raises serious questions about individual freedoms in Peru. The project aims to establish a national system of mandatory filters for all Internet providers to prevent access to pages with pornographic content. This filter would be applied by default to all users of the Internet and the only way around it would be by expressly asking the operator [to turn it off]. To do this, a group of representatives from public bodies would be responsible for determining what content would be subject to censorship. Thus, the proposal seeks to protect minors from access to pornographic sites.

It's not clear whether the Congressman was directly inspired by Cameron, but it seems quite likely, given the close similarity of the two schemes. And we've seen how bad ideas for Internet laws have a tendency to spread rapidly among politicians, notably in the case of France's "three-strikes" approach, which was taken up by the UK, South Korea, New Zealand and the US (albeit in a modified form). If more of these "for the children" censorship bills requiring opt-in to porn start turning up in the near future, we'll know whose fault it is....

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Filed Under: censorship, free speech, opt-in, peru, porn

Is Peru Going To Get Its Own SOPA?

from the again-and-again-and-again dept

It never stops. What the entertainment industry fails to get in one place, it just looks to get implemented in the law somewhere else, so that it can point to that as an "example" for others to follow -- and then often use questionable "free trade agreements" to force through similar rules. Earlier this year, we noted that Colombia rushed through a SOPA-like law after signing a free trade agreement with the US. This despite growing evidence that countries who ratchet up their IP laws don't see much benefit from doing so.

Now we're hearing stories that something similar may be happening down in Peru, where there's been an ongoing (if odd) debate about how to deal with copyright infringement. Apparently, there are growing concerns that the crux of the bill will be to put the liability on third parties, including ISPs, search engines and others, with the expectation that by dumping the liability on them, they'll somehow magically stop piracy. It's the same old story: because the entertainment industry refuses to adapt its business models, it wants to rope in third parties and make them legally liable for propping up the failing models. Of course, all that actually will do is lead to much greater costs for users, and will make it much harder for internet companies to operate in Peru.

Hopefully, the government there doesn't go down this particular path -- especially since there are reports that the industry is hoping to use what comes out of Peru as an "example" of what other countries in the region should do as well.

Filed Under: copyright, peru, sopa

Author Strips Naked To Protest Book Piracy; Probably Works As Well As Anything Else

from the that-is-to-say,-it-won't-work dept

Not quite sure what to make of this, but ZDNet has the story of Brazilian author Vanessa de Oliveira stripping naked in public to protest infringing copies of her books, both printed and digital, in Peru. She wrote "NO TO PIRACY" (or, rather, "NO A LA PIRATERIA") in red ink on her front and back, and disrobed in a public place (in front of the Governmental Palace in Lima, Peru) with lots of cameras and press around. Obviously, there is video, though, of course it is certainly NSFW (depending on your place of work): The ZDNet piece provides some rough translations of what de Oliveira had to say on the matter, including claims that there is no book piracy in Brazil (totally not true) and that infringement of books "endangers culture" (also empirically not true).

If it's not obvious, this is clearly a publicity stunt around her book, which according to TorrentFreak's article is "based on her experiences bedding nearly 5,000 men." Uh, yeah.

But the thing that struck me about all of this is that this sort of thing probably works about as well as any other "anti-piracy" technique. Well, if anything, it might do more to increase both piracy and sales of her book, as it may increase interest in the book. But I fail to see how it does anything whatsoever to decrease piracy.

Filed Under: books, brazil, peru, piracy, publicity stunt, stripping, vanessa de oliveira

Research Shows Little Relationship Between Stricter IP Laws And Innovation Or Economic Growth

from the that's-just-not-how-it-works dept

We've argued for years that intellectual property laws have little, if any, connection to innovation and economic growth. We've seen so much research on this that, at this point, it's hardly even an open question. And yet... politicians and the press (and beneficiaries of stricter IP law) always seem to insist that there's a clear, undeniable and strong positive connection between stricter IP laws or enforcement and economic growth and innovation. Unfortunately there are no legitimate studies that seem to support that argument. Mike Palmedo recently put together a presentation highlighting some of the research which demonstrates the lack of a connection between such policies and economic growth or innovation. Here's a quick summary:

UK Commission on Intellectual Property Rights. Integrating Intellectual Property Rights and Development Policy. 2002. (Link)

“…strong IP rights alone provide neither the necessary nor sufficient incentives for firms to invest in particular countries… The evidence that foreign investment is positively associated with IP protection in most developing countries is lacking.”

Robert L. Ostergard., Jr. “Policy Beyond Assumptions: Intellectual Property Rights and Economic Growth.” Chapter 2 of The Development Dilemma: The Political Economy of Intellectual Property Rights in the International System.  LFB Scholarly Publishing, New York. 2003

“…no consistent evidence emerged to show that IPR contributed significantly to economic growth cross-nationally.  Furthermore, when the nations are split into developed and developing countries, results to suggest otherwise did not emerge.”

Carsten Fink and Keith Maskus. “Why We Study Intellectual Property and What We Have Learned.” Chapter one of Intellectual Property and Development: Lessons from Economic Research. 2005. (Link)

“Existing research suggests that countries that strengthen their IPR are unlikely to experience a sudden boost in inflows of FDI.  At the same time, the empirical evidence does point to a positive role for IPRs in stimulating formal technology transfer.”

“Developing countries should carefully assess whether the economic benefits of such rules outweigh their costs. They also need to take into account the costs of administering and enforcing a reformed IPR system”

“We still know relatively little about the way technology diffuses internationally.”

Keith Mascus. “Incorporating a Globalized Intellectual Property Rights Regime Into an Economic Development Strategy.”  Ch. 15 of Intellectual Property, Growth and Trade. (ed. Mascus). Elsevier.  2008.

“Middle income countries must strike a complicated balance between promoting domestic learning and diffusion, through limited IP protection, and gaining greater access to international technologies through a strong regime… it makes little sense for these nations to adopt the strongly protectionist IP standards that exist in the U.S., the EU and other developed economies.  Rather, they should take advantage of the remaining policy space provided by the TRIPS Agreement.”

“It is questionable whether the poorest countries should devote significant development resources to legal reforms and enforcement of IPR.”

Kamal Saggi. “Intellectual Property Rights and International Technology Transfer via Trade and Foreign Direct Investment. Ch. 13 of Intellectual Property, Growth and Trade. (ed. Mascus). Elsevier.  2008.

“Overall, it is fair to say that the existing empirical evidence regarding the overall technology-transfer impacts of increased IPR protection in developing countries is inconclusive at this stage.  What is not yet clear is whether sufficient information flows will be induced to procure significant dynamic gains in those countries through more learning and local innovation.”

“Developing countries need not only to obtain foreign technologies but also to learn how to use them to their fullest potential.  In this context, it is useful to make a distinction between the initial introduction of a technology into a country and its subsequent diffusion within the domestic economy.”

 

Alexander Koff, Laura Baughman, Joseph Francois and Christine McDaniel. “Study on the Economic Impact of ‘TRIPS-Plus’ Free Trade Agreements.”  International Intellectual Property Institute and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. August 2011.

• TRIPS-Plus IPRs viewed as “important, but not essential” for attracting investment. Many other factors matter (taxes, human capital, clustering, etc).
• Many countries had recently changed laws to comply with TRIPS, so changes for FTAs had a smaller effect on investment.
• The way in which the obligations were implemented was important.   It is not wise to simply impose one legal framework on top of another.  Implementation of FTAs requires taking specific nations’ legal systems into account.

That same post includes additional data from a research paper that Palmedo himself is working on, looking specifically at the impact on foreign direct investment (FDI) in countries that sign free trade agreements (FTAs) with the US, which require stricter IP laws. Palmedo looked at three countries, Guatemala, Peru and Nicaragua, that had signed such FTAs with the US, and studied how much foreign direct investment they got before and after the new laws went in place. He also looked at how much change there was in technology licensing. The results, again, highlighted how such rules appeared to have little direct impact on these items -- even if they're often cited as the key reasons for signing these agreements. As Palmedo concludes:

In general, the results show that stronger IPRs were not correlated with changes in FDI. They were correlated with changes in licensing, but not always in the direction one would expect. The data does not show that stronger IPRs required by FTAs drove significant amounts of tech transfer in these three countries.

There are plenty more studies along these lines. At what point do we stop taking it on faith that expanding intellectual property laws is automatically good for the economy and innovation and start looking at what actually works?

Filed Under: economic growth, fta, guatemala, ipr, mike palmedo, nicaragua, peru, uk

DailyDirt: Technology In Education

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The digital revolution of the education system has yet to really take off. Many students communicate with their teachers via email and have figured out how to use word processors (instead of typewriters), but the widespread use of technology in classrooms hasn't exactly caught on. Cool projects like the Khan Academy are starting to ramp up, but introducing cheap laptops or ebooks into public schools hasn't met with wild success. (Though, if you've heard of any inspiring programs, let us know in the comments.)

• Peru spent $225 million on an education initiative that involved One Laptop per Child and 850,000 basic laptops for schools throughout the country. Unfortunately, the results so far have not shown much improvement in math or reading scores. [url]
• India's $35 tablet, the Aakash, is being revised and will probably cost closer to $50. The next version will be called 'Aakash 2' (not the 'new Aakash') and offer a capacitative touch screen. [url]
• Wilco Electronics is bidding on a contract to make Aakash tablets and to create a pilot program for these devices in underserved Philadelphia schools. But if Peru is any indication of what will happen.... [url]
• To discover more interesting education-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: education, email, india, peru, tablets
Companies: khan academy, one laptop per child, wilco electronics

Peruvian Blogger Sentenced To Jail & Fined For Linking To Articles About Politician's Past

from the this-is-defamation? dept

The Groove Tiger alerts us to the news coming out of Peru, of a blogger, Jose Alejandro Godoy, who has been sentenced to three years in jail and fined over $100,000 (Google translation of the original Spanish) for writing a blog post about a Peruvian politician, Jorge Mufarech. The post linked to various news reports of criminal charges made against Mufarech in the past, and Mufarech claimed that such links were defamatory. Godoy pointed out that the information he wrote about was well-sourced and came from others, and also that he had offered Mufarech a right to reply, if he wanted it. Yet, the court still found him guilty of criminal defamation, leading to the jailtime. Godoy is appealing, but just the fact that the case has gone this far should be seen as quite troubling.

Filed Under: blog, links, peru