Michael Geist sez, "Part Three of my ACTA Guide [ed: ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a brutal secret copyright treaty presently under negotiation in Guadalajara] focuses on the issue that has dogged the proposed agreement since it was first announced – the lack of transparency associated with the text and the talks. — Read the rest

UK MP Don Foster has presented an Early Day Motion demanding that the UK government disclose the substance of the secret copyright treaty negotiations in Guadalajara, Mexico. Write to your MP and ask that s/he support "Early Day Motion 700." Let's drag the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement out of the smoke-filled room and into the sunshine! — Read the rest

Canadian MP Charlie Angus — a successful musician, the former front-man for punk legends L'Etranger — has stood up in Parliament to demand that Prime Minister Harper and Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Peter Van Loan explain exactly what the hell they think they're doing negotiating a secret copyright treaty without Parliamentary oversight or input from Canadians. — Read the rest

Michael Geist sez, "The 7th round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement negotiations begins tomorrow in Guadalajara, Mexico. The negotiation round will be the longest to-date, with three and a half days planned to address civil enforcement, border measures, the Internet provisions, and (one hour for) transparency. — Read the rest

In this episode of the always-excellent Command Line geek
podcast, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Danny O'Brien does a great
job of explaining what's going on with the secret Anti-Counterfeiting
Trade Agreement (ACTA, a brutal, unprecedented copyright treaty being negotiated
behind closed doors), how you can fight it, where it came from
and what you can do. — Read the rest

The latest round of negotiations over the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA — a secret treaty that contains provisions requiring nations to wiretap the Internet, force ISPs to spy on users, search laptops at the border, and disconnect whole households from the net on the basis of mere accusation of copyright infringement) is just kicking off in Mexico, and activists from around Mexico and the world have converged on the meeting to demand transparent, public negotiations of this critical treaty. — Read the rest

The drive to ram through the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is ramping up, with the next meeting set for the end of this month in Mexico. ACTA is an unprecedented copyright treaty (unprecedented in that it reaches farther than previous copyright treaties, and that it is being negotiated behind closed doors, without any public input or oversight) that will force copyright policing duties on Internet companies (vastly increasing the cost of hosting "user-generated content"); create new penalties for infringement (including Draconian penalties such as disconnection from the Internet on accusations of infringement); and require countries to search hard-drives, personal media players, and other personal data at their borders. — Read the rest

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Tim Jones has posted EFF's "12 Trends to Watch in 2010." The whole list is worth reading (if for no other reason than it contains the plots for about 50 new sf novels):

5. Location Privacy: Tracking Beacons in Your Pocket

It's easier and cheaper than ever for computers to keep track of where you are: there are so many more potential sources of information about your whereabouts, and so many reasons it might be useful or interesting to you, your friends, your boss, or the government.

The flamingo tongue snail Cyphoma gibbosum appears to have a shell decorated with bright spots (top of image). Amazingly though, the spots aren't actually part of the shell, but rather the animal's flesh! When the animal retracts into its stark white shell, so do the spots (bottom of image). — Read the rest

That's an Eastern Pacific black ghostshark, native to the coast of southern California. It's one of 94 new species the California Academy of Sciences documented in 2009. Ghostsharks (or chimaeras) are, unsurprisingly, related to sharks, but only distantly. Their evolutionary path branched away from their better-known cousins some 400 million years ago. — Read the rest

Scott Draves sez, "The Electric Sheep makes art
collaboratively with 60,000 computers and people all over the
internet. It's based on a free screensaver that anyone can download
and run. As it runs you may vote on designs you like, and the
favorites survive to reproduce with a family resemblance, hence the
flock evolves to please its human audience. — Read the rest

Leaks have emerged from another secret copyright treaty, this one between the EU and Canada. The EU is really screwing Canada with this one, demanding longer copyright terms, more liability for ISPs (which means that it gets harder and more expensive to host anything from a message board to a video), laws against breaking copyright protection (even for a legal purpose, like getting your own files back), and a royalty on the sale of used copyrighted goods (so you'd have to track down and pay the rightsholder when you resold a painting or other copyrighted work). — Read the rest

Michael Geist writes, "The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is generating growing concern as many people learn about the secret copyright treaty for the first time. I've create a visual timeline to trace its emergence that includes links to the leaked documents, official government statements, and NGO letters and work in the area." — Read the rest

French activist Jérémie Zimmerman sez,

A worldwide coalition of Non-Governmental Organizations, consumers unions and online service providers associations publish an open letter to the European institutions regarding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) currently under negotiation. They call on the European Parliament and the EU negotiators to oppose any provision into the multilateral agreement that would undermine the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens in Europe and across the world.

An upcoming round of negotiations for the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA, the notorious, punishing secret copyright treaty) is schedulef for New Zealand in April 2010. Under the terms of the treaty, New Zealand could be forced into accepting the "three strikes" rule that was defeated after a lengthy parliamentary battle last year ("three strikes" means that if someone you live with gets three unsubstantiated accusations of copyright infringement, you and everyone you live with loses access to the Internet and it becomes a crime for any other ISP to hook you back up again). — Read the rest

I don't know about you, but I've got multiple cookie exchange parties lined up in the coming weeks. If you're on the same page and need a clever idea or two, the NotSoHumblePie cooking blog has several great science-themed cookies, sure to make geeks, dorks and nerds smile. — Read the rest

Read this account of James Love's conversation with Ambassador Ron Kirk, the head US Trade Representative, on the question of why the Draconian Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is taking place in secret. Love cornered Kirk on a United Airlines flight from Geneva to DC following a WTO Ministerial meeting. — Read the rest

Undead Ed's plush Mortimer Mutated Bear is sweet and sickly all at once. I love those eyes!

Mortimer Mutated Bear Plush by *Undead-Art*

(via Superpunch)

/mandel/ — Read the rest

Michael Geist sez, "The European Commission analysis of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement's [ed: a secret, restrictive copyright treaty that the Obama administration will not release on "national security" grounds] Internet chapter has leaked, indicating that the U.S. is seeking to push laws that extend beyond the WIPO Internet treaties and beyond current European Union law (the EC posted the existence of the document last week but refused to make it publicly available). — Read the rest

Two US Senators, Bernie Sanders (I-VI) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), have written to the US Trade Representative demanding that the text of the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement be made public. This is the treaty that allows for criminal sanctions against noncommercial file-sharers, demands border-searches of laptop hard-drives and personal media players and phones for pirated material, requires ISPs to spy on their users, and gives movie and record companies the right to take whole households off the Internet with unsubstantiated allegations of piracy. — Read the rest