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If it’s on the web, it’s free for all to use?

The European Court of Justice (the ECJ, “the European Supreme Court”) ruled three years ago that anything published openly on the web may be freely reused by anyone in any way on their own website. This ruling didn’t get anywhere near the attention it deserved, as it completely reverses a common misconception – the idea that you can’t republish or reuse something you happen to come across. The ECJ says that an open publication on the web exhausts the exclusivity of a work as far as the web is concerned, and that further authorization or permission from the rightsholder is not required for any reuse on the web after that, commercial or not.

Falkvinge: How many noted the implications of the European Court of Justice ruling on Internet copyright three years ago? »

Make your voice heard!

EDRi on EU public consultations on Internet and Big Brother issues:

Public consultations are an opportunity to influence policy-making at an early stage, and to help to shape a brighter future for your digital rights.

Below you can find the public consultations which EDRi finds relevant in 2017. (…) We will update the list on an ongoing basis, adding our responses to the consultations and other information that can help you get engaged.

EDRi: Important Consultations for your Digital Rights! »

The upside to piracy

While many artists have stepped up to demonize piracy over the years, Def Leppard guitarist Vivian Campbell prefers to see the upside. Describing the effects as “fantastic”, Campbell says there’s a whole new audience coming to the band’s shows, bringing fresh energy to the performance. But how much of this can be attributed to piracy in 2017?

TorrentFreak: Piracy Brings a New Young Audience to Def Leppard, Guitarist Says »

Pre-recording bodycam exposes dishonest cops

It seems as though a Baltimore police officer forgot about one key feature of his bodycam: the fact that it saves the previous 30 seconds of video recorded before the camera is activated. Most bodycams record and dump constantly. The moment it’s activated, the 30 seconds preceding the activation become part of the recording.

What was apparently inadvertently captured by the camera was the officer planting drugs in a can and hiding them in an alley. All three officers then retreat to the sidewalk outside the alley before heading back in to “discover” the drug stash.

Techdirt: Body Cam Footage Of A Cop Planting Evidence Leads To Dozens Of Dismissed Cases »

Dumbo – How the NSA can destroy digital evidence

Today, August 3rd 2017 WikiLeaks publishes documents from the Dumbo project of the CIA. Dumbo is a capability to suspend processes utilizing webcams and corrupt any video recordings that could compromise a PAG deployment. The PAG (Physical Access Group) is a special branch within the CCI (Center for Cyber Intelligence); its task is to gain and exploit physical access to target computers in CIA field operations.

Dumbo can identify, control and manipulate monitoring and detection systems on a target computer running the Microsoft Windows operating sytem. It identifies installed devices like webcams and microphones, either locally or connected by wireless (Bluetooth, WiFi) or wired networks. All processes related to the detected devices (usually recording, monitoring or detection of video/audio/network streams) are also identified and can be stopped by the operator. By deleting or manipulating recordings the operator is aided in creating fake or destroying actual evidence of the intrusion operation.

Wikileaks: Dumbo »