The French Sénat finally approves the so-called HADOPI (Haute Autorité pour la Diffusion des Œuvres et la Protection des droits sur Internet) law. Leonardo is particularly upset by it not so much because an internet user who has been caught three times illegally handling copyrighted content sees his internet connection severed, but because someone must have access to the content of the private communication of the internet user to make those assessments.
Leonardo fears that something similar to the HADOPI law will also be adopted in Italy. However, unlike the French one, the Italian Constitution (Art. 15) is clear about personal communication
“La libertà e la segretezza della corrispondenza e di ogni altra forma di comunicazione sono inviolabili. La loro limitazione può avvenire soltanto per atto motivato dell’autorità giudiziaria con le garanzie stabilite dalla legge”.
(Freedom and privacy of correspondence and of any other form of communication are inviolable. Their limitation can only happen by a motivated deliberation of judiciary authority with the guarantees established by law).
The problem with the HADOPI law is that its advocates are right in claiming there is a problem, but wrong with the solution they have come up with. Those opposing it are right on the specifics of the law but wrong because for too many years they have left rights holders alone with their problems and often derided them as “dinosaurs incapable to adapt to the digital age” (a critique that is partly true) while their assets were being looted.
Leonardo prides himself to have been among those who have developed the Digital Media in Italia (dmin.it) proposal, the only comprehensive fully elaborated proposal that takes into account the needs of all stakeholders to overcome the impasse the HADOPI law wrongly addresses.
Leonardo speaks at Patinnova 2009, 2009/04/29
Leonardo sits on a Panel at Patinnova 2009 discussing “Intellectual Property (IP) in rapidly developing industries – does it stimulate innovation?”. His message: “We already have enough robust protection of IP. What rights holders desperately need now is smart exploitation of IP. The goals of the two are not necessarily in sync”.
Leonardo closes the 22nd DMP meeting, Maui, HI (US) – 2009/04/25
Leonardo closes the 22nd DMP meeting. The preliminary working draft of the Open Media marketplace is produced. See the Maui Press Release to know about other results
Carlo Piana submits a proposal for an “MXM Public Licence” to the Open Source Initiative (OSI), 2009/03/26
Carlo Piana, a law attorney specialising in the Open Source Software (OSS) practice he calls “Free Software”, submits a proposal for an “MXM Public Licence” to the Open Source Initiative (OSI) on behalf of Leonardo. The proposal basically extends the provisions of the Mozilla Public Licence (MPL 1.1) where (legal concepts expressed by a non-legal person) the originator of the code releases the copyright of the code, the patents that are relevant to exercise the code that he may hold, but not the patents that he does not hold.
The proposed MXM licence, including text that the originator does not release the patents he holds that are required to exercise the code, angers some OSS integralists.
Humble observations of a non-legal person:
- What about the BSD and MIT licences? Don’t they achieve the same purpose of releasing just the copyright of the code? Are they not OSS licences?
- Imagine there is an individual releasing code under MPL 1.1 that requires patents of a 3rd party with which he may have all sorts of business relationships.