Another Book Scaning Project, Whether New Technology Should Have New Patent Rules, and More

• HP’s, UMich’s book scanning collaboration
  Jon Stokes has the details at Ars of a project that may be similar in spirit to Google’s original Books project but rather different in the details. While it will be making digital versions from the university’s rare books collection available online, for free, HP is also offering a novel print-on-demand offering designed to work with high resolution scans that otherwise are not suitable for your run of the mill PoD service.
• Another online, anonymous speech case
  Jacqui Cheung at Ars describes the latest in an developing trend of cases testing the limits of online, anonymous free speech. A final ruling on unmasking an anonymous commenter is still pending and if granted could set precedents that contract anonymous speech. Here’s hoping the proceeding uncovers clear and indisputable facts so the ruling can be more of a bright line, either defending the commenter as reporting the truth or clearly committing defamation.
• New comment system goes live at the FCC
  At Ars, Matthew Lasar points out a lot to like about the new online system. In particular, the I am hoping the enhanced transparency will make it easier for activists and advocates to keep pressure on the issues, rather than comments getting lost in the tubes. Lasar points out one procedural concern, about which comments will be tallied as formal comments. I think that slots into a larger concern about whether the much more usable system will result in better attention to the public discourse from the FCC.
• More details on Canadian net neutrality ruling
  Professor Geist provides some excellent analysis of what the CRTC has committed to, especially in the realm of network management. This expands on the story as I picked it up last week, filling in much clearer detail on the further ramifications of this policy making. Geist also dwells on the remaining challenges in this area that he feels need regulatory attention.
• New bill seeks to change patent rules for new technology
  The bill in question is apparently motivated by the market realities of much higher costs to develop biotechnology. One of the problems I have with this is whether it is reasonable enough to assume that the cost will remain high, hence worthwhile to ossify a response into law. I leave the parallel concerns for software patents to the reader.
• More details on Mozilla’s Raindrop
  Ryan Paul at Ars gives a good walking tour of this project that was announced last week. His findings are pretty consistent with my own quick experimentation over the weekend.

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