UK wants to kill Net Neutrality

La quadrature du Net
IPtegrity

EU threat to medicine access

Efforts by the European Union to insert strong provisions
on pharmaceutical patents in a series of free trade agreements it is negotiating
could imperil access to medicines in developing countries, global public health
activists have alleged.
As part of trade talks being conducted with India, Colombia, Peru and a regional
grouping in south-east Asia, EU officials have proposed that drug-makers should
benefit from a robust intellectual property regime. National regulatory authorities
in the countries concerned would be prevented for lengthy periods from using data
provided by a company that holds a drug patent in order to authorise a generic
version of that medicine. Link to the article:
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/?p=1835

Cpyright must be extended according to the Commission

The European Parliament’s legal affairs committee has approved an extension
of copyright term for music recordings from 50 years to 95 years.
Note that it is a co-decision Procedure; today’s vote was the 1st reading of
the European Parliament. The plenary vote is scheduled on March 11th in Strasbourg, to have the final approval by the Council of Ministers.
See the press release on the European Parliament’s website:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/058-48812-040-02-07-909-20090209IPR48791-09-02-2009-2009-false/default_en.htm

Tactical Media Club, Alexandria d’Egitto

Me and my friend Joanne Richardson, filosopher and filmaker, were invited from the Contemporary Art Forum of Alexandria to run a five days workshop/club on Social and Tactical Media. In the workshop partecipated young artists, grafic designers, filmakers and researchers from Alexandria and Cairo. Egypt doesn’t seem to have a big tradition of resistance in the media and internet field, due to the repressive egyptian state policy and to the State control of information, media and the Internet. Egypt indeed have arrested bloggers and closed sites. In february Karim Amer faced the trial for writing blogs criticizing Egypt’s al-Azhar religious authorities, President Husni Mubarak and Islam. He was first detained by the Egyptian authorities for 12 days in October 2005 because of his writings on his blog (karam903.blogspot.com) about Islam and the sectarian riots which took place in the same month in Alexandria’s Maharram Bek district. After he was charged and released, disciplinary measures were taken against him and he was dismissed from al-Azhar University in March 2006. The university’s disciplinary board found him guilty of blaspheming Islam. He’s still under detention. This repression doesn’t seems to go together with the initiatives on freedom of information, digital culture and access to knowledge carried on in the Library of Alexandria. Is this only a cosmetic institutional strategy? Maybe the egyptian society is ready for a political and social change! I will write more impression on Egypt later…

Aire, un marchio fuori dalla norma

Il mio amico Pulika ha aperto su via del Boschetto il laboratorio/shop Aire, uno spazio di esposizione e vendita delle creazioni più innovative di giovani artisti fra Roma e Buenos Aires. E’ sempre pieno di vestiti e oggetti sfiziosi e super creativi. Quest’anno durante la settimana di Natale ha ospitato anche una serie di eventi fra cui reading di poesie e mostra di oggettistica cinese della Galleria Otto di Via Cimarra. Aire sta diventando un buon catalizzatore per rivitalizzare Via del Boschetto. Un brand che invita all’ innovazione e alla cooperazione, alla ricerca e alla creazione collettiva, per lanciare un ponte artistico tra Roma e il SudAmerica:)