And yet, why did I sign ACTA. Every day there is a barrage of questions in my inbox and on Facebook from mostly kind and somewhat baffled people, who cannot understand how it occurred to me to sign an agreement so damaging to the state and citizens. With this reply, which is of a purely personal nature and expresses only my personal views, I wish to respond to all those people, all my friends and acquaintances who have remained quiet, all Anonymous, and not least also to myself and to my children.

I signed ACTA out of civic carelessness, because I did not pay enough attention. Quite simply, I did not clearly connect the agreement I had been instructed to sign with the agreement that, according to my own civic conviction, limits and withholds the freedom of engagement on the largest and most significant network in human history, and thus limits particularly the future of our children....

First I apologised to my children. Then I tried to reply to those acquaintances and strangers who expressed their surprise and horror. Because there are more and more of them, I am responding to them publicly. I want to apologise because I carried out my official duty, but not my civic duty. I don’t know how many options I had with regard to not signing, but I could have tried. I did not. I missed an opportunity to fight for the right of conscientious objection on the part of us bureaucrats....

Let my example be a cautionary tale of how swiftly we can make mistakes if we allow ourselves to slip. And if nothing else, we then sleep very badly. - META

On appeal, the CAFC agreed with the district court that these claims are "directed to an abstract idea preemptive of a fundamental concept or idea that would foreclose innovation in this area," and thus are invalid under 35 U.S.C. §101. In its simplest form, the court reasoned, the claimed process explains the basic concept of processing information through a clearinghouse. "Neither Dealertrack nor any other entity is entitled to wholly preempt the clearinghouse concept." - Patently O

“We call for a pause (in the rollout of the new rules) in the interests of ensuring that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens, until we have completed our analysis,” Kohnstamm wrote in the letter, which was sent Thursday and published on Friday. - Washington Post

And it is that last which is the most important fact about it all. Far from a boycott of Apple products being the best way to better conditions at the manufacturing plants it is the purchase of products from such plants which is, as it has been for the past few decades, making China a richer and better place.

[PJ: International corporations may find such an argument persuasive. They want Chinese customers. But as an American, I see figures that one half of all Americans are either poor or verging on it, and that didn't use to be so, and I ask: why is it important for the US to improve living conditions for the Chinese instead of for Americans? China gets richer, and the US gets poorer. Why is that acceptable for a US company to contribute to that, just so it can get workers willing to work for $17 instead of a US living wage? I mean, what's the moral (or patriotic) argument for *that*? As for the argument that the Chinese are used to such awful conditions so that $17 is more than what they are used to, I recall Laura Bush telling about talking with her husband about the flood in New Orleans and the terrible conditions in the arena where survivors were placed. He told her that those people were used to that or worse. What is it about the current American businessman and some politicians that they have lost all fellow feeling and all sense of responsibility for community, for people? Whatever it is, it's truly appalling. And this Forbes article is truly appalling.] - Tim Worstall, Forbes

That turned out to be wrong. In fact, the industry is fighting what amounts to a new popular culture....The content industry has made itself into the villain. Increasingly, it looks like an occupying power, obeyed at gunpoint, despised for its ham-handed excesses and resisted from every dark corner. Unfortunately for Hollywood, as its customers migrate to the Internet, it is losing not just their money but their hearts and minds as well. - Stewart Baker, The Hollywood Reporter

However, a Google France spokesman told the AFP that the company is planning to fight the ruling. "We will appeal this decision," the spokesman said.

[PJ: So, I wonder, if giving products away for free is a problem for France, why French courts don't look into Nokia, in partnership with Microsoft, giving away Nokia Lumia phones with Windows on them for free?] - PC Magazine

The outcome of this is that we've gained access to large bodies of source code that would otherwise have been kept by companies. The SFC have successfully used Busybox to force the source release of many vendor kernels, ensuring that users have the freedoms that the copyright holders granted to them. Everybody wins, with the exception of the violators. And it seems that they're unenthusiastic about that.

A couple of weeks ago, this page appeared on the elinux.org wiki. It's written by an engineer at Sony, and it's calling for contributions to rewriting Busybox. This would be entirely reasonable if it were for technical reasons, but it's not - it's explicitly stated that companies are afraid that Busybox copyright holders may force them to comply with the licenses of software they ship. If you ship this Busybox replacement instead of the original Busybox you'll be safe from the SFC. You'll be able to violate licenses with impunity.

What can we do? The real problem here is that the SFC's reliance on Busybox means that they're only able to target infringers who use that Busybox code. No significant kernel copyright holders have so far offered to allow the SFC to enforce their copyrights, with the result that enforcement action will grind to a halt as vendors move over to this Busybox replacement. So, if you hold copyright over any part of the Linux kernel, I'd urge you to get in touch with them. The alternative is a strangely ironic world where Sony are simultaneously funding lobbying for copyright enforcement against individuals and tools to help large corporations infringe at will. I'm not enthusiastic about that.

[PJ: The summary of the project says: "Write a non-GPL replacement for Busybox" and it is a project led by Tim Bird who used to work at Caldera and Novell and now is at Sony. He is one of the authors of a book I own, "Special Edition: Using Caldera Open Linux." He provided a Declaration [PDF] on behalf of IBM in the SCO wars. And the project is also being supported by Rob Landley, long an associate of Eric Raymond, who for all his fine qualities is certainly not mistaken for a GPL supporter. Nevertheless, he too made significant contributions to the SCO wars, as did Rob. I certainly will never forget that. In short, these are good men on both sides of the particular issue. That's the FOSS way. People take their positions independently and based on conscience. I personally disagree with what they are doing, because I believe that without the GPL SCO might well have prevailed. So anything that undermines it is not desirable, and this project is undeniably anti-GPL. I have to say that, despite liking everybody involved on both sides, and I hope discussions can ensure over time to get more clarity on the issues behind the issues. And I surely hope none of you will help this project.] - Matthew Garrett

[PJ: Here's the letter to the judge, seeking permission. And here's a snip to explain why Google cares:

"While Google takes no position on the ultimate merits of this case, it has a specific and vital interest in the legal doctrines underpinning the “cloud computing” industry. Cloud computing enables users to store and process data remotely, in the “cloud” of networked computer servers connected through the internet to the user’s computer, thus freeing users from the need to keep physical files and process data locally with their own hard drives and powerful computers. The continued vitality of the cloud computing industry—which constituted an estimated $41 billion dollar global market in 2010—depends in large part on a few key legal principles that the preliminary injunction motion implicates."] - Recording Industry v. The People

Through this process, we believe that leaders will emerge across all countries who are pro-internet and fight for the rights of their people, including the right to share what they want and the right to access all information that people want to share with them. [ On the one hand, this is awesome. On the other, there goes China. ] - Tim Carmody, Wired