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De provincie Limburg gaat de namen en adressen van betrapte wietkwekers op internet zetten. Dat zegt gedeputeerde Vestjens van de provincie Limburg in de Volkskrant van zaterdag.

“We nagelen ze digitaal aan de schandpaal. Illegale wietteelt, waarin veel geld omgaat, is een groot probleem. Publicatie op internet moet afschrikken. Als je betrapt bent, sta je te kijk voor familie, vrienden en buren”, aldus de bestuurder.

Gedeputeerde Vestjens is kennelijk niet van deze wereld. Bij mijn weten zit er nauwelijks een negatief stigma aan het etiket “wietkweker”. Wat de gedeputeerde dus eigenlijk doet is reclame maken: als je je wiet in bulk wil kopen, heb je je leveranciers voor het uitzoeken.

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We’re in the middle of the U.S. Copyright Office’s triennial DMCA exemption rulemaking. As you might expect, most of the filings are dry as dust, but buried in the latest submission by a coalition of big copyright owners (publishers, Authors’ Guild, BSA, MPAA, RIAA, etc.) is an utterly astonishing argument.

Some background: In light of the Sony-BMG CD incident, Alex and I asked the Copyright Office for an exemption allowing users to remove from their computers certain DRM software that causes security and privacy harm. The CCIA and Open Source and Industry Association made an even simpler request for an exemption for DRM systems that “employ access control measures which threaten critical infrastructure and potentially endanger lives.�? Who could oppose that?

The BSA, RIAA, MPAA, and friends — that’s who.

They don’t want it to become legal to break DRM that could kill you – it might harm their business. Read the whole thing.

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One of the most interesting panels at SXSW Interactive 2006 was The Future of Darknets, moderated by JD Lasica. And while the concept of Darknets – communities using private subnetworks to communicate and collaborate out of view of the larger internet – is indeed fascinating, the panel was not interesting because of the intended topic. In fact, we never actually got to hear much about DarkNets, much to my disappointment, because the panel was hijacked the moment one panelist said, “Hello, my name is Kori Bernards, and I’m from the Motion Picture Association of America.”

What followed was an hour-long firing squad as one audience member after another directed angry questions her way. The feeling of pent-up frustrations with the movie biz was palpable, especially as her claims of flexibility and excitement within the MPAA to find “creative new solutions” to the problems raised by the audience rang more and more hollow, the more times she repeated them.

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In summary, CRIA’s own research now concludes that P2P downloading constitutes less than one-third of the music on downloaders’ computers, that P2P users frequently try music on P2P services before they buy, that the largest P2P downloader demographic is also the largest music buying demographic, and that reduced purchasing has little to do with the availability of music on P2P services. I’ve argued many of these same things, but now you don’t have to take my word for it; you can take it from the record labels themselves.

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Buried deep, deep in the small print in the back pages of the Tesco (the leading UK supermarket chain) mobile phone service information booklet, is a brief sentence that if the customer wishes not to be involved in “market research”, to wit, having their demographic details tracked and shared, they need to phone customer services and opt out.

Yesterday, my phone number transferred to the Tesco network and I put twenty pounds into my account.

This morning, I received an advertising SMS from Tesco.

This reminded me I needed to call customer services regarding “market research” and advertising SMSs.

Now, and here’s where it gets interesting, they tell me I’m not involved in “market research” because I don’t have a club card (a loyalty card) – but that for the same reason they *cannot unsubscribe me from advertising SMSs*.

Tesco can *add* you to their advertising SMS list without a club card, but they cannot *remove* you without a club card.

What customer services do in this situation is that the shift manager visits a store, picks up a blank club card, registers it to the customer and unsubcribes them.