At the end of 2021, the French media spread the news of a legal action brought by Republique En Marche, the party founded by French President Emmanuel Macron, against a publisher that publishes satirical cartoons on the domain enmarche2022.fr. The dispute concerns the ownership, or rather the way of using a domain name – enmarche2022.fr, precisely – that Macron’s party considers detrimental to its image in the view of the upcoming political elections. by Andrea Monti – Initially published in Italian on Strategikon – An Italian Tech Blog. Continue reading “The dispute between Macron and Domain Name Governance”
Privacy for Sale. Just call it ‘Right to Personal Image’
On 16 June 2009, the Italian Supreme Court made public a ruling recognising the right of the well-known plaintiff Cgt to obtain compensation for damages to his privacy and his right to image caused by the publication of photographs that had portrayed him in August 2009, in an intimate relationship with his partner Ca.El. in the park of (omissis), in the Municipality of (omissis). The ruling does not say whom Cgt and (although not a party to the proceedings) Ca. El. are because the protagonists of the affair had asked that their respective personal details not be disclosed. However, with patience, the mystery will be revealed at the end of the text, the (understandable) curiosity satisfied and the paradox of privacy revealed by Andrea Monti – Originally published in Italian on Strategikon – an Italian Tech Blog.
Continue reading “Privacy for Sale. Just call it ‘Right to Personal Image’”
An early reading of the Facebook v Business Competence trials
Unfair competition by feature plagiarism. The Courts of Milan issue two verdict that might pose severe problems to the software industry by Andrea Monti – originally published in Italian by Diritto di internet
The two judgments of the Tribunal and the Court of appeal of Milan rewrite the parameters for the assessment of software duplication in the context of deceptive conduct by favouring the external appearance (interface and functionality) over the traditional approach based on the comparison of the analysis (design) and the source code (implementation/expressive method).
The opportunity missed by the judgments, based as to the an on external similarities of the two pieces of software at issue, is to indicate how Article 2(I)(8) (which excludes from copyright protection
the ideas and principles underlying any element of a program, including those underlying its interfaces. The term program also includes the preparatory material for the design of the program itself
and Art. 45 of Legislative Decree 30/05 which, in paragraph II, excludes the legal protection of mathematical methods (i.e. algorithms).
The effects of these decisions on the software industry, historically based precisely on the replication of functionalities, and the structure of liability under industrial law are still to be assessed.
Who owns your computer, and more importantly, can you trust it?
Operating systems and software manage the usability of machines by Andrea Monti – Originally published in Italian by Infosec.News
Adobe announces the end of Flash Player and that it will block content based on this standard, which is considered inherently unsafe and the subject of constant security updates.
It is a subject for another article to investigate why it was possible to allow such software (and those of other manufacturers) to burden and weaken computers around the world . For the time being, we are interested in the relationship between obsolescence management, licensing, the ‘ownership’ of a computer (or a smartphone or a tablet, or – when the IoT will, unfortunately, become a reality – any household appliance).
In short: buying a computer does not mean becoming its owner, because its usability depends on the strategies of operating systems and software’s producers to keep it running. The subject is certainly not new (Richard Stallman wrote about it at the dawn of free software), but today it has reached worrying dimensions.
Continue reading “Who owns your computer, and more importantly, can you trust it?”Project Gutenberg and the Crusader of Copyright
In the name of the new crusade against the “pirates of copyright” the public prosecutor of Rome seizes gutenberg.org, the site of the cultural project that digitizes and puts online copyright-free books. But neither the court nor the Guardia di Finanza has noticed. Is it a justifiable mistake? by Andrea Monti – originally published in Italian by Infosec.News
Continue reading “Project Gutenberg and the Crusader of Copyright”