This post comes in a little late. I’m sure almost everyone would have heard by now about how the geniuses at VueStar Technologies in Singapore have tried to enforce their patent on any “Web site that uses pictures and graphics to link to another site or Web page”.

While the patent itself only describes the invention as one that “provides a web-page (or web-site) search results list which includes images from the actual web-pages or web-sites identified in a user’s search, or images associated with the actual organisation operating a web-site“,  VueStar CEO Paul Smith’s claim that “if sites want to keep using images as links, they will have to pay his company” seem to me to be overly broad and far too generic to be even considered a valid claim. Then again, IANAL.

The claim by the self-dubbed “pioneers of visual search technology” that they own the technology for image hyperlinks is (excuse the pun) patently ridiculous. Marc Andreesen, inventor of Mosaic, first graphical browser for the World Wide Web, described image hyperlinking in a mailing list post, back on 25 Feb 1993, more than 10 years back. And that’s still more than 7 years before VueStar’s patent application was first submitted in 2000. Surely that constitutes some form of prior art? And we’re not even looking at the fact that this technology has probably been in all web browsers released to the public since then.

As such, there’s been a lot of doubt as to whether or not the patent claim can indeed stand up in the court of law, should it come to that. So far, VueStar has only been sending out letters to companies claiming patent infringement. Since VueStar’s patent claim has the potential to affect almost all corners of the internet (No more image linking! The horror!), it’s also no wonder that the community has also responded in kind to VueStar’s recent moves.

Some parallels are of course being drawn between this episode of litigation warnings (”Pay us or we’ll see you in court!”) and the ODEX case just a while back. While both companies tried to reach monetary settlements first, before even bringing anyone to court (pay first, talk later?), at least ODEX was a proper licensee of the anime series. While I don’t really support ODEX’s actions, it was at least conceivable that downloading anime off the net would hurt their business model. What business model does VueStar have to speak of? A look under the Technology section of VueStar’s website only vaguely describes the notion of “locating web – sites using visual images” while the rest of the page attempts to bolster the company’s claim on the mentioned technology. And besides, the WHOIS record of the domain vuestar.biz shows that it was only registered in December last year. If you ask me, there only seems to be one purpose to the company, and that is the one that it’s in the news for right now. Let’s see if I’m proven wrong.

A check with our local ACRA (Registrar of Companies, for you more traditional folk), shows that the company now widely-known as VueStar Technologies Pte Ltd, was once known as Blue Steel Dragon Pte Ltd. Uh huh. So VueStar itself hasn’t been around for all that long then? Anyways, ACRA doesn’t allow the casual searcher to look at the company information unless one pays for it, so I wasn’t able to find out more. All the same, anyone know why the address listing seems to mention Robinson Road while their website says Coleman Street? I guess unlike filing for patents, consistency isn’t one of their strong points.

So. Should we fear the Blue Steel Dragon lest he incinerates our websites (and bank accounts) with his righteous flame of patent claims? Are all your links belong to them? Maybe not. Sure,  they claim to hold patents in both Singapore and Australia and some say the US, but then again, we know that not all patents, no matter how wide the reach, aren’t really enforceable.

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For more patent sillyness, check out PatentlySilly.com, which celebrates the creativity of the human mind (and Patent Office).

Other reports from afield:

• Ars.Technica
• CrunchGear

“Guilty”, says the jury.

Hans Reiser, creator of the open source Reiserfs filesystem used on Linux systems, was arrested on 10 October 2006, charged with murdering his Russian wife, Nina Reiser. After a trial spanning six months, the jury in the Reiser murder trial has apparently found him guilty of murder in the first degree. This verdict was reached despite the fact that, apart from loads of circumstantial evidence, there has hardly been any physical evidence uncovered. (Check out Wired.com’s coverage of the Hans Reiser trial)

Excerpts from the quotes from juror No. 7, Vince Dunn, as they appeared in a Wired.com article:

I was looking at his eyes, he was faking it.

After a while, we started to see how arrogant he was, how little sympathy he had for his wife

When asked when he thought Reiser had killed his wife, Dunn said,

I think he choked her and at some point and stabbed her. That’s a big question.

Hans Reiser has a black belt in judo, which includes choking in its repertoire of moves. I’m pretty sure anyone with a black belt in judo could potentially kill with choke-holds alone, so why resort to messy stabbing?

Reading the reports of the Reiser trial, I have to agree that his actions and the surrounding circumstances do indeed seem suspicious. Nina’s blood on the car seat and a pillar of his home, the discarded front passenger seat of his car, his apparent paranoia — definitely difficult to explain, despite Reiser’s attempts at the ‘geek defense‘. However, I did think that for a murder charge, the prosecution had to prove beyond reasonable doubt, that the crime had been committed. Personally, I still have doubts about the Reiser case.

Nina’s body was never found. I’m not sure how the prosecution could be so sure that a murder had been committed, when there’s no proof that the suspected victim is even dead. There are no witnesses, no body, no murder weapon. Just an apparently strong motive (Nina was apparently having an affair with Reiser’s friend, and Reiser suspected her of embezzling money from his company, Namesys.) and many testimonies that Nina was a loving mother and would never leave her children to flee back to Russia as Reiser claims.

Strangely enough, prosecutor Paul Hora claims that “there isn’t a shred, a speck of evidence that this woman is alive“, he hasn’t shown any conclusive evidence that she’s dead either. Sure she’s missing, but apparently, people do go missing in this world without necessarily being dead.

Stranger still, is how the jury was not allowed to hear testimony of how Sean Sturgeon, Reiser’s former best friend and with whom Nina Reiser was said to have had an affair, had confessed to killing eight other people — though those killings were unrelated to the case. One would have thought that someone with a history of murder might be key to a murder case, especially when the alleged victim had broken up with him earlier in the year.

I use Linux and I’m a fan of open source software, but to be sure, I’m no Reiser apologist. I just don’t think it’s been proved beyond reasonable doubt that Reiser is guilty of premeditated (first degree) murder.

Suspicious? Yes. Guilty? I’m not so sure.

Here’s a breath of fresh air in the murky world of alleged copyright infringement and associated lawsuits.

Recently, the MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America) sent a letter to Norwegian ISPs, demanding that they disconnect alleged file-sharers from their network. The MPAA’s letter included a list of IP addresses, which they claim carried out the illegal file-sharing, and asked that the ISPs forward notices to the customers after matching names to IP addresses.

However, IKT Norway, an interest group for Norwegian ISPs, stated that the ISPs would be unwilling to comply with MPAA’s demands to shut out their customers, saying that it really wasn’t their responsibility to monitor what their customers did online, despite MPAA’s claims otherwise. IKT Norway stated,

When it comes to your comment on responsibility and helping out to commit the crime if the ISP does not prevent the alleged illegal activity, we do not agree. An ISP has no responsibility for what the customer does on the net as you suggest in your letter.

Based on this we reject your accusation that the ISPs have a responsibility for the users use of network and devices. The ISPs will not follow your demand to block access/prevent alleged illegal activity.

I’d say the Norwegian ISPs are fighting the good fight here. Why should a corporate entity like MPAA be able to dictate how you treat your customers? It just doesn’t make sense.

In rejecting the MPAA’s demands, ISP members of IKT Norway have shown themselves to be respectful of the relevant privacy and personal information laws in place. In a press release, Hallstein Bjercke of IKT Norway urges ISPs not to answer to MPAAs letters, but to contact IKT instead, calling the request to disconnect subscribers a “preposterous demand”. Bjercke also likens such measures to “getting the mailman to control the contents of every letter and package he delivers”. In fact, so incensed is IKT Norway about the demand that it has begun looking into the very legality of the private investigation (by law firm Simonsen Advokatfirma on behalf of MPAA) itself, and the legality of connecting personal information to the customers of Norwegian ISPs.

It’s really quite refreshing to see ISPs take such an enlightened view of alleged copyright infringement here, rather than rolling over on demand. In fact, a new Bill proposed by Guy Bono, French socialist and member of the European Parliament, was recently voted in by the EU Parliament (ArsTechnica Report). The Bill urges participating countries to “avoid adopting measures conflicting with civil liberties and human rights … such as the interruption of internet access“, claiming that doing so might lead to “profound repurcussions in a society where access to the internet is a mandatory law for social inclusion“.

Point 9 of the Draft Report also states that it:

Urges the Commission to rethink the critical issue of intellectual property from the cultural and economic point of view and to invite all those active in the sector to join forces and seek solutions equitable to all, in the interest of a balance between the opportunities for access to cultural events and content and intellectual property; draws Member States’ attention on this point to the fact that criminalising consumers so as to combat digital piracy is not the right solution

So yes, more enlightened measures please. Shutting off someone’s internet access for illegal downloading is like shutting off his tap water to punish him for making illegal homebrew. Unfortunately, the French Government has already signed such a pact with French ISPs and content owners in November last year.

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For more enlightened points of view, check out The Swedish Model’s statement on the new paradigm in music sharing.

The Swedish Model is an organisation comprising seven independent Swedish music labels. They release songs by various artists on their front page, with a focus on using the internet as a form of promotion, sharing and discussion.

Just a quick update, I promise!

InsideFacebook.com has done an interview with Ben Leong, lecturer of CS3216, otherwise known as “the NUS Facebook Course”.

Check out the interview to find out more about the aims and motivations behind the setting up of CS3216.

Came across repeal377a.com a little earlier today.

It’s a movement to get the Government

of Singapore to repeal Section 377a of the Penal Code which states

377A : Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or abets the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 2 years.

It’s certainly caused quite a bit of response though, last I checked there were 5791 signatures on the Open Letter to the Prime Minister asking for the Section to be repealed.

It’s quite a sad for Singapore to still maintain laws such as this when the rest of the world is moving forward and being more accepting to alternative cultures. However, many people still worry that such a decriminalisation will lead to the breakdown of the social fabric.

If such acts can be decriminalised for heterosexual couples, why should it remain in force for homosexuals? If the act is between two consenting adults in the privacy of their own room and does not affect anyone else, why should it matter what gender the people are? And yes, why does the section only make it criminal for men?

Read the FAQ for more information, or otherwise sign the open letter.