"Brazil has just created the best-ever implementation of WIPO Copyright Treaty. In Brazil's version of the law, you can break DRM without breaking the law, provided you're not also committing a copyright violation. And what's more, any rightsholder who adds a DRM that restricts things that are allowed by Brazilian copyright laws ("fair dealing" or "fair use") faces a fine."

After all I went through trying to figure out if I was allowed to link to some Pavarotti videos the other day, I decided I'd better study a bit more about fair use. I've also since gotten a fair amount of email about the Copyright Alliance's claim that fair use is not a consumer right, but merely an affirmative defense.

"LONDON, May 23, 2007 – Ubuntu 7.04, commercially sponsored by Canonical Ltd., was honored by PC World with a 100 Best Products of 2007 Award. The article is available now on PCWorld.com, and will also be featured in the July 2007 issue of PC World, which hits newsstands June 12."

A U.S. lawmaker today warned of attempts to roll back a provision in copyright law that has become a cornerstone of posting and sharing content on the Internet, pledging to fight to preserve the doctrine of fair use in the face of an array of challenges.

It is my privilege to announce on behalf of the team members of the PCLinuxOS Magazine Project sponsored by MyPCLinuxOS.com, the July 2007 issue (#11) is available for download! Our previous issues can also be downloaded.

Ok, so I realized that if I'm going to be fair about this, in addition to trying Moblin on the nettop, I really should try the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR). I've mentioned several times that I have tried it, very briefly, on the HP Mini-Note, and the VIA CPU and Graphic adapter caused it to be unusably slow.

Brazil has proposed a broad update to its copyright law (Portuguese) and it contains a surprising idea: penalize anyone who "hinders or impedes" fair use rights or obstructs the use of work that has already fallen into the public domain.

I thought you would like to see a recently decided US case where fair use was upheld as a defense. I collected some materials to explain fair use in an overview the other day, but here's a case that explains the elements that courts look at, in a real live case, and it particularly makes clear what transformative use means.

The Gentoo Linux project team will host its UK 2007 community conference on Saturday, July 14, at University College London. A wide range of topics will be covered, from clustering to KDE, a project spokesperson said on the distro Web site.