Everybody's suing everybody! ... None of the major companies really seem to take patents seriously. ... And why should they take patents serious? The United States Patent and Trademark Office grants patents for vague ideas, obvious processes and usage models and even the most mundane software user interface conventions.

Ben Cato Clough and Luke Upchurch's "When Copyright Goes Bad" (from Consumers International) is a great, 15-minute mini-documentary on what copyright can do, what it is doing, and what it needs to stop doing.

How will ACTA be used? Probably in the same way that the DMCA has been used: as a worldwide stick to beat through a US-centric version of copyright and IP law.

The 8th round of negotiations on the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement wrapped-up in New Zealand last week, with negotiators announcing that the ACTA text will be made public next Wednesday, April 21.

Big Brother is watching you. Actually, it's the RIAA and the MPAA, especially if you're parked on a BitTorrent client.

Software patent law is not for the faint hearted. Now the FSF has funded a new video where top hackers and legal experts explain where the idea came from and just why it is so bad for free software. With increasing evidence that patents harm, rather then help, innovation, is the tide beginning to turn against software patents?

The draft Gallo report on "Enforcement of intellectual property rights in the internal market" contains the entertainment industry's wishlist for the future of copyright policy: extra-judicial sanctions turning internet service providers into a private copyright police.

Techrights responds to people who believe that IBM should be left alone after using software patents to negotiate a competitor's departure from the market