I am the University of Technology Sydney today to make friends with the robots and talk about copyright

I am a guest this morning at the University of Technology Sydney’s “Innovation and Technology Research Laboratory”, better known within UTS as The Magic Lab. The Magic Lab has a broad spectrum of research interests including robot soccer, humanoid robotics, belief revision, virtual worlds, cognitive marketing, collaboration, risk management, commonsense reasoning and technology-driven innovation in addition to strategic, social and legal aspects of innovation.

As part of my visit today I will be presenting to the Engineering and information technology department as part of their Leadership in Innovation Seminar series. My presentation will address the interaction of copyright law and digital technology.

Your TV is watching you – Where does it end?

News reports (extremetech) indicate that Microsoft has filed for a patent whereby

“The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken.”

No doubt George Orwell’s Telescreen (from the novel 1984) will be cited as prior art in opposition. The Telescreen allowed the Party to keep its subjects under constant surveillance thereby encouraging a climate of self surveillance. Replace ‘the Party’ with MPAA and you pretty much have it.

HT: Francis K – who brought this story to my attention.