Facebook acquaintances

– How many friends have you got on Facebook? – Oh, around 800. – Me too, but I am trying to cut down a bit.

Ye pyrates of olden days

Piracy of intellectual property is nothing new. To some, plagiarism was a problem already in first century Rome. Illegal copying of books was done long before the modern concept of copyright as a creator’s right was conceived. The right to copy during the first centuries of printing belonged to printers and booksellers (sometimes for generations), [...]

What happened to Google Translate?

Some four months ago, I was planning to write an enthusiastic article about how great Google’s translation service had become. Outside of linguistic institutions, translation from Swedish into another language has not been available to the public for so long (I believe Babelfish was the first), and I was extremely impressed with how well Google [...]

Swedish Pirate Party: A Critical Examination

(This is a translation of a blog entry in Swedish from June 14th, which was the hitherto most read article since the blog started in 2003.) Now that the Swedish Pirate Party has got their 7 percent of the voters in the Swedish election for the European Parliament, I suppose it is time to write [...]

Copyright reform – or abolition?

The other day I came across a web site called Question Copyright. One of its leading men is the software developer Karl Fogel, and a prominence such as Brewster Kahle seems to be involved as well. Their ”mission is to educate the public about the history of copyright, and to promote methods of distribution that [...]

More on trigger points & muscle lumps

In 2003 I published a book about mercury poisoning from dental amalgam, fibromyalgia and the role in society of scientific research. It was built upon my own experiences as chronically ill. The print version is available in Swedish only, but there is a version in English available on line as a 131 page PDF. After [...]

What has copyright to do with democracy?

In view of recent debates, not the least those in Sweden, I wrote this article about the democratic aspects of copyright legislation: Abstract: The debates on whether or not copyright and democracy are compatible concepts are not new. It has been discussed since the 1700s and concerns a form of separation of powers. Copyright is [...]

Sweden’s first copyright acts (1810-1877)

”Every script [copy] shall be the author’s or his legal rights holder’s property. He who prints or reprints a script [copy] without the author’s or publisher’s written permission, shall lose the entire edition or pay a fine to its full value, undividedly accrued to the plaintiff.” This was the first, very brief, copyright legislation in [...]

Is illegal tobacco more dangerous than legal?

When I wrote about the tobacco industry and its mafia methods the other day (in Swedish) I had missed an ad that was published in Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet on December 7. Advertisers are the Swedish Tobacco Manufacturer’s Association and an association for Swedish Stores & Fast Food. The main message appears on the facsimile [...]

Scientific fraud must be investigated – also in Sweden!

In Swedish magazine Axess (No 2/2008) I have an article about how important it is that Sweden finally gets an impartial institution that may investigate science fraud. Other Nordic countries have such agencies – while Sweden turns a blind eye to a lot of irregularities that should be classified as either science fraud or scientific [...]