Archive for December, 2011

Journalist In Danger (JED), the partner organization of Reporters Without Borders in the Democratic Republic of Congo, paints a bleak picture in its annual report published on 28 December and calls on the government to put an end to the growing crackdown on the media. The report was published in the wake of a disputed election and while the country was still gripped by tension. ... Full story

As 2011 comes to an end, we follow up our most pirated movies and TV-shows charts by taking a look at the most pirated games of the year. Crysis 2 comes out on top in the PC games category in 2011. On Xbox 360 Gears of War 3 receives the same honor, while Super Mario Galaxy 2 scoops the title of most pirated Wii game ... Full story

As the Arab League observer mission continues in Syria, Reporters Without Borders is relieved to learn that Jehad Jamal, a blogger also known as “Milan” who was last arrested on 14 October, was finally released yesterday evening. It was his third period in detention since the start of the mass uprising in March. The first time he was arrested, in the northern city of Aleppo ... Full story

As the year draws to a close, EFF is looking back at the major trends influencing digital rights in 2011 and discussing where we are in the fight for a free expression, innovation, fair use, and privacy. 2011 saw 40% of all mobile phone users in the Un... Full story

As we approach the new year, the staff of the Citizen Media Law Project had the opportunity -- thanks to a kind offer from Student Press Law Center Legal Fellow (as well as CMLP friend and blog contributor) Rob Arcamona -- to take a look back at the... Full story

Rosa Luxemburg famously said that those who do not move cannot feel their chains. This morning in Suffolk county court, the ACLU of Massachusetts and our client moved. And we felt our chains. I had gone to court to listen to our legal team argue a ca... Full story

In response to increasing legal actions and surveillance of Internet traffic, more and more file-sharers are choosing to hide their identities online. New data gathered through telephone interviews with thousands of adults reveals that in the US 15 percent of all file-sharers take measures to hide their IP-address. Some VPN and proxy providers have doubled their customer base in 2011, and this upward trend is ... Full story

Reporters Without Borders hails journalist Ertugrul Mavioglu's acquittal by an Istanbul court today on a charge of “propaganda in support of a terrorist organization” for interviewing Murat Karayilan of the Union of Kurdistan Communities (KCK), which the authorities regard as the urban wing of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The interview was published in three instalments in the newspaper Radikal in October 2010. Mavioglu ... Full story

BitTorrent is a great way to share large files with friends, family or even complete strangers, but it's not always as convenient as it should be. Even though BitTorrent is more than a decade old there's no site where users can simply dump torrents and get a fancy URL in return, so they can share with others. Until now that is, because the newly launched ... Full story

Can the government force people who are arrested – but not yet convicted of a crime – to give a DNA sample without a search warrant, or does that violate the Fourth Amendment?  One arrestee is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider this importa... Full story