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Finland is a homogeneous population of about 5.5 million people, geographically isolated from the rest of the world. The vast majority of Finns share a common heritage, and they also seem largely willing to participate in clinical health studies. Three out of four Finns will agree to be a research subject, and thankfully, access to their clinical records is relatively easy, for both domestic researchers and foreign scientific collaborators. After thousands of years of isolation, Finns have become a relatively uniform population, genetically speaking. Additionally, the genealogies of Finns trace back numerous generations and hundreds of years, providing plenty of correlated genetic information and an excellent source of scientific data to study.

This case study examines the impact of Finland’s unique genetic resources, and its implications for global biotech policy.

Tech Companies Ask European Commission Not To Wreck The Internet — And You Can Too

Posted on by Mike Masnick

Late last year, we told you about a worrisome effort by the European Commission to saddle the internet with unnecessary regulations. They had released an online “consultation” which was ostensibly part of the effort to create a “Digital Single Market” (a good idea in the world of a borderless internet), but which appears to have been hijacked by some bureaucrats who saw it as an opportunity to attack big, successful internet companies and saddle them with extra regulations. It’s pretty clear from the statements and the questions that the Commission is very much focused on somehow attacking Google and Facebook (and we won’t even get into the fact that the people who are looking to regulate the internet couldn’t even program a working online survey form properly). However, as we noted, Google and Facebook are big enough that they can handle the hurdles the EU seems intent on putting on them: it’s the startups and smaller tech firms that cannot. The end result, then, would actually be to entrench the more dominant players.

We helped created a “survival guide” for those who wished to fill out the (long, arduous) survey, and many of you did. We’ve now spearheaded a followup effort, which we’ve put up on the Don’t Wreck The Net site. It’s a letter to the EU Commission, signed by a number of internet companies and investors who care deeply about keeping the internet open and competitive. You can see the letter on that site, and it has already been signed by investors such as Union Square Ventures and Homebrew and a bunch of great internet companies, including Reddit, Medium, DuckDuckGo, Patreon, Automattic (WordPress), Yelp, CloudFlare, Shapeways and more.

This Survey Sucks, And The Internet Needs You To Fill It Out

Posted on by Mike Masnick

Today, we’re launching a new initiative called Don’t Wreck The Net. The European Commission is holding a public consultation on new regulations for the internet, and the only way to send comments is through a painfully long and oblique online survey. Unfortunately, thanks to those five pages of small print and confusing questions, most people don’t seem to have realized just how big a deal this consultation is — and it only runs until December 30th.

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The entertainment industries have led a worldwide campaign to ratchet up “anti-piracy” laws — but have they been effective in either reducing piracy or increasing revenue? Recently, there have been some very positive signs for those industries, while people have been signing up for popular authorized services. These two factors raise a serious question: is the success caused by the innovation or the legal changes? Is it the carrot or the stick that is leading us into this new world?

Read the full report below, or check out some of the key findings [pdf].

New Report: The Carrot Or The Stick?

Innovation vs. Anti-Piracy Enforcement

Posted on by Mike Masnick

Read the full report in the Copia Library »

Ever since the internet became a place where copyright infringement was rampant, we’ve seen the same basic playbook from the legacy entertainment industry: pass stricter anti-piracy laws. In the 30 years predating the big fight over SOPA in 2011-2012, the US had passed 15 separate anti-piracy laws. Countries around the globe (often under pressure from the US) have passed increasingly more draconian copyright laws designed to “stop piracy.” And when they can’t pass laws directly, they resort to international trade agreements, like the TPP, whereby trade negotiators (who are directly influenced by the legacy entertainment industry) negotiate deals in back rooms that require stricter anti-piracy laws. And none of it works. Sure, when a new law first goes into effect there may be an initial, short-term decrease in piracy rates, but it doesn’t last for more than a few months, as people quickly go back to finding ways to access the content they want.

So how about a different approach? One that actually does work. One that has been shown, time and time again, to actually reduce piracy rates? Enabling more innovation and allowing more services to legally deliver what consumers want.

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For years now, the legacy entertainment industry has been predicting its own demise, claiming that the rise of technology, by enabling easy duplication and sharing — and thus copyright infringement — is destroying their bottom line. If left unchecked, they say, it is not only they that will suffer, but also the content creators, who will be deprived of a means to make a living. And, with artists lacking an incentive to create, no more art will be produced, starving our culture.

It seems obvious to many that this could not possibly be true. This report takes a close look at six key markets: Germany, France, the UK, Italy, Russia and Spain. Not only is the sky not falling, as some would have us believe, but it appears that we’re living through an incredible period of abundance and opportunity, with more people producing more content and more money being made than ever before. As it turns out… The Sky Is Rising!