TUESDAY'S MEW-SINGS

1 Turkey joins the Madrid club

With effect from 13 October, the IPKat has learned, Turkey will be taking its place as a fully-functioning member of the Madrid Protocol. This means that the Madrid Protocol now has 66 members, to a mere 56 for its elder sister the Madrid Agreement. The IPKat is delighted.


2 Creative Commons v Free Software: the war continues

The IPKat has just read a perceptive blog from his friend, fellow academic blogger the Technollama. Posted yesterday, the blog takes a look at the internecine feuding between different sectors of the copyright liberation camp. The Llama writes:

"To me it is useless to pontificate and preach to a converted techno-elite about the evils of proprietary models, while the large number of users doesn't care and cannot be bothered to become informed about the debate. [...]

The way to do it is through education and by making people aware of the different licences and about the basic concepts present in copyright. This cannot be done by adopting the stance of the fanatic. Zeal will convince a few, but if we care about free culture and open standards, we must be prepared to make some compromises to the mainstream. Otherwise, we are just another small group of inward-looking technophiles, irrelevant in the grand scheme of things".

Well said! Many rational and open-minded people refuse to be cowed by hyperbole or beaten into submission by force of rhetoric. Let us first ascertain the facts and then hear the issues before reaching our conclusions.



3 Stoned on neolithic beer?

Ananova reports that a 9,000 year old Chinese beer has been recreated by US brewer Sam Calagione of the Dogfish Head brewery, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, using a potent combination of rice, honey, grapes and hawthorn fruits. He got the recipe from archaeologists, who derived it from the residues of pottery jars found in the late Stone Age village of Jiahu. With a golden colour and a white head similar to champagne bubbles, and with a "very intriguing" taste and aroma, the concoction is to be marketed as CHATEAU JIAHU. The IPKat is amused by the cross-cultural Franco-Chinese branding. "But isn't 'chateau' kind of odd for a beer brand?", Merpel queries.