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July 2005 Archive

July 28, 2005

Senate Takes Turn Wagging Finger at P2P Post-Grokster

At a hearing held today, several members of the Senate Commerce Committee threatened P2P companies, warning that legislation may be on the way even after the Grokster ruling.
» link | Posted at 04:52 PM by Derek Slater | Permalink | Other Links: P2P

Biz School Lesson #1: Don't Sue Your Best Customers

British market research firm study suggests P2P users buy more digital music online than non-users.
» link | Posted at 12:27 PM by Derek Slater | Permalink | Other Links: P2P

Grokster and the Anarchist in the Library

Copyright and culture guru Siva Vaidhyanathan sits down with Library Journal to discuss the potential effects of Grokster.
» link | Posted at 12:03 PM by Derek Slater | Permalink | Other Links: P2P

If I Had a Dime for Every Time Sony Showed Contempt for the Public

...then I'd be like New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, whose investigation forced Sony to pony up $10 million for bribing radio stations in violation of state law. Investigation into other record companies may continue, and the FCC may also get involved.
» link | Posted at 11:56 AM by Derek Slater | Permalink | Other Links: Music

Crippling Innovation, One DRM System at a Time

Bob Frankston describes how innovation will be frustrated as more devices become like his set-top box, which treats him like a criminal by disabling compatibility with his high resolution monitor.
» link | Posted at 11:34 AM by Derek Slater | Permalink | Other Links: DRM

July 20, 2005

Audio From Your One Stop DC Grokster Shop

Audio is now available from the Congressional Internet Caucus' meeting on Grokster, featuring our own Fred von Lohmann. News.com coverage here.
» link | Posted at 10:58 AM by Derek Slater | Permalink | Other Links: P2P

July 19, 2005

Fisking Dvorak's Diss of Creative Commons

Magazine columnist publishes bizarre critique of Creative Commons rife with misunderstandings; blogger Joe Gratz comes to the rescue.
» link | Posted at 05:12 PM by Derek Slater | Permalink | Other Links: Free Culture

July 18, 2005

No Chmod a+r /dev/audio for You

A federal appeals court rules that a Las Vegas judge erred when he ordered a company to help the FBI eavesdrop on conversations in a suspect's vehicle using the car's "OnStar" cellphone audio.
» link | Posted at 03:41 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Surveillance

Place-Shifting Technology, Grokster, and the Broadcast Flag

Sling Media CEO Blake Krikorian talks about the careful path an innovative company has to tread these days.
» link | Posted at 03:40 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Broadcast Flag | DRM

Journalist Sacks Nanny for Being Too Personal on Private Blog, Gets Paid to Write About It for the NYT

Evidently it's not a sackable offense for the journalist to get personal.
» link | Posted at 03:40 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Free Speech

July 15, 2005

Maybe We'll Make it Back on the Merchandising

Kim Weatherall comments on Tarnation; evidently, it was made for $218, but clearing rights for the film cost an extra $400,000.
» link | Posted at 02:55 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Copyright

Your One Stop DC Grokster Shop

Key figures in the Grokster case - including our own Fred von Lohmann - discuss the implications of the ruling at the Congressional Internet Caucus on July 19th.
» link | Posted at 02:55 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Events

State of the Schneier

Long, sprawling, fascinating-throughout interview with Bruce Schneier, the thinking person's security guy.
» link | Posted at 02:55 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Misc.

Euro Telcos: We Put the Customer Second, Right After the Big Record Companies

BT and Eircom did not oppose a request to reveal the identities of their customers by Irish record industry.
» link | Posted at 02:55 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Privacy

July 12, 2005

Georgia on my Drive

Rick Bradley has open-sourced his lawskills.com site, including a MySQL database dump of Georgia laws and caselaw.
» link | Posted at 12:55 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Free Culture

Export Restrictions on Repression

Not only is the US export of surevillance tools morally questionable, some argue it's illegal. Hiawatha Bray reports.
» link | Posted at 12:55 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Free Speech

Music Labels Angry at Free BBC Symphonies

"You are also leading the public to think that it is fine to download and own these files for nothing," accuses label head, neglecting to postfix, "correctly, as it happens."
» link | Posted at 12:55 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Free Culture

July 11, 2005

I Only Inhaled Finecubancigar.zip

You can browse, but it's illegal to download files from certain Cuban travel agencies, the feds announce.
» link | Posted at 10:31 AM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Bad Laws

Our Blogger Discrimination Policy

Reeling university professor dislikes reading the blogs of people he interviews, prefers hiring people whose weirdnesses he will only subsequently discover.
» link | Posted at 10:31 AM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Privacy

July 08, 2005

Smart Counter-terrorism

Bruce Schneier with some timely thoughts on security in the wake of the London bombings.
» link | Posted at 11:02 AM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Misc.

July 07, 2005

Progress, Freedom - and Godwin's Law

James DeLong defends calling collective licensing "socialist gulag," says the term is accurate when we must beg goverment "to exercise control of [ourselves], [our] creations, or property." Await use of "software patents gulag," "anti-circumvention archipelago."
» link | Posted at 04:27 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Misc.

Use Open Wi-Fi, Go to Jail

If FBI just set up a giant orbiting AP set to "linksys," it could entrap all of us.
» link | Posted at 04:27 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Infrastructure

July 06, 2005

Martha Stewart: Freedom To Tinker

MS experiments with circumventing the protections on her ankle monitor: "You can figure out how to get it off," she is quoted as saying. "It's on the Internet. I looked it up."
» link | Posted at 04:37 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Surveillance

A Pan-European Online Music License

Rumor of an EU proposal to simplify the licensing process, with a report to be furnished Thursday.
» link | Posted at 04:32 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Copyright

Summary of the EU Software Patents Victory

Amazing hack of the legislative process, against all the odds.
» link | Posted at 04:32 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: International IP

July 05, 2005

Broadcast Flag Deliberations Move to Secret Base Within Hollowed-Out Volcano

Broadcasters meet outside the US, outside formal WIPO, to discuss future treaty issues.
» link | Posted at 12:11 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Broadcast Flag

Forget Patenting Software, Someone Should Patent Indomitability

The amazing EU anti-software patent effort enters its last 24 hours, with EU officials talking about the software patent proposal being "in trouble."
» link | Posted at 12:11 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Bad Laws

Dear German ISPs, Please Break the Internet, Thx, Copyright Holders

German ISPs are being asked to poison their DNS caches to redirect Germans from allegedly infringing websites.
» link | Posted at 12:10 PM by Danny O'Brien | Permalink | Other Links: Free Speech | International IP