   May 08, 2005 - May 14, 2005 ArchiveMay 13, 2005Paying the Piper
The New Yorker quotes EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow on old and new ways for musicians to get paid for their work: "The value of songs falls, and the value of seeing an artist sing them rises, because that experience can't really be reproduced."
University Uses Copyright to Unmask Blog Critics
St. Lawrence University is using copyright claims to discover the identity of the people behind a website critical of the faculty. Meanwhile, one faculty member is using his blog to defend their right to anonymity.
Broadcast Flag Rises Again
That didn't take long, did it?
DRM and RFID, Together at Last
A UCLA group is exploring implementing DRM - using RFIDs. Ed Felten says it
isn't totally crazy. In theory, at least. (Via CoCo blog.)
Thinking of the Orphans
Joe Gratz helpfully summarizes the reply comments submitted in the Copyright Office's Orphan Works proceeding. (Via Importance Of...)
Filtering - Still Fallible
Consumer Reports tests show that filtering software has marginally improved, but
still blocks perfectly legitimate speech - including KeepAndBearArms.com and National Institute on Drug Abuse. (Via Freedom to Tinker Dashblog.)
May 12, 2005Music, Movies, and Now Television
The MPAA is now filing lawsuits against sites providing BitTorrrent trackers that include metadata files on TV shows.
May 11, 2005Big Brands Fund Spyware
Not deliberately, perhaps - but the LA Times says ads for Mercedes and Travelocity are being spat out by some of the most pernicious adware products. (Via Eric Goldman.)
Small Steps to Fight Trolls
Brenda Sandburg analyzes the latest modest legislative proposals to defend patent law against patent trolls. She also reveals that Peter Detkin, who coined the term, now works for Nathan Myrhvold's Intellectual Ventures -- a company that's been accused of trollishness itself.
Good Patriot, Bad Patriot
The American Bar Association is hosting a blog containing arguments for and against allowing the PATRIOT Act "sunset" provisions to expire. It's under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons license, so you can reuse the pieces.
May 10, 2005REAL ID Passes
Proponents tacked the REAL ID Act onto an Iraq military spending bill, guaranteeing passage. Now the US has a federal standard for identity cards - the de facto national ID system Americans have always rejected.
Observe WIPO Close-Up
The deadline for public interest organizations to apply for "permanent observer" status with WIPO is this Sunday, May 15th. Earlier this year, WIPO tried to bar groups that hadn't obtained permanent observer status from discussions about the organization's future. Don't let administrative shenanigans tip the scales toward the IP maximalists - apply with plenty of time to spare. (Via CPTech.)
Zappster
Via
Copyfight, Frank Zappa's "proposal" for a music download service - made in 1983.
Schneier on REAL ID
Bruce Schneier points out the fallacies and perils of the REAL ID Act.
Thoughts on Australian Fair Use
Kim Weatherall has a great summary of the issues to consider if you're submitting comments to the Australian government on whether and how to codify fair use.
Adobe Head Says Software Patents Are a Bad Idea
Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen acknowledges that allowing software patents to slip under the wire in the 1980s was a mistake, but says it's too late to turn back now. Thankfully, that's not the case for Europe and India.
May 09, 2005Licensing Complexities Kill Podcast
It appears that under ASCAP rules, podcasting can't be classified as time-shifted streaming. That means that radio stations can't just switch to podcasting their broadcast shows, as podcast pioneer Infinity Radio belatedly discovered.
Hilary Rosen On Why DRM is Bad
The former president of the RIAA is mad that she can't play non-iTunes music on her iPod and can't convert other online music stores' files to work correctly on it. As Ernest Miller explains, that's a world that the Rosen-supported DMCA created -- an environment of restricted markets, with no legal interoperability tools.
What's Good for the Goose...
Roger Dannenberg responds to RIAA President Cary Sherman's op-ed tarring universities for "irresponsible" use of Internet2 with a rebuttal calling the recording industry's own history of "monopolistic suppression of innovation" an irresponsible use of networks.
Influence Australia's Fair Use Rules
The Australian federal government recently published an an issues paper (300KB PDF) on fair use and is taking public comments -- one of the few chances Australians have to moderate the DMCA-like anti-circumvention rules the US is exporting worldwide. Dan Bell has the scoop.
May 08, 2005Identity Crisis
You have less than forty-eight hours to contact your senator, and tell them to stop the National ID card plan that was slipped into Tuesday's $82 billion military spending bill. The UnRealID emergency site lets you read about the dangers, view others' mail to their senators, and fax your own representative.
|
RSS Feeds
|
