On NPR today there was an interview with a music exec who described the payola system currently in place. Apparently it happens mostly with medium-sized radio stations, as for the large ones, their ratings are too valuable. The system works like this: record company contracts a middleman who works with a particular radio station. Record company pays hundreds-of-thousands of dollars per year to such middlemen across the country. Radio stations allow these middlemen to select parts of their playlist for them. Voilà payola.

"Eastern and Southern Illinois universities run popular textbook rental programs that could be replicated on other campuses, though it would involve large up-front costs." A clearcut case of illegal textbook sharing--do they have a specific license allowing them to rent out these books?

Napster offers discounted rate for US soldiers.

Windows SP2 introduces P2P networking to the base windows install. Even the IP behemoth itself agrees that substantial noninfringing use is a reality.

Broadcast continues its market penetration across the world, surely INDUCing infringement.

BSA continues indoctrinating school children.

Open publishing battle continues. This is perhaps one of the most clear-cut cases of the dangers of overly-broad IP law. Public funds pay for the research; public funds pay for the publication in many cases through page fees; private publishers then own the content and restrict access to it.

Whose work is it anyway?

CBO studies copyrights; does a better job than most, but hampers its reach with strictly-economic framework.

Copyright as Orwellian device.

DVD X Copy rises from the ashes.

New filesharing legal framework.

TV, via the Internet. Maybe the TV business should have embraced TiVo a little sooner, as this would give most users the functionality they need to not have to download.

Battle for the TV console.

--Ari