O'Reilly Network: The Problem with Webcasting

The harm this could do to public discourse hit me just recently when I attended a forum on wiretapping, where several TV clips of George W. Bush's speeches were aired. The value of seeing these excerpts was incalculable. But if we had to adhere to the broadcasters' treaty, showing them would have been illegal.

Lawrence Lessig

For of course, when the Internet first reached beyond research facilities to the masses, it did so on regulated lines — telephone lines. Had the telephone companies been free of the “heavy hand” of government regulation, it’s quite clear what they would have done — they would have killed it, just as they did when Paul Baran first proposed the idea in 1964.

Furdlog » Evolution of the Starbucks Distribution Channel

With Starbucks outlets blanketing the country, virtually every Hollywood studio has been wooing the chain, hoping it can help boost lethargic movie attendance and stagnant DVD sales.

Furdlog » Well, Of Course!

“We’ve got to find a way to harmonize this so it’s rational,” said Mitch Bainwol, the RIAA’s chief executive officer. […]

Open Access News

If the data is free, the only cost to building a better utilitization of that data is your time .

Hey, Baby Bells: Information Still Wants to Be Free - New York Times

The digital lifestyle I see portrayed so alluringly in ads is not possible when the Internet plumbing in our homes is as pitiful as it is. The broadband carriers that we have today provide service that attains negative perfection: low speeds at high prices.

It gets worse. Now these same carriers - led by Verizon Communications and BellSouth - want to create entirely new categories of fees that risk destroying the anyone-can-publish culture of the Internet. And they are lobbying for legislative protection of their meddling with the Internet content that runs through their pipes. These are not good ideas.

I n t e l l i g e n t T e l e v i s i o n

ntelligent Television is also commissioning and publishing a working paper on the economics of open content,

OSx86 Project - Apple's Hidden Message to Hackers: "Dont Steal Mac OS X"

Despite being a lighthearted jab at hackers, it seems that Apple is taking the pirating of the new OSx86 seriously, since the same kext is not found in the PPC version of 10.4.4. Is this simply a hidden message for the interested parties, or is it a new tounge-in-cheek implementation of OS X’s TPM security?

--Ari