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,

Wired News: New GPL Free at Last

Among other things, the new version contains provisions barring GPL code from being used in digital-rights-management schemes, and restricting the patent rights coders can claim in their GPL-licensed programs.

Marketers Interested in Small Screen - New York Times

Television-style advertising is coming to a mobile phone near you.

DVD Jon sets his sights on AACS

AACS, like CSS, will be a success. Not at preventing piracy. That's not the primary objective of any DRM system. Anyone who has read the CSS license agreement knows that the primary objective is to control the market for players. Don't you just love when your DVD player tells you "This operation is prohibited" when you try to skip the intro?

Slashdot | NCC Calls for Laws to Protect User Rights

We're used to reading articles about new and creative ways in which DRM and other such technologies can be used to prevent us from doing whatever we like with our media.

U.K. judge frowns on software patents | CNET News.com

A U.K. judge has questioned whether software patents should be granted, and has criticized the U.S. for allowing "anything under the sun" to be patented.

Slashdot | Review of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

the role of P2P networks in popularizing anime

--Ari