Copycat - Can China create its own Hollywood? By Tim Wu

While Hollywood complains about losing money to bootleg DVDs, the Chinese bootlegs hurt the local industry, too. The greatest consequence may be cultural: The omnipresence of bootleg DVDs has created a generation of Chinese consumers accustomed to watching cheap DVDs on inexpensive large-screen TVs instead of buying popcorn and movie tickets.

Slashdot | Downloadable Film Commentaries Becoming Popular?

Now that Kevin Smith is offering a downloadable commentary for Clerks 2, will other Directors follow in his footsteps? Some studios think so and are already offering similar content for shows such as Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, and Star Trek: Enterprise.

Wired News: Piracy Zaps China's Tech Industry

One by one, the Beijing-based software maker has seen its sales of such popular products destroyed after black market producers flooded the market with cheap copies.
Another sob story designed to manipulate policy makers, or is this real?

Site Tempts Video Makers by Offering to Pay Them - New York Times

If creators of homemade Internet video get tired of producing something for nothing, they can post their work on Lulu.tv.
There goes one Fair Use defense?

A CableCard That Hasn't Been Able to Kill the Set-Top Box - New York Times

"The set-top box offers cable providers a point of control, a presence in the living room," said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for the NPD Group. " Comcast and Time Warner have had very good success with offering digital video recorders, which require a set-top box."

Internet Calling Pressures Bells to Lower Rates - New York Times

"People are going to look at voice communications as something they expect to get for free," said Henry Gomez, general manager of Skype, which eBay bought last year for $2.6 billion. The company usually charges a few cents a minute for calls from computers to regular phones, but in May it eliminated those fees through the end of the year for users in the United States and Canada.

Slashdot | How The Internet Works - With Tubes

Alaska Senator Ted Stevens delivered a jaw-dropping attempt to explain how the Internet works.

Slashdot | BPI Sue AllOfMp3 In British Courts

We have maintained all along that this site is illegal and that the operator of the site is breaking UK law by making sound recordings available to UK-based customers without the permission of copyright owners. Now we will have the opportunity to demonstrate in the UK courts the illegality of this site.
Could this mean that going after them in Russia hasn't worked?

--Ari