|
o-blog an i.p. blog
< previous items >
08-08
©¦
Bloggers wanted.
If you’ve received one of the RIAA’s subpoenas due to illegal file sharing accusations,
copywrongs.org
wants to hear from you.
©¦
Newsfeed.
This guy’s
pretty clueless
about the whole file sharing thing.
It’s evident
that the record companies are far more destructive to recording artists’ interest than their fans are.
• Always on the cusp, The Register
takes a brief tour
of “‘Golden Age of Free Music’ vs ‘Copying is Stealing’.”
•
This article
puts the lie to the RIAA’s claims that record labels, and not file sharing, are good for recording artists.
• A critique of the RIAA’s
current strategy
against file sharing lays the blame clearly at their feet.
• Congress admits it doesn’t really
know what to do
to stop illegal file sharing, explaining why all the bad legislation that’s recently been proposed.
• Things
aren’t much better
in the European Union, where there are proposals to make “everyone a crook.”
• The RIAA
has suffered defeat
in Massachusetts at least.
08-09
Irregular Updates.
August is being devoted to travel and other projects, and so updates will temporarily be extremely sporadic.
08-12
©¦
Newsfeed.
The RIAA
aims to justify
its heavy-handed subpoena-ing by claiming that it doesn’s go after the “small downloaders”.
•
No less than the Senate Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is
taking a closer look
at the RIAA.
©¦
“Blame Canada.”
Good catchline, but it’s also the name of an article at Tech Central Station, explaining where Canadian
laws concerning the public’s use of recorded music and the U.S.’s
differ.
|
| | |
08-14
©¦
Industry agents.
The recorded music cartel is using software agents on the internet to help them in their fight against
file sharing. Wired.com has
the scoop and the
taxonomy.
©¦
A moderate voice.
The self-confessed owner of “hundreds of copyrights” and former newspaper editor Ed Quillen
wonders aloud
if it is not “Time to give up on copyright law”.
08-18
©¦
Newsfeed.
A “Jane Doe” is resisting the RIAA subpoena she received, counter suing on grounds of
violation of privacy.
• FCC Chairman Michael Powell has (perhaps) had a change of heart and
pledges to facilitate
more low-power radio stations.
• And, a U.S. man has
pleaded guilty
to recorded music piracy. He faces up to five years.
08-20
©¦
Newsfeed.
Is software a protected form of free speech? Not according to a
California ruling
against a DVD-copying program.
• The RIAA and MPAA are
gaining allies
in their attempts to overturn recent court rulings absolving
software authors of the file sharing acts of their users.
08-21
©¦
Tale of two cartels.
Like DeBeers, the famous diamond cartel, the recorded music industry manufactures scarcity by artificially constraining
and maintaining control over supply. Or
so argues
Richard Menta in this mp3newswire.net dispatch.
©¦
Copyleft vs. copyright.
Firstmonday.dk, the peer-reviewed journal on the internet, offers up a
“Marxist critique”
of the copyleft-copyright dichotomy. As always lengthy and in-depth.
08-24
©¦
Paradox of Intellectual Property.
Firstmonday.dk posts another of its excellent analyses of an important topic; this time it’s
“Anarchism Triumphant:
Free Software and the Death of Copyright.”
©¦
Intelligentsia gather.
Bruce Sterling, writing for Wired.com, reports from the Open Cultures convention, held recently in Vienna.
He takes a skeptical view of their
idealism and altruism.
|
| | |
08-25
©¦
Newsfeed.
The RIAA is, deservedly, getting a lot of heat, of which this is only one example: small webcasters are
suing the RIAA
over royalty rates, claiming
anti-trust.
• Commentary over at the Guardian looks at the (publicly funded) BBC’s recent decision to make its
entire media archive
available without charge, on the internet. Some organizations know what’s right.
•
Is the Internet Dying?
©¦
Running scared.
The Washington Post has a
substantial piece
about the lobbying, special interests, and power plays around open source software: apparently discussions
about it won’t even be on the table at WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) meetings
due to lobbying efforts.
08-27
media¦
Little did you expect.
There’s a battle going on in blog-land (or bloggersville, take your pick) and it has to do with,
of all things, the
syndication coding protocol
known as RSS. At stake is simplicity of implementation, versus extensibility; and of course, there are big
personalities and egos involved.
©¦
What government is for.
Salon.com’s Farhad Manjoo has written a piece
“Keeping the Net neutral”,
expounding on why the cable companies need to be regulated, as the phone companies are.
©¦
Ironically.
Here is a
commentary
from guardian.co.uk entitled
“How the pirates became saviours of the record industry”,
outlining some of the effects of the post-Napster era.
08-29
©¦
Newsfeed.
The recent flood of subpoenas from the RIAA directed at file sharers has not gone entirely
unchallenged.
• In addition to the above, the RIAA is facing some
scrutiny
from Washington lawmakers.
• At the same time, there are legions of clueless in Washington authoring bills that would create
felons
out of (according to the article) 60 million of us.
• The president of Grokster, an online music service, is reporting the recorded music cartels to the (UK) office of Fair Trading, the
accusation
being that the major labels are “clearly a cartel in violation of competition laws”.
< next items >
|
