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We gently knocked Wil Wheaton recently for saying some things that we thought were a bit wrongheaded in terms of dealing with people copying his work -- while noting that for the most part he absolutely seemed to "get" where things were heading and had a long history of embracing that. Whatever ...
Other
When we talk about intellectual property issues, many maximalists on both the copyright and patent side of things have this inherent sense that "copying" is "bad." Not just "bad," it's downright immoral. You hear words like "freeloading," "parasites," "pirates," "thieves," "copycats," etc. Yet, ...
Other
Reader mick alerts us to the story of a small eight-person startup that makes a popular app for backing up your iPod music, which had been called "iPodRip" until Steve Jobs and Apple's lawyers got involved , demanding the company cease using the name and hand over its domain. It's even told the ...
Software
Steve Jobs
Apple
Remember ACS:Law? The shakedown organization that appears to have taken over where Davenport Lyons left off (including using some of the identical documents), and who has "partnered" with DigiProtect, the company that gleefully admits that it purposely puts files on file sharing networks just to ...
Online
RIAA
We were just talking about how pretty much any government database will get abused by government employees eventually. But it's not just on the accessing or revealing of data that this can happen. How about the collection of data as well? Jabberwocky alerts us to the news that police in the UK ...
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It seems pretty bizarre that companies and industry organizations would be against helping those with reading disabilities or vision impairment -- but that's exactly what you get in the discussion over creating some loopholes in copyright law to make it easier to reformat content to help those ...
Online
With newspapers struggling with declining sales and subscriptions, it seems that a few of the major newspaper chains have realized that when they have a newspaper with something of real value to a lot more people than usual, perhaps it makes sense to bump up the prices. Both Tribune Co. and E.W. ...
Other
It's been somewhat amusing over the last day or so to see a bunch of our usual critics all submit the same exact story with some sort of triumphant "I told you so!!!!!" (usually in less friendly language). It's a report that music sales are up in Sweden following the strict anti-piracy law that ...
Online
I guess it's natural to lash out at technologies and companies that undermine a business model built up on artificial barriers and scarcity, but it won't do much good in terms of actually adapting. But it's kind of amusing when it's done at the same time that someone is embracing those new ...
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The folks in Hollywood have been working overtime lately trying to convince the world that piracy is harming the industry , even as the industry is having its best year ever in terms of both money made and the number of movies released. It's an uphill slog, so lobbyists, lawyers and execs from ...
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Once again, Danny Sullivan is ripping to shreds the arguments being made by newspaper execs who are talking about how Google is a "parasite" on their content, despite sending tons of traffic. In this episode, Danny looks at the silly claim that visitors from Google are worthless , by comparing ...
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Earlier this year, I wrote a post questioning whether the "inefficiency" found in multitasking was a bug or a feature . It was in response to studies pointing out that people who multitask tend to be less efficient at specific tasks. Folks like Nick Carr like to hold up things like that as ...
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The world of startups can be a fast moving place, with lots of money thrown around quite rapidly at times. In such a world, it's no surprise to hear stories of pure outright fraud mixed in with all of the real stories of actual startups. They seem to come along every year or so -- and usually ...
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We were just talking about how the justice system in Spain seems at least somewhat more reasonable on the subject of file sharing, and here's yet another example. A court has overturned injunctions on two file sharing sites and fined the anti-piracy group that brought charges against them in ...
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ChurchHatesTucker writes "The ABA Journal was unable to secure an interview with the USPTO chief, so they published a faux business method patent for securing an interview . Within four hours, they got their interview."
Yes, but the real question is whether or not the USPTO would approve the ...
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Joseph Franklin has written about how a group of universities have agreed to some basic principles (pdf) about providing drugs to developing nations at reasonable costs (or even free) in the interest of better global healthcare. However, Franklin wonders how well this will work in practice , ...
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The NY Times has an article about the rise of online "web series" shows that are suddenly popular , noting that many brands are creating such things as a way to produce interesting content online while getting some attention for their brand. It's yet another realization that advertising is ...
Other
Wired has an article about a court dismissing a lawsuit by a guy who claimed the government was spying on him . The claims sound pretty much like your run-of-the-mill tinfoil-hat-wearing paranoid, so it's no surprise that the government tossed out the lawsuit. But, as David Kravets points out in ...
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Sports leagues around the world have been trying to put more and more restrictive rules on various journalists and news organizations when it comes to reporting on their events. In the US, both the NFL and the MLB have put ridiculous restrictions on what reporters can write about or post on ...
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BullJustin points us to a short NPR piece about four massive failures by the recording industry . If we skip over number 3 (Kevin Federline), the other three are pretty relevant to what we talk about here on a regular basis: the Sony BMG rootkit fiasco that opened up security holes on computers ...
