A Copyfighter’s Musings

[Updated: 2-21-03, 1:47 AM]

I’ve been reflecting on how I hope I can actually study this stuff for a living some day, because maybe then I could attend conferences like this.   It looks really frickin’ cool, but, sadly, I will be stranded here in soggy, snowy New England.

But maybe you won’t be – maybe you, whoever you are out there, are going to the conference.  If you are and would be so kind as to blog the conference or at least take some notes, I would be incredibly grateful.  I would love to hear about how it turns out.

Also, the conference website has a great list of papers/articles/other resources here.  Looks like some cool papers will be presented at the conference, including one by Raymond Ku entitled “Consumer Copying and Creative Destruction: A Critique of Fair Use as Market Failure.”

Later: Mary Hodder at bIPlog is two for two today.  First, the DRM Summit notes in HTML, and now she tells me she’s blogging the conference.  Plus, she said that more papers will be going up on the resources page.  Stay tuned.

Filed by Derek Slater at 9:21 pm under General news
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In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the EFF’s reply comments to the FCC.  Hopefully, the FCC will heed their strong rebuttals to the MPAA’s arguments.

Filed by Derek Slater at 4:08 pm under Legal
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bIPlog has everything you need to know about yesterday’s summit.  I’m emailing them about the fact that it’s only in doc format – hopefully they’ll add another format (grumble). (Update: Ask and you shall receive, in HTML.)

I second Frank’s question about what compulsory license plan Lessig was referring to.  I’ve never read Lessig saying he out-right supports compulsory licenses; that’s certainly not in the Future of Idees. (Has anyone read him saying something to that effect?)….  He was certainly present at the talk Professor Fisher gave at Stanford – so maybe he’s on board, too.

Filed by Derek Slater at 2:44 pm under General news
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(For those of you not on the BNA list, go here.)

First, big things are apparently afoot at the FCC.  I honestly don’t know enough about it to voice an opinion, but if you have one, I’d love to hear it.  Is this sort of deregulation really the path to more pervasive, cheaper broadband?

Second, the Senator Wyden is close to introducing a bill that would require labelling of anything using anti-piracy technology.  You might remember Wyden from his drive to stop TIA and from the Cox-Wyden consumer rights bill.  This was the bill pushed by DigitalConsumer.org that didn’t get near as much attention as the Lofgren and Boucher bills.

Third, BNA and Lawmeme both directed me to this story.  Apparently, music publishers are suing Bertelsmann AG for aiding Napster users’ piracy.  Um, maybe it’s just me, but wasn’t Bertelsmann trying to make Napster legitimate?  And, didn’t the music industry basically prevent that by suing Napster into the ground and by eschewing the use of P2P as part of their business model?  Do we need to do any more damage? 

Just in case the music publishers don’t get it: Napster has already gone bankrupt.  KaZaA and Morpheus and Blubster and myriad others are still operating.  Get over Napster! 

Filed by Derek Slater at 2:22 pm under General news
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