Napster Still Loses, and So Do You Music & MP3 2/12/2001; 4:27:41 PM 'Napster got a small reprieve Monday, but ultimately the service is toast. That's the practical effect of a federal appeals court ruling (full text), in which the online file-swapping service was ordered to police its users (AP) to prevent the sharing of copyrighted material.' (Admin note: This site should hopefully return to full functionality on this Thursday.

Indefinate outage LinkBack 2/8/2001; 9:30:58 AM LinkBack will be suffering an indefinate outage, but probably on the order of one to two weeks. My home internet service was terminated and I can not afford to immediately re-activate it. It won't be long, but until I do, Linkback doesn't work. BTW, lesson learned here: My credit card company recently sent me a new Visa card, because they suspected that my card number may have been stolen en masse with lots of others, so they were just sending me a new one to be safe.

EU copyright compromise reached General IP Issues 2/6/2001; 5:23:17 PM 'The European parliament's legal affairs committee agreed on Monday to compromise on far-reaching amendments proposed to the EU's legislation on copyright.... '"We really need a balance between the different cultural and legal rules in the EU," said Enrico Boselli, the Italian socialist rapporteur on the issue. The committee agreed to keep in place many of the exceptions agreed by EU countries to the copyright rules for institutions such as libraries and universities.

Etoys.com vs. etoy domain war ends with Etoys.com's demise Misc. 2/6/2001; 5:09:10 PM The linked Wired article merely chronicles Etoys.com's demise, it says nothing about this connection. Etoys.com is, or rather was, the quintessential arrogant dot-com company. At the height of its arc, flush with funds, ego, and momentum, Etoys.com sued the artistic group etoy.com, which predated Etoys.com's existance by several years, for trademark infringement. To put it simply, etoy.

Privacy problems? Yeah, the Free Market can fix that! Privacy from Companies 2/6/2001; 9:40:17 AM It's linked on Slashdot, so I feel I have to reply to "The Privacy Cage" by Julian Sanchez in Liberzine. Basically, the essay suggests that the Free Market can solve all of our privacy woes, but in the process tilts with strawmen and seems to be coming from another planet... 'Since users in online interactions have de facto control over what information they will make available, they will have what amount to property rights in interactions where they demand them.

New E-Mail Vulnerability - Trust Your Neighbor? Misc. 2/5/2001; 11:12:34 AM From Slashdot: ''According to this article in The New York Times (free registration required), a trick enables someone to essentially bug an e-mail message so that the spy would be privy to any comments that a recipient might add as the message is forwarded to others or sent back and forth. The vulnerability could facilitate the harvesting of e-mail addresses.

Kafkaesque? Big Brother? Finding the Right Metaphor Privacy from Companies 2/3/2001; 2:36:37 PM 'The battle of the metaphors is much more than a literary parlor game, said Solove in his article, "Privacy and Power: Computer Databases and Metaphors for Information Privacy." The way a problem is framed determines its solution, he suggested. And if lawmakers are to come up with adequate responses to the lack of privacy online, they need to fully understand the nature of the beast.

DVD Case Follow-Up DVD & DeCSS 2/1/2001; 11:45:38 AM From Slashdot: ''The ACLU made a court brief today concerning the DVD CCA case. The release can be found here.'' There were actually a number of amicus briefs filed at the same time for this case, and now I think most of them are online. Journalists and publishers, law professors, law professors II, the Association for Computing Machinery, programmers and academics, library and public interest, Arnold Reinhold.

Code + Law: An Interview with Lawrence Lessig Misc.1/31/2001; 11:21:07 AM One of many interesting statements:'There are two stages in Internet history so far, which are important to distinguish. The first stage climaxes around 1997, when the Supreme Court decided Reno v. ACLU (the case striking down the Communications Decency Act). This case represents a time when the world looked at the Internet and said, "This is an amazing new technology that we've got to be extremely respectful of.

Senator introduces strong e-privacy bill Privacy from Companies 1/30/2001; 4:39:34 PM 'Senator John Edwards re-introduced a bill on Monday that would require Web sites to get permission from visitors before tracking their movements online. 'The North Carolina Democrat's bill stakes out an aggressive position in the debate over Internet privacy, requiring Web sites to reveal their use of technology that commonly runs in the background without the knowledge of the visitor.