What Every American Should Know About Copyright General IP Issues10/4/2000; 3:08:28 PM 'Another point that isn't very well known, that has, in fact, been buried into near complete obscurity is that the copyright owner does not own the work, only the copyright. The work, itself, is owned by no one. Intellectual Property, a very big issue in the modern world, has no owner. You can only own the right to copy a work, not the work itself.

Patent Combat Time Personal Commentary10/4/2000; 2:42:25 PM As I've been writing iRights: The Essay, I've been exploring a lot of new territory, hopefully stuff that nobody's ever explored before. (At the very least, I haven't seen it from anybody else.)So I was talking about the recent bill before Congress to make MP3 "beaming" as implemented by MP3.com explicitly allowed (previous coverage), and I came up with an example of why the bill is shortsighted.

Artificial stupidity: One-Half a Manifesto Misc. 10/4/2000; 11:05:24 AM This is from a few days ago, but I think that the Salon article, which includes some of the replies to the One-Half of a Manifesto, is sufficiently interesting to merit posting here. I recommend reading the original manifesto, and I've heard the "printer friendly version" is easier to deal with, as it isn't broken into 16 pieces.

Post-Debate comment Personal Commentary 10/4/2000; 10:44:42 AM Isn't it sick that the one issue that can unify liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat, rich and poor, basically everybody except those intimately involved in politics as a way of life, is how little we want to elect either Bush or Gore into our top office?

Armey Criticizes Carnivore Review Surveillance and Privacy from Government 10/4/2000; 10:28:46 AM 'The Illinois Institute of Technology Research Institute has barely begun its review of Carnivore, an electronic-surveillance system being used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but already a Congressional leader is branding the review a "sham." Richard K. Armey, the Texas Republican who is majority leader of the House of Representatives, criticized the Justice Department on Thursday for selecting the research institute, a nonprofit affiliate of I.

‘Business-method’ patents Patents10/3/2000; 2:26:39 PM 'Such patents on “business methods,” which have been soaring in recent years, have been denounced for allowing the patent owners to put a lock on innovation or to profit unfairly from it. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has been accused of issuing way too many such patents, and for dubious innovations.'The issue is heating up in Washington.'

Moving from Units to Eunuchs Misc.10/3/2000; 2:17:46 PM 'Since this minimum per-unit cost is best spread over a large number of titles (the "economies of scale" effect), the current system favors a handful of major labels, all of which are stuck with roughly the same magnitude of distribution costs. 'The Internet upends all of that, because payment for distribution has been completely decoupled from the data delivered. Your monthly ISP bill doesn’t fluctuate, whether you download every Grateful Dead MP3 ever made or only send email to your mother on Sundays.

Web-chopping comes home to the desktop Content Integrity10/3/2000; 1:36:20 PM 'These programs, with names like DoDots, Snippets, Yodlee, Onepage and Octopus, are actually browsers on steroids that put the user in charge of the Internet experience by providing a set of tools which allow the surfer to copy and paste content from an infinite number of web sites into one personally-designed web page.... Octopus even allows users to post their personally designed web-pages on the site, so that people with similar interests can use the new design rather than have to create their own version.

Will Personalization Be The End of Editorial Integrity? Personal Commentary10/3/2000; 1:21:46 PM I hold in my hands the latest issue of the Official Dreamcast Magazine... covering the Dreamcast, which is the latest & greatest video gaming console put out by Sega. Contained inside this magazine are:Dreamcast news & editorialsReviews of Dreamcast gamesAdvertising by the third-party manufacturors about their Dreamcast games and perhipheralsThis is hardly an unusual magazine; there are niche magazines for every sport imaginable, every animal imaginable, every class of hardware and quite a few specific products, etc.

Napster Case: Hard Queries on Copyrights Music & MP3 10/3/2000; 12:58:07 PM 'The exchange today created a sharply different courtroom atmosphere from that of two months ago when a lower court ordered Napster to stop aiding the exchange of copyrighted music. That court's preliminary injunction was quickly stayed, setting the stage for today's hearing, during which the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit considered whether to reinstate the injunction pending trial.