Censorship Vs. Free Speech Personal Commentary8/28/2000; 7:43:16 PM Ever since I converted over to news items for this site, I've had two separate sections, one for and one for Free Speech. While I was converting all the old stories over, I just made them into two categories, and just sort of separated them.It's bothered me ever since... What's the difference? Recently I realized... yes, there is a differenceFree speech is the right to express certain concepts, without fear of retribution from higher authorities (or at least, in theory without fear), and the corresponding right to seek out expressions of these concepts.

LinkBack Problems LinkBack 8/28/2000; 6:00:24 PM Since a few of you have asked, yes, the LinkBack program is having some problems. There's some work I need to do on it. It won't take long, but I haven't had time to do it. It also need to live on a new computer. The computer it was living on just went Linux. Fortunately, I've got one now I can use. Anyhow, I hope to have it fixed this week, then I can add blivet.

The Right To Read: Time Limited Textbooks Misc.8/28/2000; 2:43:24 PM In The Right To Read, Richard Stallman writes a hypothetical story set in 2096 as a flashback to circa 2050 about university students who were not allowed to share textbooks by defeating the technological protections on them, or they would face jail time. He may have been off by about 50 years. As shared in this Slashdot story, Vital Source Technologies has created such a protected textbook.

EFF DVD Update: LiViD Leader Challenges CA's Jurisdiction DVD & DeCSS8/28/2000; 10:58:42 AM I've subscribed to the EFF newsletter updating people on the DVD cases as they are occurring. They seem to have stopped archiving them, so here it is (as I assume they want this spread far and wide):This Tuesday, August 29th at 9:00 a.m., Judge William Elfving will hear oral argument over LiVid Project leader Matthew Pavlovich's motion to quash the California court's jurisdiction over him because he lives in Texas and has no contacts with California.

Dutch papers fail in internet copyright case Country Watch: Netherlands8/27/2000; 3:42:48 PM 'Leading Dutch newspapers yesterday failed to prevent an online news service from providing direct links to articles on newspaper websites, in a legal ruling that helps define the limits of internet copyright. 'PCM, publisher of most of the country's national dailies, had sought an injunction against the recently established Kranten.com, whose site consists largely of news headlines. Clicking on any of these takes an internet user to the full text of the article, displayed on the site of the newspaper itself.

Sex.com Ruling: It Wasn't Stolen General IP Issues8/25/2000; 11:05:08 PM 'There are lots of nasty and nefarious things you can do to a website -- crack it, hijack it, black it out -- but one thing you can't do, no matter how evil your intention, is steal its domain name. Even if you take it without asking and never give it back.'Oh this is just stupid. If it's not property that can be stolen, then somebody please explain to me how it's property that can be squatted!

TRUSTe Accused of Breaking Its Own Privacy Rules Privacy from Companies 8/25/2000; 11:02:30 PM 'The nonprofit Internet privacy organization TRUSTe allowed an outside company to track visitors to its Web site without visitors' permission or knowledge, said Interhack, a Internet security firm.'

Trade Groups Support Napster Music & MP3 8/25/2000; 10:54:27 PM 'Several trade groups filed friend-of-the-court briefs today with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals disputing claims made by Judge Marilyn Patel, who ruled against Napster in a case brought by the recording industry.'

Time-Warner steps in it, again Music & MP38/25/2000; 10:17:02 PM Odds are good you all read Davenet, given who's hosting this website, but still, this deserves to be archived here so people can find it in the future. Time-Warner violates what is essentially their own law...'This hypocrisy is making a joke of the US Constitution. If the litigants can't keep their own act clean, how dare they sue others to stop what is clearly an expression of free speech.

Future of Digital Music Senate Meeting Personal Commentary 8/23/2000; 4:48:10 PM It's 5:52 EST, and on C-SPAN 2 is the Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on the Future of Digital Music, with Lars Ulrich, the Napster CEO, and the RIAA that took place on September 11, 2000. It's out of date in lawsuit terms, but hey, get it straight from the horse's mouth(es).