DVD Hearing: Suits Meet Geeks DVD & DeCSS 5/2/2000; 10:40:17 AM Jan 18, 2000: "'They are about censorship of speech critical to science, education, and innovation,' said EFF executive director Tara Lemmey. 'Reverse engineering of DVD security is legitimate and important for systems' interoperability, and a right that we must preserve for a healthy, open, and democratic society in the information age.'" Yeah, that sounds about right.

Digital Copyright Law on Trial DMCA5/2/2000; 10:37:46 AM Jan 18, 2000: Interesting point: There is no question being asked about intent, instead the media conglomerates want it to be totally illegal to bypass copy protection, at all. Reverse engineering? No. Want to engage in well-established Fair Use? Can't.These people truly are trying to extend copyright into a realm it has not gone in before; copyright does not give the owner total control, it is an agreement of sorts, where the end user still has certain rights that could not previously be taken away, like the right to quote in certain ways.

Censorship Definition Essays 5/2/2000; 10:35:37 AM Jan 17, 2000: What is censorship? My answer may surprise you; it's much more general then you may be used to seeing!

Third Voice: Good or Bad? Essays 5/2/2000; 10:33:20 AM Jan 17, 2000: Finally finished the rough draft of my paper, Third Voice: Good or Bad?. From this topic my interest in this subject has grown, and much that is in this paper will hopefully be included on this site someday, in one form or another.

Bush Parody Site Fights Back Political Speech 5/2/2000; 10:33:54 AM Jan 17, 2000: "'You don't want somebody sitting at home creating a Web page to have to file a piece of paper with the Federal Election Commission,' he [Donald J. Simon, a Washington-based lawyer and specialist in FEC regulations] said, 'because that will have a chilling effect on political activity.'" Uh, like, duh. There do seem to be points for both sides, though.

Judge Says Recording of Electronic Chats Is Legal Surveillance and Privacy from Government 5/2/2000; 10:31:57 AM Jan 14, 2000: This decision was made in the context of a case where the police used ICQ to set up a sting. I think this decision at the very least was made for the wrong reasons, and is a clear illustration of the problem that Internet rights are having; there are never any clear cases, instead potentially far-reaching decisions are made in the context of a sting operation or other similar, limited context.

New Section: Boundary Breakers Boundary Breakers 5/2/2000; 10:27:02 AM Jan 13, 2000: New section: Boundary Breakers. This section will grow into a collection of software products and companies that are challenging our concepting of rights on the Internet. We also start this off with CallTheShots.com as our first one, because it's such an easy target, I don't even need to develop the other concepts I will need to take shots at other Boundary Breakers.

Call The Shots.com Protecting Yourself 5/2/2000; 10:22:55 AM A page about how to protect yourself against CallTheShots.com. Fairly easy, really.

AskTog comments Technology & Sociology 5/2/2000; 10:15:04 AM This AskTog has some comments (after a screen or two of text) that I find myself largely agreeing with. "Computer technology, while helping the corporations strengthen their stranglehold on intellectual property, have also been a fresh breeze of liberation."

Real Keeps Up Copyright Fight General IP Issues 5/2/2000; 10:12:29 AM Jan 10th, 2000: "RealNetworks claims the DMCA protects against hacks that negate its copy protection system. But Streambox CEO Bob Hildeman argues that DMCA also supports the right of content owners and listeners to access content and save it in a preferred format." Perhaps copyright protection technology is only legal as long as it allows the user to make copies in any user desired format.