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.

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. I doubt the judge truly appreciates what it means to say that chatting on the Internet is not subject to the same protections as talking on a phone, or private conversation.

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.

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... which kind of negates the entire point of copyright protection in the first place. I have a hard time seeing a judge make that ruling, though... usually they assume laws have some purpose, or they wouldn't be there in the first place.

Conversion to News Item
Administrative
5/2/2000; 1:23:52 AM This site is converting to the News Item format, because the ability to view by department is a killer feature for a weblog like this.

There will be a surge of news, as I'm going to pull the old stories into this format. Having fun!

Of course this sent the MP3 fan(atics) into a rabid tailspin, in particular Our Hero Jon Katz, who makes big and unnecessary noises about how the genie isn't going back in the bottle.

Good news! US Court Rules MP3 Violated Copyright Law: "A U.S. federal court ruled on Friday that MP3.com Inc. violated copyright law with the creation of its database in which users can store music and then access it via any computer connected to the Internet." I would have been surprised with any other ruling. One of the copyrights is the right of distribution, and MP3 was indeed distributed music in an active sense.