CITP Blog - Formerly Freedom to Tinker

Month: June 2005

  • Grokster fever

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    From Monday’s New York Times: The Court of Online Opinion Has Its Say on File Sharing. This is the third piece in the Times this weekend about the Supreme Court’s soon-coming Grokster decision. The article quotes Prof. Felten briefly: Mr. Snyder’s instructor at Princeton, Prof. Edward W. Felten, a frequently read blogger, was less enthusiastic.…

  • How to license graffiti

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    A member of Ourmedia.org this morning raised an interesting question that has both legal and ethical dimensions: How should photos of graffiti be licensed, if at all? Among the points he raises is that under U.S. law (as well as other jurisdictions), you can’t profit from an illegal activity like graffiti, so the graffiti artist…

  • Book Club Discussion: Code, Chapter 2

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    This week in Book Club, we read Chapter 2 of Lessig’s Code, and Other Laws of Cyberspace. Rather than kick off the discussion with an essay, I’ll just open the floor for discussion. (To say something, add a comment below.) I’ll chime in with my opinions as the discussion develops. For next Friday, we’ll read…

  • DRM and 'casual piracy'

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    Some background on a major transformation taking place in the music industry, even as most mainstream media organizations print not a word about it: Reuters article, May 31: Sony BMG tests technology to limit CD burning. As part of its mounting U.S. rollout of content-enhanced and copy-protected CDs, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is testing technology…

  • Tinkering with personal media

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    Did everyone here catch the Editorial Observer item in Sunday’s New York Times?: A New Magazine’s Rebellious Credo: Void the Warranty! The article recounted the launch of Make Magazine, a throwback quarterly that celebrates the almost-forgotten idea of the creative impulse inside us all. Make, its makers will tell you, is part of a grass-roots…

  • A 'Darknet' backgrounder

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    OK, time to dive in here from my hotel room. A little while ago I posted a guest entry on the Berkman blog that offers a few details about how Darknet and Ourmedia came to be. It’s hard to summarize a book’s major themes in a paragraph or two, but the basic thrust is: -…

  • Guest Blogger: JD Lasica

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    I’m happy to welcome JD Lasica, author of the new book Darknet: Hollywood’s War Against the Digital Generation, and co-founder of OurMedia, who will be guest-blogging here this coming week. This is part of JD’s virtual book tour. I’ll be taking the week off, but the Friday book club will go on as normal.

  • Reading Code in 2005

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    [This post is part of the Book Club reading Lawrence Lessig’s Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. Please use the comments area below to discuss the Preface and Chapter 1. For next Friday, we’ll read Chapter 2.] “Code is law.” Lawrence Lessig’s dictum pervades our thinking about Internet policy. Sometimes it’s hard, reading Code in…

  • Analysis of Fancy E-Voting Protocols

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    Karlof, Sastry, and Wagner have an interesting new paper looking at fancy voting protocols designed by Neff and Chaum, and finding that they’re not yet ready for use. The protocols try to use advanced cryptography to make electronic voting secure. The Neff scheme (I’ll ignore the Chaum scheme, for brevity) produces three outputs: a paper…

  • CDT Closes Eyes, Wishes for Good DRM

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    The Center for Democracy and Technology just released a new copyright policy paper. Derek Slater notes, astutely, that it tries at all costs to take the middle ground. It’s interesting to see what CDT sees as the middle ground. Ernest Miller gives the paper a harsh review. I think Ernie is too harsh in some…