CITP Blog - Formerly Freedom to Tinker

Author: Ed Felten

  • RIAA IM-Spams Kazaa/Grokster Users

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    Many reports are circulating about the RIAA’s use of instant-messaging features of Kazaa and Grokster to send warning messsages yesterday to users of those systems. Conventional wisdom in blogland seems to be that this will have little if any impact on users’ behavior. I disagree. Consider this excerpt from Amy Harmon’s New York Times story:…

  • Where the Money Goes

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    Orin Kerr at the Volokh Conspiracy points to Terry Fisher’s data on where the $18 paid for a typical music CD goes: $7.00 to the retailer, $1.50 to the distributor, $9.31 for record company expenses (including performer and composer royalties of $2.85), and $0.19 for record company profit. Kerr comments: I understand that the record…

  • Grokster Ruling: Instant Analysis

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    Judge Wilson’s opinion, dismissing the music industry suit against Grokster and Morpheus, contains few surprises beyond the result itself. Judge Wilson ruled, essentially, that although some users of the defendants’ P2P software used the software to infringe copyrights, this infringing activity was beyond the control of the defendants. Unlike Napster, these defendants had no active,…

  • Judge Rules Morpheus, Grokster Legal to Distribute

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    A Federal court has granted summary judgment in favor of Grokster et al., ruling that it is legal to distribute these peer-to-peer file sharing tools. More later, after I have had a chance to read the ruling.

  • Florida Super-DMCA Back On the Fast Track

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    Giles Hoover writes that the Florida version of the Super-DMCA has been put on a fast-track “Special Order Calendar”, to be voted on tomorrow. Florida residents, call your representatives and weigh in on this bill!

  • Costs vs. Benefits

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    Yesterday, the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference had a session on the copy protection wars. Louis Trager reports, in a story headlined “Hollywood Survival Isn’t Worth Sacrificing Tech Freedom, Activists Say”, in today’s Washington Internet Daily: Legal restrictions on technology and content copying pose a far greater risk to society than the extinction of the established…

  • Texas Trying to Sneak Through Super-DMCA

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    The Texas state legislature has reportedly suspended its rules today in order to consider the Super-DMCA legislation without the usually-required five days advance notice. This looks like an attempt to get the bill passed without allowing opponents a chance to properly debate it. The legislative hearing is expected to start around 6:00 PM (Central time)…

  • Rounding

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    Cory Doctorow writes on Cruelty to Analog about an MPAA presentation to the ARDG, the group that is trying to bring Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) to analog content. The presentation talks about a “rounding problem” that arises because of an assumption that analog DRM is unable to micromanage the use of content to the same…

  • Slashdot Interview

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    My Slashdot interview was just posted. Slashdot readers asked me several interesting questions about law and technology.

  • What Was Blackboard Thinking?

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    Most businesses know that it’s wise to honor the values of their customers. So you’ve got to wonder what Blackboard was thinking when it sued to block a conference presentation last weekend. Blackboard’s customers are colleges and universities. As Karl-Friedrich Lenz observes, these are organizations that hold freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry as…