Author: Ed Felten
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Compulsory Licenses, and the Measurement Problem
At this week’s Future of Music conference, Terry Fisher of Harvard suggested yet another variation of compulsory licensing for online music. The basic idea is to slap a tax on computers, or on Net access, or on something else you need to get music online. Then the taxpayers can listen to all of the online…
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DMCA Used to Prevent Interoperation
Declan McCullagh at CNet news.com reports on a lawsuit filed by printer manufacturer Lexmark against Static Control (SC), a maker of toner cartridges for Lexmark printers. Lexmark wants to stop SC from making toner cartridges that work in Lexmark printers. The suit makes a novel and disturbing use of the DMCA anti-circumvention law. Here are…
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Hot Legislative Action
Declan McCullagh at news.com gives a rundown of the tech-regulation bills that are likely to be on the table in the new congressional session. Many familiar bills will be back. At least one anticopying technology mandate like the Hollings CBDTPA is likely to be proposed. Changes in committee membership may make a CBDTPA-like bill more…
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DVD-Jon Acquitted
A Norwegian court has found Jon “DVD-Jon” Johansen not guilty of criminal charges relating to the creation of the DeCSS program for reading encrypted DVDs. CNN has the story.
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Long DRM Article in Today's NYT
Today’s New York Times offers a long article by Amy Harmon on DRM, or “digital armor” on recorded media. It’s mostly a backgrounder for people less up-to-speed on DRM issues than most of my readers (probably) are, but there are a few new nuggets worth noting. First, Jack Valenti tries yet another analogy: “We need…
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NYT Changes Copyright-Expiration Story
On Thursday I critiqued a New York Times story (which appeared in the print edition on Friday) about the expiration of some European copyrights on recorded music. Joe Liu points out that the Times has changed the story to address one of the issues I raised. The original story said: Defenders of the copyright laws,…
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News Flash: Some Copyrights to Expire
An article by Anthony Tommasini at the New York Times (online) reports that the European copyrights on many musical recordings for the 50’s will be expiring soon. Some paint this as a disaster for the recording industry. This is one of those articles that just cries out for skeptical analysis. Several points leap to mind.…
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Everything Is Not Possible
Ted Shelton points out the unintended irony in HP’s new “Everything is Possible” ads running alongside articles about abuses of technology. Something else about the “Everything is Possible” slogan bugs me more. The slogan is, well, wrong. Technology does not make everything possible. Some things are impossible, and some cannot be done without harmful side-effects.…
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Happy Holidays
There will be few if any postings here until January 2. Enjoy the holidays, and I’ll see you here next year!
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DMCA Submission Site
The U.S. government’s Copyright Office has put up a site containing all of the requested exemptions from the DMCA’s ban on circumvention of access controls. There are fifty submissions in all, including mine. In January, the reply comment period will open. Anyone can submit reply comments, either opposing or supporting any of the requested exemptions.…