Category: Uncategorized
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NYT on Oberholzer/Strumpf Filesharing Study
Today’s New York Times has a great story by John Schwartz on last week’s filesharing study and the reaction to it. There’s a nice summary of the study itself, and some discussion and criticism of it. The criticism seems to fall into two categories. One category is the appropriate scholarly caution toward a new result…
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More on the UNC/Harvard Filesharing Study
Eric Rescorla offers two interesting posts on the recently released study on filesharing. First, Eric summarizes the study’s methodology. Then he discusses the implications if the study turns out to be correct that filesharing does not reduce sales.
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In the News Today
Avi Rubin Joins Diebold (via Avi Rubin) RIAA Sues Google; Internet Doomed (via James Grimmelmann) Valenti Condemns Avian P2P (via me) EFF buys Department of Justice (also note: Valenti To Join EFF Board) (via EFF) Omniscience Protocol Specification Published (via Scott Bradner) Duke Buys the Public Domain (via ibiblio) Google Staffing Lunar Office (via Google)…
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Testimony of Jack Valenti
Testimony of Jack Valenti Motion Picture Association of America Before the Senate Commerce Committee April 1, 2004 Mister Chairman, Last year I appeared before this committee to urge your support for the broadcast flag, a harmless technical standard necessary to stem the gruesome tide of piracy that is sapping the very lifeblood of America’s most…
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Remixing Politics
Somebody over at the Bush-Cheney campaign had better figure out this Internet thingy pretty soon, or it’s going to be a long, unpleasant online campaign for them. The first evidence of the campaign’s Net-cluelessness was the Bush-Cheney poster generator that came to be called “The Sloganator”. This was a web tool, on the campaign’s site,…
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Study: Filesharing Doesn't Affect Record Sales
Felix Oberholzer and Koleman Strumpf, of Harvard and the University of North Carolina, respectively, have published an interesting study on the effect of file sharing on record sales. They looked at album sales, actual download traffic for individual songs, and several other variables. Their main conclusion that file sharing had little or no effect on…
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Improving the PIRATE Act
Senators Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy have introduced a new bill, the PIRATE Act, that would authorize the U.S. government to bring civil lawsuits against copyright infringers, and would create a $2 million fund to pay for such suits. (Copyfight has the details.) Rather than doing this, it would be more efficient simply to give…
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Witty Worm Analysis
Peter Harsha at CRA points to an interesting analysis, by Colleen Shannon and David Moore of CAIDA, of the recent Witty worm.
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Light Weight
Derek Slater discusses Fraunhofer’s new Light Weight DRM system. Derek is skeptical but states his opinion cautiously, not being a technologist. In any case, Derek gets it right. It’s hard to see much that’s new in this proposal. If we ignore the newly coined LWDRM buzzword and the accompanying marketing spin, we’re left with a…
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Utah Anti-Spyware Bill Becomes Law
Ben Edelman reports that Utah’s governor signed HB323 into law yesterday. That’s the anti-spyware law I discussed two weeks ago. I guess we’ll find out whether the bill’s opponents were right about its supposed burden on legitimate software businesses.