Category: Uncategorized
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HDMI and Output Control
Tim Lee at Tech Liberation Front points out an interesting aspect of the new MovieBeam device – it offers its highest-resolution output only to video displays that use the HDMI format. (MovieBeam is a $200 box you buy that lets you buy 24-hour access to recent movies. There is a rotating menu of movies. Currently…
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Understanding the Newts
Recently I’ve been trying to figure out the politics of technology policy. There seem to be regularly drawn battle lines in Congress, but for the most part tech policy doesn’t play out as a Republican vs. Democratic or liberal vs. conservative conflict. Henry Farrell, in a recent post at Crooked Timber, put his finger on…
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Princeton-Microsoft Intellectual Property Conference
Please join us for the 2006 Princeton University – Microsoft Intellectual Property Conference, Creativity & I.P. Law: How Intellectual Property Fosters or Hinders Creative Work, May 18-19 at Princeton University. This public conference will explore a number of strategies for dealing with IP issues facing creative workers in the fields of information technology, biotechnology, the…
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Interoperability, and the Birth of the Web
Tim Berners-Lee was here yesterday, and he told some interesting stories about the birth and growth of the Web. I was particularly intrigued by his description of the environment at CERN, where he worked during the relevant years. CERN was (and still is) the European nuclear physics research lab. It had a permanent staff, but…
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Guns vs. Random Bits
Last week Tim Wu gave an interesting lecture here at Princeton – the first in our infotech policy lecture series – entitled “Who Controls the Internet?”, based on his recent book of the same title, co-authored with Jack Goldsmith. In the talk, Tim argued that national governments will have a larger role than most people…
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Korean Music Industry Puts Negative Value on DRM
The Korean music industry has negotiated a deal that puts a monetary price on the inconvenience customers experience due to Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology. According to a DRM Watch story: In an agreement with the Korea Music Producers’ Association (KMPA), [the online service] Soribada will charge users KRW 500 (US $0.51) for DRM-protected music…
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Conscientious Objection in P2P
One argument made against using P2P systems like Grokster was that by using them you might participate in the distribution of bad content such as infringing files, hate speech, or child porn. If you use the Web to distribute or read content, you play no part in distributing anything you find objectionable – you only…
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The French DRM Law, and the Right to Interoperate
Thanks to Bernard Lang for yesterday’s discussion of the proposed French DRM law. The proposed law has been widely criticized in the U.S. press. Assuming Dr. Lang’s translation is correct, this criticism is mostly (but not entirely) off the mark. Apple’s iTunes and iPod are good examples of the type of product that would be…
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Bernard Lang Reports on the Proposed French DRM Law
[Bernard Lang, a prominent French computer scientist and infotech policy commentator, sent me an interesting message about the much-discussed legislative developments in France. It includes the first English translation I have seen of the proposed French law mandating open access to DRM technologies. He has graciously given me permission to post his message here, with…
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Apples, Oranges, and DRM
Last week mp3.com reported on its testing of portable music players, which showed that playing DRM (copy-protected) songs drained battery power 25% faster in Windows Media players, and 8% faster on iPods, than playing the same songs using the unprotected MP3 format. As more information came to light, it became clear that they hadn’t done…