This is a great essay: Science Fiction, Copyright, Natural Law, and You, by Science Fiction Writer and OpenCola founder Cory Doctorow, that brings up a lot of issues surrounding copyright that most writers have probably been trying not to think about.
Bottom Line: Digital Rights Management doesn't work, and that means once a digital copy of something exists, it's "out there", and it's going to be replicated. And any encryption protections are ultimately compromised. What does all this really mean and what can really be done about it? Cory attempts to get a discussion going by helping us read the writing on the wall.
New Report from the U.S. Copyright Office on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
I'm still reading it myself (all 200+ pages of it). If you don't have time to read it all...just stay tuned -- I'll be posting an O'Reilly weblog by tomorrow morning on the subject.
This great video transforms a pep talk by Microsoft President Steve Ballmer into a hip dance music pseudo-rap tune.
CNN covers NASA's latest "Tumbleweed Rover" probe: CNN.com - Big ball would make Mars study a breeze (August 21, 2001).
Here's a very progressive take on how the patents of the future are going to have to operate: Dutch Open Source Society, Industry Group Offer Software Patent Compromise , by Brenno J.S.A.A.F. de Winter (brenno@dewinter.com) (22-August-2001)
I just posted a new O'Reilly Network Weblog (CD-Rs Target of RIAA Press Release) about a recent RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) press release that blames CD recordables (CD-Rs) for a decrease in last year's record sales.
The guy who created this latest Rantaholic: The Oral Report (Cory Tennis) starts off just kind of sounding like a jerk and ends up bringing up a lot of great points about homelessness in American Society.
Scientific American takes a whack at explaining nanotechnology.
I've been hanging out this week in Montreal at the Extreme Markup Languages 2001 Conference. There are lots of great speakers here lecturing on a wide range of subjects and technologies.
Yippie!
Dmitry Sklyarov has been released on bail!
See the weblog explaining the details of the arrangement.
Here's a cool story by Leander Kahney for Wired News about a new blog spidering project at the MIT Media Lab: Tracking Bloggers With Blogdex .
My buddy Craig Newmark was interviewed by the San Francisco Chronicle last Sunday. (And boy is he cute in a tux!)
