The Truth Behind Google’s Copyright-Bills Hysteria — Great piece on the hyperbole that became the norm over recent legislation. “The tech industry has demonstrated great political clout through the mobilization of its users and fan base; and the industry lobby, led by Google, will say and do pretty much anything to advance its commercial interests.”
The MTP Interview: Indie Film Maker David Newhoff — Chris Castle sits down with the creator of Gone Elvis and talks about indie filmmaking and the challenges and opportunities provided by the internet.
Wright & Diveley on Expert Agencies & Generalist Judges — When Senator Wyden announced the OPEN Act, he announced that one of its advantages was putting the adjudication of sites dedicated to piracy “in the hands of the International Trade Commission – versus a diversity of magistrate judges not versed in Internet and trade policy.” But is this an advantage? This new paper examines the general claim that administrative judges produce better decisions than generalist judges. The conclusion: “there is little empirical basis” for these claims.
Academic publishing is full of problems; lets get them right — The Copyright Librarian (Nancy Sims of the Univ of Minnesota) gives a comprehensive overview of how academic database JSTOR works, along with a look at some of the challenges facing academic publishing. Great read.
Creative Commons for Music: What’s the Point? — “Without a real enforcement mechanism, CC licenses are all little more than labels, like the garment care hieroglyphics mandated by the Federal Trade Commission in the United States … The practical value of CC seems to be concentrated in business-to-business content licensing agreements, where corporations need to take more responsibility for observing licensing terms and CC’s ready-made licenses make it easy for them to do so.”
The Summers’ Tale — Nicholas Carr rebuts recent statements by former Harvard president Lawrence Summers concerning 21st century learning. “This idea that knowledge can be separated from facts – that we can know without knowing – really needs to be challenged before it gains any further currency.”
Who is the A$%#hole? — Music information researcher Paul Lamere, who has long done exciting work in the field, remarks on yet another “enlightened” blog post in the wake of SOPA called Can we kill the music business too? Says Lamere, “James is certainly right – you can’t have a great music startup without great music, but he goes off the rails if he thinks that companies protecting themselves from theft infringement are assholes. A music startup, or any business should not be able to build a business on top of someone else’s IP without compensating them for the use. It is easy to build a company that makes money by giving away someone else’s property. But it is not legal.”