mediageek

Category: intellectual property

  • Grateful Dead Archive Resurrection

    According to Relix.com and a post at Archive.org the Grateful Dead show archive is being mostly restored. Per Relix: According to Grateful Dead spokesman Dennis McNally, the removal on November 22 of all downloadable Dead recordings from archive.org was the result of “a great communication snafu.” “It is my understanding that by the end of…

  • Grateful Dead Prove There’s Really No Such Thing as a Kinder Capitalist

    One might argue that the Grateful Dead made their fortune through a combination of luck and savvy marketing. Realizing that after the 60s hippie culture faded away they were unlikely to make it as platinum selling recording artists, the band came to rely on touring as its steady income. Although it’s hard to see it…

  • Senate Communications Hearing Orgy with our Spectrum and Internet Rights in the Middle

    Perhaps responding to criticism that he’s been dragging his feet on comm stuff, Senate Commerce Committee Chair has schedule a virtual assload of hearings for the first 11 weeks of the next session on various communications related issues. My guess is that this is all prep work for the forthcoming Telecommunications Act of 2006, and…

  • Podsafe Music Network: Great Idea, Rotten Terms

    I’ve been considering changing the music used on the radioshow for a while, moving to music that I can guarantee is freely useable both on-air and in podcasts. A musician contacted me by email asking me to check out his work at the Podsafe Music Network, where artists can specifically license their songs to be…

  • More Clear Thinking on Grokster, and Taking It One Step Further

    Following up on yesterday’s remarks, today I see that Ross Rubin’s Switched On column at Engadget also focuses on the specifics of the Court’s Grokster decision, rather than taking it as a wholesale attack on mp3 technologies: The upshot is that, even though most consumer electronics products should be in the clear, the Grokster case…

  • The Pragmatics of the Grokster Decision

    Matt at Machination.org tries on some clear thinking about the Supreme Court decision in the MGM vs. Grokster case: From what I can tell, this is a fairly narrow decision with nuance. The Supreme Court seems to have ruled that a company cannot promote an illegal use for a technology. Those same kids writing lean…

  • Broadcast Flag Nearly Dead in the Water

    The EFF quotes a story from the (for-pay-only) Communications Daily, reporting that the MPAA is backing away from asking the House Commerce Committee from including a broadcast flag provision in a digital TV bill, because Committee Chair Joe Barton is against it. That doesn’t mean the MPAA is giving up, but it does mean that…

  • eMusic Relaunching

    The relaunch of mp3 download service Emusic would ordinarily be a little outside what I usually cover here, except for the fact that I used to be a happy customer during their unlimited download subscription days. Well, I also think that eMusic has distinguished itself in the typically stupid and corrupt music industry by focusing…

  • What About Used? A Thought on Music Sales

    The fact that recorded music sales are down for the 4th year running is all over the news again, along with the music industry’s accusation that it’s primarily due to downloading mp3s. My own recorded music consumption goes up and down, but I’d say that for the last 5 years or so it’s been mostly…

  • Fellow WEFTie and IP-geek Quoted in Village Voice

    My pal, J.B. Nicholson-Owens, got quoted in a Village Voice article about how intellectual property activists are pushing Howard Dean to take a stance against such atrocities as the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and the Sony Bono Copyright extension. J. posted a comment to Larry Lessig’s blog when Dean was guest-blogger back in July and…