response 6 of 80:

Mar 27 18:37 UTC 2005

As a public service, the various briefs in the upcoming MGM vs. Grokster
case are posted on my website: http://jremmers.org/mgm-grokster.zip

The briefs are in PDF format in a big (approx 20mb) ZIP file.  Because
of it's size, I'll delete it after a few days.  Grab it while you can.

response 8 of 80:

Mar 29 15:53 UTC 2005

The case of MGM vs. Grokster will be argued before the US Supreme
Court today, so those who are passionately interested should keep an 
eye on their favorite news media for early reports.  My guess 
is there won't be any solid analysis of the arguments until the 
evening.

response 10 of 80:

Mar 29 19:44 UTC 2005

I saw him on 60 Minutes.  He seems like a jerk.

response 12 of 80:

Mar 29 20:49 UTC 2005

I must have missed that blockbuster.

response 14 of 80:

Mar 29 22:52 UTC 2005

It was originally scheduled for 12 shows but they cut it to 6.  I think it
was called the benefactor.

response 16 of 80:

Mar 30 15:27 UTC 2005

Arrogant money has exactly the same purchasing power as humble money. :)
 And this is a good cause.

I've been reading Mark Cuban's blog (http://www.blogmaverick.com) for a
while (except for the sports postings, in which I have no interest).  He
has strong views, and writes passionately about them, but he backs them
up with data, and he seems generally reasonable.  Never seen him on TV -
maybe his in-person persona comes off differently from his in-print
persona.  Computer conferencing veterans know how that can work.

response 18 of 80:

Apr 1 18:48 UTC 2005

Here's the best combination of information and entertainment I have 
found on the arguments before the Supreme Court in the Grokster case.
 
http://www.wetmachine.com/index.php/item/255
 
Some quick comments:

1)  Not from this article, but from another source, one of the Justices
    (Scalia, I think) said this case would not be decided on the basis
    of "stare decisis," which more-or-less translates as "we're going 
    to follow precedent."   So the Betamax precedent is open for 
    tweaking.

2)  Questions from the Justices indicated that they were very sensitive
    to the issue of allowing new technologies to be choked off by lawsuits
    from the content industries.   To paraphrase the EFF, at least the 
    Justices were asking the right questions.

3)  The Justices don't like the point that Grokster "was making money from 
    wholesale violation of the copyright laws."  (But the VCR business 
    was similarly built!!)  Plaintiff MGM wants to get towards some sort
    of a standard where the business model of a company is examined in 
    determining the company's liability for contributing to infringement:
    but all that's going to do is make sure that the next iteration of 
    file sharing does not involve a business.
    

response 20 of 80:

Apr 4 15:01 UTC 2005

Re resp:18: Great article!

response 22 of 80:

May 6 17:28 UTC 2005

This is big news.  Is this subject to appeal by a higher court or is it
final?

If it's final, of course, that doesn't mean it's over, as the content
providers have enough sway in Congress that they might persuade them to
enact legislation either giving the FCC this authority or accomplishing
much the same thing directly.

response 24 of 80:

May 7 16:13 UTC 2005

I've piled up a number of items in my browser and I'm just going to
dump them in here this weekend.

First, a column from those wild-eyed communist radicals at London's
FINANCIAL TIMES newspaper:  "Deconstructing Stupidity," by James Boyle.
At the risk of oversimplifying, Boyle argues that society-at-large has
bought into the argument that the more intellectual property, the
better , and he thinks this is a stupid argument.  A couple of quotes:

>>> "Part of the delusion depends on the idea that inventors and
artists create from nothing. Who needs a public domain of accessible
material if one can create out of thin air? But in most cases this
simply isn*t true; artists, scientists and technologists build on the
past. How would the blues, jazz, Elizabethan theatre, or Silicon
valley have developed if they had been forced to play under today*s
rules? Don*t believe me? Ask a documentary filmmaker about clearances,
or a free-software developer about software patents."

>>> "An Industry Contract: Who are the subjects of IP  << Intellectual
Property Law >> ? They used to be companies. You needed a printing
press or a factory to trigger the landmines of IP. The law was set up
as a contract between industry groups. This was a cosy arrangement,
but it is no longer viable. The citizen-publishers of cyberspace, the
makers of free software, the scientists of distributed data-analysis
are all now implicated in the IP world. The decision-making structure
has yet to adjust."

The whole article:
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/39b697dc-b25e-11d9-bcc6-00000e2511c8.html

response 26 of 80:

May 8 02:02 UTC 2005

 Because the corporations most responsible for shaping public opinion
 have a lot of money riding on their current business models, which are
 founded on certain assumptions about intellectual property law?

response 28 of 80:

May 9 13:21 UTC 2005

I was really happy to hear the the courts struck down the broadcast flag.

Re #26:  Indeed.  I think that current intellectual property law is more
about preserving the business models of the middlemen rather than
protecting the rights of the creators themselves.  How else to explain
the absurd extension of copyright terms far beyond the probable lifetime
of the creator of the copyrighted work.

The Boyle article that Ken cites in #24 does a good job of explaining
how modern IP law works against the public interest and stifles rather
than promotes creativity.  If Shakespeare had had to work in today's IP
legal environment, he'd  probably have been sued out of business.  After
all, he shamelessly borrowed his stories from other sources.

Another good read along the same lines as the Boyle piece is "The
Copyright Cage," by Jonathan Zittrain.  URL:
http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/July-August-2003
/feature_zittrain_julaug03.html
(Or, if long URLs are problematic for you, http://tinyurl.com/fbqd will
also work for a while.)