Technobriefs
March 31, 2007
DMCA point/counterpoint: first Michael Fricklas, Viacom's general counsel wrote Our Case Against YouTube vainly trying to spin the clear language of the DMCA to Viacom's advantage. Then Michael Kwun, Google's Managing Counsel for Litigation, replied with An End Run on Copyright Law. Old Media barons like Viacom pumped money into Congress to pass the DMCA back in 1998 over the howls of forward looking high tech entrepreneurs and what is now called the free culture movement. Nine years later the whiners at Viacom decide they can't live up to their own responsibilities under the Safe Harbor provisions of their own DMCA. And the media companies are not the only ones who have finally noticed what a colossally bad idea the DMCA was: DMCA Architect Acknowledges Need For A New Approach and Architect Of The DMCA Admits It Hasn't Worked Out; Suggests New Approach Needed. That Techdirt post highlights how Bruce Lehman finds lots of blame to spread around, but none for himself. My favorite bit: As economist David Levine notes, 'You give the big guys more monopoly power and they innovate less. Who'd have thunk it?'
McCain's MySpace Pranked: when a story has been covered on the Daily Show and mainstream news its probably too late to include it here, but just in case you missed it there was a very funny incident where Republican Presidential candidate John McCain's campaign violated the license on some online assets and got hit with vigilante "net justice". Lesson 1: hire smarter people to manage your online presence: Hacking John McCain (via John McCain's MySpace Page "Pranked") Summary, it was made to appear that McCain now supports gay marriage "...particularly between passionate females..."
Album upgrade: a customer-friendly feature from iTunes, an example of a service that can be provided in e-commerce but not in traditional world of bricks, mortar and plastic discs: Apple introduces 'Complete My Album' on iTunes and iTunes completes me.
Technobits: Can We Get Rid Of The Disclosure Myth For Patents? --- iPods Help Medical Students Improve Auscultation Skills --- Dipstick 'finds food poison bugs' --- 'Matrix Of Harm' For Drugs --- Bizarre Hexagon Spotted on Saturn --- Sunglasses changing color in a second --- Smart fabric mimicking knights' armors (I wonder why rings and links instead of the interlocking rings of traditional chainmail).
