(entry last updated: 2002-07-24 16:40:38)

This has got to stop! I can’t keep posting depressing news. But Declan McCullagh’s description of the upcoming bill from Berman is just disgusting! At least Bruce Perens has a way to protest. And so does Thomas Greene of The Register.

Looks like Yochai’s paper on commons-based production is coming out soon. BroadbandReport.com has another writeup of the recent DRM workshop at Commerce; and CNet gives Bruce Perens a spot to discuss Real’s Helix and open source.

One could imagine that Dan Gillmor has become a Larry Lessig groupie <G> - or maybe it’s just that he and Doc Searls are blogging the O’Reilly Open Source Conference.

And, completely beside the point, this New York Times article shows that, once again, the best of science fiction writers can look prescient from time to time. (I wonder when (if?) Larry Niven - author of "The Last Days of the Permanent Floating Riot Club" in A Hole In Space, 1974 - will let Rheingold know that he wrote/speculated about this phenomenon - years ago!)

Hmmm - maybe I should point Larry Lessig at "Melancholy Elephants" by Spider Robinson (in By Any Other Name - ISBN:0671319744) as he preps for his fall arguments in Eldred v. Ashcroft <G>!

And Denise Howell mentions Furdlog in an entry at Bag and Baggage! Thanks!

(8 items listed below)

• UNBELIEVABLE! If Declan knows what he’s talking about, this pending bill from Rep. Berman is going to be a total catastrophe!! Talk about a potential for abuse. And, before someone points it out, I know that this particular bill won’t get passed. But the very fact that it gets any kind of serious consideration from people in Congress is just disheartening. It’s evidence that Americans have some kind of fatal attraction for know-nothingism. A deliberate effort not to publicly acknowledge the obvious implications of this kind of legislation is too venal to believe, yet we see increasing evidence of it every day. Update: Politech’s readership are airing their views.
• And it’s to protect people like this! (A non-NYTimes link to the AP Wire story, if you prefer.)
• Thomas Greene of The Register has his own interpretation of what the proposed Berman legislation would mean to him.
• Bruce Perens plans to describe how to circumvent regional coding of DVD players (thus violating the DMCA) at an upcoming O’Reilly conference on open source. Update: Slashdot’s discussion has finally taken a serious turn.
• GrepLaw reports that Yochai Benkler’s got a paper on commons-based production [HTML abstract with link to full PDF] upcoming in the next Yale Law Journal.
• BroadbandReport.com gives another report on the recent DRM workshop put on by Commerce (press release) (a report cited earlier from kuro5hin) - with comments.
• Bruce Perens explains just how far RealNetworks is going to have to go to make a go of open source.
• GrepLaw points to Paula Samuelson’s article, Reverse Engineering Under Seige [PDF], on DeCSS.