Who do you think? Porn Business Driving DVD Technology [pdf]

As goes pornography, so goes technology. The concept may seem odd, but history has proven the adult entertainment industry to be one of the key drivers of any new technology in home entertainment. Pornography customers have been some of the first to buy home video machines, DVD players and subscribe to high-speed Internet.

One of the next big issues in which pornographers could play a deciding role is the future of high-definition DVDs.

The multi-billion-dollar industry releases about 11,000 titles on DVD each year, giving it tremendous power to sway the battle between two groups of studios and technology companies competing to set standards for the next generation.

Later: Slashdot’s Porn Industry Mulls Next Generation-DVD

But I’m still not convinced it’s a good idea to embrace it: We’re Creative Commonists, Bill

The comments show just how out-of-touch Gates is with a large and growing community of people who have embraced the ideas of open source and building on one another’s creative works, proponents of copyright reform say.

[...] Glenn Otis Brown, executive director of Creative Commons, wondered whom Gates was referring to when he made the remarks. Certainly not Creative Commons, which is a “voluntary, market-based approach to copyright,” Brown wrote in an e-mail.

“I get sad when people cheapen words like ‘communist’ or ‘fascist’ by throwing them around recklessly, especially given what those words meant in the not-so-distant past,” Brown wrote. [...]

“And let’s not forget just how many creative people’s lives were ruined by irresponsible name-calling not too long ago. Remember the Hollywood blacklists?” he wrote.

What do you think? Young Prospective Artist Finds Herself in a ‘No Sketch’ Zone [pdf] [via BoingBoing]

Julia Illana is a second grader who was visiting the popular exhibit there with her parents and was sketching the paintings in her notebook.

“I love to draw in my notebook,” Illana said.

Her sketch of Picasso’s Woman with Bangs, which came out pretty good, and Matisse’s Large Reclining Nude got the promising artist into trouble with museum security.

A museum guard told Julia’s parents that sketching was prohibited because the great masterpieces are copyright protected, a concept that young Julia did not understand until her mother explained the term.

[...] Actually, the museum guard was mistaken. There was no copyright issue, and the museum apologizes and is telling artists to sketch away as long as they do not interrupt the flow of traffic in the always crowded gallery.

Also: given the complexity of the fair use doctrine, does the museum actually “know” there is no copyright issue? Or just that there shouldn’t be one?

Note: sorry about the paucity of postings. Let’s just say I’m not having a good weekend.