(entry last updated: 2002-08-06 18:31:09)

I have fallen a bit behind, I see. Moving is incredibly time consuming, and I lose my home broadband connection today for a while - so I have to steal what time I can during working hours.

As has been noted, HP has dropped their DMCA threat against SnoSoft. The latest security updates for Windows XP insist on the right to install software without the user’s knowledge - again. Bruce Sterling challenges the open source community.

Bruce Bollier’s article summarizing the key points of his book Silent Theft gets commentary. Tom Bell tries to challenge the “property” rhetoric at TechCentral Station.

Donna Wentworth points to a number of important links: Loyola at Los Angeles’ Eldred site; an interesting twist on copyright in Egypt; and Doc Searls’ puts in his thoughts on copyright rhetoric, too.

Ed Foster at InfoWorld has a question for Charles Sims.

And I’m trying to compose something that came out of the latest Rotisserie discussion at H2O…..

(10 items listed below)

• The Middle East Times reports that text introduced into Egypt that is not translated into Arabic within a set timetable loses all copyright protection under a recent law.
• The Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review has put together a site for their conference on Eldred v. Ashcroft
• Both Doc Searls and Tom Bell have pieces on losing control of the copyright rhetoric: one on his weblog and one at TechCentralStation.
• In the unlikely event that Berman-Coble becomes law, Australia will probably become off-limits to any copyright holder that employs its provisions to “protect” their “property.” Slashdot notes the irony - ZDNet’s Lisa Bowman posts her own take.
• David Bolling’s new book on the commons, Silent Theft, is at the heart of an article by him at Boston Review. Comments on his article are online (this one is quite strenuous), and there was a Slashdot discussion that, last I looked, seemed to make a foolish connection between “commons” and “communism.”
• Microsoft is back at their old “click through this EULA and j00 R 0wn3d!” - Slashdot calls it More MS EULA Fun
• HP is backing off of their DMCA threat. Wired had an earlier set of observations about the limitations of their strategy.
• Ed Foster, at InfoWorld, asks about the ways in which the DMCA, through technological instruments limiting how copyrighted materials can be used, has changed fair use, notwithstanding what Charles Sims has to say.
• A look at the tortous path taken to challenge Gator on IP grounds.
• Slashdot has caught up with a few earlier postings: Bruce Sterling’s speech on open source; Janis Ian’s followup to her earlier article on the Internet Debacle
• Slashdot also has a discussion of a Georgia tech paper describing how to graft DRM technology onto some P2P systems (the Slashdot expansion of that acronym is also worth remembering!). Unlike some recent Slashdot commentary, there are some real gems to be found in the comments.