(entry last updated: 2002-08-22 07:50:18)

Dave says I have misrepresented his position, and he calls foul. Reading Scripting News this AM, it appears that he and Larry have been talking directly, leading to this post on Larry’s weblog. Dave’s thinking about what their conversation means, and I’m sure he will have more to say later today. He seems to have heard something he likes, so I look forward to hearing what I missed - he cites this Ernie the Attorney post as instrumental, so it’s worth checking out, too.

Update: Well, it looks like what has actually happened is that each side has retreated and declared…something. I can’t exactly tell what. But here are some closing postings from all around:

• A Peace on Both Your Houses

• The Source Code Ain’t It

• Dave Winer’s Scripting News: Why do we copyright software? and Aug 21@8:22am

• Doc Searls - Multiplying conversational exponents

• Larry Staton’s comments to Doc
• JOHO the Blog’s Lessig v. Winer
• "Let’s Start Here"
• Cory Doctorow’s take
• Ernie the Attorney: Software Copyright Debate
• Bag and Baggage: Riffing

Where does that leave us? Stuck with some thorny questions about copyright, software and source code - and a little sadder, because it appears to me that we’re just back where we started - I can’t shake the bad feeling.

Dave starts out asking the right question: So when I sell you the right to use my software, what am I selling you, what rights do you have, and what rights do I retain? But then, it’s followed by Be careful, if you strip me of all my rights, I’ll go make pottery. It has to be enticing to the creative person. (Link)

Although the words sound innocent, I’m worried by what I see here - but I’m going to have to work a lot harder to identify what it is that’s bothering me so.

And, if Ernest Miller is right, copyright may be the least of the problems.

The Register continues its attack on the changes in the Microsoft license agreements. And, if Declan, and now Brad King, are right, we’re going to be getting real close to the revolution that Dave (and Jessica Litman) are expecting. Plus, a great opinion piece at Slate on the music industry! And the president of News Copr. takes up the Princeton position (see below)

(10 items listed below)

• John Lettice discusses the perils of ignoring “condition creep” in recent Microsoft upgrade licenses, and why it’s only going to get harder to defeat it.
• The Slashdot community starts talking about the implications of DRM on hardware - "open hardware" anyone?
• Declan McCullagh reports that the Department of Justice is preparing to prosecute file swappers directly. Update: Verizon is in the crosshairs, too - also here at Wired. Interesting that our tax dollars are going to defend the RIAA/MPAA - sort of like how Adobe got the DoJ to go after Sklyarov & ElcomSoft, and then pretend it wasn’t their problem to solve. Also worth contrasting with Julie Hilden’s Findlaw piece from yesterday.
• John Borland discusses the evolution of Morpheus in the face of their new client release.
• John Patrick is preaching the wi-fi gospel.
• The AP Wire reports that a movie chain will start showing ads that suggest online movie swapping means the loss of movie jobs.
• Mark Jenkins at Slate gives his view of the state of the music industry, and the relatively small role of file sharing in its current doldrums. This paragraph appears near the start, but read the article to the bottom for the key point!
  

  The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the five major labels that dominate CD retailing, would like to blame much of the slide on Internet music-file swapping. Yet there are many other causes, including the fact that the big five are all units of troubled multinationals—AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, BMG, EMI, and Sony—that are focused on short-term gain and have no particular interest in the music biz. There’s also been a recession, of course, and resistance to CD prices that have grown much faster than the inflation rate. Perhaps the most important factor, however, is the major labels’ very success in dominating the market, which has squelched musical innovation.

• Ed Felten has a few choice words for Declan McCullagh’s recent bit on the DMCA. Seems like there’s something about August that brings out the argumentative in everyone. (Thanks, Donna)
• Declan McCullagh reports that the president of News Corp declares the Internet a den of iniquity (see my Aug 14 posting on Princeton’s technology defense). I wonder if Declan realized how his call to hack plays right into this kind of rhetoric?
• Billboard has a little piece on the latest in Courtney Love’s contract fight.