20090623 Free Software Defends from Predatory Aspects of Copyright Law
From s5h.net
Lessig and Leveraging FLOSS For Ethical Copyright
My main concern with his talk, and, indeed, with the whole of the conference, was that there was a presumption that academic criticism of copyright was capable of effecting change in the copyright law. Having witnessed first hand the irrelevance of logical or economic arguments in the face of the immense power that copyright cartels have, this presumption is one in which I have little faith. The problem is not one of law, but one of power – power that is out of control. Prof. Lessig does seem to be aware of this, given his stated intention to work in the future on institutional corruption.
http://brendanscott.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/lessig-and-leveraging-floss-for-ethical-copyright/ Time To Start Thinking About Infinite Bandwidth
So, all these arguments over "net neutrality" and "metered billing" are missing the point. Bandwidth is going to increase. Those who attempt to cap it or limit it are only going to make their own pipes significantly less valuable. However, those who recognize how empowering more bandwidth can be, and how approaching "infinite bandwidth" opens up the possibility for new services and apps that we can't even fathom today, will start to realize that providing ever more bandwidth increases value and clamping down on bandwidth kills value.
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090619/1804575297.shtml
Recent
Harvard Study Finds Weaker Copyright Protection Has Benefited Society
Economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf have just released a new Harvard Business School working paper called File Sharing and Copyright that raises some important points about file sharing, copyright, and the net benefits to society.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4062/125/
Yet Another Study Shows That Weaker Copyright Benefits Everyone
Economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf have written some previous papers on this subject, but they've just come out with a new working paper on how weaker copyright protection benefits society (pdf file). Michael Geist has an excellent overview and summary of the paper. To understand the key points made by the paper, you need to understand the purpose of copyright -- something that many people are confused about. It's always been about creating incentives to create new works.
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