Saturday, December 20, 2003

A Recovery for Profits, but Not for Workers. While profits have shot up as a percentage of national income, labor's share is shrinking. By Louis Uchitelle. [New York Times: Business] 11:50:29 PM    comment []

Stumbling Into a World of Music. Dan Storper, the founder of Putumayo, has found success by homing in on Americans' growing taste for international music. By Tanya Mohn. [New York Times: Business] 11:21:16 PM    comment []

Learning to Wow 'Em With Stage Presence. In some new communication skills classes one can find executives screaming, gesticulating wildly, and telling tear-inducing stories about lost pets and bitter divorces. By Melinda Ligos. [New York Times: Business] 8:57:07 PM    comment []

John Perry Barlow Starts Blog; Rich and Powerful Tremble. Let's all welcome the excellent John Perry Barlow to the blogosphere...... [Dan Gillmor's eJournal] 3:43:20 PM    comment []

Coffee-table cornucopia. With the aid of our last-minute holiday gift book guide, fill your loved ones' stockings with Gary Larson, exotic scents, mosque architecture, the moons of Jupiter and the jolliest Santa of them all -- North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il! [Salon Headlines] (Do my loved one have room for Gary Larson in their stockings?) 10:55:16 AM    comment []

Court Limits Efforts to Unmask Music Swappers. The recording industry must first ask a judge before forcing Internet companies to disclose the names of people who trade music online, a federal appeals court ruled. By John Schwartz. [New York Times: Business] 7:32:37 AM    comment []

Dutch Court Throws Out Kazaa Case. The Dutch Supreme Court upholds a decision saying the creators of the popular Internet file-sharing program aren't liable for copyright claims made against them. [Wired News] 7:30:07 AM    comment []

Song Swappers Win a Big One. The recording industry suffers a major setback when a court rules that ISPs cannot be forced to identify alleged music pirates. The decision makes it much more difficult and costly for the RIAA to wage war on file traders. [Wired News] 7:28:58 AM    comment []

the air here is free. So I'm at a cafe waiting for my car to be fixed, at the north east corner of Howard and 12th Street. The music here is free (actually, rebroadcasting of a radio station). The airconditioning here is free (ok, it's SF). The bathrooms are free (to customers). The electricity powering my laptop is free. The amazing mix of people coming in and out is free. And because of a network named "bitch", the IP is free too. Of course the coffee is not free, but because of all the rest, I've been sitting here for two hours, buying tons and tons if this drug. They say the market is smart, so I'm hopeful about this wireless stuff. Here's another customer owned network, driving the cost of access down to zero. Meanwhile, more on my whining about the wireless access at the WSIS conference: it turned out that even though the wireless access at WSIS was expensive and awful, the conference organizers were able to offer delegates free, perpetual monitoring of their every movement using the RFID built into the conference badges. How thoughtful of them. I guess WSIS was trying to teach the delegates what the future of the Information Society will be. It's just not the future either I, or the market, would select. [Lessig Blog] 7:09:56 AM    comment []