Thursday, October 28, 2004

Feds Pay Blogger a Visit. The Network World blog says the Secret Service recently paid a blogger a visit for a recent "satirical" post about George W. She details her experience here and gives bloggers some rules of thumb on posting political criticism. [unmediated] 10:06:37 PM    comment []

The Undecided Voter, at Pipeline. (Loads of good Kerry-rally stories nearby, too -- seems Jane was an Interceptor.) 9:41:51 AM    comment []

When Hilary Met Larry. She was the champion of the music industry. He was the voice of the people. It was a death match made in heaven -- but they found common ground. By Hilary Rosen and Lawrence Lessig from Wired magazine. [Wired News] 6:19:57 AM    comment []

Red Sox Erase 86 Years of Futility in 4 Games. The Red Sox, the team that perfected heartbreak, silenced the Cardinals, 3-0, in Game 4 to win their first World Series since 1918. By By TYLER KEPNER. [NYT > Sports] Cards didn't get it done. Best wishes, Sox fans.   (But do you know that "the Curse" is lifted? Maybe this is somehow part of it . . . .) 6:19:23 AM    comment []

Happy 10th birthday, internet banner ads -- and HOTWIRED BoingBoing reader Oivvio Polite says, "AdLand celebrates the banner ads tenth birthday, showing the first banner ad ever and AT&T 'you will' banner, and the commercials from 1994 that go with it. The banners turned ten years old October 25 2004." Link And Wired News Editor Kourosh Karimkhany says, "BTW, the first site to run that ad (actually, to inspire AT&T to create those ads) was Hotwired. As it happens, today the ol' timers are getting together for the 10th anniversary of Hotwired." [bOing bOing] 6:16:01 AM    comment []

I'm Mad As Hell, and I'm Not Going to Pay For It Anymore (Donna Wentworth). Cory responds below to a Copyfight reader who suggests that the way to avoid being asked to pay for a particular product again and again simply to enjoy traditional "me2me" time- and space-shifting "privileges" (à la HBO ) is to refuse to purchase the product altogether. Needless to say, Cory disagrees: That's a cool personal moral code, but it's not the one I adopt. Copyright is a limited monopoly given on our behalf to creators. What a creator can and can't demand of you is spelled out by lawmakers, who balance the cost to us of having monopolies in the market with the benefit of creating incentives to produce work we can enjoy. When a creator conditions use or access of his work beyond the scope of copyright (you must stand on your head, you must not make a backup, you may not sell this on), it's not a fair market in creativity that can be corrected by directing a purchase in the right direction: it's an abuse of a regulatory monopoly that picks my pocket to line a right-holder's. Monopolies aren't subject to market forces: that's why we have trust-busters. I think that buying from the ethical railway barons would not have caused the monopolistic railway barons to act better. We needed to go in with a fireaxe and bust their trust. I don't think that buying from ethical artists will get the big companies to act better either. Regulation -- the creation and maintenance of copyright -- created this mess, and only regulation -- changes to copyright -- will solve it, IMO. [Copyfight] 6:12:41 AM    comment []