Culture and Society

Where is the noblesse oblige among my Pro-Military Action compatriots? Why all the gloating?

This was a trap – rather than resolve the problem in a proportionate manner, the RIAA clearly decided to make an example of four college student with a multi-billion dollar lawsuit. For this they are contemptible scum. Curtis J. Tompkins, the president of Michigan Technological University is no more happy …

I haven’t swan dived into the Great Blogging Ethics Debate, as Cynthia Webb calls it in the Washington Post, because it seems pretty obvious to me: Sean-Paul Kelley is a liar, a plagiarist, and an embarrassment to the blogging community. In case you have been watching a war or something, …

From Disney to your home digitally – what middle men? Walt Disney plans to start live tests this year on a digital home video distribution system which could bypass conventional rental services, undermine movie piracy, and deliver new profit streams directly to the group’s bottom line. The announcement, from Michael …

TiVO as content hub: The San Jose, Calif., company on Tuesday made available a new software upgrade that will allow its TiVo Series2 digital video recorders to tap content stored on a home PC. ….the Home Media Option software will let the TiVo boxes access and distribute content such as …

Following up on the case we mentioned yesterday, a Maryland court ruled a notorious spammer may remain outed: An Internet site that provides personal information about an alleged purveyor of mass e-mail is not harassment and does not need to be removed, a Maryland district court judge ruled yesterday. Francis …

Billboard relates Pat DiNizio’s subscription plan: New Jersey-based artist Pat DiNizio, lead singer/songwriter of the Smithereens, has founded Patrons & Artists Together, a boutique entertainment partnership meant to fund his recording and touring projects and reward participants with a unique music experience, as well as provide free music via the …

Nice overview of Napster history – did it really happen? – in LA Times excerpt from new book All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning’s Napster by Joseph Menn: It all began with a poor Boston-area kid who came west to Silicon Valley and started a revolution. …

We have written about the multi-billion dollar lawsuit the RIAA just filed against four college students – copyright activist and Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig weighs in on the situation: They say I’m a pessimist about the future of freedom on the net, and they’ve got two books of mine to …

Spam scum George Allen Moore Jr., “Dr. Fatburn,” didn’t like being outed by angry geek and went to court: Francis Uy, a self-described computer geek from Ellicott City, decided to fight back by employing a tactic increasingly used by a small cadre of e-mail users fed up with spam: Outing …