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I am greatly relieved the federal jury in the Elcomsoft case found making a fair use backup copy of your own e-book to be a legitimate undertaking. As discussed in some length in the AP article on the subject, we think the DMCA’s ban on fair use copies of DVDs …

The title to J.L. Roberson’s benefit comics anthology, Working for the Man (Unbound, $9.95), recalls Roy Orbison’s classic song of working class resentment & ambition, but its purposes are considerably more altruistic. Collected to raise funds for a comic book creator who has recently fallen on dire times, the anthology …

I’m very sorry to see Joe Strummer go – 50 seems ridiculously young to me now. I was an enormous Clash fan – while the Sex Pistols may have been more “punk,” the Clash were a real band, a rock ‘n’ roll band that transcended the strictures of punk to …

Realizing that double secret probation was not going to suffice, U.S. District Judge Marvin Aspen in Chicago found Madster and Johnny Deep in contempt of court Friday: On Oct. 30, Aspen issued a preliminary injunction against Madster after finding evidence the Albany-based service had violated copyright law. The injunction called …

Ascending up from the broadcast pit of hell, there are reality shows, daytime talk shows, prime time news shows, the news. You expect crass exploitation down at the bottom, but I still have it in my mind that actual news shows should be different. Often, however, the morning talk shows …

Study in the British Medical Journal finds that the famed “mummy’s curse” was ineffectual: The death in 1923 of George Herbert (Lord Carnarvon), the financier of the expedition that unearthed the tomb of Tutankhamen, unleashed a sensation in the international newspapers. He had developed erysipelas at the site of a …

Here are some smoking cool collections that have come out recently – just the thing for last minute holiday consumerizing: Rod Stewart – Reason to Believe: The Complete Mercury Studio Recordings If you are under 40, you probably think of Rod Stewart as a an aging, silly, foppish playboy who …

Interesting news and interesting characterization of that news – from the NY Times: A long misplaced recording of a young Bob Marley jamming in his pre-reggae days in a Bronx apartment sold for $26,290 yesterday at an auction at Christie’s. The recording was sold by Jimmy Norman, a former member …

Blender music mag’s January issue will name the 50 greatest “geniuses” in rock ‘n’ roll history: Music magazine Blender has put the 61-year-old folk-rock icon [Bob] Dylan atop its list of the 50 rock geniuses of all time. “He’s the civil rights anthem writer who abandoned the cause, the electric …

Though the Dave Matthews Band is much better known to the casual music fan, Phish has assumed Dead-like proportions for the hard-core jam band fan. Following the Dead ethos of emphasizing live over recorded music, Phish is now offering downloads of many live shows via their LivePhish.com site. Phish may …