My oh-so-clever use of question marks in that headline is meant to convey that I find the very “battle” to be both absurd and non-existent, not unlike the so-called “copyright vs. innovation” battle. In both cases the subjects go hand in hand, in fact are symbiotic. But rarely are they portrayed that way.
This particular rant [...]

In the only truly excellent Star Trek movie, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Spock saves the USS Enterprise but in the process exposes himself to a lethal dose of radiation. He tells his friend and captain, James T. Kirk, that “logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of [...]

As readers of this blog likely know already, yesterday President Bush signed into law the PRO-IP Act of 2008. We were quick to praise the President and the White House, who joined with an overwhelmingly bipartisan coalition in Congress in support of this important legislation.
Early next year the new president should be appointing an [...]

BERLIN, GERMANY — Ideas, fortunately, cannot be copyrighted. Ideas, however, are very important in the debate over copyright. Stanford University Law Professor Lawrence Lessig knows that, and is back with yet another book urging the reduction of rights of creators. This self-appointed pied piper of copyright dilution has given us a preview of his new [...]

After speaking on a panel earlier today at a conference here at Ball State University (apparently their football team is 5-0, or so everyone told me), a student asked me why he couldn’t legally make copies of his DVDs. I don’t know if the question was prompted by news of the RealDVD service by RealPlayer [...]

Remember that web site that actively encouraged visitors to upload entire contents of magazines? It was obviously a blatant violator of copyright law, but it was an offshore operation with false Whois information and thus considered outside the reach of the law. But leading magazine publishers and the Magazine Publishers of America traced the site [...]

About two years ago I was on a panel where a speaker said he had just come back from Silicon Valley, and every investor he met said they wanted to get in with any start-up that had a way to get creative works to people more easily, the law be dammed. Asked why they weren’t [...]

There was a lot of talent and a lot of political firepower yesterday in the Russell Senate Caucus Room, a room where a former senator told me various Kennedys have announced whether or not they would run for President over the years. We heard no such announcement yesterday at the 2nd Annual Copyright EXPOnential, but [...]

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office held a public meeting on the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement today, a process we have encouraged. The meeting was yet another example of the transparency they’ve demonstrated throughout this process. USTR has from the beginning informed everyone — and I mean everyone, since they post on their web site — [...]

We’re at a critical economic moment right now. Obviously the eye-opening upheaval on Wall Street should be of immediate attention to policymakers, but that’s not the crossroads of which I’m thinking.
The critical moment I’m thinking of is very real and can have long-term economic ramifications. If we act, it will mean saving potentially hundreds of [...]