We’ve all heard that print newspapers are dead, that people like me who like to spread a newspaper across a breakfast table are dinosaurs. News at your fingertips on the web is where it’s at, we hear, and circulation and web traffic data would seem to support that. To respond, newspapers have proven aggressive in [...]

How do you stop a viral spread of false information, for example the myth that Senator Barack Obama is a Muslim or that a tooth left in Coca-Cola will dissolve overnight? Well, the fact is, you don’t. That’s the problem with these myths, they’re like Jason from “Halloween” – they won’t die.
That brings me [...]

NASHVILLE — I attended an interesting panel here this afternoon on the use of blogs to promote your music. It wasn’t about an artist creating his or her own blog; it was about getting a music blogger to write about you.
Almost a quarter-century ago (man, am I dating myself) I worked at my college radio [...]

NASHVILLE — No policy stuff here, so if that’s what you want keep on going.
Okay, for those still with us, I must share something. I absolutely love my job, but it is taxing. Most of our staff is part-time, we are involved in developing educational curricula, we’re building a grass-roots network, we’re active in the [...]

I’ve written before about my fears that Google searches, RSS feeds and other tools that, wonderfully, bring us more information than ever before ALSO enable theft of expression like never before.
In the “analog” era, plagiarism was hard work. You had to hand-write or type the prose in front of you, a tedious exercise that generally [...]

Want to know why copyright opponents never seem to understand the value of copyright? Because they compare a musical performance that will please generations of listeners to the one-time service of dry cleaning a pair of pants.
I mean, really.

It is admirable when someone spends a quarter-century examining every strip of bark on every single tree; they can be an accomplished arborist that way. But that can make it very difficult for that person to see that in fact a forest is comprised of those trees.
I never claim to be a copyright lawyer. I’ve [...]

You know the cliche in movies and TV shows where one character distracts another by looking aside and saying “What’s that?” only to punch the other character while he’s distracted? I see that a lot in the comments sections of news columns and blogs dealing with copyright.
In this BBC News column, for example, Darren Waters [...]

This blog entry's title is from an interesting story by Greg Sandoval in CNET. It's by Rick Carnes, the president of the Songwriters Guild of America. I don't know anyone who works harder for copyright owners than Rick, when he could be spending time pursuing his main line of work, writing songs. But in this article, Rick points out that just as Metallica's Lars Ulrich has been attacked online millions of times for opposing the unauthorized downloading of his works off of Napster, Prince will now be attacked mercilessly online for his decision to enforce his rights against YouTube, The Pirate Bay and eBay.

I hope you were able to attend our Copyright Alliance Exponential Thursday in the House Cannon Caucus Room. We blogged live from the event in summary format, but I wanted to share some impressions of the day.