SEATTLE — I’m here at the FTC Town Hall meeting on digital rights management at the University of Washington School of Law. I just finished appearing on a panel here (well, actually I just finished an enjoyable chimichanga at a great joint right off campus, I had to eat before posting). The FTC is webcasting [...]

It’s never been very clear to me why we should believe an infringing P2P network that enables illegal transport of copyrighted works when they say they want to protect their users from identity theft. They have a financial motive to ensure users don’t become victims, thus getting angry, deleting the program, and badmouthing it to [...]

CHICAGO — Imagine you’re an organizer here at the annual Association of Writers & Writing Conference (AWP). Imagine you’ve scheduled a breakout session called “Shameless Book Promotion.” Imagine you put it in a room in which the fire marshal has determined no more than 150 people can fit. Then imagine 350 people show up. That [...]

LAS VEGAS, NEVADA — The 111th Congress began yesterday, and at least among the circles I’m traveling in out here at the Consumer Electronics Show, there’s a buzz about how copyright will play out in the new Congress and the new administration. The consensus at the P2P Media Summit here hosted by the Distributed Computing [...]