June 2005 Archives
I don't have the time right now to tackle Grokster and its new "inducement" theory of copyright infringement in any detail. I do find it odd, however, that Congress got pilloried awfully quickly for its INDUCE Act proposal a year ago -- but nobody's proposing a raid on Justice Souter any time soon (at least not for this opinion ... however, someone is looking to seize Souter's NH farm for a new hotel ... the karmic wheel keeps turning).
I'm also having trouble understanding the adoption of an "intent" element into what has been a strict liability regime. In the long run, that conversion seems more important than the fact that a P2P network is under fire. Copyright infringement has never asked "did you mean to copy"-- Instead, the basic premise is "did you copy, and did you have permission to copy."
The trial court now has to assess whether there was a true difference in the intent behind creating and distributing Grokster instead of a Betamax. Good luck -- The Shadow may know what evil lurks in the hearts of men, but the justice system should require something more than a guess or instinct in civil cases.*
Long Version: A down-to-earth apology from Nike to Dischord.
Short Version: "We screwed up and got caught. We're really sorry."
I don't know that everything's cool now, but at least there's some recognition back in Eugene that someone screwed up.
I've owned up to the fact that I have a major perfectionist streak -- it's usually a benefit in my line of work. I'm torn, however, about how much of that should flow through to this site. Is it wrong to want both the immediacy and power of think-post-done AND the precision that only comes through editing and rewriting? Is it right to rewrite moblog posts once they've been published to the world?
Of course, these are mostly just silly thoughts because I'm not motivated to read and comment on Supreme Court opinions right now, nor do I have the patience to annotate and post my photos from Ireland. Grrrrr.
After fiddling with (and not liking) Hblogger, I'm now trying Vagablog, an open source freeware tool. Any thoughts from the crowd on what works best for Typepad and Treo 650s?
Wow. MGM wins (Souter finds reasonable evidence that Grokster was intended for infringing purposes), Brand X loses (cable operators don't need to share their infrastructure for broadband Internet access), and the NYT and Time journalists in the Novak CIA leak case won't get appeals of their contempt convictions for refusing to reveal their sources.
Need some time to read the actual opinions on the first two... but so far this doesn't look good. (Apologies for linking only to the WashPost/AP reports -- first ones I came across.)
... to the much-anticipated Supreme Court decisions in MGM v. Grokster and the slightly-less-anticipated, but ultimately more significant, Brand X case. The former is the music/movie industry challenge to P2P networking and the fair use principle in U.S. copyright law, the latter is about the right of broadband network operators to deny access to resellers and therefore maintain significant physical barriers to entry in the market for high-speed Internet access.
I can't imagine that the Court would set aside both for rehearing next session, but the Supremes are nothing if not unpredictable.
On a side note, I guess this is "farewell" to the Rehnquist Court. I'm betting against us entering an era of the "Scalia Court" just because he's far too combative and snarky to be a productive Chief Justice. How about an "O'Connor Court"? It plays into her hand as a moderating (if clearly right-of-center) influence, but she's also rumored to be departing in the next couple years.
In the immortal words of John Riggins, I suppose I should "loosen up" about the whole Supreme Court thing... until I get snapped back to the reality of losing the last fleeting check-and-balance on the "World According to Karl."
UPDATE -- 27 June -- 10:49pm, EDT
ORIGINAL POST -- 26 June -- 8:30pm, EDT
Here's an example of what one of my old bosses called "a second day lead" -- given the everyday incidents of my life, I'll never be the first to break a story like Nike's skateboarding poster and the wholesale reuse of multiple, exceptionally well-known images from the harDCore scene. What I can do, however, is analyze a little and propose what might come of it down the road.
A couple months back, I started seriously considering a blog of my own. The big questions that floated through my brain at the time were "why write at all, why write this kind of material, and why now?" All fair questions, considering I'd been out of the game for almost twice as long as I'd once been in it...
Quick hit: a great article about one of the wildest stories in Major League Baseball, adding a whole new dimension to the conventional wisdom on this one. Thanks to Joe Gross for the pointer.
And so here begins another foray into online publishing and commentary. It may take a little while to get things rolling, but there's definitely content on the way (damn perfectionist streak).
Note to those finding this site by accident: it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with dancing. Seriously. My idea of dancing is pretty much limited to Peanuts-style head-nodding and hopping up and down in one place.
