Touring Test

Little bit of this, little bit of that:

Anders Bylund, MPAA push-polling the public to change copyright views:

The questions concern ownership and copyright, and are slanted in a way that would make any courtroom drama lawyer shout "objection, your honor! Bullying the witness!" As an example, "how would you feel if you painted a picture and found out someone was selling copies of it on EBay [sic] and making money off it? Violated, quiet, angry, appreciated, glad, indifferent, concerned, releived, annoyed, other." Open source programmers might have opinions on that matter that would give the MPAA dry heaves.

Kevin O'Keefe, Law Review articles citing legal blogs:

5 years from now most law reviews will be in a format similar to blogs. We'll then be discussing how to cite the the old law reviews in current digital law reviews when the old ones cannot be linked.

Victorious $1.1 million wrongful termination plaintiff and former liver patient Warren Snider, quoted in Jury Awards Lawyer $1.1 Million in Wrongful Termination Suit (via The Legal Reader):

I think they worried that his illness was going to create a long-term problem for him to meet his obligations as an attorney. Rather than wait to see the outcome of the treatment, they said, 'Look, we just want to get rid of this guy' and they found a reason to do so.

Ernie Svenson, Copyright patrol & moribund business models:

Business models threatened by social change and technological innovation will continue to cling to life support through litigation. That's basic human nature. Old ideas have their own life-force, just like people. And doctors aren't the only ones who help preserve life through heroic, but costly and perhaps uncalled for, measures. Sadly, there are no living wills for moribund business models.

Doc Searls, Unchain your art:

Want to succeed in the blogosphere, or the Web in general? Easy. Do search engine optimization. Here's how:

1. Write quotable stuff about a lot of different subjects.

2. Do it consistently, for months if not years.

3. Link a lot, as a way of giving credit and of sending readers to other sources of whatever it is you write about.

That's it.

Michael Geist, 30 Days of DRM, Day One (via Boing Boing):

Canada can ill-afford to follow the U.S. lead by leaving doubt as to whether anti-circumvention provisions apply outside the realm of copyright.

David Weinberger, on Susan Crawford's deconstruction of the 'Consumer Internet Bill of Rights':

Yo, Ted, you know what I'm exactly not doing with the Internet right now? Consuming it. I'm creating a little tiny bit more of it.