That’s going on your permanent record is a phrase that people from my generation anyway are  likely to read as satirical.  We’d say it today in mocking reference to those anachronistic threats made by teachers or school administrators to record indelibly some transgression or truancy we committed as children. The permanent record, they said, would follow us throughout time.  College ...

About two weeks ago, some disgruntled friends shared a story about Urban Outfitters apparently marketing a faded and blood-stained-looking Kent State college sweatshirt.  Then, in a follow-up story reported by Jordan Sargent in Gawker, an email sent by the retailer’s CEO Dick Haynes explains that the sweatshirt shown in their marketing materials was not representative of a new, purposely designed ...

Jenna Wortham, technology writer for The New York Times, offers this article in which she questions the illegality of IP theft online.  Titled, The Unrepentant Bootlegger, Wortham begins with a description of what some may consider an unjustifiably heavy-handed raid by DHS officers in the arrest of Hana Beshara, a co-founder of the illegal media site NinjaVideo, shut down in 2009.  ...

I’ve lost count at this point how many times and ways I’ve rejected the premise that piracy is a consumer-driven response to claims of scarcity in the market, especially in the United States; but now KPMG has released the results of a study of motion pictures and television programs that rebuts such pro-piracy claims with actual data.  You can read the ...

Yesterday, Google chairman Eric Schmidt was interviewed on public radio and simulcast on Google Hangouts.  WAMU’s Diane Rhem threw softballs, slow and over the plate at Schmidt, providing a friendly platform for the chairman to evangelize the many ways Google makes the world a better place.  Coincidentally, I happened to be editing the following: For those who don’t know, ChillingEffects.org ...

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)