“… last week a former Google lawyer at the DOJ anti-trust division against the recommendation of the US Copyright Office rammed through a 100% licensing rule that effectively brings the last of the “free” songwriters under the consent decree.”   — David Lowery at The Trichordist — “The Department of Justice’s position is arrogance at its worst. The decision fails ...

“R Street is a free-market think tank with a pragmatic approach to public policy challenges.”         — R Street About Page — If one is going to comment on public policy, then one ought to make an effort a) to understand the nature of a given topic; and b) to present facts instead of fiction.  In this ...

It is a chronically repeated theme—and therefore a widely held misconception—that the DMCA is solely a mechanism for rights holders to unilaterally and unequivocally remove content from the Web “without due process.” In fact, this belief is so deeply ingrained that just citing the acronym by some journalists and bloggers is sufficient to denote censorship for many readers. We encounter ...

Embed from Getty Images In the Fall of 1977, just weeks before gay rights activist Harvey Milk won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the English rock band Queen released the album News of the World. The LP included a short, heavily-rhythmic single called “We Will Rock You”, which typically segues into the anthemic “We Are the ...

And I’ve never owned a David Bowie tee-shirt.  Or any Bowie merchandise other than his albums. But like tens of millions around the world, who are today mourning the loss of one of music’s best loved, most diverse, and most influential artists, I sure as hell have long been a fan. Oddly enough, I had in mind to buy Bowie’s ...

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