This op-ed that appeared in yesterday’s New York Times is easily one of the best pieces I’ve read on both the cultural and financial dangers of forsaking copyright in the name of technological “progress.”  The entire article is a pull-quote, but here are two that get right to the heart of the matter: “The value of copyrights is being quickly ...

Take a look at this story from Bill Moyers about the population of homeless in Silicon Valley. Granted there are homeless in every community, but as the segment suggests, this region can be fairly described as a microcosm of the United States where wealth consolidation and the bifurcation of society remains a growing economic cancer.  As such, it seems like a great ...

Y’know, I try to have a calm, productive Monday morning and not let anything rustle my jimmies, and then somebody on Twitter posts an article by Rick Falkvinge. And I CLICK ON IT!  And I know I shouldn’t because everything Falkvinge says is so mind-numbingly stupid that it’s only going to distract me into composing a response in my head when I ought to be focusing ...

There’s been a lot of speculation, including by me, on the question as to why TBWAChait/Day is the agency behind what is being called “Pirate Square” by folks in the artists’ rights community.  And I feel foolish for overlooking the most obvious explanation, which is selling the agency itself.  Ad agencies spend a significant amount of money and internal resources ...

Ownership is the subject of “On the Media’s” recent broadcast from WNYC, and the show’s producers talked to a variety of voices about the ever-shifting tensions between intellectual property rights and disruptive technologies.  One segment featured a conversation with Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics, and the theme was a familiar one — the inevitable disruption of manufacturing by 3D ...

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