Once again, Pandora internet radio is attempting to use an act of Congress to lower the royalties it pays artists, and once again, musicians are speaking out against both the tactics and the two-faced approach being taken by CEO Tim Westergren to pay lip service to his respect for artists while sticking his already well-greased palm into their back pockets. ...
In this TEDTalk, Jean-Philippe Vergne spends sixteen minutes proving one thing: that piracy is the wrong word for mass, digital copyright infringement. Those who operate torrent and similar sites should never have been called pirates, a word charged with romance and all too easily embraced as a badge of honor and charming rebelliousness. Never mind the fact that even this ...
One of my favorite observations by David Foster Wallace is about television, which he describes as essentially “watching furniture.” As a recovered-TV-junkie (20+ years clean), I have long appreciated the sentiment; however, by contrast, the detachment involved in old-school TV viewing may be healthier for some than the two-way mirrors we use in our wired lives. Our screens of many ...
“Use the new technologies for the old purposes.” Addressing the 2013 graduating class of Brandeis University, New Republic literary editor Leon Wiesseltier offered a beautiful and timely defense of humanism, the purpose of seeking knowledge, and the arts and humanities. His speech is reprinted at the New Republic site here under the title “Perhaps Culture is New the Counterculture.” It’s ...
A new Twitter follower is an Indian media & tech lawyer named Nandita Saikia, who offers this blog about certain kinds of exploitative pornography and free speech. As a non-lawyer, I won’t comment on any of the case law she cites in the post, but the central theme is instructive with regard to how arguments that appear to support an ...
