When it comes to new ideas about copyright, Derek Khanna is a very good looking person. In fact I’m reasonably sure this particular tweet was actually composed by his perfect hair. For the uninitiated, Khanna is the new poster boy for conservatives against artists’ rights, a career he effectively created for himself when he wrote a thoroughly uninformed memo for ...

Compressorhead, the all-robot band that plays hits by AC/DC, Motorhead, and The Ramones, represents another step toward a technological future in which machines continue to perform tasks as well as (or better than?) humans.  Many a techno-utopian  envisions a world in which human labor, including creative and performing arts no longer represents economic or social value.  Naturally, the prospect of ...

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 ...

In my follow-up about Chiat/Day and the “Pirate Square” campaign, I suggested that the agency’s decision to produce the work was motivated by an opportunity to promote the Chiat/Day brand itself in a big way and for free.  And the more I look at the whole business, the more I’m convinced this is what happened.  According to this article in ...

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 ...

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