News

Must Reads

This has been an exceptionally busy week, but I don't want some important stories to fall through the cracks:

  • The NY Times on how courts are citing Wikipedia entries with growing frequency, while Simon Chester at Slaw provides a comparative Commonwealth look at the issue.
  • Romania's President tells Bill Gates that piracy helped build his country's IT industry.
  • The Chilean Library of Congress adopts a Creative Commons license for all its content.
  • How DRM is used to lock down the 9/11 Commission report.
  • Larry Lessig on orphan works reform in the U.S.

5 Comments

  1. Mr. Michael “King of all Media”:

    You must have thought this was the attractive element from the Gates/Romania article:

    “Foreign investors say Romania’s IT sector is one of most promising industries in the fast-growing economy thanks to high level of technical education in Romania, low wages and the country’s thriving underworld of computers hackers.”

    Wow, even in your crazed left-leaning snow globe of a world, a country with low wages and a “thriving underworld of computers hackers,” doesn’t sound positive, now does it. Is that what you’d like, Michael? Get back at the big bad man that is Bill Gates and Microsoft, steal all the software Canadians want, and operate a network of computer hackers?

    No wonder you write for the Star.

  2. Wow! Way to go, Mr. T. I’m really proud that you tried to read AND understand this article. Ok, so I know you didn’t actually read it (those big words can get confusing, can’t they?). I know you just scanned it for one of the neocon “alert” words. I know you were dissapointed not to find an obvious one, like “same-sex marriage”, “gun control”, “social program”, or “literacy.” But “underworld” and “hacker” caught your eye, didn’t it? I’m sure after a quick check with the RushLimbaugh.com FAQ, you were still undecided. But with the addition of “thriving”, meaning that there were hypothetical lost monetary transactions (oops, that means “making money”) involved, you were sure you were on the right track.

    What you failed to understand is the gist of the article, that the use of illegitimate Microsoft products to educate a country that could not afford to purchase them (thus indicating that there were no lost sales) has developed an industry that now legally purchases those same products (thus indicating new sales). Yes, the illegitamate trade still exists. Yes, the majority portion of products used in the country are not legitimate. However, sales of the legitimate product have increased from virtually zero to a small percentage. Sales that would not exist without the initial training with the illegitimate and zero lost sale products. Still following me? This would be the “investment in Romania’s friendship with Microsoft and with Bill Gates” portion mentioned. There was no money involved (I know that’s hard to you to grasp)in that investment, however the return is new sales and the beginning of a push for more legitimate paid products.

    If you still need clarification on this type of industrial growth, please feel free to contact the former owners of Seagrams and ask how they got started.

    And by the way, say hi to Margo for me Graham.

  3. The Man
    Mr. MikeB: That’s the great thing about this site the good doctor has running — it is all these ass-kissing sychophants offering their support for whatever ridiculous notion he comes up with. I’m not a student blowing him for a grade or some grant money, so I’m not about to offer my support for his crazed notions of the benefits of intellectual property theft.
    I love the rationalization that you use to support your notion of why theft is okay, as long as it helps someone in some capacity. I suppose you wouldn’t have an issue then if someone robbed your apartment or stole your car, as long as they put the proceeds to something you deemed positive. That is the point you are putting forward, right?
    Instead of sucking up to the good doctor, why don’t you ask him about his grant money, his government reliance and if he is truly as independent as he says. The man never found a news article he didn’t want to appear in. I think there’s a term for that, but it slips my mind right now…

  4. DRM 9/11 Commission is a dead link
    FYI:

    The link you posted is a dead. I googled “DRM 9/11 commission report” and got the same link as the first hit. It was the same dead link.

    Here’s the Google cache link:

    [ link ]

  5. Don’t feed the trolls
    P.S. Don’t feed the *cough*Mr. T.*cough* trolls.