shouting loudly

In two different news stories summarizing the latest Nielsen Soundscan music sales report, the music industry is cast as growing at a remarkable clip or continuing its long, slow decline. Variety takes the latter tack, moaning, “Album sales take a tumble in 2007.” In contrast, the Centre Daily Times celebrates the growth in total sales [...]

US News interviewed a handful of cutting-edge tech gurus, asking them, “What if you were appointed innovation czar?” Three themes run through the answers: 1) Portable, especially universal health care. People stay in uninspiring jobs because they need the health insurance. Provide this automatically, and risk takers are free to start new businesses, take chances [...]

Lok just emailed me Wellington Grey’s hilarious DMCA slideshow. It’s positively hi-larious.

Internet users in France who use their connections to violate copyright law may lose their connections under a new policy announced this week. In a three-way deal between internet service providers, the French government, and copyright holders, those accused of infringement will receive warnings from their ISPs. If they are identified as continuing to download [...]

As we reported earlier, Section 494 of the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 (pdf) would turn colleges into copyright cops. Now, the bill is in front of the full House thanks to a unanimous committee vote in its favor. The section (on pp. 411-413 of the draft above) requires schools to buy some [...]

Two Democratic chairs of key House committees introduced a bill yesterday that would require colleges to police copyright and pay off the entertainment industry. Buried on pages 411 and 412 of the 747-page bill, the College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007 (pdf), is the following: Each eligible institution participating in any program under this [...]

Here’s the other big copyright story of the day: Apple Cuts Price on DRM-Free Music to 99 Cents. This race to disarm is reminiscent of the 1980s, when the software industry flirted with command-and-control digital rights management technologies, only to realize they were punishing customers and therefore losing more business than they were protecting.

As reported by (a billion news sources including) PC World, Google unit YouTube is beta testing an automated copyright management system. The official Google Blog describes the tool, “Video Identification,” as part and parcel with a number of copyright enforcement tools. Google also (correctly, in my non-lawyerly opinion) argues that this exceeds their responsibilities under [...]

In this weekend’s New York Times Magazine, an excellent profile of music mogul Rick Rubin suggests Sony’s recent hiring of Rubin as Columbia Records co-head just might save both the company and the music industry. Rubin certainly seems bent on changing the music industry. He sounds like a Free Culture activist, scolding the industry for [...]

On George Hotz’s blog, many commenters are urging him to patent his iPhone hack. This just misses the point. Hotz is sad that, when he starts at RIT this fall, folks with more spare time will capitalize on his discovery. But he’s not sad that all this hacking will go on without his permission or [...]