2 interesting stories which appear unrelated, but tell different stories of what can happen when content providers exert their control: MPAA shuts down entire town’s muni WiFi over a single download (BoingBoing) Facebook iPhone Dev Quits Project Over Apple Tyranny (TechCrunch)
Prosecutors Say Students Paid Witness to Aid Case – NYTimes.com Prosecutors said they wanted to determine whether students believed they would receive better grades if they provided evidence to help exonerate the convict… [and have] subpoenaed the grades, e-mail messages and records of students who investigated the murder conviction for the university’s Medill Innocence Project. …
GPL Enforcement: Don’t Jump to Conclusions, But Do Report Violations – Bradley M. Kuhn Brad Kuhn has an interesting post on the interplay between law, norms, and negotiation in GPL (a particular type of open source license) violations. He suggests that, when a violation is found, start with an assumption that there was no malicious …
Justice Dept. Asked For News Site’s Visitor Lists – Taking Liberties – CBS News In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day. The grand …
John is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin - Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. He studies the social impact of media technology law and policy, with a special emphasis on copyright. He also is an instructional technology consultant for DoIT-Academic Technology.
John doesn't update his blog often, and many of the thoughts are probably half-baked. While the web has sort of an eternal memory, the current and future reader is urged not to take all of this too seriously.
Think of this blog as "John thinking out loud."
(For more on this idea and why I blog, please see this category.)