Here's the problem with leaving weekend blogging and other online work until Sunday evening - when you get a migraine headache like I've got tonight, you get nothing done. Which is why you won't see an abundance of new posts until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest (if past history is any indication). See you then.

Ernest takes issue with yesterday's post in which Drew Clark writes that copyright law was originally designed to prevent copying. He forwarded me a link to a paper he wrote with Joan Feigenbaum that explainis how we need to Take the Copy Out of Copyright (PDF):

"Under current U.S. law and common understanding, the fundamental right granted by copyright is the right of reproduction – of making copies. Indeed, the very word "copyright" appears to signify that the right to control copying must be a fundamental part of any system of copyright. Nonetheless, we claim that this assumption is incorrect. The advent of digital documents has illuminated this issue: In the digital realm, copying is not a good predictor of intent to infringe; moreover, copying of digital works is necessary for normal use of those works. We argue that the right to control copying should be eliminated as an organizing principle of copyright law. In its place, we propose as an organizing principle the right to control public distribution of the copyrighted work."

This certainly makes sense to me, but I must admit that I just don't know enough about copyright to make authoritative statements, which is why I always quote other people on this topic.  :-)

But I have to wonder... if I'm this confused about copyright in the digital age and I'm a pretty digital person, how on earth are legislators figuring this out in order to make laws governing it? For example, Fritz Hollings - has he sat down with folks from each side, carefully studied their arguments, and then come to the conclusion that the CBDTPA is a necessary and good law? Cynics will say that he hasn't and that the entertainment industry's checks are argument enough for him, but I'd really like to hear Hollings' answer to the question. He has to know about the controversy his proposed bill has created, but I don't believe I've seen anything in which he discusses at length how he arrived at his decisions.

I'm not defending him - I'm just curious. Has anyone else seen something like this out there? If not, is there a constituent of his who would be willing to ask the question?

For myself, I just received in the mail The Librarian's Guide to Intellectual Property in the Digital Age: Copyrights, Patents, and Trademarks by Timothy Lee Wherry. You know as well as I do that I don't have time to read it at the moment, but maybe it will make for some light summer reading.  ;-)

Mazingo Planning PalmOS Client

"According to an interview done by PDABuzz.com user marcusbankuti, Mazingo is planning to go multi-platform. Mazingo CTO Bill Dettering was asked, 'Does Mazingo have any plans to create a version of its software to run on Palm OS 5?' His answer was simple, 'Yes -- we have a beta version running now, and hope to have it released in 2 weeks or less.' Mazingo has been a Pocket PC only application since its launch late last year. This new multi-platform support strategy could put some serious pressure on AvantGo who controls the vast majority of the mobile content synchronization market. You can read the rest of Marcus' interview here." [PDABuzz]

This would certainly be good, and perhaps AvantGo reversed its decision to limit use of its client after the company realized how one competitive product would have hurt them.

The full interview with Mazingo CTO Bill Dettering is interesting, too. They're reversing the AvantGo model and providing the service free to content providers in order to motivate them to produce better content. Check out the following Q&A:

"PDA Avenue: How many of your subscribers actually take advantage of the features AvantGo does not provide, such as Video and Audio?
 
Bill Dettering: I estimate 90%."

That 90% figure is amazing if it's accurate. My Clie is built for this kind of content, but I won't be able to use their software! While I'm glad that Mazingo is going multi-platform, I think it's a shame that their software will run on Palm OS 5 only. I haven't even upgraded to the newest version of Palm OS 4 yet because it would require me to send my Clie to Sony for a week or more and I just don't want to be without it for that long of a time.

Cool - in addition to being able to listen to keynote sessions from last week's O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference, I can read through blog entries for the individual sessions! Thanks to Aaron "The Kid" Swartz!

Window or Aisle?

"An Anonymous Coward writes "Forget Tito. Forget Shuttleworth. Private space travel is now a reality, now that eBay is accepting bids for travel to the International Space Station. I consider this a milestone for space travel, now that the average citizen-next-door can bid for a ticket as easily as buying, er, crap on eBay." Actually it appears that this is just the pre-flight stuff required prior to a trip - Note: Soyuz tickets sold separately, may involve a small added expense, if you get my drift. The real milestone is when tickets are listed on Travelocity. JFK->ISS, non-stop, no smoking, snack only." [Slashdot]