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I’ve been too busy to blog lately, what with the conferences, a white paper I’m writing about protocols and regulation, a recalcitrant editor (at a local paper,) and a new gig blogging for IEEE Spectrum’s Tech Talk. My observations on networking and policy will be appearing there for the while.
The focus over here is going [...]
Archive for May, 2009
Catching up
May 31st, 2009 
Richard Bennett How Hard is it to Find Authors?
May 22nd, 2009 Richard Bennett One of the mind-boggling facts about the Google book deal is the number of so-called “orphan works” there are. According to Brewster Kahle, most books published since our current copyright regime was adopted in 1923 are orphan works:
But the settlement would also create a class that includes millions of people who will never come forward. [...]
Recycling Garbage Abroad
May 20th, 2009 Richard Bennett Advocates of network neutrality regulations have been largely unsuccessful in advancing their agenda in the US. The one case in which they claim to have secured a victory was the Vuze vs. Comcast action in the FCC, which was severely tainted by Vuze turning to porn to resuscitate its dying business:
In a bid to increase [...]
Why Lawyers are Scorned
May 19th, 2009 Richard Bennett This is simply breath-taking:
Wholesale copying of music on P2P networks is fair use. Statutory damages can’t be applied to P2P users. File-swapping results in no provable harm to rightsholders.
These are just some of the assertions that Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson made last week in his defense of accused file-swapper Joel Tenenbaum.
Nesson founded the Harvard [...]
Blackberry dominates the world
May 16th, 2009 Richard Bennett Everybody knows we have our first Blackberry-toting president, but how many know that BlackBerry outsells Apple?
An aggressive “buy-one-get-one†promotion by Verizon Wireless helped RIM’s BlackBerry Curve move past Apple’s iPhone to become the best-selling consumer smartphone in the U.S. in the first quarter of 2009, according to market research firm The NPD Group.
RIM’s consumer smartphone [...]
What slows down your Wi-Fi?
May 11th, 2009 Richard Bennett The Register stumbled upon an eye-opening report commissioned by the UK telecom regulator, Ofcom, on sources of Wi-Fi interference in the UK:
What Mass discovered (pdf) is that while Wi-Fi users blame nearby networks for slowing down their connectivity, in reality the problem is people watching retransmitted TV in the bedroom while listening to their offspring [...]
Interlocking Directorates
May 6th, 2009 Richard Bennett The New York Times reports that regulators have an interest in the structure of the Apple and Google boards of directors:
The Federal Trade Commission has begun an inquiry into whether the close ties between the boards of two of technology’s most prominent companies, Apple and Google, amount to a violation of antitrust laws, according to [...]
Posted in Google, Law, Net Neutrality, Regulation 
Tags: net+neutrality Google Law Regulation 
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