] So, between spam, anti-spam blacklists, rogue packets,
] never-forgetting search engines, viruses, old machines,
] bad regulatory bodies, and bad implementations, I fear
] that the open Internet is going to die sooner than I
] would have expected. In its place I expect to see a more
] fragmented network - one in which only "approved"
] end-to-end communications will be permitted.

I happen to think this is true. Who is doing the approval is the question. The fact is that if anyone can decide how things are approved, then everything is fine. I cut my whack account over to a challenge response system. Bang, its useable again. I get no spam there at all, and all the people I talk to are getting through just fine. I'm happy. I think it will work just fine... In fact, if the internet had more close knit communities I think it would be better off.

Moving to the country side to escape the noise is not the same as censorship.

The end of the open internet...

Dell pulling all-too-familiar shenanigans as pertaining to software licencing. They should all be fined.

Dell's Software License Policy: Dude, you're getting screwed.

] The Webcaster Alliance alleges that this and an earlier
] agreement with Yahoo! "had the intent and effect of
] restraining competition in the market for domestically
] recorded sound recordings and in the market for the
] Internet distribution for such sound recordings."

This much is true, as the Library of Congress has found, and as Yahoo testified in Congress. There is probably enough meat here for a case. This is not "a publicity stunt." This is THE fundamental arguement that years of RIAA drama centers around. Will the future of music be determined by large, centralized interests, by a distributed network of independent entities, or by a combination of both. The RIAA would prefer that the second and third options be illegal.

The Register: 198 small webcasters sue the RIAA for illegal practices in the CARP negotiation

This one could spell trouble for apple. From what i could tell on a real quick parse, Tibco's Rendezvous is a proprietary, generic message passing interface (presumably XML based), used to establish communications between their own various 'ebusiness application components'

IIRC the standard for trademark infringement is when the same name describes a product that would be confusingly similar. So, i could name a matchmaking service Rendezvous, because no one would mistake one for the other. That being said, how similar is tibco's message passing system to zeroconf? To me, they're completely different, but to a non expert? They're both "Computer networking software that lets one thing talk to the another and then do something, right?"

I'd like to think this gets tossed out, but...

Apple sued over use of Rendezvous trademark

A very fair analysis of the current spate of accusations being tossed about on both sides of the political fence. More honest than i expected...

Liar, Liar - Liberal writers steal a rhetorical trick from the conservatives.

Can i sign up to NOT have that gene?

Northwestern's Cancer Genetics Program Pinpoints Gene That Increases Cancer Risk By 26 Percent

Boon to worldwide health issues or salve to Big Pharm?

WTO Set to Back Cheap Drugs Deal, Activists Object

Damn.

Chinese Doctors Remove Baby's Parasitic Third Leg

Decius and i were talking about this last night. Here's the summary... last year, congress set a royalty rate of 0.07 cents/song/listener that webcasters would have to pay. This deal was negotiated by a consortium that represented primarily large webcasters. small webcasters felt this was bs and would put them out of business (which it did, in many cases) and eventually, a new deal was struck that would allow small stations to avoid that rate. However, it didn't set a new rate, just permit the small webcasters to negotiate their own deal. That's almost the same thing because, lets face it, negotiating with RIAA is a huge pain, if not expensive in it's own right, making it far from feasible for most small webcasters.

So now, the Webcasters Alliance is striking back at the RIAA on behalf of small webcasters, suing them on a claim of antitrust for trying to push independents out of the game.

Small Webcasters sue RIAA | CNET News.com

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