Vint Cerf, circa 2002:

The Internet is for everyone.

How easy to say - how hard to achieve!

How have we progressed towards this noble goal?

As high bandwidth access becomes the norm through digital subscriber loops, cable modems and digital terrestrial and satellite radio links, the convergence of media available on the Internet will become obvious. Television, radio, telephony and the traditional print media will find counterparts on the Internet - and will be changed in profound ways by the presence of software that transforms the one-way media into interactive resources, shareable by many.

...

The Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if it isn't affordable ...

The Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if Governments restrict access to it ...

I hope Internauts everywhere will join with the Internet Society and like-minded organizations to achieve this, easily stated but hard to attain goal. As we pass the milestone of the beginning of the third millennium, what better theme could we possibly ask for than making the Internet the medium of this new millennium?

The Internet is for Everyone

Abstract:

Deep changes in the ways that people create ideas, goods, and wealth are reshaping the global economy. These changes make innovation—the creation of new goods and services—the center of economic activity. This new report explores the critical role of intellectual property protection (IPR) in a global information economy and argues that the extent to which countries protect intellectual property will determine how well they perform in the new economic environment.

An excerpt:

Some argue that strong IPR is no longer important as there are alternatives that will create equal or greater amounts of innovation. The problem with these alternatives is that they tend not to work.

Intellectual Property Protection | Center for Strategic and International Studies

In a 1991 memo [*] to his senior executives, Bill Gates wrote, “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today’s ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.” Mr. Gates worried that “some large company will patent some obvious thing” and use the patent to “take as much of our profits as they want.”

At the time, Microsoft had only eight patents to its name.

Today it holds more than 6,000 patents.

Only patent lawyers benefit from this arms race.

A Patent Lie

Decius wrote:

Even more surprising, the videos that have been removed make up just 6 percent of the total views (vidmeter.com).

I don't see why this is so surprising. It's akin to expressing surprise that most telephone calls are not "commercial" (as in delivery of paid content). Or that most email traffic is not copyrighted.

I would be more interested in looking at the overall distribution ... a Long Tail plot.

Unfortunately, it seems like this press coverage is mostly orchestrated to drive traffic to Vidmeter, which is distinctly in the short head business:

Vidmeter gathers data from across the web to provide an accurate representation of the most popular online videos.

RE: YouTube’s Favorite Clips Aren't Copyrighted

“Today we celebrate a victory for content producers.”

“Today was a victory for copyright protection.”

The "Today" in question, mind you, was the day on which HD-DVD copy protection was broken.

Google Said to Violate Copyright Laws

The Hong Kong government has unveiled a plan to use 200,000 young people from organizations like the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides as watchdogs for internet copyright infringement. Many civil liberties advocates question the use of teenagers in state-sponsored law enforcement. While Hong Kong authorities claim that the program encourages good citizenship among a population with a high rate of internet piracy, others compare it to youth-informant programs from China’s Cultural Revolution. The Hong Kong customs agency has no plans for legal action against those who download copyrighted material, yet prescribes criminal penalties for those who provide copyrighted materials to others via file-sharing software. The entertainment industry applauds the program, while other nations express interest in a youth patrol for piracy.

I missed this story when it appeared in NYT ...

Dare Violate a Copyright in Hong Kong? A Boy Scout May Be Watching Online

It did not take much investigating to follow the data trail to Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow who lives in Lilburn, Ga., frequently researches her friends' medical ailments and loves her three dogs. "Those are my searches," she said, after a reporter read part of the list to her.

The detailed records of searches conducted by Ms. Arnold and 657,000 other Americans, copies of which continue to circulate online, underscore how much people unintentionally reveal about themselves when they use search engines -- and how risky it can be for companies like AOL, Google and Yahoo to compile such data.

I sense a class-action lawsuit coming on. Is there a case to be made here? Could Ms. Arnold recover damages from AOL Time Warner?

A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749

The Washington Post did not review the full 439-megabyte data set but contacted bloggers who had looked at it.

"On the advice of our legal counsel, we are steering clear of this particular minefield. We leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine whether their personal data may have been leaked in this incident."

AOL Takes Down Site With Users' Search Data

Continuing advancement in the life sciences is essential to thwarting bioterrorism, the report says; vaccine development, for example, depends on cutting-edge biomedical research. The open exchange of scientific data and concepts is the linchpin of these advances, and the results of fundamental research should remain unrestricted except when national security requires classification of the information. U.S. policymakers also should promote international scientific exchange and the training of foreign scientists in the United States. Both measures have contributed to the productivity of America's scientific enterprise.

Promoting a shared sense of responsibility as well as ethical behavior throughout the world's scientific enterprise is important. S&T leaders and practitioners should develop explicit national and international codes of ethics and conduct for life scientists, the committee said. Additionally, decentralized groups of scientists, government leaders, and other authorities are needed around the world to collaboratively monitor the potential misuse of biomedical tools and technologies -- and intervene if necessary.

This report came out in January, but I hadn't noticed it at the time.

Globalization, Biosecurity, and the Future of the Life Sciences

Read the decision, if you please.

Adult publisher Perfect 10 won a partial victory in its efforts to stop search engines' display of its photos in image search results.

Today, Judge A. Howard Matz of the U.S. District Court of the Central District of California said Perfect 10 is likely to succeed in proving that Google directly infringes its copyright by creating and displaying thumbnail copies of its photographs.

Google and A9 May Stop Showing Perfect 10s