It is gratifying to hear someone like Card share my views on this -- almost letter for letter!

Art Watch - September 7, 2003 - MP3s Are Not the Devil - The Ornery American

] The Church of Scientology has lost a courtroom battle to
] compel a Dutch writer and her Internet service provider
] to remove postings from a Web site, in a ruling that
] keeps hyperlinks to copyrighted material legal.

Scientology is an EVIL CULT. Its good to see them lose in court for once ....

Scientology looses one

] About a dozen universities -- no California participants
] currently are known -- are discussing ways to pay legal
] online music providers themselves and pass the cost onto
] students in fees.
]
] The move would allow students to download, mix, burn and
] share music just as millions already are doing -- but
] lawfully.

I don't necessarily think that this is the right answer but its certainly better than RIAA suing everyone.

L.A. Daily News - Business

] MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- State Supreme Court justices
] overruled Chief Justice Roy Moore on Thursday and
] directed that his Ten Commandments monument be removed
] from its public site in the Alabama Judicial Building.

The US Supreme court also told this guy to fuck off ... this is supposed to be a secular state, stupid!

Alabama Justices Order Ten Commandments Monument Removed

]
] The Recording Industry Ass. of America (RIAA) has
] launched its appeal against an April US District Court
] ruling that the Grokster P2P media-sharing network does
] not infringe copyrights juts because its software may
] allow users to do so.

Sigh...

The Register

] "To abandon these tools," Mr. Ashcroft said in a speech
] here at the start of a national tour, "would senselessly
] imperil American lives and American liberty, and it would
] ignore the lessons of Sept. 11."

Ugh! A police state isn't worth protecting!

Ashcroft Blasts Efforts to Weaken Terrorism Law

] Just days after the House of Representatives voted to
] legalize the import of cheap prescription drugs from
] Canada, Pfizer has moved to squelch the nascent trade at
] its source.

This is an example of a larger issue of big corporations trying to restrict trade of their products, a right that I believe they don't have. Another interesting case was one of some British Wal-Mart-alike importing Levi's from the US; they retail for something like $80 in Europe! Levi used some crazy EU trademark law to stop it, IIRC...

Pfizer Moves to Stem Canadian Drug Imports

] What are the chances that Poindexter is still around at
] the end of next month? About 70 percent according to the
] Poindexter contract that began being traded on
] Dublin-based futures exchange Tradesports. Yep,
] Poindexter is about to serve as an example of how
] accurately a futures market can predict future events --
] the very idea that he was espousing.

HAHA!

No future for Poindexter? - Jul. 30, 2003

] "The practice of filing thousands of lawsuits is a game
] of chicken, and not a sustainable model for the industry
] or the courts," Mr. Zittrain said. "The overall puzzle
] for the industry is how to truly convince the public that
] this is in the public interest."

This is precisely the problem ... everyone knows that what the industry brings to the table isn't worth so much anymore ... and that there's no excuse for artists to *lose money* on albums (see the Negativland analysis/example) that sell for $20 and the middleman is making a killing on.

] He said there was no obvious historical analogue to the
] scattershot subpoenaing of individuals in copyright law
] enforcement, which has traditionally been aimed at
] businesses or people who are profiting from illegally
] copied material. He likened it instead to raids during
] Prohibition, or red-light cameras that catch drivers
] disobeying traffic laws when they think they are
] unobserved. Both have given rise to social outcry, Mr.
] Zittrain said, even though they were used simply to
] enforce the law.

Subpoenas Sent to File-Sharers Prompt Anger and Remorse