As I was eating lunch I was feeling quite anxious about growing up because once I'm grown up I'll naturally be able to afford my own senator. Now that I'm back at my desktop with the Internet in my lap I've realized that the impossible is possible today.

So Senator Hollings the man behind the SSSCA now known as the CBDTPA has been bought for only $300,000 by the media industries. Now what I propose is that we buy our own senator. I don't know which since I'm not American so please suggest one. At $5 a head it'd only take 60,000 for us to get one and with the help of a large tech company or two I'm sure we could even afford one or two more. Let's put the fax machines aside for a moment and fight dollar for dollar.

Gary thinks it's not so easy.
1:54:13 PM   []

Hilary Rosen: No industry has been as generous as we have. Excercise for the reader: Can you count all of the RIAA's members lawsuits using only two hands?

Mitch Kapor (founder of Lotus and the EFF): 'Kapor said he didn't think the movie industry really wanted the Hollings legislation to pass. Instead, he said he thinks that the film industry hopes the bill will scare the technology companies into cutting "a deal that will screw consumers."'

You can find more of these gems in PC Mag's Show Report: PC Forum Focuses on Digital Rights.
1:00:33 PM   []

• Ultraconcentrated media
• Who owns the network news
• Music tech industry

(Thanks to AccordianGuy for the first two).

And a Doonesbury comic. I guess Trudeau hasn't seen the stats that say our parents are now just as likely to pirate share music as we are.
12:44:54 PM   []

Meanwhile, one of Napster's original investors sued to oust half of the company's current board of directors, saying the move was needed soon in light of a pending offer to buy the company.

John Fanning, uncle of Napster inventor Shawn Fanning, filed suit Monday in Delaware Chancery Court to replace Hank Barry and John Hummer on Napster's four-member board with two new members, Joseph Amram and Martin Kay.

12:23:05 PM   []

Johno, there's an iPod breakout contest. Don't you wish that either a) you had an iPod or that b) there was a snake contest?

Speaking of the iPod. The XPlay software I use to connect my iPod to my Windows machine doesn't let you move MP3s from the device to your computer so when I synched my iPod up at Jagdeep's place on the weekend I had to find a way to move his 2.5gigs of Bollywood hits to my machine. Turns out the XPlay software only blocks copying in the Windows Explorer interface meaning you can use the command line to copy the files (I know Nat, DOS is so old school).

And for those Windows users who have been holding off buying an iPod rest assured that the latest beta version of XPlay works great. I've had no problems with it.
12:02:05 PM   []