10 October 2002

Why Fathers of PC Revolution Are Wary of Digital Rights THE AGE.com.au -- Nathan Cochrane, Deputy IT Editor of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald, told Declan McCullagh things he observed about Digital Rights Management when tracking down comments made by David Reed, Dan Bricklin and Ray Ozzie -- who can legitimately claim to have collectively done more than most to kick-start the PC revolution. David Reed was chief scientist and VP R&D at Lotus. "This is what is wrong with Berman-Coble, with DRM, with TCPA, and with Gator. It's my computer, dammit. If I don't give informed consent, you can't use it." Dan Bricklin, co-inventor of Visicalc, the first killer app for the PC "If you are an artist or author who cares more than about the near-term value of your work, you should be worried and be careful about releasing your work only in copy protected form. Like the days when "art" was only accessible to the rich, two classes will probably develop: Copy protected and not copy protected, the "high art" and "folk art" of tomorrow." Ray Ozzie, inventor of what became Lotus Notes, the world's first groupware collaborative software for PCs, a killer app. "With rich and open access, will contractual controls on use of Web Services data be sufficient, or will we need technical means of use enforcement? How far will Digital Restrictions Management creep its way into the system-to-system realm?"

Sonny Versus Share Kwindla Hultman Kramer -- An excellent but depressing summary of Larry Lessig's day in front of the Supreme Court. As Declan McCullagh would tell you, blogging made a powerful statement the day the case was heard. Ernest Miller and Raul Ruiz of the Yale Law School’s LawMeme covered the Eldred v. Ashcroft oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court nearly live. Lessig gives his own post-mortem of the case, delivered from the front line. Everyone interested in copyright should read Lessig's blog from the front line.

Seven Illegal Search Engine Optimisation Techniques STICKY SAUCE.com -- We have a Search Engine Strategies course that will soon include discussion of seven illegal search engine optimisation techniques. Although none of these are surprising, they are great discussion points when handling client requests for bent pages.

Matt's Commons Metafilter's Matt writes about what the concept of public domain really means, aside from really old books and movies. Over the past 7 or 8 months that I've been working on the Creative Commons, I've come to recognize and respect what a true commons for our culture would mean. Of course, it's mostly imaginary, as copyright has encompassed almost everything from the better part of last century and limited the use of works. There's the old saying that good artists copy and great artists steal, and that's not based on outright theft, but the acknowledgement that we are all influenced by others' work, and things like hip hop music and photoshop collages point out how great new art can be created when combining other works into new works. The Supreme Court heard arguments about the Creative Commons in presentations made by Lawrence Lessig yesterday.