Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Larry Lessig has spent the last week exhorting people to contribute to Creative Commons, the organization responsible for the Creative Commons license. The CC license is a concept that every libertarian–regardless of their views on intellectual property–should be excited about. Sometimes, an author, artists, or musician chooses to market his or her products commercially. But [...]
I’m rather confused about what exactly the network neutrality folks want. Because it’s hard to believe they’re really looking for what they seem to want in this article. The draft bill, floated recently by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, contains “network neutrality” provisions intended to prohibit telecom and cable companies from blocking [...]
James’s post in defense of a la carte makes me think that a big part of what’s going on in this debate is ambiguity and confusion regarding what exactly counts as “a la carte.” As my recent article suggests, most a la carte activists seem to imagine that, if the standard cable tier gives you [...]
The idea of a la carte pricing for cable television has taken a beating since Kevin Martin suggested it in a congressional forum a few weeks ago. (For some good pieces by my TLF colleagues, look here, here, and here. It’s clear that a la carte pricing is no free lunch for consumers (no pun), [...]
Just in time for the holidays, British officials have announced that Santa will no longer be the only one who can find out if you’ve been naughty or nice. The Independent reports the imminent creation of a nationwide network of road, convenience store and other cameras that will be tied into a central database equipped [...]
It’s good to see that the Patent Office has come to RIM’s rescue by hinting that it will be rejecting all of NTP’s patents in February. It seems that RIM’s gamble paid off. At this point, it would be an extremely boneheaded judge who would issue an injunction given that NTP now looks almost certain [...]
Overall, I’m extremely critical of the Bush administration’s flagrant disregard for civil liberties in the wiretapping controversy. But I think this is an entirely understandable mistake. The New York Times reports that the NSA sometimes accidentally listens in on a domestic call because they mistakenly believe that it to be a foreign call. As electronic [...]
So I’m working on a paper on cable franchising and was reading the FCC’s latest proposed rulemaking on the topic (PDF). In it they claim the authority to preempt local franchise regulations that are barriers to entry. They FCC finds authority to do this in Section 621(a)(1) of the Communications Act, which states that local [...]
Perhaps the most striking thing about the Sensenbrenner bill is this passage: PROFESSIONAL DEVICE.–(A) The term”professional device” means a device that is designed, manufactured, marketed, and intended for use by a person who regularly employs such a device for lawful business or industrial purposes, such as making, performing, displaying, distributing, or transmitting copies of audiovisual [...]
February 13, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
