...more recent posts
Here's an interesting discussion, between some interesting people, about (you guessed it) Napster, file sharing, and intellecutal property rights. David Gans, Scott Rosen, among others. Some musicians in the mix. Not all ranting; some actual conversation..
And I sort of liked Sony. Oh well. Where do they find these guys for all their middle management positions? Does he know what a computer is? How the internet works? One thing he obviously knows is how to piss people off. Here's the report on a speech given by Steve Heckler, senior vice president of Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.. And here is a little taste of the good part:
"Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop [Napster]," Heckler told the Summer Forty-Niner. "We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source -- we will block it at your cable company, we will block it at your phone company, we will block it at your [Internet-service provider]. We will firewall it at your PC..."Huh? Sony is going to firewall my PC? Ummm, I don't think so. Somebody at Sony should get a clue and smack this guy down before he does them any more damage. Or maybe he's a double agent, and secretly working to rally the Gnutella forces?
(from here, picked up here, mentioned here, soon to be everywhere.)
Downloaded Netscape 4.75 today. It took me way too many steps to get AOL instant messenger off my system after I did a custom install without it, followed by checking no in a dialogue box when it seemed like it was going to install it anyway. I don't like when installers put things I don't want in my system folder (in 3 different places.) That's just not very polite. Anyway, this fixes the horrible Netscape Java security bug, although I still keep Java off all the time unless I really need it (and I never really need it.) Some people have been reporting more stable performance out of 4.75 (even one "much more stable" by someone probably too hopeful) so I'm going forward. I wish Mozilla would get better. I want to feel good about my browser.
David McCusker lays down the game rules for middlemen. I wish he was in charge of the game.