The RIAA has been taking a lot of people to court -- basically, harassing folks in an attempt to curb file-sharing. The $220,000 verdict against Jammy Thomas got a lot of news (and probably worried a lot of folks). However, on appeal (i.e., after a new court not cherry-picked by the RIAA to try the case looked things over), the RIAA lost... again. ZDnet covered the verdict.

At its heart, the verdict reaffirms that simply making a copyrighted work available is not the same as actually distributing the work. In other words, copyright holders actually have to show harm before they can sue the pants off of people. More importantly, it lends yet more weight to the notion that our copyright laws are woefully out of date and that the RIAA has systematically overstepped the legal bounds of its authority under existing copyright law.

Fundamentally, there will need to be a reassessment of copyright and a rebalancing of the rights of copyright holders and the benefits of copyright to the general public. As Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution clearly states:

"The Congress shall have power to...promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

The goal is the promotion of the progress of science and the arts -- not to enrich copyright holders. Clearly, we've strayed from that core mission and Congress should reaffirm its commitment to the original function of copyright.

Nate Anderson over at Ars Technica wrote an in-depth analysis of the current white space debates. It's well worth a read.

White spaces, angry faces: Inside the battle over 'interference'

By Nate Anderson |
Published: September 23, 2008 - 11:30PM CT

High stakes

Every city in the country—even New York City—has a host of unused TV channels. Opening up that fertile field of spectrum to the seeds of innovation is a worthy-sounding goal that everyone can agree to in principle, but when it comes down to making the rules that govern access, and to certifying the devices that can operate, the debate hops on the express train to Nastytown.

Read more...  read more »

Happy One Web Day!

With lots of stuff going on around the globe, we're also hosting a shin dig here at New America and will be livecasting the event starting around 10:30am EDT.

More info on One Web Day is available here.

I've been in Atlanta this week at the NATOA Annual conference. I presented yesterday evening on, "Grassroots Wireless: State of the Art Networking" (3.7MB) -- it was a lot of fun.

Dharma Daily organized a big dinner for a bunch of us community broadband advocates -- loads of fantastically delicious Indian food. I ended up down at the end of the table with Chris Mitchell, Jonathan Lawson, and Geoff Daily -- lots of raucous debate of politics, community organizing, and the role of protest in civil society. We ended the night at the top floor bar of the conference hotel -- drinking local brew and jamming out bluegrass with our mandolin and guitar.

Video from the panel I moderated at the 2008 National Conference for Media Reform, "Spectrum 2.0: Using Public Airwaves to Build the Future of the Internet" is now up online. The panelists, Wally Bowen, Christopher Mitchell, Maura Corbett, and Geoffrey Blackwell, were amazing -- providing loads of useful information and personal inspiration. Here's the full 90-minute video:

You can also get more info on the panel and panelists here.

It's taken me quite awhile to get these pictures up, but what a fantastic Basque it was. There's nothing like gathering with friends to cook together and enjoy a few moments of relaxation.

Here's some highlights:

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Blair Levin's closing quote sums up today's AP article nicely, "Like so much of what is happening in Washington in the fall of 2008, it's all about the spring of 2009." Here's what AP is reporting (full article can be read here):

NEW YORK (Associated Press) - Technology and telecommunications issues will be on Capitol Hill's radar in the months ahead as lawmakers attempt to influence regulators at the Federal Communications Commission and frame the debate for next year's Congress. Among the issues at the top of the agenda: subsidies for telephone service in underserved areas and online privacy.

With a lame-duck Congress and the Senate Commerce Committee still regrouping following the July indictment of its top Republican, Alaska's Ted Stevens, it's unlikely lawmakers will produce much legislation upon returning from summer recess. But Congress doesn't need to pass bills to influence tech and telecom policy, said Stanford Washington Research Group analyst Paul Gallant.

A prime example is the battle over proposed "network neutrality" rules, which would prohibit broadband providers from discriminating against or favoring Internet traffic flowing over their networks...

When I look at the fall of the personal savings rate in the United States over the past 50 years, I cannot help but cringe. We're on a fairly linear trend towards completely obliterating our personal reserves.

Personal savings are one of the few things that keeps people above water when the inevitable vagaries of life knock us off our feet. Without savings we're all more prone to getting taken advantage of (e.g., we can't afford to leave a bad job), less capable of recovering from unexpected expenses, and often more risk-adverse (thus turning down opportunities we might otherwise want to take).

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I'm not a big fan of the term "cyberterrorism" -- it's been defined so broadly as to be basically meaningless. But today, we do now have confirmation that multiple journalist sites that have been covering the RNC police actions and documenting massive police oppression are today being attacked by a distributed denial of service attack. Thus far, I've heard that Daily Kos, Fire Dog Lake, [and] Eschaton, and Free Press [Free Press was just super-slow due to the huge number of people accessing their info on police malfeasance -- folks there reported 100,000 site visits since this morning, about ten times normal] have all been attacked.

In related news, Amy Goodman has indeed been arrested -- at least 283 other people have been as well. Many of those arrested were simply witnessing events or covering events for various news outlets.

[UPDATE01]Here is video of Amy Goodman's arrest:

Democracy Now released a statement condemning the arrests of Amy Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar -- it is available here.

[UPDATE02]I heard from a few folks who stated that journalists were not being specifically targeted by the police. Below is a video of the I-Witness journalists house raid documenting undeniably that they are:

The past 24 hours in the Twin Cities have been remarkably chaotic, yet the mainstream media isn't covering the real story. Scores of people have been arrested, hundred (if not thousands) shot at by police wielding tear gas, pepper spray, etc. Medics and journalists have been attacked by the police (yes, the same journalists who are not covering the event). There have been numerous confirmed reports of individuals being snatched off the streets. Mass transit has been suspended and protests that have permits disrupted.

Amazingly, this has all being going on with unprecedented documentation. Legal observers (i.e., the lawyers who have gone to Twin Cities to ensure that people's first and fourth amendment rights are respected) have themselves been both harassed and arrested by the police. And photographic, audio, and video of many of the most egregious events has been been uploaded online within hours (and sometimes minutes and/or live) of their happening.

There have now been close to 10 different raids at locations around the city (targeting everything from independent media to Food Not Bombs). You can find out more at:

• http://tc.indymedia.org -- updates and in-depth reporting from independent media
• http://twitter.com/coldsnaplegal -- live legal updates from legal observers reporting in from protests throughout Twin Cities
• http://theuptake.org -- live video uploads from journalists located throughout the Twin Cities

[UPDATE01]It's now being reported that police arrested journalist Amy Goodman while she was covering the RNC for her show, "Democracy Now." The National Guard is also being mobilized and moving into the Twin Cities.

[UPDATE02]From Cold Snap Legal:

As of 10:30pm today, the arrest tally from Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office was: 284 total; 130 felonies; 51 gross misdemeanors; 103 misdemeanors. The jail is seemingly severely backed up and not everyone has been booked or processed, so these numbers clearly don’t represent the total arrestee count for the day. These numbers also do not necessarily include the numbers of arrestees whose identifications have not been verified.

In regards to the arrestees from this weekend’s raids, five of them are still being held at Ramsey County Jail on probable cause, which means that they might not be able to see a judge until Tuesday or Wednesday. One of the arrestees was released yesterday evening.

Though some people have been cited and released, the majority are still being held in jail. We’ve gotten many reports that people are not getting proper medical attention, are being refused their medication, and/or have been separated from the rest of the group.

Also, there are also many felony charges, which allow the state to hold the protesters for a longer period of time. Felony charges have historically been used as scare tactics against activists, and there is much less precedent for them to hold up in court. More often, these bogus charges are simply used to keep protesters off the streets and as a way to oppress and silence people.