The potlatch begins at the University of Florida – how much damage can we do to the marketplace of ideas in order to satisfy the RIAA? Many students moving into UF dorms this week were confused and frustrated after their Internet access was cut off by a new program designed …

We mentioned last week the controversy surrounding Bob Dylan’s appropriation of text from a Japanese book for song lyrics. The NY Times’ Jon Pareles gives some perspective: After recent uproars over historians and journalists who used other researchers’ material without attribution, could it be that the great songwriter was now …

As one might expect, the Dead have joined Phish, Pearl Jam and others selling concert CDs: Every concert is recorded and digitally transferred to compact discs that can be ordered at the concert venue and shipped within a week and a half. It’s like going to the same concert over …

Another reason why the DMCA sucks syphilitics in a cesspool: Andrew Huang, an engineer and programmer in San Diego, has written a book called “Hacking the Xbox: An Introduction to Reverse Engineering.” It has also been an introduction to copyright law in the digital age. Wiley Technology Publishing, a unit …

We’ve heard this before – the more often we hear it the better. William Fisher with a royalties plan for file sharing: The creator of a recording would register it with the U.S. Copyright Office and would receive, in return, a unique file name, which would be used to track …

Does this remind you of Alien? More than a thousand unsuspecting Internet users around the world have recently had their computers hijacked by hackers, who computer security experts say are using them for pornographic Web sites. The hijacked computers, which are chosen by the hackers apparently because they have high-speed …

Laptop jam in Manhattan – I have seen this sort of thing here in Cleveland – it’s the wildest: IN his native West Virginia, George Cicci arouses curiosity when he gets on stage at local open-mike events and turns out beats on his iBook laptop between sets of bluegrass guitarists …

Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), House Judiciary Committee chairman, went on an $18 million drugs and underage sex tour of Thailand and Taiwan last January, with the RIAA picking up the tab. Okay, I made that up.

Last week, the one-woman zeitgeist that is Oprah reran her Favorite Things for Spring episode, and along with a bunch of stupid girl stuff, she picked an iPod. At least she’s a little bit funkier than Martha. Has her magic wand contributed to Apple’s recent success and high visibility?

Please excuse my absence from the site over the last two days – I went on a whirlwind college tour with my daughter in southern and central Ohio. We are VERY late to the game for the fall semester because she has been in Americorps for the last 10 months …