As I mentioned the other day, it appears the FCC deregulation of media ownership rules is a fait accompli, cosmetic hearings and over 9,000 negative public comments notwithstanding. The three Republican commissioners don’t appear to give a rodent’s rectum what anyone has to say about their pact with the Giant …

The movie is big news, the video game may be bigger news: Movie-themed video games aren’t exactly a novel idea, but none can match the hype surrounding Atari’s Matrix game, which will work on all the major gaming platforms. The game is being pumped up at this week’s E3 trade …

This is a great time to be alive if you find copyright law fascinating. Now the right of publicity is in danger of being extended in California – this time I’m with the entertainment biz: After more than 40 years in the business, Johnny and Edgar Winter are legendary Texas …

Lawrence Lessig and Rep. Zoe Lofgren are looking for digital bounty hunters to track down spammers: Perhaps it was only coincidence that Stanford law professor Larry Lessig chose last week, the opening week of hunting season on wild turkeys, to propose legislation that would pay a bounty to private citizens …

More stupid copyright butt-clenching inanity: millions of people around the world have wasted thousands of man-hours pondering over the exact wording of songs, probably ever since the invention of the record player. The good news is that the internet has come to the rescue: over the last few years dozens …

We keep bitching about the consumer-unfriendliness of copy-protection in CDs: consumers do not want restrictions on what they can do with their own CDs, DVDs, or MP3s and other digital codecs, either. Once it’s yours, it should be yours and screw their encryption. PW Newsline says the same thinking applies …

Newly married and musically improving Russell Crowe and his band 30 Odd Foot of Grunts are coming to the U.S. to perform live. For Crowe-heads that’s the good news: the bad news is they are performing only three shows and they’re all in Chicago: Russell Crowe & 30 Odd Foot …

I am just disgusted by this Tommy Chong bong nonsense: not only is the War on Drugs – marijuana in particular – stupid, counterproductive, polarizing, wasteful, and just plain retarded, but the War on Drug Paraphernalia is even more removed from sanity. How can it even be constitutional to arrest …

Michael Croft’s instincts were correct about Microsoft’s iLoo porta-potty snafu: it was a real project that withered in the light of day, not a hoax perpetuated by the entire British division of MS. Thanks also to our VisualSimplicity for news of the MS reversal. If you haven’t been following this …

Howard Carmack, of Buffalo NY, the “Buffalo Spammer” who has sent over 850 million spam emails, has been arrested under new NY identity theft statute enacted in November: “We believe Carmack is one of the largest (spammers) and believe there are a significant number of them,” [New York Attorney General …