Culture and Society

Properly, trust is a two-way street – this isn’t that: Your next personal computer may well come with its own digital chaperon. ….Silicon Valley – led by Microsoft and Intel – calls the concept “trusted computing.” The companies, joined by I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard, Advanced Micro Devices and others, argue that the …

I find this hilarious, combining about five different stereotypes – I love the image of hordes of Japanese girls snapping away on “backwards” magazines, sending the pics out to their digital buddies. And as always, the assumption by content owners is that information shared is a sale lost. It’s a …

An appeals court says you are not libel for information you republish on the Internet: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last Tuesday that Web loggers, website operators and e-mail list editors can’t be held responsible for libel for information they republish, extending crucial First Amendment protections to do-it-yourself …

Encouraged by the Grokster ruling, spurred by a new assault on sharers threatened by the RIAA, file sharing companies are banding together to lobby the U.S., Europe, and you mama: Internet file-sharing firms are forming a lobbying group in Europe to defend their business interests against media companies trying to …

Frank Rich finds that the American public’s attention span, sense of quality and critical independence are longer and stronger than the entertainment industry gives it credit for: Here’s what’s wrong with kids in the digital age. They live in front of their TV and PC screens. They steal music online. …

Hey, that’s pretty funny. The real problem, though, is that none of them are ignorant, they’re really smart people in fact, who seem to think the consuming public owes them something. This new campaign to scare the public “straight” regarding file sharing could in fact alienate such a large percentage …

I understand the seriousness of this for the satellite and cable companies, and the for-profit element removes most of my sympathy, but, um… A man who schemed to steal satellite television signals now has something much bigger than a cable bill to pay — a whopping $180 million restitution order …

File sharing traffic has changed little since the RIAA threat of last week, and users are talking tough but not revealing their last names to reporters. What we need is an overt deep pockets challenge to the suits. The NY Post: Catch us if you can! That seems to be …

The moral of this story is if you get hold of a prerelease copy of a film, keep it to yourself. If you make that unfinished copy available, and people respond negatively to it, you will be hunted down like a dog: Kerry Gonzalez, a 24-year-old New Jersey insurance underwriter, …

Gateway hopes to return to profitability with the help of home electronics: The Poway, Calif., company has crafted the new device to look and act like a regular DVD player, but it will also be able to access and play multimedia files stored on a PC. Gateway plans to begin …