Culture and Society

Jack Valenti, the 81-year-old president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America since 1966, in on a mission: to deny you have any fair use rights at all. He’s been pretty successful so far: Valenti is considered one of Washington’s top lobbyists to Capitol Hill on behalf …

We regularly document here the evils of the DMCA, the Digital Milliennium Copyright Act, whose greatest crime is to prevent consumers from legally making backup copies of their own DVDs or copy-protected CDs. As bad as the federal DMCA is, some states have even worse laws, as Hanah Metchis of …

The Bear is the coolest, always pushing, prodding and making the blogosphere a better and more interesting place. His Blog Ecosystem was the first of its kind, lighting the way for the many blog indexes that have followed. I remember his first Ecosystem, there were about 200 blogs and I …

Is your spam flood a mere trickle? Do you get at least 100 pieces of spam per day like I do? Want to bump up your spam quotient? Try these tips: Put an E-mail address on a high-traffic Web site. Post (or reply to a post) on Usenet. Post (or …

Jackass star Steve-O Glover was arrested in Sweden following a raid on his hotel room. Why the raid? Glover and other “Jackass” regulars had performed their “Don’t Try This at Home” show in the Swedish capital Wednesday night. Prosecutor Gunnar Fjaestad said the raid happened after Glover said he swallowed …

Democratic presidential hopeful Howard Dean has raised $1 million via the Internet: The former Vermont governor and self-described underdog has used the Internet to complement traditional fund-raising techniques, collecting contributions through his Web site and e-mail at little cost to his campaign. Dean hit the $1 million mark in Internet …

Kazaa about to become the single most popular free software on the Web with 230 million downloads – the RIAA intends to sue and/or disable the computers of every one of those bastards: As of late Thursday, the Kazaa Media Desktop application–a file-sharing software that has drawn the wrath of …

Derrick Story of the O’Reilly Network wants to hear from you: It has just been reported that six Butterfinger candy bars were illegally downloaded into a college student’s backpack from Sam’s newsstand in New York City. The candy was then distributed to friends who are know to have a craving …

New survey says computer users, especially teens, see it as entertainment center: The survey, which polled more than 2,000 computer users over age 13, found that the computer is redefining how people are entertaining themselves at home. The results revealed that 61 percent view the PC as more important than …

The Czechs have an interesting little system going over which the labels are most displeased: Music-industry lawyers have finished gathering evidence that they hope will put an end to a Czech curiosity — CD owners’ clubs, which the attorneys say encourage violations of copyright laws. Industry representatives will this month …