David Carr Larry Lessig & Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy spoke at the NY Public Library last week:

The tickets for the event Thursday sold out in five minutes on the Internet, and on the evening itself the lines stretched down the block. The reverent young fans might as well have been holding cellphones aloft as totems of their fealty.

Then again, this was the New York Public Library, a place of very high ceilings and even higher cultural aspirations, so the rock concert vibe created some dissonance. Inside, things became clearer as two high priests of very different tribes came together to address the question of “Who Owns Culture?” – a discussion of digital file-sharing sponsored by Wired magazine, part of a library series called “Live From the NYPL.”

Both Jeff Tweedy, the leader of the fervently followed rock band Wilco, and Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford University law professor who has opposed criminalizing file sharing, seemed to agree that just about anybody who owns a modem also owns – or at least has every right to download – culture products.

Audio archive is available on Wilco’s web site.

Craig Gilbert:

Most of the debate involves a handful of the new powers, such as government access to personal records from medical offices, libraries and businesses.
Sensenbrenner suggested that most of the 16 temporary powers could be made permanent, but that a few would remain subject to a sunset, or expiration date.
“I think it’s evident . . . there’s not going to be a repeal of the sunset,” Sensenbrenner said, referring to the fact that even some Republicans on his committee oppose making all the expiring provisions permanent.

Joanna Glasner:

Two major data brokers, a California elementary school and Google’s Gmail service are leading contenders for the Big Brother Awards — a dubious prize spotlighting organizations with egregious privacy practices.
Award recipients will receive a statue of a golden boot stomping on a human head.
The nominees were among those on a list made public Wednesday by Privacy International, the British watchdog group that runs the annual U.S. Big Brother Awards. The group plans to announce winners on April 14.

Steve Wozniak passes along a story about how some folks deal with the unfamiliar.