Some sanity in the copyright wars a Federal appeals court has overturned the FCC’s rule requiring that consumer electronic makers help restrict the copying of digital TV broadcasts. Michael Grebb | Lessig | Dave Winer on things worth copying, or not | Stephen Labaton

Interesting local cybersquatting:

The progressive biweekly newspaper The Madison Observer accused its conservative counterpart The Mendota Beacon Wednesday of “cybersquatting,” or anonymously buying two web domains similar to The Madison Observer’s and redirecting those sites to The Mendota Beacon’s website.

Siobhan Gorman:

Call it Total Information Awareness, homeland-style.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff this week floated an idea to start a nonprofit group that would collect information on private citizens, flag suspicious activity, and send names of suspicious people to his department.

Your papers, please….

Yet another reason to move off of Microsoft Windows:

In a move that could rankle privacy advocates, Microsoft said Monday that it is adding the PC equivalent of a flight data recorder to the next version of Windows, in an effort to better understand and prevent computer crashes.

The tool will build on the existing Watson error-reporting tool in Windows but will provide Microsoft with much deeper information, including what programs were running at the time of the error and even the contents of documents that were being created. Businesses will also choose whether they want their own technology managers to receive such data when an employee’s machine crashes.

Mary Jo Foley on Microsoft’s plans to restrict your rights on the next PC you purchase.

Reuters:

An investigation by the firm’s Anglo-Dutch parent Reed Elsevier determined that its databases had been fraudulently breached 59 times using stolen passwords, leading to the possible theft of personal information such as addresses and Social Security numbers.

Scott Simon:

In Cleveland, thousands of confidential hospital records went flying when they fell off the back of a truck. The Cleveland Clinic says it will try to contact all who may have been affected by the lost documents.

Audio

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.