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MPAA Still Trying To Convince ISPs To Act As MPAA Police
The entertainment industry has been on a bit of a crusade this year trying to convince ISPs that either they should feel responsible for the fact that people use their broadband connections to share unauthorized content. It started with NBC Universal arguing that ISPs somehow bore the responsibility for policing their networks for others' content. It's an odd argument, because most ISPs will admit (in a quiet moment) that unauthorized file sharing had been one of the biggest drivers in convincing people to switch from dialup to broadband. Furthermore, considering that there are some enlightened companies who realize that having your best fans promote and distribute your content can be good for business, it's impossible for ISPs to know whether or not the content being passed around is being done so with or without the approval of the content holder. In fact, that can lead to situations where content that producers are happy having shared gets taken down against their will....

Murdoch Seems Poised To Drop WSJ's Paywall As Well
With the New York Times finally realizing (two years too late) that paywalls don't make sense for online newspapers, the one major remaining holdout is still the Wall Street Journal. So, it should come as little surprise that reporters wasted no time in tracking down new owner Rupert Murdoch to see if he stood by earlier comments suggesting that he'd make the Wall Street Journal free online. It certainly sounds like he's still leaning in that direction, saying that he doesn't see how making it free would hurt the paper, and that, if done right, it could help make the paper a lot more money. Indeed, though, we're still waiting for an explanation for why it's taken the pre-eminent business newspaper in the world this long to understand the larger picture.

Forget Flight Simulator Training Pilots, How About A Dump Truck Simulator For Miners?
We've seen stories over the years about how applications like Microsoft's Flight Simulator not only are attracting a new generation of pilots to take up flying, but are getting them started with many more skills than those who haven't used Flight Simulator. It appears other industries may be taking notice. Apparently the industrial heavy equipment maker Caterpillar is pushing simulators of its earth movers, excavators and dump trucks as a way to better train miners to use that equipment. Using simulators to train people is nothing new, obviously -- but what's interesting is the undercurrent to the promotion, noting that there just aren't enough skilled operators of the equipment these days. However, by making it more fun via the simulators, perhaps they can attract more people to become skilled operators. The article notes how much fun a bunch of "hardened miners" were having playing with the simulators at a mining convention, to the point that they were "giggling like...

What Bandwidth Crunch?
While you have lobbyists, consultants and politicians claiming that the internet is on the verge of collapsing due to running out of bandwidth, it seems that the techies would beg to differ. We already pointed out that the report put out by D&T consultants was later refuted by the folks who run the nodes that D&T insisted were at risk of being overwhelmed. Now we have Andrew Odlyzko adding more weight to the idea that the bandwidth crunch that so many lobbyists and telco execs seem to be screaming about is something of a myth. Odlyzko, of course, is also the guy who pointed out that Worldcom was lying back during the dot com boom when it insisted that internet traffic was doubling every 100 days. Now he's noting that internet traffic growth is slowing -- which very few of the doomsday estimates take into account. Internet traffic is still growing, of course, but not at nearly as rapid a pace. That isn't surprising, after all. The internet is starting to reach...

Competitors Response To The iPhone? Can We Talk About Something Else Please!
Back on June 29th, when the iPhone launched, we had some of the experts in the Techdirt Insight Community give their thoughts on how competitors should respond. There were, as per usual with the experts in the community, some really insightful and interesting responses. From that, we've been able to sign new business helping companies formulate and execute on their latest strategies. However, it seems that not everyone is taking a proactive approach to responding to the iPhone (or, at least they're not willing to admit it publicly). Gizmodo points us to an unintentionally amusing article where Laptop Magazine tried to get four competitors to give their thoughts on the iPhone. Rather than admitting that the iPhone has really shifted how many people view mobile phones and what they can do, all of the companies basically toe the corporate line, look the other way on iPhone questions and make sure to mention their own phones as many times as possible. Given the market response,...

Why The Rest Of Tech Industry May Not Be Happy About The EU/Microsoft Decision
While some in the tech industry are cheering the EU's decision to stick to its antitrust fines and penalties against Microsoft, it may not be such a good thing for the industry as a whole. We were already wondering how the decision benefited customers in any way, and Fortune Magazine is noting that this could spell trouble for other successful American tech companies, who have caught the eye of EU antitrust regulators. Intel, Apple and Google are all being looked at carefully -- and with the success against Microsoft notched away, it could be tougher for these other firms to win. If there really is a monopoly problem, making competition nearly impossible, you can make an argument for the government to step in. However, most of these cases look more like European regulators just looking to see how they can punish American tech firms for being successful. Obviously, this doesn't matter nearly as much for smaller firms and startups -- but should those firms become successful...

Note To Gloating Copyright Holders: Taking Down A Single Source Of Content Doesn't Stop Unauthorized Sharing
We've pointed out in the past how silly it is for the entertainment industry to declare a significant blow against "piracy" every time they take down a single source of unauthorized content. Once some content is available online, it is infinitely available. A single copy quickly is made available everywhere. Shutting down a single source isn't just less than a significant blow, it's meaningless. Defenders of the strategy will note two things. They'll say that, first, the copyright holders have every right to (and should) defend their copyright and, second, that by taking down some of these sites, it acts as some kind of hindrance, since it makes it a little bit harder for others to set up such a site (the so-called "speed bump" analogy). While it is true that the copyright holders have the right to try to shut down anyone making their content available -- at some point, as any business should, they should be doing a cost-benefit analysis of the process. If the cost is...

No Wonder The Feds Hate Limewire; Terrorist Threat Assessment Leaked Via Limewire
A few months back, we were a bit surprised at the misplaced anger directed by some Congressional representatives towards file sharing software provider Limewire. There were some outrageous claims about how Limewire represented a threat to national security and how it was all Limewire's fault that stupid government employees had leaked sensitive information. Of course, this was misplaced because it wasn't Limewire's fault that gov't employees were too stupid to configure the software properly. It wasn't Limewire's fault that gov't employees didn't follow rules that forbid them from installing unapproved apps on their machines -- or on transferring sensitive material to personal computers. Instead, it was all blamed on Limewire. It also wasn't entirely clear what sensitive reports had been leaked... but now we know of at least one. Apparently a national security terrorist threat assessment for the city of Chicago was recently available via Limewire. Though, again, the...

Copyright Czar: DMCA Is A Good Law
Marybeth Peters is our nation's "copyright czar," and over the years has tended to side with the big copyright firms over and over again, as if they need her special protection. It's not entirely clear why this big, successful industry needs increasing government protection, rather than learning how to adapt to a changing marketplace on its own (you know, like most other industries), but that's the way it is. In a recent talk, Peters repeated a familiar stance that the DMCA is a good law because it adds to "copyright owners' quiver of arrows to defend themselves." Of course, Peters doesn't discuss who those arrows are pointed at, and the fact that things like the DMCA have put a big fat bullseye on fair use, the public domain and what the general public can do with content. So why should a government official be supporting policies that help a particular industry at the expense of the very concept of copyright that she's supposed to be protecting?The article actually offers...

Microsoft's Tough Night: Google And IBM Both Launch Free Office Products
Just about 24 hours after continued to insist that Microsoft is a monopoly that needs to be restricted, three major tech companies demonstrated why that might not be the case. First up, Google rolled out their long awaited presentations capabilities to Google Docs. Google continues to insist that this is merely a "feature" added to the Google Docs offering, but obviously, this is a light version of PowerPoint. Still, Google seems to recognize that this isn't a full featured offering just yet, and the announcement plays up the biggest strength of Google Docs that can't be matched by Microsoft's Office Suite: the real-time collaboration ability. That's what made the original Writely so useful, and Google seems to recognize that and know to focus on it. My quick test of the software suggests that it works pretty much exactly as you'd expect it to -- which means it's quite simple to pick up and use.While the Google announcement may be more important long-term, it's also worth...