"Leaders of major entertainment and technology trade groups, often at odds over piracy and copyright issues, have found something to agree on: Chances are slim that Congress will jump into their controversies with significant legislation this year."

"[Media] companies need to find new ways to add value, rather than demanding that legislators help them subtract it at the expense of technical progress and individual rights."

"A top Hewlett-Packard printer executive said that although intellectual property rights are vital in the printer industry, rival Lexmark is wrong to try to use a controversial copyright law to safeguard those rights."

"In a final round of skirmishing prior to a court hearing Friday, a North Carolina company argued that a controversial copyright law does not prevent it from selling computer chips that allow toner cartridges to be reused."

Quoting Fred Von Lohmann from the EFF: "All in all, I think Smith will be an improvement over Coble on copyright issues. However, it's much too soon to say how much of an improvement he may turn out to be."

"A group that calls itself 'Europe's creative sector' has slammed the EU's crackdown on piracy, calling the measures 'inadequate.'"

Interview with Valenti, lots of choice quotes: "What is fair use? Fair use is not a law. There's nothing in law. [...] In the digital world, we don't need back-ups, because a digital copy never wears out. It is timeless. [...] Today, it's illegal to copy a videocassette. No one has a fair use to copy a videocassette. If you lose it, you get another one, and there's nothing wrong with that."

"The studios are hissing away over digital copyright protection and are baring their fangs, even after they've extracted blood from technology companies in the form of myriad design compromises to stop copying. After every agreement that has been hailed as the solution, a new problem has cropped up: the 'analog hole' or something else."

"'This is a matter of economics and control. Who are they to dictate what my choices are?' said Bill Aho, chief executive of ClearPlay, a Utah company that provides software to mute and skip movies."

"The file-swapping networks plaguing movie and music moguls are starting to figure out how to make a legitimate buck."

Comic: "'It's important for the public to see that the dark scourge of piracy includes more than the jolly slashing of swords and sinking of ships," said a grim MPAA chief Jack Valenti."

"Kevin Bermeister, Altnet's chief executive, says he has tried to establish a working relationship with music companies — even after they sued. He says he has sometimes won the interest of executives, but never their lawyers."

Interview with John Perry Barlow. "Because economic success in an information economy depends not on scarcity, but on familiarity. You can be the greatest songwriter in the history of song and if 10 people are the only ones who ever heard your songs, it doesn't matter. [...] All of this stuff about 'piracy' is fomented entirely by the record and film industries to perpetuate business models that are completely disadvantageous to both the creator and the audience. They are the biggest pirates in the deal."

In the past five years alone, an emerging alternative to mainstream radio—Internet broadcasting—was nearly smothered by new rules imposed not by the FCC, but by the Copyright Office. Some last-minute legislation softened the injury, but still left many Netcasters with legitimate complaints."

CEO of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry: "Online music piracy is a major problem; there is no doubt of that. But it is a problem to which we are responding proactively - helping to develop the new business models, and defending the rights of record producers, artists and others in the creative chain."

"Broadcasters and their program suppliers have had almost total control over how we view their products since the dawn of TV. The real magic with TiVo and other PVRs isn't the ability to skip commercials, but rather the unprecedented opportunity to wrest nearly absolute control over the time and manner in which programs will be viewed. Skipping or deleting commercials is but a cherry on the sundae."

"Standard-setting to achieve interoperability of Internet networks, codecs, and media players (both hardware and software) certainly has its place as a potentially pro-competitive activity. Traditional antitrust analysis would tend to focus on whether standard-setting might tend to suppress competing standards, yet would allow for the pro-competitive objectives of achieving interoperability among diverse products and systems. What is passing 'under the radar' is the creation of standards to enable 'automated agreements in restraint of trade' along the lines of the examples above."

"This 'gratuitous transfer of wealth,' as Justice John Paul Stevens described it in his dissent, might have gone unchallenged had digital activists not already been confronting efforts by media companies to expand their control of valuable content--ostensibly in response to the threat of digital piracy."

"[B]y publicly stating his support for DVR show-swapping, Powell has damaged, if not destroyed, his credibility on digital copyright issues. I believe that he needs to recuse himself when the subject comes before the commission."

"[T]he filtering companies have a free-speech right to tell consumers at what point in a movie they will find offensive portions, and consumers have a right to heed them and press their remote controls. No law bars these software companies from taking the next step and creating tools to automate the process of avoiding offensive scenes."

"Can Microsoft be trusted? How music labels, Hollywood studios and consumers answer that question could determine whether the software giant dominates digital media the way it does Web browsers or desktop productivity applications, say analysts."

"Aside from offending basic human principles that art should know no borders, it seems hard to believe that the region scheme could even be legal in an era of supposed free trade and globalized culture."

"When the music industry focuses its energy upon putting out a quality product and adapts its marketing strategies to today’s times and technology, it might see a boost in sales."

Janis Ian: "After I first posted downloadable music, my merchandise sales went up 300%. They're still double what they were before the MP3s went online."

"The European Commission on Thursday presented a draft directive that punishes copyright infringement for commercial purposes, but leaves the home music downloader untouched, infuriating the entertainment industry."

"This stalemate is not only a threat to our rights, but also just as responsible as any other factor for the high-tech downturn. If the content industry had been more active, perhaps we'd already be enjoying movie delivery via broadband networks."

"A record executive and his son make a formal case for freely downloading music. The gist: 50 million Americans can't be wrong."

"If you think your prized collection of DVD movies will last a lifetime, think again - some are already starting to rot while others are falling apart." And backups are illegal.