Today was a good day.  Justice O'Connor spoke at Cardozo's graduation.  And the D.C. Circuit said "No" to an FCC request that the court hold off on considering the FCC's jurisdiction to enter the broadcast flag rule [pdf].

This D.C. Circuit order is good news.  FCC argued that their jurisdiction shouldn't ...   more »

Around the time of the dinosaurs, a four inch long creature named Morganucodon oelheri ("Morgie" to his/her friends), scurried between the feet of the dinosaurs. Morgie, a nocturnal, warmblooded, fur-covered animal, holds the distinction -- this week at least -- of being the "first mammal."

Two hundred and ten million years ...   more »

Handel had "one of the most majestic, tender, and human voices ever lifted in praise of life, of love, of beauty, and of the art of music."  

Why are the overtures to Handel's operas so long?  They're so long because Handel expected his audiences to be late.  Very late.  And ...   more »

People don't always act rationally.  If social ties are stronger, they may not ask for exact returns on their investments.  If they see someone being treated unfairly, they may act -- even though they're not themselves part of the unfair transaction.   

There's a movement out there -- soon someday to ...   more »

Someone at a recent meeting said that a software product embodying Hermann Hesse's Glass Bead Game was being developed.  Another person said "I loved that book!" with enormous enthusiasm -- but then couldn't remember what it was about.  So I'm reading it.

I think I'll remember the Glass Bead Game:  ...   more »

ICANN has released its draft new budget (pdf).  The document gives us a good look at how ICANN sees itself.  It's arguably an internally inconsistent view.

ICANN is growing.  This budget calls for ICANN to have almost 60 staff members by the end of the next fiscal year.  Expenses ...   more »

It seems like an important year for online policy.  The FCC is making strides towards treating all online applications alike.  The UN is getting into the internet governance (some people now call it "IG") game.  Every day brings news of one kind or another.

But on Friday I dropped in ...   more »

It's official:  Cardozo will be the site of a one-day Nethead/Bellhead conference on Tuesday, Sept. 28.  I'm hoping to make this as zippy and interactive as BloggerCon and as substantive as TPRC.  But shorter than either.  After being provoked, prodded, and challenged, you'll be home for dinner (if ...   more »

Someone who doesn't know anything about me except my phone number called me up and asked me to come play string quartets tonight.

There's a whole ritual to this.  You don't get to ask who the other players are -- it's like a dinner party in that way.  But there's ...   more »

I was struck by the Post's writeup yesterday of Helen Vendler's talk.  It is clearly right that the arts (and I'd say, specifically, music) provide the most "basic, most fundamental, first access to the world."  It is also clearly right that music and poetry are part of our physical worlds in ways ...   more »

Earlier today the FCC held what it labeled a "VoIP Solutions Summit:  Focus on Disability Access Issues."  It was a four-hour festival during which no negative notes were struck.  The same message came across again and again:  we must regulate all ip-enabled services (not just VoIP) ...   more »

Greg Elin of Fotonotes talked last night about how cameraphone pictures are communicative acts.  People take billions of these pictures already, and as they snap an image they often think to themselves, "I'm going to send this one to my aunt," or "I'm going to post this one on my ...   more »

Here's the elevator speech (might take a very tall building to carry out):

1.  The FCC wants to make sure that the universal service program doesn't run out of money.

2.  The universal service program has historically been funded by enormous access charges paid by long distance companies to local phone companies.

3.  ...   more »

In preparing for today's lecture on internet governance (whatever that is), I ran across an essay by Langdon Winner from 1997. It's called "Cyberlibertarian Myths and the Prospect for Community," and it's pretty bleak.

Mr. Winner says, in summary, that cyberlibertarians in 1997 are both shallow and obsessed. Shallow because ...   more »

It seems to me that we need to get the net heads to talk to the bell heads.  I'm planning to have a Cardozo conference in the fall that would focus on the IP-enabled services rulemaking. 

How can it be that email/IM etc. should be taxed "just a little" and ...   more »

Now that CFP taught me all about FCC regulatory policy, I feel empowered to be paranoid. 

ATT wants to offer VOIP.  Because their service touches the telephone system at some point, the FCC has said that ATT's VOIP will be a regulated service -- meaning CALEA, E911, and other obligations ...   more »

A current FCC Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is suggesting guidelines for IP-enabled services.  At CFP yesterday, Bob Cannon and Chris Savage gave a thorough FCC tutorial, and ended with a discussion of this NPRM and VOIP generally.  I raised my hand and asked whether "IP-enabled services" included the DNS and ...   more »

Have you seen the draft Calif. SB 1506?  Tell me it won't pass.  It makes anyone criminally liable who "knowingly electronically disseminates a commercial recording or
audiovisual work without disclosing his or her true name and address, and the title of the recording or audiovisual work."

You ...   more »

I'm spending the morning at BloggerConII.  Dave Winer is right:  panels and "experts" are dead ways of running conferences.  This one is saying about itself that it's going to be a real discussion.  We'll see.  The crowd is serious and intent.  Good group of discussion leaders, including some of ...   more »

When Cory Ondrejka of Second Life started talking the other night, I had my new (graphically adequately powerful) laptop open.  If you think it's hard to concentrate on a presentation when you're looking at email, just imagine how difficult it is to focus when you're in a different world....   more »

Why do we have reunions?  The Yale Symphony had its first-ever reunion this past weekend, and I have some suggested answers to this question.

We have reunions to celebrate getting older rather than to return to our youth.  It was great to see the current instantiation of the orchestra ...   more »

After they finished the tenth installment of their enormous multi-volume history, The Story of Civilization, Will and Ariel Durant wrote a set of thirteen essays entitled The Lessons of History.  I happened to pick up this volume yesterday; it's both slim and sweeping.  

The Durants loved history, and wanted to show their ...   more »

Steven Johnson's Mind Wide Open is a book you should buy and read.  There is a great deal to say about this book, but I'll start with the jokes.

On p.129, there's a good section about jokes -- it turns out that their real purpose is social bonding rather than ...   more »

This is too long for a blog posting, but here it is -- my lunchtime address to the Copyright Office. 

I'm delighted to be here this afternoon, and thanks to my hosts.  Particularly appropriate that you've come here to Cardozo, which has one of the top-ranked IP programs in ...   more »

It's so bloggy to talk about blogging, but I have to say that blogging the terrific Yale cybercrime conference gave me new insights into the blogging process.

This was a truly enjoyable conference, made more so for me by the fact that I wasn't performing myself.  I had no paper ...   more »

Jack Balkin is up.  He presents three problems: 

first, what are the different forms of cyberprotest, and how do they relate to the freedom of speech?

second, what is the conflict between freedom of speech and other rights (let's clump those rights as "property")?

third, why is cyberprotest difficult to ...   more »