Larry Lessig on Michael Powell and the FCC’s attitude towards spectrum

Larry thinks that Michael (son of Colin) Powell may, in the long run, come to be more famous than his father. Why? Because the FCC Chairman is beginning to flirt with the idea that maybe the electromagnetic spectrum should be a commons rather than a monopoly resource to be allocated or sold by government. This links with my earlier pointer to David Reed’s conjecture that the notion of finite spectrum is based on a fundamental misconception.

Chris Patten gets a proper job at last

Chris Patten, former Cabinet Minister, former Governor of Hong Kong, and current EU Commissioner for Foreign Affairs, has been elected Chancellor of Oxford University. One of my colleagues was an undergraduate at Balliol with him and remembers sprawling on a lawn with the great man after Finals ended. The conversation turned to what they were going to do after university. “I’m going into politics”, Patten said. “Oh really”, said my colleague, “which party?”. “Don’t know yet”, replied Patten, “I’ve written to both”. I liked what Patten said recently when a journalist asked him whether the EU would contribute to the rebuilding of Iraq after the Anglo-American invasion. He replied that he thought the appropriate rule would be what china and porcelain shops all over the world say to browsing customers: “If you break it, you own it”.