The Register: Microsoft man seeks US Net Radio reprieve. A bill to protect grassroots Internet radio has been offered before Congress. The Internet Radio Fairness Act would exempt webcasters with less than $6 million in annual revenues from the additional RIAA royalty and from future royalty requirements. [Tomalak’s Realm]

A new challenge to the DMCA

According to this this NEWS.COM report, the ACLU have challenged the DMCA using an ingenious angle. A Harvard researcher investigating the encrypted block-lists used by filtering software companies wants to crack the encryption so that he can assess how effective the programs are. But that would constitute creating an anti-circumvention device, wouldn’t it? See you in court.

Ah, the poor, coy New York Times — cannot bring itself to say ‘fuckedcompany.com’

“The publisher of the Web site whose name is a vulgarism for “failed company” plans to spin off part of that site into a new unit. Drawing from a deep well of material sent by fans of corporate comeuppance, Philip J. Kaplan said he would roll out a new site, InternalMemos.com, this morning.

On it, readers can sample some of the more than 800 examples of internal business correspondence sent to Mr. Kaplan over the last three years by aggrieved employees of various companies. …”. [More.]

My Observer column — about the unauthorised fingerprinting of UK schoolchildren — is on the Web.

200,000 UK school children are finger-printed without parental knowledge or consent
Privacy International statement.

And all because they lose their library cards. PI resources page on this story here.

Gates admits to concern about Linux
“NYT” report.

“The company is as strong as or stronger than all competitors in its key markets, he added. But he said he was concerned about the Global Services division at I.B.M. and the Linux operating system, both of which have significant momentum.

“I.B.M. in Global Services has a strong asset, and they’ve managed to get Websphere out,” he said, referring to the company’s foray in the Web-based services market. Microsoft is trying to become a player in the corporate computing market with its .Net (pronounced dot-net) initiative, though analysts say it is trailing I.B.M., which has giant reach in the corporate marketplace and has adopted the Linux system.”

How to create an audioblog

Wonderful piece of programming by Russell Beattie. Details here.

DaveNet: Hollywood wants the right to hack your computer. A great, impassioned essay by Dave Winer. I agree with every word of it.

Internet radio is dead (killed by swingeing royalties), long live Peercasting
Fascinating Guardian Online article about webcasting using the Gnutella protocol.

Douglas Rushkoff :The AOL and Time Warner merger was doomed from the start

Typically sane piece by someone who really understands the Net. Excerpt:

“When AOL bought Time Warner, the New York Times asked me to write a comment piece. “What does it all mean?” my assigning editor asked.

What I wrote was that AOL’s purchase of Time Warner heralded the end of the dotcom bubble. AOL was cashing in its casino chips. And just like the gambler who trades in his coloured plastic disks for real cash, AOL’s Steve Case understood that his run was over and that it was time to trade in his stock certificates for those of a company that had genuine assets.

The New York Times refused to run the piece. They told me I was misreading the landscape to such an extent that for them to publish such a view would be irresponsible. See, all the experts – at least all the experts the Times was listening to – believed that the AOL purchase of Time Warner indicated “new” media’s domination of “old” media. Interactivity would take over. Time Warner’s only hope of getting in the game was to be absorbed by a new media company. ..”