“The Mouse that Ate the Public Domain”. Another fine article on the background to the US Supreme Court’s decision to have a look at the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. Contains the interesting statistic that Disney gave $6.3 million in campaign contributions in 1997-98. Who says money can’t buy you friends?

Interesting, accessible article by a law professor pointing out that the Democrats take far more money ($24.2 million) from the entertainment industry than do the Republicans ($13.3). Which prompts the thought: copyright is an issue where Republicans could, for once, champion the interests of consumers. Will they break the habits of a lifetime?

More wireless networking developments!

Sputnik “envisions a world where people enjoy high-speed wireless access to email, the Web, instant messaging and more — wherever they are. That’s why we created Sputnik Gateway Software and the Sputnik Network, Earth’s first planetary broadband wireless network. When you set up a Sputnik Gateway, you can share unused bandwidth with other Sputnik Subscribers. In turn, you can access bandwidth on the Sputnik Network whenever you are within range of a Sputnik Gateway.”

News.Com: Amazon, Barnes&Noble settle patent suit. Amazon.com said Wednesday that it has settled its long-running patent-infringement suit against Barnes&Noble.com over its 1-Click checkout system. The details of the settlement were not disclosed. The settlement filed Tuesday with the U.S. district court in Seattle ends the dispute… [Tomalak’s Realm]

Nice Technology Review piece on the idea of wireless broadband as a community resource.

“This isn’t just some techno-utopian notion — it’s today’s reality. Of course, there’s not much incentive to set up towers and deliver free wireless broadband to homes that can’t get high-speed Net access through cable modems or digital subscriber lines. But many businesses and universities are doing their part right now by making wireless Internet service available without restriction in their buildings and nearby public areas.

The other day, for example, I was at the Boston University school of journalism to have lunch with a friend, but he wasn’t there. Realizing that I was half an hour early, I took out my laptop and discovered that I was getting an excellent signal from the school’s wireless network. But I didn’t just get a signal — the university’s network helpfully gave my laptop an address on the Internet. Within moments I was downloading my e-mail and surfing the Web. When I shut down my computer 30 minutes later, the address was automatically returned to the university. And since the J-school’s network wasn’t running at full capacity at the time, even my minor use of bandwidth had no impact on other users. Total cost to Boston University: zero. (The same thing happened a few weeks later when I was at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.)”

At last — a real, working 3G network!
Guardian Online report.

Shhhh — don’t tell anyone, but the Isle of Man has the world’s first operational 3G mobile network. And according to this report, ” it is easy to see the attraction of 3G for laptop users: with 3G, suddenly you could have a mobile connection substantially faster than the one you have at home, as fast as the one in the office. But while Manx Telecom refuses to talk about pricing – all the trial users are on a free tariff for the first three months while their usage is monitored and analysed – it is likely that 3G will not be priced to rival fixed broadband services. Plug-in 3G PC cards for laptops are likely to be popular ways to use the technology, for travelling business people who need their corporate email or presentations from a central server, or online games players who need a quick deathmatch on the move. “

Just as I always thought: the main use for 3G is really as a fast modem.

More on wireless broadband — a downbeat assessment, this time
Salon story.

Wi-Fi Nation is on indefinite hold, at least until computer-carrying consumers can roam beyond the invisible tether of the base station at the office, or the AirPort in the family den. With tens of millions of customers ready to be wireless by next year, and the price of a Wi-Fi laptop dropping below $1,000, why isn’t AT&T setting up antennae for us, instead of shutting down its Digital Broadband service?

The answer is less about technology than the shifting flows of capital in the 21st century. The wireless Internet won’t be rolled out telecom-style, like DSL or cable modems. In the wake of embarrassing failures to create top-down networks, it will be built from the ground up, by a patchwork quilt of players. Imagine the gradual knitting together of cellular roaming service in the ’90s, but with 10,000 antenna owners rather than 10 giant carriers. Rather than risking billions of investors’ dollars on a ubiquitous rollout, entrepreneurs will play for smaller stakes in more proven local or niche markets: When we come, they will build it.

What the broadband industry doesn’t get — Internet users are not couch potatoes

WASHINGTON, D.C.-As Americans gain experience online, they use the Internet more for their jobs, to make more online purchases and carry out other financial transactions, and to write emails with more significant and intimate content.

A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project compares a group of Internet users’ online behavior between March 2000 and March 2001. The report on these findings, called “Getting Serious Online,” shows that over time Internet users become more purposeful, efficient, and self-assured in using the Web and email to support some of life’s most important activities.

“The Internet has gone from novelty to utility for many Americans,” says Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. “They are beginning to take it for granted, but they can’t imagine life without it.”

See here for full text of the report.

Global noose tightens on copyright
Financial Times story.

A landmark international treaty reinforcing the protection of copyright in cyberspace comes into force on Wednesday amid controversy in the US and Europe over whether tougher copyright rules stimulate or inhibit creativity on the internet.

The copyright treaty, negotiated by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (Wipo) in 1996, and a sister treaty protecting sound recordings that comes into effect in May update copyright law for the digital age.

They have added some controversial features, which have already led to a string of legal challenges in the US, one of the first countries to introduce implementing legislation.

The treaties outlaw attempts to circumvent encryption and other techniques designed to prevent unauthorised copying and ensure royalties are paid.

After LANs and WANs come NANs — Neighbourhood Area Networks. For those of us who have long thought that 802.11b wireless networking is the truly disruptive networking technology, here’s a New York Times piece which suggests that even the establishment is beginning to realise that there might be something in this — and in particular that a mesh of 802.11b systems might be the way that broadband actually reaches the masses. Fascinating stuff.