Derek had a few problems this week with AOL 😉

Sweet Jesus, AOL Guy! I want to cancel my goddamn service!. So I’ve had an AOL account forever. When my mother-in-law was alive, we paid for her account, and then when… [Derek’s Rantings and Musings]

I never really thought of it this way until now.  I was a huge fan of PointCast!

A little over seven years ago I wrote a glowing review of the then-new Pointcast system. The review ran in Wired, and in huge type at Pointcast’s tradeshow booth. And for the next seven years, after Pointcast’s quick demise, we’ve been rebuilding the system, with open formats, choice, two-way-ness, and with a better scaling proposition. People who love the network that RSS forms will recognize the story. [Scripting News]

His debt has been paid – take a look at who the victim is now…

Megan’s Law Nonsense. So I read this on CNN.com today. Basically, this sex offender was convicted, did his time, and is now released… [Derek’s Rantings and Musings]

losing. So I’ve got to go get onto a plane to go to my least favorite city (DC). My inbox is filling with kind emails from friends. Also with a few of a different flavor. It’s my nature to identify most closely with those of the different flavor. David Gossett at the law firm of Mayer Brown wrote Declan, “Larry lost Eldred, 7-2.” Yes, no matter what is said, that is how I will always view this case. The constitutional question is not even close. To have failed to get the Court to see it is my failing. It has often been said that movements gain by losing in the Supreme Court. Some feminists say it would have been better to lose Roe, because that would have built a movement in response. I have often wondered whether it would ever be possible to lose a case and yet smell victory in the defeat. I’m not yet convinced it’s possible. But if there is any good that might come from my loss, let it be the anger and passion that now gets to swell against the unchecked power that the Supreme Court has said Congress has. When the Free Software Foundation, Intel, Phillis Schlafly, Milton Friedman, Ronald Coase, Kenneth Arrow, Brewster Kahle, and hundreds of creators and innovators all stand on one side saying, “this makes no sense,” then it makes no sense. Let that be enough to move people to do something about it. Our courts will not. I will always be grateful to Eric Eldred, and our other plaintiffs, for putting his faith in this case. I will always regret not being able to meet that faith with the success it deserves. What the Framers of our constitution did is not enough. We must do more. [Lessig Blog]

Larry Lessig In Deep Thought

With many other bloggers today, I’m really sorry to read these words on Professor Lessig’s blog: “The Supreme Court rejected our challenge to the Sonny Bono law.” I’m sorry for him and sorry for us. But as usual, I wanted to write about another angle to the Lessig story.

I’ve long been absolutely transfixed by the picture of Professor Lessig on his blog. I love that picture. Deep in thought, working like hell to get the words out on the net, pensive, focused, serious. It’s just about the most perfect picture of someone in the act of blogging I’ve ever seen. It gives us something to which we should all aspire, dedicated thought and communication.

Professor Lessig actually reminds me of Betty Grable — that quintessential pose of the pretty girl with the million dollar legs that every GI had tacked up in his barracks. A photograph with a perfect essence, a perfect expression of a certain time and place. I don’t mean anything racy here. I just mean that the picture of Lessig is the perfect knowledge worker pin-up photo.

So thank you for all your hard work and please roll with the punches today, Professor Lessig. With a millon dollar furrowed brow like that, we know you’ll be back to win another day! [Halley’s Comment]

Challenge to Bono Act Rejected 7-2 – “Here’s the decision (via Copyfight via Lessig).  Copyfight and Law Meme will be burning up the blogosphere on this one.”  [via The Trademark Blog]. 

First of all, I want to say that Larry Lessig is to be commended for his heroic efforts.  I haven’t read the opinion but I am sure that it will reveal that larger forces dictated the ruling.  I don’t think that there is any way that Lessig could have won the case.  I hope one day to have the opportunity to shake his hand and thank him for trying.

[Ernie the Attorney]

A little inspiration.

Thinking about what we face in our renewed battle against Business as Usual, I recall some of the quotes from Martin Luther King, inscribed in glass at his Yerba Buena Gardens memorial, which stands behind a waterfall beside the grassy roof of Moscone North in San Francisco. Each brings to mind a different leader in our movement:

For Larry: The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

For Dave: Through our scientific genius, we have made this world a neighborhood; now through our moral and spiritual development we must make of it a brotherhood. In a real sense, we must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools.

For Richard: There is nothing in all the world greater than freedom. It is worth paying for; it is worth going to jail for. I would rather die in abject poverty with my convictions than live in inordinate riches with lack of self-respect.

For all of us (and especially David): We must rapidly begin to shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

Yes, I know they don’t all agree about everything. That doesn’t matter.

[The Doc Searls Weblog]