I don’t have a great deal to add to coverage of last week’s big patent story, which concerned the filing of a complaint by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen against major technology companies including Apple, Google, Facebook and Yahoo. Diane Searcey of The Wall Street Journal, Tom Krazit at CNET News.com, and Mike Masnick on Techdirt [...]
Larry Downes is a consultant and speaker on developing business
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Meditations in a Privacy Emergency
August 24th, 2010
Emotions ran high at this week’s Privacy Identity and Innovation conference in Seattle. They usually do when the topic of privacy and technology is raised, and to me that was the real take-away from the event. As expected, the organizers did an excellent job providing attendees with provocative panels, presentations and keynotes talks—in particular an [...]
New white paper from PFF on Title II “sins”
August 20th, 2010
The Progress and Freedom Foundation has just published a white paper I wrote for them titled “The Seven Deadly Sins of Title II Reclassification (NOI Remix).” This is an expanded and revised version of an earlier blog post that looks deeply into the FCC’s pending Notice of Inquiry regarding broadband Internet access. You can download [...]
Deconstructing the Google-Verizon Framework
August 10th, 2010
I’ve just published a long analysis for CNET of the proposed legislative framework presented yesterday by Google and Verizon. The proposal has generated howls of anguish from the usual suspects (see Cecilia Kang, “Silicon Valley criticizes Google-Verizon accord” in The Washington Post; Matthew Lasar’s “Google-Verizon NN Pact Riddled with Loopholes” on Ars Technica and Marguerite [...]
Flurry of activity on net neutrality this week signals progress
August 5th, 2010
At ten A.M. this morning, CNET News.com asked if I could write an article unraveling the legal implications of a rumored deal between Google and Verizon on net neutrality. I didn’t see how I could analyze a deal whose terms (and indeed, whose existence) are unknown, but I thought it was a good opportunity to [...]
Copyright Office Weighs in on Awkward Questions of Software Law
July 29th, 2010
I dashed off a piece for CNET today on the Copyright Office’s cell phone “jailbreaking” rulemaking earlier this week. Though there has already been extensive coverage (including solid pieces in The Washington Post, a New York Times editorial, CNET, and Techdirt), there were a few interesting aspects to the decision I thought were worth highlighting. [...]
The Horses are Gone–So Let’s Close Some Other Barn Door
July 23rd, 2010
The White House and the Federal Communications Commission have painted themselves into a very tight and very dangerous corner on Net Neutrality. To date, a bi-partisan majority of Congress, labor leaders, consumer groups and, increasingly, some of the initial advocates of open Internet rules are all shouting that the agency has gone off the rails [...]
After the deluge, more deluge
July 21st, 2010
If I ever had any hope of “keeping up” with developments in the regulation of information technology—or even the nine specific areas I explored in The Laws of Disruption—that hope was lost long ago. The last few months I haven’t even been able to keep up just sorting the piles of printouts of stories I’ve [...]
The Seven Deadly Sins of Title II Reclassification (NOI Remix)
July 13th, 2010
Better late than never, I’ve finally given a close read to the Notice of Inquiry issued by the FCC on June 17th. (See my earlier comments, “FCC Votes for Reclassification, Dog Bites Man”.) In some sense there was no surprise to the contents; the Commission’s legal counsel and Chairman Julius Genachowski had both published comments [...]
Bilski: Justice Stevens’ Last Tilt at the IP Windmills
June 29th, 2010
I dashed off a quick analysis of the Bilski decision for CNET yesterday (see “Supreme Court Hedges on Business Method Patents”), a follow-up to a piece I wrote for The Big Money when the case was argued last fall. (See “Not with my Digital Economy, You Don’t.”) The decision was a surprise for me. I [...]