Plan to extend copyright on pop classics – Sunday Times – Times Online
They justify the move by saying that the industry needs money to “find talent?” Wow! What have music fans been doing through MP3 exchanges, Podcasts, shows, festivals, etc.? Plus, how do you define talent, in this context? It seems to be “the ability to generate record sales” as opposed to any specific musical ability, whether inborn or learned.
Weird.
These people (the recording industry) really have a peculiar perspective on music. They will transform themselves eventually. But in the meantime, they seem to react pretty badly to changes in the world of music.

Dell makes car analogy with launch of new PCs:

for the majority of everyday applications, a two- or three-year-old system is just fine

Did they just realize this?

Macworld: News: Companies adopt activation as software piracy tops $33 billion
Somewhat elaborate article on software piracy. Well, it skims over several issues and doesn’t go into any depth. Still, it’s interesting to look at some ideas of those associated to the Business Software Alliance and compare them with the recording industry’s stance.
One interesting/insightful quote:

“I tend to be somewhat dubious about so-called lost sales estimates, because it’s not reasonable to assume that every pirated copy is a lost sale,” said Jupiter analyst, Joe Wilcox. “Additionally, the estimates assume that nobody pays, which isn’t the case.”

So the question of software piracy might be analyzed in a slightly more clueful fashion than that of music transfers. Although, the “loaf of bread” fallacy is used by the BSA too:

Software piracy is a relatively anonymous experience that can be done from the comfort of your home, but the BSA said it’s no different than walking into the local Best Buy and stealing something from them. While most people would have a problem stealing from a store, downloading a piece of software seems much easier for them.

Still, software developers quoted in this piece (or, at least, their representative) seem much more clueful than the BSA lobby group:

Adobe has heard of workarounds available at some piracy Web sites that [Adobe senior manager Licensing and Anti-Piracy] Nanavati said do appear to work. However, as with the other companies, Adobe’s first concern is for its customers, not stopping every person that wants to steal its software.

Sure, these all contrast with the ideals of the Free Software moverment/groups/philosophy. It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that Bill Gates was one of the first to propose a business model on selling PC software. Like music becoming a commodity (as opposed to, say, an art), software code has become the basis for a huge economy. Sure, some people got rich through both processes. But how did humanity become richer through software has little to do with end-user license agreements.

Ah, well…

Times: CIA outrages UK academics/anthropologists

The Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program (Prisp) funded anthropology students by up to $50,000 each through undergraduate courses if they agreed to work for the US intelligence services when they graduate

The only thing that surprises me: didn’t we expect this to be done anyway? We’re being told that the CIA reads our work and that they’ve taken anthro classes. Aren’t people allowed to take our classes even if their goals clashes with the goals of the discipline?