ORG COMM

Will Google survive Grokster?

Here's an example of worst case scenario. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be a huge stretch legally:

Will Google survive Grokster?: Cory Doctorow: Siva Vaidhyanathan's editorial on the Grokster decision is up on Salon, and it considers the fallout from the vague new "inducement" standard that the court invented:

What about Google? Consider this: Google, like Grokster, is primarily a search engine. Its business model relies on advertisements. And the more we use Google, the more money it makes. Like Grokster, Google resolves communication queries. It generates a link from an information provider to an information seeker. And almost all of what it delivers is copyrighted.

The fact that no major copyright industry player has brought Google to court so far is merely a function of the fact that most copyright holders want Google to index and offer links to their materials. There is no explicit contract. You have to opt out of the Google world.

But there is one major difference between Grokster and Google. Grokster does no copying itself. It merely induces and enables.

If anyone infringes, it's Google: The company caches millions of Web pages without permission (again, giving copyright holders the option of protesting). And soon it will offer millions of copyrighted books in electronic form without payment or permission. How would Google fare in a post-Grokster world? The publishing industry no doubt wonders. And it just might sue to find out.

Link

(Via Boing Boing Blog)

Star Wars and America's Decline

Very interesting take on Star Wars as cultural parable:

Star Wars and America's Decline:

As John Markoff notes in an e-mail, Neal Stephenson has an excellent op-ed piece in today's New York Times -- but the last two paragraphs should have come first. Here they are:

Scientists and technologists have the same uneasy status in our society as the Jedi in the Galactic Republic. They are scorned by the cultural left and the cultural right, and young people avoid science and math classes in hordes. The tedious particulars of keeping ourselves alive, comfortable and free are being taken offline to countries where people are happy to sweat the details, as long as we have some foreign exchange left to send their way. Nothing is more seductive than to think that we, like the Jedi, could be masters of the most advanced technologies while living simple lives: to have a geek standard of living and spend our copious leisure time vegging out.

If the "Star Wars" movies are remembered a century from now, it'll be because they are such exact parables for this state of affairs. Young people in other countries will watch them in classrooms as an answer to the question: Whatever became of that big rich country that used to buy the stuff we make? The answer: It went the way of the old Republic.

Don't worry about it. Just go out and bid on that house you wish you could afford.

(Via Dan Gillmor's blog)