Tech at Night

Apparently Kim Dotcom is already tired of living as a fugitive in New Zealand. Tired of laying about, risking capsizing an island, he’s quitting the new Mega to focus on his defense.

Meanwhile, it’s unfortunate that this anarchist was allowed in the country. Let’s just bar him from the United States, please?

The latest problem with Net Neutrality? It tramples over the Bill of Rights. Opposing the FCC’s power grab is the position in favor of civil liberties.

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Tech at Night

It’s funny how the same House Judiciary Committee that took up SOPA is now taking up IRFA, opposed by a growing list of groups including Taxpayers Protection Alliance, ATR, CAGW, and ACU. SOPA of course would have grown government in the name of strengthening copyright. IRFA makes government meddle more in a way that weakens copyright. And not in a good way, either: IRFA would not encourage innovation or content creation. It just favors Internet broadcasters over everyone else.

Also yeah, the RSC paper on Copyright that I backed before it was wrongly pulled, it is not a statement against property rights nor is it against copyright at all. If the side favoring ever-lengthening copyright cannot argue honestly with us, and has to mischaracterize those of us who favor an approach to copyright that balances the interests involved, then that to me suggests a deficiency in their position.

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Tech at Night

I know, I know. The way that broadcasts travel across state lines, it’s important that some sort of national control step in, because the states can’t do it. But the way the Obama FCC operates, sometimes I wonder if it’s worth all the trouble.

Instead of working to ensure we have the spectrum we need allocated to the purposes we want, The Obama FCC constantly works as a roadblock, earlier against AT&T, and now against Verizon.

This same FCC is also, with apparently no objection from the President, actively and openly stonewalling Chuck Grassley and the Senate in attempts at applying reasonable oversight to the committee.

The FCC has too many secrets and tries to make too many decisions over the private sector. We have to fix this.

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Tech at Night: After Thanksgiving Catch Up Edition

On November 29, 2010, in General, by Neil Stevens
Tech at Night

Hello! The big story that we’ve been following with Tech at Night since the beginning has been Net Neutrality, but right now we’re still stuck waiting on this issue. Republicans aren’t going to act on it until January at the earliest, and we aren’t going to know what (if anything) the FCC will do on the issue in December until they tell us. So we wait, spread the word on why it’s not needed, and of course get loud against the radicals.

So until then, we return to what was once the big tech issue, and what might again become the big tech issue: Copyright.

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Tech at Night

Good evening. A story I expect to hear more about is this a proposed subsidy for radio stations and the RIAA both of some sort of legal requirement for new cellular phones to include an FM radio receiver.

Such a requirement would raise costs on everyone, lower innovation and even basic differentiation options, and be nothing but a detriment to anyone who shops for cellular phones in America. We’d best raise awareness against this before it’s too late.

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Nima Jooyandeh facts.