Net Neutrality, Netflix, Speed Bumps, Cable and Broadband, Lobby Folly; TPP, Copyfight; Online News; eBooks, Publishing, Wikipedia; Sochi

Net Neutrality

• FCC to rewrite net neutrality rules, won’t appeal court ruling WaPo
• White House: Without Net Neutrality "the Internet could turn into a high-priced private toll road"
• Republicans Will Try to Kill New Net-Neutrality Rules—"A showdown looms as the FCC announces bid to revive regulations recently struck down in federal court."

Netflix

• Verizon seeks payment for carrying Netflix traffic, WSJ reports—"Feud between ISPs, Netflix, and Internet bandwidth providers continues."
• Netflix slow on Verizon or Comcast? A VPN might speed up that video—"ISPs could throttle traffic if they want—but Netflix can play dirty tricks too."
• Netflix speeds lag for Verizon users amid dispute
• Netflix to Pay Comcast for Smoother Streaming
• Is Netflix Slowing Down? Good Luck Finding Out Why.—"The FCC wants to force ISPs to show whether delays are due to unavoidable congestion or created to extract fees from content providers."

Speed Bumps

• Here is why your Internet is so pathetic and so expensive WaPo
• Americans Are Getting Gouged Over LTE Data Speeds And Costs
• America's fastest mobile networks are left in the dust by Brazil, Russia, and Mexico—"In a study of 16 countries, the average US download speed in 2013, at 6.5 Mbps (Megabits per second), was faster only than the Philippines, and then just barely."
• Why Super-Fast Internet Is Coming Super Slowly WSJ
• Surprise: Giving ISPs everything they want hasn't created a broadband paradise

Cable and Broadband

• Comcast filings with regulators expected at end of March
• Time Warner Cable Raises Rates (Again), Adds 'Broadcast TV' Fee
• This is what happens when Time Warner Cable is forced to compete
• Google Fiber chooses nine metro areas for possible expansion
• The Hunt For Bright House Fiber In Florida—"We've talked for years about how a large number of companies (from Time Warner Cable to Qwest) that can't or won't pay for fiber to the home do the next best thing -- lie to customers and pretend that core network fiber is the same as last mile fiber. [...] Stop The Cap directs our attention that Bright House Networks is latest ISP to employ this tactic...."

Lobby Folly

• Comcast's Web of Lobbying and Philanthropy—"The company is beginning a carefully orchestrated campaign, seeking support from members of Congress, state officials and leaders of nonprofit and minority-led groups." NYT
• "It's dead": Kansas municipal Internet ban was "stabbed, shot, and hanged"—"Cable lobby rebuffed in attempt to ban public broadband networks." Dead for now, anyway,
• The Cable Guys: Curious why a bill in Topeka might limit cable competition? Just follow the lobbying money

TPP

• Obama Admin's TPP Trade Officials Received Hefty Bonuses From Big Banks
• TPP conclusion rests on Japan-U.S. tariff issue
• Say no to corporate power grabs - reject the Trans-Pacific Partnership

Copyfight

• Canadian Court Slaps Restrictions on Copyright Trolling
• RapidShare Stops Washington Lobbying Efforts and Regains Pirate Stamp
• Aereo loses copyright fight, gets banned in 6 states—"Judges in New York and Utah disagree, as case heads to Supreme Court."
• Why YouTube's Automated Copyright Takedown System Hurts Artists
• The Color Run Sues College Photographer After He Asks for Compensation for Image—After much back-and-forth, this issue has been resolved: "We have been able to reach a joint agreement, which meets the needs of maxxsphotography.com and The Color Run."

Online News

• Glenn Greenwald, Nate Silver, Ezra Klein, Bill Keller, and the New Public-Interest Journalism
• The New York Times' Most Popular Story of 2013 Was Not an Article
• Ezra Klein Is Joining Vox Media as Web Journalism Asserts Itself—And he's gonna have familiar company. NYT
• Against 'Long-Form Journalism'—"When it comes to great magazine writing, what’s in a name?" When is 'long-form' bad form [NYT] ?
• How breaking news is breaking us: The rush to report Philip Seymour Hoffman's death—"News of a celebrity's death can now spread across Twitter before the family's informed. That doesn't mean it should." Salon

eBooks

• Adobe: We Didn't Mean to Use DRM to Break Your eBook Readers
• Sony Reader eBook store shutting down in US, Canada
• Overdrive Going DRM-Free with Audiobooks
• Apple, U.S. clash in court over e-books antitrust monitor—Apple loses another battle.
• Barnes & Noble Fired Its Nook Hardware Engineering Staff

Publishing

• Big in Japan—"Here, I was just another writer. Over there, I was a star." NYT
• People-Powered Publishing Is Changing All the Rules
• George Packer: Is Amazon Bad for Books?—""To many book professionals, Amazon is a ruthless predator; recently, the company has even started publishing books. A monopoly is dangerous because it concentrates so much economic power, but in the book business the prospect is especially worrisome: it would give Amazon more control over the exchange of ideas than any company in U.S. history."

Wikipedia

• Wikimedia Foundation employee ousted over paid editing
• New York Times Has Been Editing Reporters' Wikipedia Pages For Years
• Wikipedia mounts courtroom defense for editor sued by politician—"Wikimedia lawyer: Greek pol's €200,000 lawsuit is 'an assault on our users.'"
• Police Board of Finland Attacks Wikipedia's Fundraising Campaign
• This machine kills trolls—"How Wikipedia’s robots and cyborgs snuff out vandalism."

Sochi

• Sochi closing ceremony: Games end with flourish as protest fears melt away—"Rush of medals for host nation helps buoy mood on shores of Black Sea after most expensive Games in history." With a dash of self-deprecating humor.
• Sochi Olympics provide chilling glimpses of everyday life for Russians—"The Games provided 'war stories' for many journalists, but also brought insight into everyday life for those left behind."
• Jimmy Kimmel Reveals "Epic #SochiFail: Wolf in My Hall" Prank

Astroturfers, Tech Business, Amazon.com, e-Media, Wikipedia; Cord Cutters, Verizon, Telcos, Broadband; Obamacare; NSA Spying, Surveillance and Privacy

Astroturfers

• Fox News Allegedly Pushed Back Criticism With Phony Commenters
• Samsung fined $340,000 for faking online comments
• Astroturfers shut down after flooding Yelp and Google with fake reviews—"Companies paid freelancers $1 to $10 for each fake review, AG says."
• 20% of all Yelp reviews are written by paid shills
• Lawyers faking online reviews : How pervasive is it?

Tech Business

• Adobe's Software Subscription Model Means You Can't Own Your Software—"If you want certain software, you're going to have to pay up—month after month after month."
• Google's iron grip on Android: Controlling open source by any means necessary
• Get Ready to Pay 99 Cents to Watch YouTube
• People Still REALLY Don't Want Ads on Instagram
• Why I am unapologetic about paywalls or promotion

Amazon.com

• Illinois high court rejects 'Amazon' sales tax
• Amazon increases free shipping minimum to $35
• Little 'Libraires' That Could: French Law Would Keep Amazon At Bay
• Amazon's Jeff Bezos Is Like King Midas in Reverse
• How Amazon and Goodreads could lose their best readers—"When Amazon bought Goodreads it got a community of passionate readers, not all of whom want to follow the new rules." Salon

e-Media

• The Abomination of Ebooks: They Price People Out of Reading—"The real problem with ebooks is that they’re more 'e' than book, so an entirely different set of rules govern what someone can and can't do with them compared to physical books, especially when it comes to pricing. The collusion in pricing has been a public issue for a while, but we need to talk more about how they are priced differently to consumers and to libraries. That’s how ebooks contribute to the ever-growing divide between the haves and have-nots."
• Ebook Best-Seller Prices Jump to Highest Level in Months
• The 'Other' E-Book Pricing Problem—"Consumers are the ultimate victims here, also, but those most directly affected are public libraries."
• Self-publishing: Don’t price your ebook at $1.99
• Why tablet magazines are a failure
• Mark Waid: Reinventing Comics And Graphic Novels For Digital"
• Are Operations Like Flipboard Scams Against Publishers?—Josh posts a follow-up.

Wikipedia

• The Decline of Wikipedia—"The community that built the largest encyclopedia in history is shrinking, even as more people and Internet services depend on it than ever. Can it be revived, or is this the end of the Web's idealistic era?"
• Wikipedia China Becomes Front Line for Views on Language and Culture—"Even innocuous topics have become controversial for Wikipedia editors from China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, and compounding the issue are language differences." NYT
• Wikipedia editors, locked in battle with PR firm, delete 250 accounts—"Investigation follows reports that Wiki-PR scored Viacom, Priceline as clients."
• Wikipedia Will Start Texting Info To Users In Kenya Who Lack Internet
• Scots Wikipædia—The first encyclopædia in the Scots leid

Cord Cutters

• Comcast CEO: Aereo Illegal, A La Carte Never Happening
• Aereo gets big win in Boston: judge refuses to shut down streaming TV service
• Canadian gov't to push cable providers to unbundle channels
• Cable TV Is Dying, and Colleges Are Killing It
• A cord cutter's dream come true: Comcast offers HBO without cable service
• Netflix Poised to Pass HBO in Paid U.S. Subscribers
• Comcast's latest subscriber shakedown—"There are times when you just have to tip your cap to Comcast for coming up with creative ways of swindling its subscribers. The company's latest masterpiece has been the rollout of its channel encryption program, which now forces customers who have even the most basic television services to get all of their channels through a digital adapter box. "

Verizon

• What if Verizon succeeds in killing the Internet?—"Poor Verizon, its free speech is being violated by laws and competition. Won't someone think of the children?"
• Verizon's Outrageous Plot to Crack Up the Internet—"The company wants to charge web sites tolls for access."
• Verizon CEO says unlimited data plans simply aren't feasible
• Verizon Working Hard to Gut Massachusetts Consumer Protections
• Decades Of Failed Promises From Verizon: It Promises Fiber To Get Tax Breaks... Then Never Delivers

Telcos

• Crush the Carriers!—"For real mobile phone innovation, someone needs to smash AT&T and Verizon."
• T-Mobile: The most important wireless carrier in America
• Verizon and AT&T's data caps have made LTE a waste of money

Broadband

• Top cable lobbyist urges more ISPs to slap users with data caps
• Comcast seen increasing speeds solely as a way to further gouge customers
• Why New Fiber Networks Are Required To Shatter Monopolies Of Comcast & Other ISPs
• Cheapest 150Mbps broadband in big US cities costs 100% more than overseas—"US cellular customers are also paying more and getting less."
• Google's fibre optic boss unravels demand 'myth'—Other telcos outright lying saying users don't want faster speeds.

Obamacare

• How Kentucky Built The Country's Best Obamacare Website
• Claims That Obamacare Website Violates Health Privacy Reveals Embarrassing Fact-GOP Does Not Understand HIPAA Or Obamacare
• SNL skewers Obamacare Web site, suggests low-res version
• But What if Obamacare Works?—"Once the Web site is fixed, the real costs will start showing up." NYT
• Vermont is designing nation's first universal health-care system

NSA Spying

• Obama 'not told of Merkel phone bugging'—Thought he "approved" it 3 years ago? Or is the NSA keeping him in the dark?
• German interior minister: Confidence in U.S. is 'shaken'
• NSA 'monitored 60 million Spanish calls in a month'—Naturally, they're angry.
• Rogers says French should be 'popping champagne' over NSA—"If French citizens knew exactly what the U.S. phone intercepts were about in France, they would be 'applauding and popping champagne corks' because it keeps them safe, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said Sunday." Politico
• Document Reveals NSA Monitored 125 Billion Phone Calls in One Month
• NSA Chief Keith Alexander Takes His PRISM Pitch to YouTube: "It's Like Taking a Bath"
• Feinstein plans bill to codify NSA's phone spying

Surveillance and Privacy

• Here's What Law Enforcement Can Recover From A Seized iPhone
• A black box in your car? Some see a source of tax revenue—"The devices would track every mile you drive —possibly including your location — and the government would use the data to draw up a tax bill."
• Ten Steps You Can Take Right Now Against Internet Surveillance

Church and State, Law and Disorder, On Bad Faith, Sex Abuse Scandals, Extremists, Marriage Equality, Religion, Peas and Christ

Church and State

• North Carolina, Your Anti-Sharia Law Takes the Cake
• Priest to legislators: I will campaign against you from church
• Yglesias: We Should Be Taxing Churches—They're getting $82.5 billion a year.
• Separation Of Church, State Is An Alien Concept To Islam
• Obama administration backs prayer at local government meetings—"In a potentially far-reaching case on separation of church and state, the Obama administration and Republican lawmakers tell the Supreme Court they support easing limits on prayers at meetings."
• Feds say OK to atheists on religion tax break—"'We are not a church,' atheists say. Government lawyers disagree, saying atheist leaders can be considered ministers."
• Blast from the Past: It's the End of the World as We Know It: Celestia—"By deeding the land, essentially, to God, Celestia was unique in its time period." It was "intended the land to be considered sacred, thus not subject to property tax. Unfortunately, the Sullivan County government disagreed with this idea."

Law and Disorder

• Hackney woman told to remove burka by crown court judge—"The 21-year-old from Hackney, who is charged with intimidating a witness, said she could not remove the veil in front of men because of her religion. Judge Peter Murphy said however, she could not stand trial in the veil, which only reveals her eyes, because her identity could not be confirmed."
• Atheist Parolee Finally Sees Justice After Being Sent Back to Prison for Refusing a Religious Drug Treatment Program
• Cocke County judge orders 7-month-old's name changed from 'Messiah'

On Bad Faith

• Judge won't drop murder charge against Pa. faith-healing parents; victim was 2nd child to die
• Ohio hospital: Force Amish girl to have chemo
• Pentecostal Minister Convinces HIV Patient To Refuse Medicine, Leading Him To His Death Bed

Sex Abuse Scandals

• Cardinal Keith O'Brien 'blocked church sex abuse report', says archbishop
• Michigan appeals court: Pastors don't have to report child abuse—"A western Michigan pastor who was told about suspected child abuse can't be prosecuted for failing to report it, the state appeals court said today, citing a law that gives clergy protection in cases dealing with confidential information."
• Gordon Leighton: Jehovah's Witness whose child abuse was covered up by church elders is jailed—"He broke down and admitted the abuse to three church elders but they refused to co-operate with a police probe, a court heard."
• Priest draws 8-year prison sentence for molesting a girl
• Southwest Houston church reeling from pastor's sex abuse arrest

Extremists

• Police In Zanzibar Shoot Radical Imam Wanted In Acid Attack On Two British Women—"A radical Muslim preacher wanted for questioning over the acid attack on two British tourists in Zanzibar was shot on Saturday night as he fled police trying to arrest him."
• Muslim Brotherhood leader Gomaa Amin is in hiding in London—"The new spiritual leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is living in hiding in London in fear of state-sponsored assassination, it can be disclosed."
• Nigerian Islamists accused of cutting throats of 44 villagers—"Official says attackers gouged out eyes of some survivors of raid on Dumba village."
• Mustache elicits Taliban death threats—"Even being kidnapped and exiled by militants hasn't scared Malik Afridi into shaving his impressive bristles." Salon
• Danish Muslim leader regrets role in cartoon rage—"A Danish Muslim leader who seven years ago traveled the Muslim world fueling the uproar over newspaper caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad is back in the headlines in Denmark after doing an about-face on the issue."

Marriage Equality

• A Conservative Catholic Now Backs Same-Sex Marriage—"Joseph Bottum, in an essay in Commonweal magazine, writes about his change of heart on the issue, citing the 'natural law' theology of Thomas Aquinas." NYT
• Churches changing bylaws after gay marriage ruling
• After same-sex couple victory in Collegedale, church ousts gay detective's family
• Mexican politician says gay people should not be allowed to marry because 'they don't face each other during sex'—"'A marriage should only be considered amongst people that can look at each other in the eye while having sexual intercourse,' Jiménez Ortiz said."
• NZ holds its first same-sex weddings

Religion

• Rowan Williams tells 'persecuted' western Christians to grow up—"Former archbishop of Canterbury says UK and US Christians exaggerate 'mild discomfort', and gay friends may feel let down."
• New meta-analysis checks the correlation between intelligence and faith
• Andrew Sullivan: This Extraordinary Pope

Peas and Christ

• 'Monkey Christ' fresco boosts tourism
• Worker struck by lightning while operating Creation Museum zip line attraction
• Lion Attacks an Intruder in Its Den at Taipei Zoo—"A lion attacked a man who jumped into its zoo enclosure here Wednesday and shouted, 'Jesus will save you!' at the animal, an eyewitness said."
• People pray at tree outside St. Johns Cathedral in Fresno, California, say tree weeps God's tears—"Experts: Tree drips with bug excrement, not tears."
• Kenyan lawyer looks to sue Israel over Jesus' death

Dead Trees, Price Fixing, e-Media, Amazon.com, Wikitroubles, Wikipedia, Printer

Dead Trees

• Wondering How Far Magazines Must Fall NYT
• Magazines: Hey, look at us!--"As magazines struggle, they're resorting to sensationalism on their covers -- and the Web loves to take the bait." Salon
• Why newspapers must raise their price
• Google News at 10: How the Algorithm Won Over the News Industry
• Rupert Murdoch Admits Defeat: Now Wants London Times To Appear In Search Results

Price Fixing

• Own e-books? Publishers to pay back millions over price fixing charges--"Another battle in the long war over who gets to set e-book prices."
• Apple, publishers offer antitrust concessions: source
• Judge Quickly Approves Ebook Pricing Settlement; Says It's In The Public Interest To Stop Price Fixing
• History will show journalists missed the big Amazon story today: ebook discounting is back
• That was fast: Amazon is already discounting settling publishers' ebooks--Halle-fucking-lujah. Check out this nifty chart.

e-Media

• Self-published e-book author: 'Most of my months are six-figure months'
• How to Make a Book Disappear--"Jonah Lehrer's discredited Imagine has vanished from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and his publisher's website. Why that's bad news for readers."
• Google, Publishers Settle Seven Year-Long Book Scanning Lawsuit

Amazon.com

• Why PC Companies Fear Amazon
• Amazon Lending - Amazon starts loaning capital to sellers to help them scale
• How our startup took on Amazon… and won
• Amazon backtracks, will offer $15 opt-out for ads on Kindle Fire tablets--"After negative feedback on forced ads, the company reverses course and will allow users to opt-out of 'Special Offer' ads -- for a fee."
• Kindles are shown the automatic sliding door at Walmart--"The people of Walmart have voted, Amazon's devices aren't fit for the chain."

Wikitroubles

• Corruption in Wikiland? Paid PR scandal erupts at Wikipedia
• How Gibraltar Provoked an Existential Crisis for Wikipedia
• Wikipedia honcho caught in scandal quits, defends paid edits
• Wikipedia's "Pay-for-Play" Scandal Highlights Wikipedia's Vulnerabilities
• Wikipedia Is Running Out of Editors and Admins--And they're getting harder to find.

Wikipedia

• Keeping News of Kidnapping Off Wikipedia
• You Can Now Make Your Own Free eBook Out of Wikipedia Articles
• The Onion: Wikipedia Offline After Cables Cut

Printer

• Colour printing reaches its ultimate resolution
• Scumbag Printer
• HP Introduces Nano Sponge

Copyfight, Dead Trees, e-Books, Amazon.com, Bad Apple, Patents, Megaupload

Copyfight

• ISP 'Six Strikes' to Begin This Weekend - Throttling, Filters, 'Education' Warnings, and Fun!
• Gallo: If You’re Campaigning Against ACTA, You're A Terrorist
• Fair use gets stronger—thanks, "What What (In the Butt)"

Dead Trees

• After 244 Years, Encyclopaedia Britannica Stops the Presses NYT
• Click here or we’ll burn this book--"Is threatening to torch books the only way we can get people to care about them anymore?" Salon
• Ebook Sales Surpass Hardcover for First Time in U.S.

e-Books

• Author Tells DOJ The Authors Guild Doesn't Speak For Him & Amazon Is The Only Company Encouraging Competition
• No, Virginia, e-books don't publish themselves: Ken Auletta addresses one of the popular myths of the Internet
• Nook version of War and Peace turns the word "kindled" into "Nookd"--As commenter Alyeska pointed out, it's "[j]ust more nook for the fire that companies aren't putting much effort into their e-books."
• Tor Books Announces DRM-Free E-book Store
• Kindle astroturf for sale

Amazon.com

• The Amazon Effect
• How Amazon is changing the rules for books and movies
• Barnes & Noble: Ebooks Should Be Expensive So Amazon Won't Kill Us And Make Ebooks Expensive
• Amazon’s markup of digital delivery to indie authors is ~129,000%
• The Self Publishing Revolution on Amazon--A compilation of articles discussing Amazon's censorship actions.

Bad Apple

• Judge: Ample evidence that Apple "knowingly joined" e-book conspiracy--And will bring the case to trial next year. Apple is also being investigated in Montreal for price-fixing.
• Apple to pay $2 million for misleading Aussies over 4G iPad
• App Privacy Case Against Apple Allowed to Proceed
• The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable--Unfortunately, it's not yet feasible to allow removeable components and keep the thinness in a laptop. This opens the market to a company that can figure this out and still make a profit, like how to charge less than $199 to replace its batteries.
• Apple Store In Georgia Refuses To Sell iPad, iPhone To Farsi-Speaking Customer, Citing Company Policy--Iran is on the US embargo list, supposedly anyway, but this wasn't a one-off incident. An Apple Store in Atlanta did the same to an Iranian-American.

Patents

• iPad App That Helps a Little Girl Speak Pulled from App Store
• Judge dismisses Apple vs. Motorola in its entirety, companies unable to prove damages
• Apple sues HTC in Virginia court for abuse of 4G/LTE standard-essential patents

Megaupload

• Kim DotCom warrant 'invalid,' New Zealand judge rules
• Judge Considers Hearing on Improper Megaupload Seizure--"A U.S. judge may hold an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the U.S. Department of Justice acted improperly in blocking Megaupload customers' access to their files when seizing the file-sharing service's domain name and servers in January."
• Megaupload founder still faces NZ extradition battle

E-Readers, Amazon, Pricing, DRM

E-Readers

• Franzen vs. the Internet: Author says e-books damage society
• With E-Book Ban, Apple's "Closed" Nature Goes Too Far
• E-Readers and the Threat of Constant Editing
• Publishers vs. Libraries: An E-Book Tug of War NYT
• Barnes & Noble looking to sell book publisher?

Amazon

• Kindling the Fire: Will Amazon's Bet On Revenue Growth Pay Off?
• Amazon Rewrites the Rules of Book Publishing NYT
• How Amazon's KDP Select Saved My Book
• Will Amazon Kill Publishing?--"The tech giant and book merchant is signing its own authors to get a leg up on Apple and Barnes & Noble. It just might crush New York's publishing establishment in the process."
• Amazon Kindles 'damaged by airport scanners'

Pricing

• New e-book pricing scheme a surprising assault on the wallet
• Apple and five publishers are to be investigated over anti-competitive practice in the e-book market--Getting too big for their britches?
• Apple's struggle to defeat Amazon set to be exposed by European ebook inquiry
• EU to e-book publishers: We'll settle--if you do as we say |
• U.S. Warns Apple, Publishers on E-Book Pricing WSJ

DRM

• It's time for a unified ebook format and the end of DRM--"Proprietary ebook formats and rights restrictions are holding consumers back."
• With A Little Help: Digital Lysenkoism: DRM, "social DRM," and the madness of publishers
• E-Books: You Can't Always Read What You Want

e-Readers, DRM, Amazon Sales Tax, First Sale, Enabling Disabling

e-Readers

• Ebook readers' bill of rights
• The Trouble with E-Readers
• The Very Rich Indie Writer
• iPad Magazine Sales Drop
• Will E-Book Prices & Restrictions Lead to E-Book Piracy?
• A Quaint And Curious Volume
• How Viral PDFs Of A Naughty Bedtime Book Exploded The Old Publishing Model
• Microsoft drops Reader after Amazon, Apple take over
• Spamazon: From content-farm crap to plagiarized books, junk has invaded the Kindle Salon
• Why Amazon Can't Make A Kindle In the USA

DRM

• EFF Wins New Legal Protections for Video Artists, Cell Phone Jailbreakers, and Unlockers
• Ultra Violet: The DRM That Could Save Movies
• This is what You get for Renting a DVD instead of Pirating it
• DRM explained
• Reality of DRM
• Perils of DRM: What Happens to Your Digital Content if the Provider Goes out of Business?
• How To Turn Customers Into Pirates

Amazon Sales Tax

• Amazon cuts deal on California sales taxes
• The Amazon-California tax debacle: We all lose
• Amazon CEO: State tax demands violate Constitution
• Amazon Ditches Illinois Affiliates (Including Roger Ebert) To Avoid Web Tax
• Amazon packing after House vote--Bye-bye South Carolina.

First Sale

• Supreme Court Won't Hear Case Saying That You Have No First Sale Rights With Software
• Second Circuit holds first sale doctrine inapplicable to foreign-made goods
• EFF Wins Landmark Ruling Freeing Promo CDs for Resale
• The Man Who Dared to Sell AutoCAD R14 on eBay
• "Damn The Man!" The Ability To Sell Second-Hand CDs

Enabling Disabling

• Disabled man's crusade a bane to business owners
• Touch-screen gadgets alienate blind--Although Apple's come a long way.
• The Deadly Silence of the Electric Car