See this news article on the current case before the US Supreme Court on copyright law. The key issue that the Supreme Court is weighing is how long inventors and authors can maintain exclusive right to their works. Originally, copyrights lasted 14 years. Current laws now extend it to 70 years after the death of the creator, if the creator is known.

If you read previous entries in this log, you know that I have big concerns about extending the rights that one has to works that ultimately belong in the public domain. The framers of the US Constitution had good thoughts about this issue. Inventions, works of art, and other patentable and copyrightable materials ultimately belong in the public domain for the good of society. If only the inventor or artist can benefit for the work, society breaks down very quickly into the haves and have-nots and innovation stagnates. This key thought drove the idea of patents that last for 10 to 17 years and copyrights that run for 14.

Congressional changes to this will cause more harm than good. It allows companies to retain for a longer period of time exclusive publishing rights for works that could be published for free on the Internet. While I’m not against folks profiting from their works, innovation stagnates when individuals can profit from an extended period on protected works. I agree with Lessig and the challengers on this — here’s hoping that the US Supreme Court will act in favor of society and culture at large.

I received an interesting e-mail from the Movie88 folks this morning. If you look at previous entries, you’ll remember that these are the folks who are streaming movies at a price of $1 for 3 days of viewing. Here’s the e-mail:

That’s pretty much the note. I attempted to access the site this morning and found that it was not there. Looks like someone (MPAA perhaps?) pressured the Taiwanese government to shut them down. This probably came through the State Department since there’s been a great deal of negotiation lately around copyright and patent issues between countries. This would be one of those areas where WIPO might even play a role.

Another interesting thing about this note is that it was personally addressed to a number of webmasters. In addition to this site, CNet, Time Inc., Slashdot, and ABCNews were all addressed directly.

My take — I’m assuming that this e-mail is true. If they were shutdown without notice, then Movie88 should have legal recourse by looking at the terms and conditions of their contract. If they were not in violation of their contract, then the shutdown was likely because of US government pressure over concerns of intellectual property. It may have even been a threat from the MPAA to stop distributing movies into Taiwan unless the site was shutdown. My big disappointment would be that the Taiwanese government caved so easily — their copyright laws have been on the books for ages and the fault here really lies with the MPAA for failing to understand and abide by those laws.

Be sure that you are looking over your shoulder as you surf the web — your ISP might be watching you. Comcast was just busted for this (see article). While they stated that they were only using the information for caching purposes, merely having the information available could open them up to subpoenas in legal challenges. They have recently restated their privacy policy to ensure that everyone knows where they stand.

This is a lesson for users and service providers. It’s very important that you as a user know who is collecting data on you and why they are. It’s very important as a service provider that you aggregate information whenever possible and avoid keeping raw data to ensure that the Men in Black can’t ask you for it someday. While that probably seems paranoid, you know what they say — just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean that they aren’t out to get you.

The march to appliances continues with a new entry in the field from Google. Google is releasing a new search appliance which packages their search technology into a closed box solution. To me, this signals the continuing of a trend started many years ago by the router vendors. As software solutions (like search) become commodities, IT shops become less interested in installing these solutions on existing hardware. The IT shop would rather have a complete solution that can be administered without interfering with their existing systems. It’s easier to install a new box than it is to install a new piece of software, more or less.

How does this relate to router companies like Cisco? Most folks probably haven’t thought about this in a long time, but the original routers were IBM and Sun workstations that ran routing software. As these systems became more widely distributed, companies like Cisco built boxes that just focused on routing to simplify the management of the router and make it easier to install.

I expect that we’re going to continue to see this trend emerge. More and more companies will be shipping their solutions in appliances like Google’s. Siebel in a box? Oracle in a box? The vendors will then get the opportunity to break out of the traditional platform installation concerns and build on whatever suits them (e.g. Google is built on Linux). As a result of this, we’ll see higher performance in these systems components — there will be some innovative hardware and operating system changes to make these products scream.