BoingBoing points us to this excellent video from C-SPAN that pits Fred von Lohmann of the EFF and former White House counsel Ted Olson, who is representing the MPAA n the case. Personally, I think that von Lohmann presents the common sense, of course we need to arrange a means of compensating rights holders, we need to adapt approach while Olsen resorts to hyperbole. Plus, he has that sexy pony tail.

BoingBoing (your one-stop shop for aggregated Grokster news) also points us to a number of EFF bloggers posting from the hearing. Sounds like the Justices really dialed in on the issues. Good for them, hope they connect the dots.

Oh, cripes... Olson trots the "p2p spreads kiddie porn" canard out. Heh... now von Lohmann's giving him a proper spanking.

INTERESTING... a caller, a 19 year old indie artist in California, just said that his beef with P2P isn't that people share the files, because the place that he sees money is at the merchandise concession at shows, but that they don't have sales records to see how they're doing, where their support is, and the like. von Lohmann is following up well, but this is an issue that I'd be really interested to look at. How do you track the popularity of downloads?

UPDATE: Here's a nice post at SCOTUSblog about the Justice's questions and reactions. Let the speculation begin...

UPDATE 2: Here's an even better run down, IMHO.

Kristin Eschenfelder School of Library and Information Studies University of Wisconsin-Madison

Kling Center Colloquium: DeCSS and the DVD Copywright Wars

Friday, April 1
2:00 - 3:30, LI 001

Co-sponsored with IUB ACM Student Chapter

Abstract: Why do Website authors post the DVD decryption software known as "DeCSS?" As cultural resources are increasingly distributed in locked digital formats, the answer to this seemingly esoteric question has significant implications for broader societal debates about how to best encourage production of new intellectual works, and global debates about intellectual property hegemony. DeCSS is software used to break the digital rights management systems on commercial DVDs. Recent changes in copyright law in numerous nations arguably have made DeCSS posting illegal. Despite legal risks, and technical obsolescence, DeCSS is still readily available on the Internet today. Through a series of studies, we analyzed Websites that posted DeCSS. We examined changes in DeCSS posting over time, text on the websites explaining why the Website author posts DeCSS, and the degree to which DeCSS posting varies between the US, EU nations, and the People's Republic of China. Data are drawn from content analysis of websites posting the DeCSS software and secondary data analysis. Based on our findings, we assert that the DeCSS posting persists because of the social meaning of the software; and that DeCSS posting varies because of variance in the social meaning of the software. We further argue that variance in DeCSS posting suggests that collective action frames constructed by copyright activists in the West may not prove effective in other regions of the world.

There has been a lot of chatter about this one from students, which is cool to hear. Naturally, it's being taped... actually all of the Kling Center Colloquia are being taped and released under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license, which I personally find way cool... but then, I am teh d0rk.

The SLA-Student Group will host a panel on Intellectual Freedom and Privacy:

When: Friday, April 8
Time: 2:00 pm
Where: SLIS Auditorium

The panel will be moderated by Prof. Howard Rosenbaum.

Panelists:

Doug Archer - Reference and Peace Studies Librarian at the Hesburgh Library of the University of Notre Dame and an ordained minister in the Church of the Brethren.

Mark Bruhn - IU's Chief IT Security and Policy Officer, reporting to the Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer.

Fred H. Cate - Distinguished Professor at the IU School of Law-Bloomington and director of the Indiana University Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research.

NACO, Ariz. -- Members of a violent Central America-based gang have been sent to Arizona to target Minuteman Project volunteers, who will begin a monthlong border vigil this weekend to find and report foreigner sneaking into the United States, project officials say.

James Gilchrist, a Vietnam veteran who helped organize the vigil to protest the federal government's failure to control illegal immigration, said he has been told that California and Texas leaders of Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, have issued orders to teach "a lesson" to the Minuteman volunteers.

"We're not worried because half of our recruits are retired trained combat soldiers," Mr. Gilchrist said. "And those guys are just a bunch of punks."

Remind me why these bands of armed vigilantes wandering around in the desert aren't be rounded up by, you know, the FBI?

I only had time for a cursory pop through the other records last evening but at first blush, the real prize is The Ramsey Lewis' Trio's Another Voyage. I was expecting a lot of mellow mid-sixties soul jazz but was instead rewarded with some funky, breaks-heavy soul jazz. Color me impressed! The standout on the first pop through was Uhuru, which includes Earth, Wind & Fire founder Maurice White on kalimba.

Interesting note: the pressing I have is from Cadet Records rather than Verve, which has been re-releasing it. Kind of neat.

By now you have surely read about House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's ethics troubles. Probably, too, you aren't entirely clear as to what those troubles are--something to do with questionable junkets, Indian casino money, funny business on the House Ethics Committee, stuff down in Texas. In Beltway-speak, what this means is that Mr. DeLay has an "odor": nothing too incriminating, nothing actually criminal, just an unsavory whiff that could have GOP loyalists reaching for the political Glade if it gets any worse.

(via Media Notes and DailyKos)

Any predictions on fallout?