Google has created a new web site, FreeTheAirwaves.com, to promote the use of “whitespaces” between television channels for long-range, high-speed, wireless Internet access. The site features YouTube videos from Google engineers explaining how whitespace works, and one from Columbia Prof. Tim Wu explaining why Americans should care. The site also encourages visitors to submit their own videos.
Additional coverage at Ars Technica
The Federal Circuit ruled in favor of a programmer who sued for copyright infringement under the terms of an open-source software license. Article at PC World, with comments from Columbia Prof. Eben Moglen.
Prof. Tim Wu writes for the New York Times Op-Ed page that Americans spend as much on bandwidth as on energy.
Prof. Michael Heller talks with NPR’s Marketplace about his new book, The Gridlock Economy. The book also gets a mention in the New York Times’ Freakonomics blog.
Prof. Michael Heller talks to the Wall Street Journal Law Blog about his new book, The Gridlock Economy; teaching first-year Property; and his prospects for TV.
The FCC has conducted preliminary tests on devices that use the “white space” between TV channels, Ars Technica reports.
The Section 108 Study Group, formed to recommend changes to copyright law to benefit libraries and archives, has released its final report. Links:
Two new reviews of Columbia Prof. Michael Heller’s new book, The Gridlock Economy: The first, from Time’s Barbara Kiviat, includes a video clip of Heller explaining the key idea from the book. The second comes from Columbia Prof. Tim Wu and appears in Slate magazine.
FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is ready to sanction Comcast for violating net neutrality principles. Link: New York Times.
A new book by Columbia Prof. Michael Heller, The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives was published this week.
Written for a general audience, the book explains how the “tragedy of the anti-commons” applies to diverse areas of the economy such as radio spectrum, pharmaceuticals, airports, and farms.
Link: Amazon.com