Joho the Blog
An Entry from the Archives

Not angry enough yet for a Monday? Read the Boston Globe's excellent article by Chris Gaither on the Illegal Art exhibit at the Artists Gallery of the Museum of Modern Art in SF. The exhibition purposeful uses copyrighted imagery to push against the strictures of copyright. The anger-making part is the pettiness of some of the copyright holders such as Mattel that sued Tom Forsythe for selling his photographs. called "Food Chain Barbie," of Barbie in kitchen appliances. The article explains that a facet of the law called acquiesence means that a copyright holder has to fight every supposed infraction or else they are presumed to have given up their rights. But Mattel sued, lost and is appealing.

Then, to top off your morning depression, you can read in Scott Kirsner's column about the demise of small ISPs. On the one hand, I respond by thinking that these dial-up ISPs are doomed because we're making the transition to broadband. On the other, I think that it's too bad the high-speed infrastructure wasn't opened up for competition by small providers offering features like reasonable service.