I voted early today; stood in line for half an hour at a Home Depot surrounded by tawdry plastic Christmas decorations, but then what could possibly be more American than that? :)

It's funny, two years ago I felt much more political than I do now. Partially I think it might be fatigue, or media overload; I'm just tired of the whole farce, get it over with and move on to November 3 so we can all get on with the massive legal suits over an election that didn't turn out the way somebody wanted move on to whatever's next. Partially it's the not-entirely-faint feeling of disgusted uselessness the whole thing has this time around. I honestly don't like any of the candidates, on top of which I live in one of the states least likely to be considered any kind of an "undecided" state.

But mostly it's the feeling of exhaustion one gets when looking at the ballot. It's a strange combination of too many spots and not enough candidates--too many spots in that there's no way 90% of people (and I am included in that number) can make any kind of educated decision on the merits. Most people, I suspect, end up voting party lines or just randomly selecting on whatever criteria (voting for women, voting on names, trying to pick some "balance" of D vs R, whatever), which makes the whole human element fairly meaningless. Too few candidates in the sense that a third or more of the spots have a single candidate. Sure, you could write someone in (could you?), but what would be the point of that?

Eh, I went and made my choices, so here's hoping they make some kind of a difference, anyway.

So the Supreme Court has ruled on the Eldred case. Unfortunately for pretty much everyone, they ruled that the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act stands.

Their arguments seem fairly weak, personally. They make entirely too much of the necessity of bringing our copyright terms in line with Europe's. I don't see why Europe's views on copyrights should trump the intent of the Framers, myself. Both dissenting Justices wrote opinions; of the two, I think Breyer's is the more compelling.

Hopefully this ruling will help to stir up the war over copyright; even the Supreme Court can change its mind.

Lessig has three posts on the subject: start here and scroll down.

Evidently the Yale Law Journal has begun putting some of their articles online. They have a really good article up entitled The Freedom of Imagination: Copyright's Constitutionality, about whether or not copyright (being, as it is, a major restraint on the exercise of free speech) is constitutional. The author decides copyright proper (that is, the parts that deal with unauthorized reproduction and distribution) are constitutional, but that the parts prohibiting derivative works may not be. To support the idea he puts forth a new logical basis for the First Amendment, which is that it is intended to protect the free exercise of imagination. His reasons for the basis are very interesting and, I think, quite persuasive. In fact, this seems like the best suggestion for balancing copyright with artistic interplay I've read yet.

There's a couple of encouraging developments in the War on Fair Use. Two bills have been introduced to Congress (though they will almost certainly sit still until the next session) which would return significant Fair Use rights to consumers of digital media, mostly removed by the DMCA. The first is the Digital Choice and Freedom Act. The DCFA would explicitly provide consumers with the same Fair Use rights with digital media they enjoy with analog media (such as cassettes and VCR tapes), among them the right to make personal copies and compilations.

The second act in question is the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act. This act would counteract the portions of the DMCA which make circumventing copy-protection schemes illegal even for uses previously covered under Fair Use. Essentially the act would make it legal to bypass the copy protection on a DVD in order to make a backup copy or to extract clips from the film for use in a personal compilation. (Currently even attempting to bypass such protections is illegal.) This has very, very important consequences for digital research—there have been a number of important cases where legitimate academic researchers have had their research shut down (or chilled, which amounts to the same thing proactively) by the threat of prosecution. The bill also would extend some pretty strong protection to devices which merely are "capable of enabling significant non-infringing use of a copyrighted work", in stark contrast to the DMCA's inverse requirement.

As noted, the bad news is that neither of these bills will go anywhere until next session—and in fact, probably neither will be passed. The hope is that by introducing two such bills, Congress will be forced to address the issue somehow—preferably by repealing or significantly reworking the DMCA itself.

This provides a unique opportunity, since there is an election coming up, after all (nice timing by the bills' supporters). Send the candidates in your area letters or e-mails requesting that they clarify their stance on the two bills in question, and vote your conscience. It's time the consumers had a say in the Rape of Copyright.

Saw this via Ars Technica.

Okay, Captain Euro Goes to Sunnydale is brilliant. Mac captures the voices of the characters absolutely perfectly (and incidentally, the political commentary is pretty decent too):

XANDER: So this is what you do, huh? You roll into town in your tights and insult people with your nose-up-in-the-air attitude? I need any insulting done, I can get it at home, I don't need your contribution.

SPIKE: And I'll insult him.

XANDER: Right, Spike can insult me. Lord knows, that's the only way he ever gets to hurt anyone anymore.

SPIKE: Mate, don't push your luck.

XANDER: Or what, you'll have a headache at me? Bring it on, blondie.

Hilarious.

Every once in a while someone in a position of authority will stand up and say something that needs saying, and say it openly (none of this "a source at…" crap). The sad thing about this is that it's rare enough to be noteworthy.

Harvard President Lawrence Summers stood up and said some things that needed saying about anti-Semitism in the Western world, and I respect him for that. Often University presidents, like other heads of state, refrain from saying the things that need saying because of other concerns (political or not). His adamant denial that Harvard would divest itself of Israeli monetary concerns was worthy of applause, however shameful the need for it.

Someone else from Harvard has added their own voice to the mix, again in an open manner which invites debate and confrontation. Alan Dershowitz has written an opinion piece challenging Paul Hanson, a House Master at Harvard who signed the divestment petition. Dershowitz makes several important points regarding Israel's history of democracy and respect for human rights, among them praise for Israel's independent judiciary, its protections for freedom of speech, its refusal to use torture to extract information from suspects, and its multiple offers of statehood for the areas it has conquered. In a final masterstroke, he challenges Hanson to an open debate on the topic—a challenge Hanson has refused once already, citing "more important priorities". (Though what priorities could be more pressing to a Harvard professor than openly defending their ideological stance, a stance many people find objectionable and would doubtless like clarified, is hard to imagine. or perhaps not, given how defensible Hanson's stance is…)

When one side of an argument issues public invitations to openly debate the positions and the merits, and the other side has better things to do, I think it reflects rather important clues as to which side is both more intellectually honest, and more morally correct. Of course, Dershowitz says it better:

A House master who peremptorily signs a petition and then hides behind "other priorities" does not serve the interests of dialogue and education. I hope that Hanson will accept my challenge, and that if he does not, that I will be invited by his students to help fill the educational gap left by the cowardice of those who have signed this petition and refuse to defend their actions in public debate.