Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi?  The recently introduced U.S. Senate bill, called the Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act of 2005, may spell the end for municipal wireless. Among other things, the bill says that when there is a case of competing bids between a private company and local government, preference will be given to the private company. Richard Koman reports on the implications of this bill and what it could mean for consumers long-term.   [Policy DevCenter]

An Interview with Ourmedia.org's J.D. Lasica  The volume of people who are now documenting their lives with digital video, audio, and photography, and sharing them on public media sites like Ourmedia.org is yet another example of the exploding grassroots media movement. Richard Koman interviews J.D. Lasica, cofounder of Ourmedia.org, on what's actually on Ourmedia, how it came to be, how it works, and what it portents for the future of videocasting.   [Policy DevCenter]

Important Notice for Policy DevCenter Readers About O'Reilly RSS and Atom Feeds  O'Reilly Media, Inc. is rolling out a new syndication mechanism that provides greater control over the content we publish online. Here's information to help you update your existing RSS and Atom feeds to O'Reilly content.  [Policy DevCenter]

Grokking Grokster  On June 27, 2005 the Supreme Court vacated the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court, and remanded the case of MGM v. Grokster back to them. This they did unanimously, based on the opinion that the Ninth Circuit had misinterpreted the Universal Studios v. Sony "Betamax" decision of 1983. Quinn Norton offers some analysis of the Grokster decision, looks at what companies may be next in line for litigation, and whether or not the decision did much to answer the great outstanding questions of copyright in the digital age.   [Policy DevCenter]

How to Build a Nonprofit for Your Community  As the open source movement matures, the organizations that support it are growing up, too. Many open source projects have already created nonprofit organizations that support their communities, while other projects are considering ways to establish nonprofits. David Boswell details how mozdev.org built a nonprofit organization and shows you how to do the same for your community. He covers fundraising, obtaining legal advice, staffing, and more.   [Policy DevCenter]

Some Rights Reserved  With unprecedented institutional backing and a grassroots creative scene willing to take up the challenge, the future looks bright for Creative Commons in the U.K. Becky Hogge reports on the state of the Creative Commons project across the pond.   [O'Reilly Network]

Software Patents in the EU  Ed Griffith-Jones and Tom Chance describe the state of software patents in the European Union and argue that software patents do not lead to increased productivity and do not benefit society. In short, they think that software patents are a bad idea. What do you think? Weigh in with your opinions via the Talkback at the end of the article.   [Policy DevCenter]

Remixing Culture: An Interview with Lawrence Lessig  What do you get when you mix P2P, inexpensive digital input devices, open source software, easy editing tools, and reasonably affordable bandwidth? Potentially, you get what Lawrence Lessig calls remix culture. He explains in this extensive interview. The concept of remixing culture is the topic of his keynote as well, at O'Reilly's upcoming Emerging Technology Conference (March 14-17 in San Diego).   [Policy DevCenter]

Protect Your OSP with logfinder  Do you keep all your logs? Get ready for trouble. The EFF has issued a warning to online service providers, including ISPs, web site publishers, and bloggers, to start deleting their log files ASAP. To help, the EFF has created a free tool called logfinder that makes it easier to find and delete those log files.   [Policy DevCenter]

Ernest Miller on What's Wrong with the Induce Act  U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch has sponsored a bill before Congress, called the Induce Act, which would leave people who haven't directly infringed copyright, but who provide tools or support for people who do infringe copyright, to be open to lawsuits for the infringement. Richard Koman sits down with Ernest Miller to discuss what's wrong with the Induce Act and its potentially debilitating impact on technological innovation. The two also discuss a number of technologies that will never get off the ground if Induce is passed.   [Policy DevCenter]

Collecting E-Commerce Taxes Door-to-Door  For about a decade, web stores have been exempt from collecting local sales and use taxes for deliveries outside their local jurisdictions. For most web stores, especially those based in sparsely populated states, this amounts to de facto tax-free status when shipping to most of the country. While online stores get a free pass from many taxes, storefront operations are universally expected to collect local taxes at the point of sale. This article discusses one possible solution to the e-commerce taxation problem: simply requiring couriers to collect local taxes at the point of delivery.   [Policy DevCenter]

Looking for Indemnification While Linux Sales Double  Tom Adelstein examines issues related to Linux use in the enterprise while copyright infringement claims exist.   [LinuxDevCenter.com]

Free the Orphans: A Look at the Case of Kahle v. Ashcroft  Richard Koman examines the suit in Kahle v. Ashcroft, brought by two digital archivists intending to free in-copyright, out-of-print media, known as "orphan works," from oblivion. Richard talks with lead attorney for the case, Chris Sprigman, where he discusses how this case takes an entirely different angle from the recent copyright term extension suit, Eldred.   [Policy DevCenter]

Opening Up E-Voting  The politics of e-voting may be controversial, but the technologies used are not exceptionally complicated or difficult to understand. Now, two initiatives have opened e-voting systems to public examination and varying degrees of tranparency and verification.   [Policy DevCenter]

VoIP Regulation in America: A View from the Trenches  VoIP is undergoing incredible growth right now, and in the next year there will likely be dozens of firms offering what only a few offer today, as far as VoIP-to-PSTN delivery. The regulatory environment is stable at the moment, but far from certain. In this op-ed piece, John Todd discusses why he believes regulatory stances need to be established now, while the industry is still small, and why old ideas of technology need to be removed from regulatory wording. Weigh in with your thoughts at the end of the article.   [ Policy DevCenter]

Internet Perspectives
Incredible Movies -- Free!  Almost 2,000 ephemeral films (industrial, educational, and advertising) from the early 1900s through the 1960s are available for free on the Net, thanks to film archivist Rick Prelinger.   [ Policy DevCenter]

Internet Perspectives
Spam Busters  Spam has become a $10 billion problem for American businesses, and liability concerns could push that amount even higher. To help enterprise recipients fight back the rising tide, ActiveState convened a task force of open source spam fighters to address the problem.   [O'Reilly Network]

Internet Perspectives
The Next Revolution: Smart Mobs  What do you get when you mix together millions of cell phones and P2P-enabled computers with wireless Internet floating in the air and users reviewing products, sellers, and each other? Smart mobs. That's what Howard Rheingold, a keynoter at O'Reilly's upcoming Emerging Technology Conference, calls these folks. Read what he has to say about this third computing revolution.  [openp2p.com]

Platform Independent
Structure and Service: Illuminations from a Trip to the Forest  What do end users really want? Andy Oram got some answers talking to an unusual individual in the woods of Northern Oregon while on a mission to drum up new attendees for O'Reilly's upcoming Emerging Technology Conference. The bottom line: give users rich interactions mediated by a format of their own choosing. Perhaps we'll find those adventurous developers who will be able to satisfy these needs at this spring's conference. Be there--you never know who might show up.   [ Policy DevCenter]

Internet Perspectives
Cory Doctorow's Bitchun' World: P2P Gone Wild  In the world of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, you're always on the Net, reputation matters more than cash, and your life is on a hard disk. Sound familiar? Richard Koman interviews the author.   [ Policy DevCenter]

Internet Perspectives
Robin Gross Seeks International IP Justice  The U.S. copyright industry's demands for legal protection have extended into Europe and the rest of the world. Richard Koman speaks with Robin Gross, an attorney working to help stem the wave of anti-consumer legislation.   [ Policy DevCenter]