Today Jack Valenti gave a public presentation titled “Comments on the Moral Imperative” at Duke University Law School. It was the typical Valenti patter that has been reported before (overused cliches and dogmatic approaches to intellectual property), but two things came up that I hadn’t seen reported before. One was that, at least for this lecture, he framed the problem facing the MPAA with digital duplication as a moral problem and not a legal one. Clearly it’s illegal…he seemed very confused why people seem to think that it’s not immoral as well. The second issue, closely related, is that he made no distinction at all between content and media, simply unwilling to admit that there is a difference between the two and conflating them to his advantage. So: the main question is “Has the MPAA ever made a distinction between content and media in the past to their advantage, and is that useful in the current environment?” The secondary question is “Is this really a moral failing of some sort in the youth of today?” Webcast of the speech will be available in a few days or so at: http://www.law.duke.edu/webcast/
Author: griffey
Jason Griffey was most recently the Director of Strategic Initiatives at NISO, where he worked to identify new areas of the information ecosystem where standards expertise was useful and needed. Prior to joining NISO in 2019, Jason ran his own technology consulting company for libraries, has been both an Affiliate at metaLAB and a Fellow and Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, and was an academic librarian in roles ranging from reference and instruction to Head of Library IT and a tenured professor at the University of TN at Chattanooga.
Jason has written extensively on technology and libraries, including multiple books and a series of full-periodical issues on technology topics, most recently a chapter in Library 2035 - Imagining the Next Generation of Libraries by Rowman & Littlefield. His latest full-length work Standards - Essential Knowledge, co-authored with Jeffery Pomerantz, was published by MIT Press in March 2025.
He has spoken internationally on topics such as artificial intelligence & machine learning, the future of technology and libraries, decentralization and the Blockchain, privacy, copyright, and intellectual property. A full list of his publications and presentations can be found on his CV.
He is one of eight winners of the Knight Foundation News Challenge for Libraries for the Measure the Future project (http://measurethefuture.net), an open hardware project designed to provide actionable use metrics for library spaces. He is also the creator and director of The LibraryBox Project (http://librarybox.us), an open source portable digital file distribution system.
Introduction to RSS
Meanwhile, back in the real world…
I’ve been spending some time brushing up on RSS and RDF and other things that I don’t really understand. First impressions: cool as fucking hell. I’m running Amphetadesk .93 right now as an RDF aggregator, and it’s like seeing pictures on the WWW for the first time (when my buddy and I managed to cobble together a connection on our campus network that would support Mosaic). Really is a completely different sort of interaction with information. More reflections on this as I understand it better.
Grandmother
Well, we’re still searching for clues about what happened with my grandmother. She may not have actually had a heart attack…the EKG’s and enzyme tests don’t support that. If she did, she had a very, very mild one. So that’s good. What’s bad is that if that’s NOT what it is, then the doctors aren’t sure what it could be.
But it’s better…she’s recovering. I’m not driving to KY to see her just yet. It appears that she will recover (given the way things are going now).
I just got off the phone with
I just got off the phone with my sister.
My grandmother just had a heart attack. She’s 74.
She’s recovering, and it doesn’t appear that she’s in danger right now.
I’m not sure how to feel yet. Relieved that it’s not worse, or scared to death that it happened.
Realized that this blog is bec
Realized that this blog is becoming very random. I suppose that’s a good thing, since I’m kind of doing this for myself moreso than other people.
So, in the grand Blog tradition: a list of favorites….
Right now, I’m listening to probably my favorite band: Counting Crows. Got hooked on them with August and Everything After, and just love their use of language, Adam’s voice, and the layers that the now HUGE band create musically (they’ve got like 7 members currently…3 guitars, drummer, bass, Charlie, who plays everything from accordian to keyboards…and of course, Adam on vocals, ocassionally harmonica and piano).
So I’m listening to them, and trying to make sense out of RSS and XML feeds. It’s not often that I run across a tech acronym that I don’t know, but RSS was one of them. I’m fixing that now, hopefully.
Blog MeetUp last night…very,
Blog MeetUp last night…very, very interesting stuff. Discussion about the reason for the blog explosion, the interesting social implications, the voyeuristic side of reading blogs (as well as the exhibitionist side of writing in one). Lots of interesting stuff.
In other thoughts…trying to plan for the summer. Lots of travel options, just have to work the finances out.
Currently awaiting the Blog me
Currently awaiting the Blog meeting at Strong’s coffee in downtown Chapel Hill. Should be interesting, and will report later (maybe during!).
have a handful of stories in m
have a handful of stories in my head now…one having something to do with geomancy and a character who discovers that they are one, and another having something to do with the grail myth. Both fall squarely in the genre fiction realm, and as such I’m a little wierd about getting them going. Anytime I start anything genre, I always end up thinking that it would work better as a short stories.
Been thinking about story a lo
Been thinking about story a lot lately.This tends to happen when I read an author that I love, and Gibson certainly counts in that regard. Thinking of plots, characters…how to string them together. Person and perspective.
What it comes down to is that I really do need to find time and try to make myself write.
Need to write fiction, that is, not blog.
🙂
Well…after a half inch or so
Well…after a half inch or so of ice and sleet, we’re stuck at home today. No school, and probably not a lot of moving until the stuff melts…a chance to catch up on some work and get some stuff done.