Lawrence Lessig was named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries for arguing "against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online."

Venture capitalists are investing in Wi-Fi companies; Intel is pushing 802.11, new PCs are coming with Wi-Fi antennas, even Tablet PC is WiFi ready. Another victory for a bazaar, grass roots mentality over CathedralThink.

Related link: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-964908.html?tag=fd_top...

LA Times: "Peters believes that many "fair use" practices consumers take for granted, such as taping a TV program or copying a magazine article, need to be re-evaluated in the digital age because the economic harm to copyright owners is far greater. For instance, she believes song-swapping over the Internet, popularized by Napster, is illegal."

Small webcasters can now pay a minimal $500 fine, the Post reports. The royalty collection group offered the low rate because a bill in Congress was held up by a lone Senator, Jesse Helms of N.C.

A lawyer writing on behalf of Rep. Howard ("P2P Anti Piracy Bill") Berman (D-Calif.) wrote in to the Politech list with some "clarifications" of the bill.

"Copyright is dead" is the worst possible message to send to Congress and the public, especially since the Supreme Court will soon consider overturning the Sonny Bono copyright extension act, which added 20 years to copyright terms.

At the Emerging Tech conference, Tim O'Reilly announced that O'Reilly & Assoc. would adopt the Founders' Copyright of 14 years (with the proviso of authors' agreement). Under current law, copyright is lifetime of the author plus 70 years.

In case you missed the link on Slashdot, here is the Wall Street Journal on Rotor, Microsoft's "shared source" release.

Macromedia ships Flash MX today, with the Flash Player 6 available now.