Sorry for missing Tech at Night on Friday. After that near-miss with a cold, I decided to start the weekend a little early that night. But we’re back. So with five days of news to catch up on, let’s see what we have here.
Here’s a reminder of why Net Neutrality was a terrible idea. Making people pay for what they use creates opportunities for innovation. If ESPN wants to negotiate bulk rates for wireless data, let them!
And yet that John McCain would add more regulations. We need less micromanagement of cable, not more.
Question: Why would Pandora want new laws if they would never, ever pay less? Answer: They’re lying and the bill would shiv copyright holders in favor of The Cloud. Quit picking winners and losers. Hear that, John McCain? we need less regulation, not more. If Spotify can do it, so can Pandora.
Is there room to reform copyright? Sure. But we can make narrow improvements, such as overturning the Library of Congress’s DMCA ruling on phone unlocking, without creating a massive lobby-fest of a major rewrite.
I hope Darrell Issa realizes the left will turn on him in an instant because he’s a Republican. Trust, but verify on these issue-by-issue alliances.
Bitcoin may become illegal in a way I never expected. The core mechanic of Bitcoin is the “blockchain,” which is essentially a record of every Bitcoin transaction, which keeps Bitcoins from being spent twice. It’s very important, and the entire community of Bitcoin processors has to keep a copy of it. The blockchain is now loaded with links to child pornography. I can’t wait for every major domestic Bitcoin market to get shut down, and all the foreign ones to go on the OFAC SDN list, essentially embargoing them.
You know what, if government agents want to search and wiretap phones, fine with them. But they have no right to demand free help doing it for them, not from Apple, not from anyone.
Reasons it’s good that Aereo exists, #1: innovation begets innovation in a free market.
Mike Rogers, CISPA champion and victim of intimidation tactics by anarchists, continues to press for better security at home. I think we all know talks with China will go nowhere, but we have to try before we can declare them a failure.
We should press Tom Wheeler: Will he fight for an FCC that fights for us, or to gain power for itself? We need a fully pro-innovation FCC for the coming IP revolution.