One of the recurring internecine debates in the world of libertarian tech policy is over the philosophical status of copyright. On one side, you’ve got the camp that regards copyright as no different from any other kind of property right. People in this category tend to regard peer-to-peer fil...

Micropayments are an idea that simply won’t die. Every few years, there’s a resurgence of interest in the idea. Critics predict they won’t work. The critics are then proved right, as companies founded to promote micropayments inevitably go belly-up. The latest iteration comes court...

In the summer of 2000, while I was in college, I moved into a big house with 6 other guys. DSL was just coming on the market, and we were big nerds, so we decided to splurge on fast Internet access. Back then, “fast Internet access” meant a blazing fast (Update: 512k) DSL connection. We ...

One of the most fundamental disagreements in the debate over software patents concerns the Supreme Court. Some software patent supporters like to cite the case of Diamond v. Diehr as the decision that legalized software patents. Many others argue that the Supreme Court’s classic trilogy of sof...

Don Marti has some choice words for Braden’s post on Scott McNealy and government open source contracting: Let’s say that one of those Rent-to-Own stores that sells electronics under a confusing, one-sided contract got a big idea. Hey, we’re going to get a piece of the government m...

I’ve been thinking a fair amount about software patents the last couple of weeks. I recently attended a Brookings Institution conference that focused pretty heavily on software patents, and since then I’ve interviewed several sharp patent scholars in preparation for a forthcoming article...

It has been suggested that the American wireless market is a “textbook oligopoly” in which the four national carriers have little incentive to innovate or further reduce prices. I’m more sympathetic to this argument than some libertarians, but over at Techdirt Carlo offers some evi...

Having recently read The Innovator’s Dilemma, it’s worth pointing out that the discussion Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias are having about the decline of newspapers is a classic illustration of the principles Clayton Christensen laid out a decade ago. Internet news is a classic disruptive t...

I’m more sympathetic to EFF-style voluntary collective licensing than Mike Masnick is, but I have to say that the case he makes here is pretty compelling. I think this is really the key point: What you’re doing is setting up a big, centrally planned and operated bureau of music, that off...

TLF reader Timon makes a really good point about the choice between authenticated and unauthenticated networks: Lawyers are trained to view complex questions and come up with balanced approaches to them — ie “balancing” privacy with police prerogatives and subpoenas. The technical ...