It never fails. During various battles over copyright laws, someone will come along and present themselves as wanting to be the "moderate" provider between the warring parties of "users" on one side and "copyright holders" on the other side, declaring that what's really needed is a good "balance" in copyright law that is fair to both sides. News.com has just such an article about the ridiculous new Pro-IP bill. However, as we've discussed before, that's the wrong way to look at it. The more you focus on balance, the more useless your recommendations are. That's because the whole idea is based on a faulty premise that the interests of copyright holders and users are not aligned.

In fact, if structured properly there's no reason that the interests of both sides can't be perfectly aligned, making both sides happy without either having to "give up" something. If you can create a bigger market where both sides come out of the situation better, then there's no balance necessary at all. Balance is only needed when both sides come out slightly worse off. This is even more true these days when the entire dichotomy between "content creators" and "content consumers" has blurred. These days, most people are both content creators and content users. In fact, one of the great things about the internet is that it's completely knocked down the barrier between the two, and helped make it easier than ever to create content the same way content has always been built: by building on other ideas that are out there.

So rather than trying to look for "balanced" solutions that make both parties somewhat worse off, isn't it time we recognized that copyright doesn't have to be a zero-sum game with winners and losers? If you get rid of the restrictions that copyrights artificially impose, you create a non-zero-sum game, where everyone can be better off. It may seem a little trickier for copyright holders, as their business models change, but it expands the overall market for their products while opening up tons of new business models that allow them to profit at a greater rate without pissing off users. Meanwhile, users aren't restricted. So, let's toss out the idea of creating a lose-lose situation around "balance" and focus on building win-win situations that get rid of artificial restrictions and focus on bigger opportunities for everyone.

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Today in the LA Times, a piece by Joseph Menn on striking WGA members in Hollywood who hope to launch venture-backed online entertainment startups as a way to bypass conventional entertainment economics:

At least seven groups, composed of members of the striking Writers Guild of America, are planning to form Internet-based businesses that, if successful, could create an alternative economic model to the one at the heart of the walkout, now in its seventh week.

Three of the groups are working on ventures that would function much like United Artists, the production company created 80 years ago by Charlie Chaplin and other top stars who wanted to break free from the studios.

"It's in development and rapidly incubating," said Aaron Mendelsohn, a guild board member and co-creator of the "Air Bud" movies.

Link. Image: Aaron Mendelsohn (courtesy LA Times)

Electronics firm Philips has designed a purportedly "emotion-sensitive dress," which monitors biophysical changes associated with different human emotions.

Ingrid Bal from Philip's Design said: "You could programme the material so that it turned red if you were angry or stressed, or green when you're calm." (...) It was developed as part of the SKIN Probe Project, a research programme concerned with what lifestyles might be like in 2020. Time magazine named the impressive clothing as the best fashion invention of the year.

Link (Thanks, Susannah Breslin!)

Noah Shachtman points us to the Wired DANGER ROOM holiday gift guide.

The Pentagon is burning billions, to equip the soldier of the future. With DANGER ROOM's holiday gift guide, you can spend thousands, to get pretty much the same gear, today. Besides, who doesn't love a lil' pink Taser for Christmas?

Link.

DaMan writes "ZDNet takes Firefox 3.0 beta 2 for a spin and draws some conclusions that should be sweet music to Mozilla's ears. "Beta 2 feels snappier and far more responsive than beta 1 (or Firefox 2.0 for that matter) and I can feel the difference on all the systems that I've tried it on — from a lowly Sempron system to my quad-core monsters. No matter what you want doing — opening a new tab, moving tabs, opening up Find, zooming in and out of the page, bookmarking — it all happens swiftly and smoothly. What surprises me about the Firefox 3.0 beta is how many memory leaks that Mozilla have fixed. Complaints of memory leaks with Firefox 2.0 were met with an attitude of "Leaks? What leaks?" Considering that there have been more than 300 leaks plugged, it's obvious that past versions leaked like sieves.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Instructable on how to make your own conductive fabrics, thread, glue, and tape, and then use them to make potentiometers, resistors, switches, LED displays and circuits.

Conductive Glue And Conductive Thread: Make an LED Display and Fabric Circuit That Rolls Up. - Link

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The pointless US campaign against online gambling has snared another bunch of innocent victims. A few years back, the DOJ started a new program: rather than trying to stop online gambling directly (since all were operating outside of the US), it would simply go after websites that ran ads from casinos. The problem is that this would appear to be a free speech violation. Unfortunately, that hasn't stopped the folks in the Justice Department from applying pressure to companies -- and it looks like the three big search engines have caved. Google, Yahoo and Microsoft have agreed to pay a combined $31.5 million for running ads from gambling sites in the past (the fines are to be paid as a mixture of cash, donations to charity and public service announcements). The companies aren't admitting guilt -- which seems reasonable because they're not guilty of anything. None of these companies was involved in illegal online gambling. None of these companies even embraced or endorsed illegal online gambling. As platform providers for ads, they simply allowed others to buy ads on their sites for online gambling sites. There shouldn't be any liability directly on those search engines -- but it's tough to fight the US gov't, and since the amounts are relatively small, it's not a huge surprise that the companies settled. It is unfortunate, though. No matter whether you are for or against online gambling, there's simply no reason to go after the search engines. If the ads themselves were illegal, go after those who bought the ads.

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Wow, talk about open source hardware! We'll see if we can stock a kit in the Maker store! -

The "brains" of the Ares I rocket that will send four astronauts back to the moon sometime in the next 12 years will be built by Boeing, NASA announced today—but the specifications will be open-source and non-proprietary, so that other companies can bid on future contracts. The avionics unit will provide guidance, navigation and control for the launch rocket, which will carry the Orion crew vehicle into Earth orbit.

“The combined Ares I and Orion will replace the Space Shuttle and become the workhorse that takes astronauts into space for journeys to the Space Station, the Moon and Mars,” said Doug Cooke, a official with NASA’s Exploration Systems division. The Shuttle is currently slated for retirement in 2010.

NASA Ares I Moon rocket - open source hardware - [via] Link.

Related:

What is open source hardware? - Link.

Open source hardware @ MAKE - Link.

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Here's a fascinating project over at SparkFun where they took one of the Munny "DIY" vinyl toys and embedded a Logomatic datalogger (with its LPC2138 MCU), a Nokia screen clone, and an accelerometer inside. The idea is to use the device as a sort of 21st century Magic 8-Ball, dubbed the Sinister 7. Pete, the builder, is not just playing games here, tho. He wants to explore whether technology can be used to communicate with the unseen forces, vis a vis Ouija Boards and the like. He writes:

I'm an engineer. I've been trained to think logically and employ scientific method pretty much all of the time with whatever's presented before me (though my wife may argue that point). And yet, I believe in all manner of kooky fringe stuff. Or at least I'm willing to entertain possibilities based on what I don't know. UFO's? Absolutely. Ghosts? I eat'em up. Well, why not? I'll never be running for political office. I can examine evidence with the best of them and I certainly don't need an "expert" to interpret what I'm seeing for me. I can look at these things and I draw my own conclusions.

And here's what he has working so far:

Right now, the code starts out with a simple splash screen, then it goes to a menu. The menu contains 3 items currently: Fortune Teller, Powerball Numbers and I Ching. Why Powerball? Hey, somebody's gotta win. This seems like as reasonable of a way to pick the numbers as any. And I Ching? Yeah...I don't have that working yet. I wanted something else for the menu and that seemed a likely thing to have, especially since it's basically just a 1 to 64 random number thing. Right up the Sinister 7's alley. Anyway, one of the buttons is to scroll through the menu and the other is to select. The tri-color LED tells me when the random number generator is operating. I was using it for debugging, but I have no reason to remove it, so there you are.

Detecting Æther - Link

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paulraps writes "Swedish athletes Carolina Klüft and Stefan Holm have proposed a radical technological measure to stop top level competitors from taking performance-enhancing drugs. Klüft and Holm, reigning Olympic champions in the heptathlon and high-jump events, argue that competitors at the highest level should either have computer chips implanted into their skin or GPS transmitters attached to their training bags so that the authorities can keep tabs on them at all times."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ok, we're in the home stretch of the Open Web Awards now. The field has now been narrowed to the top three finalists in each category. Please get your votes in now -- voting closes Thursday, December 20th at 9pm PST.

• Mainstream and Large Scale Networks
• Applications and Widgets
• Social News and Social Bookmarking
• Social Search
• Sports and Fitness
• Photo Sharing
• Video Sharing
• Start Pages
• Places and Events
• Music
• Social Shopping
• Mobile
• Niche and Miscellaneous Social Networks

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Thanks to PodTech, I'm going to CES again this year, and I'd like to see whatever it is that I should see. Suggestions please, in the comments.

I love devices that can be used for podcasting, for example something that fits in your pocket, has a battery, and wifi, and either is programmable by developers or includes a podcatcher. Is this the year of the podcatcher breakthrough?

I'm riding down on the PodTech bus with Scoble and ValerieWag and probably a lot of other coooolio bloggas (Marquis de Canta?). This time I hope to arrange my press pass in advance, and I want to meet lots of vendors who can send me review units through the year, so I don't have to pay for all the stuff I review. (More likely so I can save my money for Uncle Steve.)

And if you're a blogguh and you'll be there you might want to check out the BlogHaus that PodTech is hosting 24-by-7 at CES at the Bellagio.

Let's hope it's not too commercial, and we can have some good meetings and schmoozes and get some great work done.

Alternate theory: If they want to be overly commercial, go for it, then every blogger should get a free 1TB Seagate drive.

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "UC Davis researchers have dated the earliest step in the formation of the solar system — when microscopic interstellar dust coalesced into mountain-sized chunks of rock — to 4,568 million years ago, within a range of about 2,080,000 years. In the second stage, mountain-sized masses grew quickly into about 20 Mars-sized planets and, in the third and final stage, these small planets smashed into each other in a series of giant collisions that left the planets we know today. The dates of these intermediary stages are well established. The article abstract is available from Astrophysical Journal Letters."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kerim Seiler's "MgBeth" a giant inflatable sculpture - [via] Link.

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Well if the FBI can have a terrible computer system that's useless at catching terrorists, should it really be much of a surprise that the SEC has a computer system that isn't particularly useful at catching insider trading? That, at least, is the word from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) in its latest report to Congress. Apparently the GAO found that the SEC's computer system can't even search referrals from its own investigators concerning insider trading. Of course, what's not clear (at least from the article) is how much the SEC paid for this computer system... and how much more it will cost to get one that's actually useful.

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gracey1103 writes "Popular Mechanics has put together an easy-to-follow matrix of where the '08 presidential candidates stand on different science, tech and environment issues. Everything is cited and links back directly to each candidate's published policy pages so you can get more info."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you're looking for a perfect last-minute gift for a DIYer on your "nice" list, Best of MAKE is just the ticket, especially if s/he is not already a subscriber to the magazine.

For the book, we chose 75 of our favorite projects and a few tutorials from the first ten volumes and packed them into a gorgeous 380-page full-color book. It's like an issue of the magazine on steroids AND human growth hormone. A great way of sharing your enthusiasm for the new "handy heyday" with family and friends.

Available in the Maker Store or wherever fine dead tree editions are sold.

The Best of MAKE - Link

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Boobs on Ice: What's with the peas?

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) appears to be the blogosphere's favorite son this week, with calls for him to replace Harry Reid (D-NV) as Majority Leader in the wake of his successful attempt to block passage of the White House–approved version of reforms to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. While perhaps most controversial for a provision granting retroactive immunity