Politech is the oldest Internet resource devoted to politics and technology. Launched in 1994 by Declan McCullagh, the mailing list has chronicled the growing intersection of law, culture, technology, and politics. Since 2000, so has the Politech web site.

Solveig Singleton has impeccable libertarian credentials: she's worked 
at the Cato Institute and the Competitive Enterprise Institute and for 
Peter Huber.

Now Solveig is an adjunct scholar at the Progress and Freedom Foundation 
and published a paper today defending DRM and the DMCA:
http://www.pff.org/issues-pubs/pops/pop13.11dmca.pdf

I admit my bias: I think section 1201 of the DMCA goes too far, and has 
caused a slew of problems to companies, researchers, and even 
journalists. I wrote in 2002 about how it could make me a federal felon 
for doing my job:
http://news.com.com/2010-1028-978636.html

Unfortunately Solveig seems dismissive of these problems, as Ed Felten 
writes about here:
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=1010

By way of background, copyright and the DMCA are a divisive issue among 
libertarians, as we've seen before (in other words, it's not just PFF 
that takes the IP-is-property view):
http://www.politechbot.com/2006/03/28/a-divide-among/

-Declan

Posted by Declan McCullagh on May 11, 2006 in category intellectual-property

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