Working Assets/Credo Mobile, a telecommunications company, freely lists the $45,520 they gave to Free Press in 2007. At the time, according to their 990 filing, Free Press’ campaign Director Tim Karr was making $80,000 per year. So the Working Assets contribution amounted to more than half of Tim’s salary.

Tim’s claim that neither he nor Free Press have taken business money is demonstrably false.

One of the standard arguments for government regulation in the Internet space is that “net neutrality” rules are not new. Two advocates of the policy resurrected that argument this week at an event. But the head of NTIA didn’t get the memo. He contradicted that talking point two days later.

Updated on February 27, 2010 at 10:20 AM: Tim Karr has demanded a retraction with claims that he fact checked his piece.  Upon further review of his claims, and having offered Tim $1,000 for proof of my “deep ties” to Arts & Labs, I have decided to change the title of the post to indicate [...]

Demystifying Net Neutrality
Webinar Presented by The Diffusion Group and VideoNuze
Will Richmond, VideoNuze; Collin Dixon, The Diffusion Group; Barbara Esbin, Progress & Freedom Foundation; Chris Riley, Free Press
February 4, 2010

The 2010 Intellectual Property Rights Index has been released. While it serves as a powerful reminder of the importance of property rights to economic growth and developing economies, new restrictions on digital business models may have an un-measured negative impact on property rights.

Free Press trivializes the very real plight of people who have to fear disappearing in the dead of night for criticizing a regime – all to make a political point in a policy fight.

However, there is a legitimate point to be explored in their over-the-top rhetoric. While Free Press would have you believe that your cable company bears some resemblance to totalitarian governments, the better comparison would be government-to-government.

In the last few years, to protect copyright and prevent piracy, game publishers have had to start moving toward some rather extreme forms of protection. Of course gamers today never had the experience I had growing up where I had to plug a security circuit into the I/O port to play some Sierra games on my Apple IIGS Woz Edition. Video game DRM (Digital Rights Management) used to prevent piracy and the software winding up on all the top torrent sites is a big issue these days. But some of the most egregious forms of DRM have simply been smashed by the hacking and torrenting community.

CTIA – The Wireless Association (Cellular Telephone Industries Association)
Ex Parte Letter; “Preserving the Open Internet” / Updating Assumptions: Reviewing Tim Wu’s Wireless Net Neutrality Working Paper Three Years Later
February 5, 2010

In the category of onerous regulation, it appears that the Israeli Knesset has approved a new law that would mandate email portability despite the fact that email was never designed to be portable.  This is similar to a failed attempt in the United States when a freelance writer Gail Mortenson petitioned the FCC for an immediate [...]

The FCC cites the $41/month average cost of broadband as an obstacle to broadband adoption, yet broadband costs as little as $15/month and is 20 times faster than dial-up services. The real reason for lagging broadband adoption seems to be dirt cheap dial-up services, virtually free local calling, and the fact that dial-up is “good enough” for nearly all websites and email.