Author Archives: Timothy B Lee

Via Techdirt, David Levine spots an interesting breakdown of Metallica’s revenues: Along with touring revenue — the band pulled in $22.8 million from 55 arena shows reported to Boxscore that drew more than 968,000 fans — Metallica sold 694,000 albums … Continue reading →

Eric Raymond predicts that smartphones will disrupt the traditional PC market: Here’s what I think my computing experience is going to look like, oh, about 2014: All my software development projects and personal papers live on the same device I … Continue reading →

Via Reihan, a trade group called the International Intellectual Property Alliance is apparently lobbying the US Trade Representative to treat preferential adoption of free software as equivalent to copyright infringement. Bobby Johnson at the Guardian explains: Last year the Indonesian … Continue reading →

The last time I wrote about the Founders’ Visa concept, I wondered how the law would be drafted to prevent the creation of “sham” startups. Senators Kerry and Lugar have now introduced legislation modeled on Graham’s proposal, and it provides … Continue reading →

If it was hard for senior American officials in Vietnam to get a straight story about how the war was going, it was much harder for senior officials in Washington to do so. Not only were they several thousands miles … Continue reading →

Not everyone in the US military was surprised by the American failure in Vietnam. Two people who clearly saw what was coming were Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Vann and Colonel Dan Porter, officers who were stationed in the Mekong Delta … Continue reading →

Recently Steve Jobs issued a Fatwa against “overtly sexual content” on the iPhone. Some Apple employee apparently decided that selling bathing suits to women is an “overtly sexual” activity, and blocked the app. I had an argument with Adam Thierer … Continue reading →

The author of The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam, was a young reporter who had his first stint in Vietnam in the early 1960s, at a time when the US commitment was relatively small and the prospects for American … Continue reading →

Incidentally, if you doubt that remix culture can produce works of lasting artistic value, you’ve probably never seen “Ten Things I Hate about Commandments.” It never gets old:

Following up on his video on the evolution of remix culture, Julian contrasts top-down and bottom-up visions of culture: Current intellectual property law frowns on “copying” as opposed to mere “influence.” If I write and record a song that is … Continue reading →