Yeah, free to actually do all the other things one ends up doing instead of work. And dealing with frivolity (in the legal sense). Note to opposing counsel everywhere: I don't take kindly to responsive papers that continue the same kind of misquotation out of context that I objected to in my moving papers. And with the aftermath of shopping for kids going back to school, which definitely doesn't count as "free."
- I find Hollywood's constant whingeing about how its valuable content is being stolen rather amusing for a number of reasons. For one thing, a lot of it is not about the content per se, but about the form in which it is delivered and/or stored. This may well have as much to do with publishing industry tradition as anything else, with the historical distinction between "serial" and "volume" publication (think "individual episode" and "season DVD"), or between "paperback rights" and "hardback rights" (think "DVD" and "HD-DVD"). For another, it's sort of ignorant of American history with copyright.
- Speaking of historical analysis, Professor Patry has a thought-provoking book review up this morning concerning Hollywood (among other actors) and copyright policy in the last couple of decades.
- And The New Yorker appears to be going out on yet another limb with its recent choice of a "new" chief book reviewer. Hopefully, that means fewer fawning reviews of crap by Friends of Tina Brown (a problem that the magazine continues to have several years after her departure).
- Last, and far from least, Alberto Gonzales resigned. That's a good first step, but he's just a symptom, and it does nothing to repair the damage this Administration has done to the rule of law.