TroySchneider.com

In reading Wired News' exclusive on a hacker's work against The Pirate Bay for the MPAA, I'm stumped. Which is more ridiculous?

1. That the Motion Picture Association of America, in its mission to fight the theft of Hollywood blockbusters by the Bittorrent crowd, bought stolen information about TorrentSpy.com; or

Has everyone forgotten that copyright exists primarily to encourage the public good that can come from intellectual property? That helping to compensate the content creator is a means for getting good ideas out there, not an end unto itself?

The Wall Street Journal reports today that a coalition of "Internet, media and technology companies" is set to announce... a set of guidelines they have agreed on aimed at protecting copyrights online."

Radiohead's new album, "In Rainbows," dropped early this morning in the band's experiment with DRM-free, digital-only distribution for whatever a fan is willing to pay.

Of course, "DRM-free" also means "super-easy to share."

Jeff Atwood is taking YouTube to task for its wink-wink, nudge-nudge approach to uploading copyrighted video clips.

It's a valid point, and I especially like his quip that "by YouTube's own rules, YouTube cannot exist." But YouTube's copyright tips also qualify as a "big copyright lie" in another sense: they seriously downplay the importance of fair use.

John McCain's daughter Meghan has launched her own (sorta) campaign blog: McCainBlogette.com, a "fresh perspective on what is sometimes perceived as a stale and boring process."

Meghan and her two co-bloggers plan to post from Dad's campaign bus about "musings and pop culture on the campaign trail." I'm all for pop culture, so this is already better than the Rommney brothers' groupblog. Beyond that, though, I'm mainly just scratching my head.

On FedBlog today, Tom Shoop reports that author and Veterans Affairs psychiatrist Jonathan Shay is among the winners of this year's $500,000 MacArthur Foundation "genius grants."

On ars technica yesterday, Nate Anderson wrote about the Computer & Communications Industry Association's "Defend Fair Use" initiative.

It's a nice run-down of the effort by Oracle, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Sun, Red Hat, and others to rein in the overly broad copyright notices that accompany sports broadcasts, DVDs and a wide range of other "big media." Toward the end, however, Anderson notes:

GrandCentral -- the "one phone number for life" venture acquired by Google earlier this year -- has drawn criticism a couple times on this site, but that's been tough love. I really do like the service, and here's another reason why:

National Journal's Technology Daily has published an impressive package of articles on the role tech policy is playing (or isn't, as the case may be) in the 2008 race for the White House.

Good stuff. And unlike the vast majority of insider coverage produced by Tech Daily and the other publications of National Journal Group, these articles are posted outside the subscibers-only wall -- no four-figure annual subscriptions required.

Nothing like ending your day with a story of overt racism. According to the Guardian and elsewhere, staff at Cancun's Hotel Coral Beach assumed that Rigoberto Menchu -- the Mayan activist, author, Nobel peace prizewinner, and current presidential candidate in Guatemala -- was an indigenous beggar or street vendor, and demanded that she leave the premises.

Sad, but not surprising. God forbid that a Mayan woman wear traditional Mayan dress.