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Showing posts from September 14, 2003

Saving Iowa's One-Room Schoolhouses

The Iowa Historic Preservation Alliance is presenting a two-day conference at the Spencer school admin offices (23 E 7th St) Oct. 3 & 4, where several speakers will be on hand for presentations, including a cartoonist/author and a university professor. A tour of museum schools in Clay, Dickinson and Buena Vista counties will be held Saturday. For details, email Bill Sherman or call (800) 434-2039.

RIAA and Mediacom

Mediacom, Des Moines' cable Internet provider, has to date, received 6 subpoenas on behalf of the RIAA for identity information on its users' downloading of copyright protected music on peer-to-peer networks, such as Kazaa. Whether Mediacom succumbs to the requests is really irrelevant. In many cases, if you buy it, you own it lock, stock and barrel. You have the right to screw with it, tinker with it, destroy it, or improve it however you see fit -- provided you don't hurt anyone or cause damage to anyone else's property in the process. At least that's what we hope is the case. If you buy a CD, you own the CD. It's a bona fide contract between you and the seller. It's the same with any product. But if you reproduce it and sell it and make money on the venture, you are stealing someone else's hard work for profit. I doubt any reasonable person diagrees with that. But that's not what this is about, and I think most people grasp that.