Blog: November 2007

Maybe it's the criticism Verizon has been getting on blogs, in the press, from academics, and in Congress for its anticompetitive behavior. Maybe it's pressure from activist groups like Save the Internet. Maybe it's the upcoming spectrum auction, where the FCC implemented some (but not enough) rules to encourage mobile competition, and Verizon sees the writing on the wall. Maybe it's because they refused to launch the iPhone on their network, and instead Apple ended up with an exclusive with AT&T. Maybe it's Google's recent announcement of their open Android platform.

Whatever the reason, yesterday Verizon—the most control-freak-ish of mobile carriers, the one that cripples phones to disable WiFi or Bluetooth or anything that might compete with their high-priced service add-ons, the one that refused to give NARAL SMS access, whose BREW system locks out all but the deepest-pocketed developers—that same Verizon Wireless yesterday announced that it will open up its network to any phone, the "cellular Carterfone" Tim Wu has been advocating.

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Earlier this month, Barack Obama released his plan for technology policy at a speech at Google. Larry Lessig immediately endorsed it, and Public Knowledge had lots of praise. Lessig, PK founder Gigi Sohn, and many Silicon Valley executives have been advising Obama, and their positive influence is clear on the plan.

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Utah law professor John Tehranian released a new paper about copyright starring a hypothetical law professor named John who goes about his everyday life, doing everyday activities—except in imaginary John's world, every copyright holder asserts the right to, and wins, statutory damages every time John infringes copyright. The total bill: $12.45 million.

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Karl Rove would "like to learn a little more about that Drinking Liberally group." Max Cleland, former Democratic Senator from Georgia, "indentified with ... Drinking Liberally."

On Thursday, William Beutler attended the Yahoo! conference "Citizen 2.0: Radically Rethinking Democracy in the Political Age," which showed a video that mentioned Drinking Liberally. In their subsequent keynotes, both Rove and Cleland referenced the clever name which had caught their attention.