Today’s links Billionaire-proofing the internet: Scolding people for choosing popular services is no way to build a popular movement. Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 4): Now we’re just haggling over the price. Hey look at this: Delights to delectate. This day in history: 2010, 2015, 2020, 2023 Upcoming appearances: Where to find me. Recent appearances: Where I’ve been. Latest books: You keep readin’ em, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Upcoming books: Like I said, I’ll keep writin’ ’em. Colophon: All the rest. Billionaire-proofing the internet (permalink) During the Napster wars, the record labels seriously pissed off millions of internet users when they sued over 19,000 music fans, mostly kids, but also grannies, old people, and dead people. It’s hard to overstate how badly the labels behaved. Like, there was the Swarthmore student who was the maintainer of a free/open source search engine that indexed files available in public sharepoints on the LAN. The labels sued him for millions and millions (the statutory damages for digital copyright infringement runs to $150,000 per file) and, when he begged for a settlement, said that they would accept his life’s savings, but only if he changed majors and stopped studying Computer Science. No, really. What’s more, none of the money the labels extracted from teenagers, grandparents (and the dead) went to artists. The labels just kept it all, while continuing to insist that they were doing all this because they wanted to “protect artists.” One thing everyone agreed on was how disgusted we all…Pluralistic: Billionaire-proofing the internet; Picks and Shovels Chapter One (Part 4) (14 Jan 2025)