John Hiler notes that Google has reinstated Xenu.net, but editorializes why the core issue has not changed. Independent Web sites devoted to pop culture icons like "The X-Files" and "Star Trek" used to flourish on the Net. Now they're an endangered species. Rural/Metro, an ambulance and fire service company in Scottsdale, Arizona, sued four individuals who had posted messages on the company's Yahoo finance message board that contained what it alleged to be confidential and libelous material. Joseph Wecker's song about a binary computer code wasn't exactly a chart-topper, but he doesn't think MP3.com should have banned it. On one hand, as information has grown more valuable, copyright and trademark law has become increasingly restrictive. At the same time, there has been, in the words of MIT media studies professor Henry Jenkins, an "explosion of grassroots, participatory culture," a new high-tech folkway that not only draws on pop culture but appropriates from it more easily than ever before, and disseminates itself on a wider scale.
Church v Google, round 2
Who owns fandom?
Can John Doe Stay Anonymous?
Battlebots v. Battlebots.org
Sony Dogs Aibo Enthusiast's Site
MP3.com yanks song with illegal DVD-hacking code
Copy Catfight