• Does Copyright Matter ?
    Tim Parks | The New York Review of Books

    « Mass markets change the equation. The cost of distribution is dropping to zero. Mass markets permit profits on micro prices. Apple has proven both in music and apps that one can sell songs and apps for a dollar and make a profit instead of CDs in jewel cases for 20 dollars. The tech age is crushing the monolithic publishing and distribution business model, copyright law is a regulation protecting an antiquated business model. (…)
    Copyright is a business tool to limit expression. We extend it at our own peril. »

    Jud Lohmeyer, en commentaire de l’article de Tim Parks.
    http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/aug/14/does-copyright-matter
    #copyright

  • Bahrain: A New Sectarian Conflict? by Joost Hiltermann
    http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/may/08/bahrain-new-sectarian-conflict

    Part of what makes the current situation in Bahrain so disturbing is that the regime has succeeded in replacing the narrative of a peaceful movement for reform with an altogether different one: that the country’s majority Shia are intent on driving the Sunnis off the island and handing the country over to Iran. Although last year’s protests were led by predominantly Shia opposition groups, Bahrain’s urban populations have long been mixed and the uprising also drew Sunnis dissatisfied with how the country was run. But now, by mobilizing Sunnis against Shia protesters on the claim the latter are manipulated by a predatory Iran, the regime has made Shia-Sunni hostility the conflict’s overriding theme.