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We're aware that our RSS feed (which you really should be subscribed to, if you aren't already) has taken to posting the body of each post twice. It's being worked on. Sorry for the trouble.
Glad to hear it.
EFF's Fred von Lohmann has a very nice analysis of the copyright law quagmire caused by President Obama's gift of an iPod with 40 show tunes to the Queen of England.
I am not a copyright scholar, but I think Fred may have left out one aspect of the issue which I think means that the Queen can enjoy her iPod in peace: sovereign immunity.
In the US “sovereign immunity” is something that keeps you and me from suing the government for certain classes of misdeeds. But, as I understand it, in the UK sovereign immunity means…sovereign immunity. The Queen IS the THE sovereign. She has immunity. It's really pretty much that simple.
The government in the UK doesn't have “sovereign” immunity because it's not sovereign. Sovereigns have two legs. The UK government just has “government” immunity. In practice that works like our sovereign immunity, so no one minds. But the distinction matters when you are thinking about the Queen's legal exposure in what are “her own courts.” And although I don't know UK copyright law, I'm guessing she didn't waive anything….
(As Fred noted when I sent him an earlier draft of the above, Obama's import to the UK is likely protected by diplomatic immunity. So the issues, whatever they are, are US law issues.)
Jesus Diaz, Determining the Money Supply of a Virtual World,
People have been studying virtual worlds for a while now, but there has been little discussion on the money supply. Currently, most virtual world developers do not publish data on the money supply and so I developed a method in estimating it. Using economic theory and the exchange rate, I was able to check the accuracy of my estimate. After applying my method to World of Warcraft, I believe there is over nine billion gold on North American servers. If that gold were converted to USD, it would be worth $192 million, and if the same held true for all World of Warcraft players, there would be $747 million.
Not close to enough to help with the current banking crisis, alas.
I got 40% on this quiz: Star Trek Character or Erectile Dysfunction Pill?. I could have done better flipping a coin. But then again, it does test on two subjects I'm ignorant about.
(Spotted via Bartow in one of her many online incarnations.)
With the appropriate and evocative title of Glurk!, Brad DeLong gives us three very striking graphs of imports, exports, and the trade deficit.
It's a little hard to tell, but they're all cliff-diving, and each appears down by about a third in the last six to nine months.
OK, this is a bit unusual. According to The Pain of Campaigning I: Story and Pre-Game Decisions | Critical Hits, the author-blogger of an extended series on Dungeons & Dragons is a 3L at Miami Law:
The Main Event is a third year law student at the University of Miami. He writes dungeon mastering advice in his Pain of Campaigning series. He also writes comic reviews for 411 Mania. In between full time school, various internet tasks, part-time work, and socializing The Main Event is an aspiring author.
I invite Mr./Ms. (probably Mr….) Event to drop by and say hi.
Jotwell Blenderlaw