Reihan Salam wrote a great piece at National Review Online today that outlined how the International Intellectual Property Alliance, a group made up of the MPAA and RIAA among others, is pushing for the US Trade Representative to consider countries that use open-source software to be added to a list of countries that don’t respect intellectual property rights.

This is, of course, absurd. If someone chooses to give away their intellectual property and you elect to use that property, you’re making a perfectly legal and moral decision that in every way respects IP.

So what’s the motivation for this? Salam sums it up in a single sentence:

Basically, a handful of large corporations are trying to use the power of the US government to limit the ability of other firms, large and small, that are built around OSS business models.

So once again the policy of the United States government is being co-opted by large corporations to support their self-interest.

At the conclusion of this ppost, Salam gives out a nice shout out to me and Tim Lee of the Bottom Up blog:

To understand how and why OSS resonates with core libertarian principles, I recommend reading Tim Lee and Cord Blomquist.

I appreciate the recognition and being thought of as a defender of “core libertarian principles.”

For more on the USTR’s Special 301 watchlist, check out this post by Mike Masnick at TechDirt.

I was cited along with Max Blecher, a top antitrust litigator with the firm of Blecher & Collins, and Paul Sweeting of themediawonk.com in a recent Reuters story on Hollywood and antitrust regulation.  You can check out the piece that was cited at TechLiberation.com.  The same piece was also cited by Breitbart’s Big Hollywood blog.

Cameron English cited some work I did at my old gig over at CEI:

As the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Cord Blomquist somberly reminds us, “with video games as a precedent, other forms of ‘politically incorrect’ media could be next.”

I blogged about the possibility that Hulu could be investigated for antitrust violation by the Obama administration at TLF in a post entitled “Should Hulu Brace for Antitrust Action?” and now I’m big in Hollywood. That is to say that S.T. Karnick at Andrew Breitbart’s “Big Hollywood” blog linked to me.

Karnick states the case a little more strongly than I did in my original post:

Blomquist is right. As always, the overwhelming desire of socialists is for unlimited power. When socialists find a successful enterprise, their first instinct is to tame it—and if they fail at that, they will surely destroy it.

Whether or not “socialists” are wielding it, antitrust power is a dangerous regulatory tool that is overused and often abused.

I blogged about the Sirius XM bankruptcy at TLF in a post entitled “Sirius XM Bankruptcy: Thank Washington for the Delay” and I’m happy to see that Mr. Masnick at TechDirt has linked to me.

Though many forces were acting against the success and sustainability of Sirius XM Masnick acknowledges that the federal government’s actions didn’t make matters any better:

The 18 months it took federal regulators to approve the merger between XM and Sirius, combined with the ridiculous restrictions that were put on the combined company significantly contributed to satellite radio’s troubles.

Well put. Thanks again for the props Mr. Masnick.

Thanks to Julian Sanchez at ArsTechnia for linking to my TechLiberation.com post “Eric Holder and Tech Policy,” which discusses President-elect Obama’s pick for Attorney General.

Julian linked to me as part of “When You Sleep,” a round-up of tech news stories.

I also loved Julian’s post “Can we get some better telecom shills please?” which covered a study I talked about yesterday at TechLiberation.com and was picked up by TechDirt.com.

Julian’s criticism of the “study” is very well thought out and unlike some of the commenters, I thought his shipping analogy was quite good.

Thanks to Mike Masnick at TechDirt for linking to my post on TechLiberation.com and quoting me in his post “Is Google Really Using 21x The Bandwidth It Pays For?”

In the post, I explain how a recent study put out by Precursor LLC claims to have calculated Google’s total bandwidth use declaring “Google uses 21 times more bandwidth than it pays for.”

I point out that this claim true of any site on the web.  That’s why consumers pay for bandwidth too, along with all the peering arrangments that connect networks to other networks.  That’s why it’s called Internet.

Thanks to Declan McCullagh at CNET News for citing me in his piece about Obama’s AG Pick, Eric Holder.

Declan does a great run down of many of Holder’s stances on tech policy in “Obama’s attorney general pick: Good on privacy?”

I did a follow-up post talking about Holder’s stances on tech policy and why there may or may not be reason to hope he’ll be a step up from Ashcroft or Gonzales.  Check it out here or at TechLiberation.com.

Google is said to have monopoly power in search, but even if that were the case it wouldn’t affect the real market they are competiting in—advertising.  New video sites like Hulu along with giants like Facebook and MySpace represent real competitors for ad dollars.  Google may dominate in search, but it’s one of many in the realm of advertising.

Thanks to Heartland for the interview!

As if Linden Labs didn’t already get more press than it deserves, I’ve become part of the hype.  Linden introduced zoning laws into Second Life recently and Aleks Karnick was kind enough to quote me.

Read the full story at the Heartland Institute’s Infotech & Telecom News.

Thanks to Stefanie Olsen at CNET’s News.com for giving me a shout out in her piece about McCain’s pick for VP, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.  Little is known now about Palin’s track record on tech and she has no record on many national tech policy issues.  However, as I told Stefanie, we do know that Palin came out again Real ID, a policy that would sacrific our privacy in order to gain a false sense of security.

The All Things D blog at AlllThingsD.com cited my post at TechLiberation.com:

As Viacom’s lawsuit against YouTube and its parent company Google rolls forward, it’s worth asking if any outcome of the suit will change the situation for Viacom. In fact, were the impossible to happen, like a judge shutting down YouTube altogether, Viacom may be worse off.

See the quote at AllThingsD.com or read the full post at TechLiberation.com.