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This is good! The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided (and thus overturned a lower court ruling in Northern California) that just because someone makes digital alterations to your photo and publishes it, you don't automatically lose your original copyright (i.e., the resultant work is not a "new work"), thus allowing you to sue for copyright infringement. This will help protect our photographic rights on the Web and in other digital media. As Judge Alex Kozinski wrote, "The alterations made ... failed to destroy the essentially photographic quality of the image." Victor Perlman, general counsel for ASMP said, "This decision is another safety net on that slippery slope that we seem to be on, where copyright rights are continually challenged and threatened."

            Remember the Golden Rule? He who has the Gold, Rules. Microsoft had been a member of the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) for 14 years. Robert Herbold, Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer, claims the association "is no longer playing an effective leadership role on the issues where the software and information industries share a united interest." And on the other side we hear from SIIA's President, Ken Wasch, "When you swim with alligators, you have no right to complain if you get bit," claiming that Microsoft's tactics (quitting the SIIA) resemble that of a bully.

            Maybe. The FCC, early last year, said that calls made to connect to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) are considered long distance calls, but a federal appeals court recently ordered the FCC to justify its ruling, which could result in the FCC taking a different position. This doesn't directly affect Internet users and you are NOT going to have your calls to your ISP start showing up as long distance (and thus higher cost) on your phone bill. It has to do with the way local telephone companies get reimbursed by the "Baby Bells" when completing a call not originating on their telephone network. The entrenched phone companies are no doubt pushing for Internet calls (gee, how do they tell??) to be classified as long distance, and thus not subject to reciprocal compensation. That could save the Baby Bells hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and deprive local and independent phone companies of a valuable revenue source. The FCC's ultimate ruling may be moot, since the FCC also gave the states authority to set compensation rates, and 35 states so far have said that it's status quo.