By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Thomas Crampton: In France, A Movement to Legalize Web Piracy of Films and Music, International Herald Tribune December 23, 2005

Ignore the blatant propaganda in the title (I always take titles directly from the source, but staying true to this one makes me grit my teeth - folks, it's not 'piracy' if it's legal and you pay for it. Sheesh). The French parliament is attempting to legalize file sharing for non-commercial purposes. We can only wish them well in this attempt. The proposal "would establish a so-called global license fee that - once paid - would permit Internet users to download unlimited digital music and films from the Internet for personal use." Gosh - this coverage is really bad. More...

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. James Farmer: Education & Blogs @ Les Blogs, Incorporated Subversion December 12, 2005

Ewan McIntosh, who launched edu.blogs.com last July, represented the edublogger community at the recent Les Blogs conference in Paris, his meanderings causing James Farmer to comment, "the total [and] blanket ignorance of what I might describe as the edublogosphere and of the broad and innovative uses of blogs in education over the last 5 years in these kind of forums does worry me." What has been happening is, of course, as Peter Ford describes it, "Educational blogging consultants seem to be springing up all over the place, some aiming for the guru-status of being paid for hot-air production about blogs and related technology that they never have used at the chalkface." Nothing against McIntosh, who was simply taking advantage of an opportunity (though his response to Farmer was, to my reading, unduly hostile). More...