Stanford Center for Internet and Society

I will somehow have to catch up with the rest of the bloggers out there, who seem able to hear about, comment on, and get tired of a particular bit of news nearly the instant it happens. But I finally heard about this, and thought it was worth commenting on (thanks to Peter for bringing it to my attention).

(This post was substantially updated on February 28th.)

Jonathan Lethem's essay "The Ecstacy of Influence" was published in Harper's Magazine back in late January, which makes it ancient in the compressed timeline of blog chatter. And it has been fully chattered over, mostly because it is brilliant, so I won't say much.

I'm pilfering a phrase from Siva Vaidhyanathan, who wrote an excellent article called "Copyright as Cudgel," noting how producers often use copyright infringement charges as a political weapon.