Marvin Ammori

Spotify has had a lot of buzz. Like iPhone 4 buzz. A friend on Facebook told me it would change my life. Another said it was like the feeling of using Napster–except legal.

But when I got Spotify I realized something–I don’t need much more music. It wasn’t like Napster. I have thousands of songs on iTunes that I’ve already paid for that I love. I own my favorite songs. If I already knew I liked a song, I would just buy it. I find new music: listening to Pandora and Turntable.fm brought me new music. And if I loved a song, I bought it.

But there was always a gap in my life. I always complained that there were no “covers” radio stations on Pandora. I love covers. I love hearing different artists perform the same songs. I like some covers more than the originals–especially true of Leonard Cohen (John Cale’s version of Hallelujah, REM’s First We Take Manhattan). And I don’t own hundreds of covers on my iTunes.

Spotify fills that gap. And, for me, it was actually something I’d thought about. It was a real “consumer need.”

So this morning, I searched for “Swing Low Sweet Chariot.” I love the Johnny Cash version. I love a version in a terrible movie called “Be Kind Rewind.” I’d never heard the Etta James version. It was awesome. I was living the dream.

Then I searched for one of my favorite love songs, “Such Great Heights.” At least I think it’s a love song. There are two famous versions, one by Iron & Wine and one by The Postal Service. After my search, I clicked on the first one I’d never, by a band called Confide. It was a death metal, screeching, yelling version. Not at all what I expected. I did not want to go to such great heights and get yelled at, in the language of Metalcore. But still kind of awesome.

I’m in Stanford (“in” because Stanford is actually a city within Palo Alto, as well as a University). I am here again for the summer, as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Internet & Society.

Last year, I also came for the summer. The first day, I realized, the weather was perfect. It was cool enough in the morning to run. While cool, it was beautiful enough to run past palm trees in courtyards and up the hillside trails of the The Dish’s golden grasses. It warmed up around noon, for reading by gushing fountains with dashing children playing in the water. Then it cooled down progressively, for a nice walk in the evening, and turned to jean-weather for the evening. No humidity.

That was day one. In DC or Michigan or anywhere else, on a day like that, people would take the day off. They’d scamper outside. They’d tell their friends, “It’s so so beautiful today.” Weeks later, they would still recall it–“Do you remember that one Tuesday, how beautiful it was that day!”

The next day at Stanford, it was just as beautiful.

And the day after.

And the day after.

And nobody noticed.

That’s when I realized that I had never lived anywhere where it was nice every day–or even most days. In Michigan, where I grew up, it was too cold to go outside for 6-8 months of the year. The rest of the year, especially the summer, it was too humid to enjoy the outdoors. So I didn’t even understand why people liked the outdoors–air conditioning in the summer and heating in the winter were the only things that made life survivable. I was an indoors person. For good reason. And, since then, most other places I’ve lived were a far cry from perfect. Often humid, often cold.

Stanford is perfect. Every day. And, being here for four days already, each perfect, I see nothing has changed.

This is my talk at the University of Michigan TEDx, before 1700 people at the Michigan Theater. Just up, so I’m posting it without commentary for now.

Received this nice email about my law review article discussing copyright and online television.

Re: Marvin Ammori, Copyright’s Latest Communications Policy: Content-Lock-Out and Compulsory Licensing for Internet Television, 18 CommLaw Conspectus 375 (2010)

Dear Professor Ammori and Editor:

The referenced article has been judged one of the best law review articles published within the last year in the fields of entertainment, publishing and the arts. As such, it has been selected for inclusion in the 2011 edition of the ENTERTAINMENT, PUBLISHING AND THE ARTS HANDBOOK, published annually by Thomson Reuters (West). This Handbook provides in-depth treatment and comprehensive coverage of the latest issues, regulations, legislation, and case law affecting the entertainment and publishing industries and the arts. As editor of that HANDBOOK, I am privileged to congratulate you on the selection.

Happy my article will be anthologized in an annual publication devoted to entertainment law and I thank the good folks at Thomson Reuters. I hope the republication will make the article available to some people who might not have otherwise come across it.

The U.S. has proposed global cybersecurity strategy that aims to create a more secure Internet, improve cybercrime enforcement, and better protect cyber freedom worldwide. The new strategy was released yesterday and can be found here.

Sony has announced that it has just restored some PlayStation Network services after hackers forced Sony to take it down.  “We have greatly updated our data security systems,” Hirai noted in the video statement. “These changes were the result of an intensive investigation aided by some of the most respected forensic and security experts in the computer industry.” Those changes include more advanced security technology, advanced levels of encryption, additional firewalls and better early-warning systems, he said.

Location information is emerging as one of the hottest commodities in the tracking industry—the field of companies that are building businesses based on people’s data.