Stories about: Stanford Law School

Fighting insomnia one night, all Robert Topolski wanted to do was send digital recordings of 19th-century barbershop quartet music to some friends.

Microsoft's threat to sue open source software users who violate its patents could be hardest on startups and smaller companies unable to take on the software giant, business and legal observers say.

Creative Commons, the grass-roots content licensing system that has taken hold amongst bloggers and other content creators online, could soon be arriving in your digital camera.

The LinuxWorld Conference & Expo kicked off last week with a keynote address by Stanford Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig, who told a packed audience the open source community's work doesn't end with an operating system and applications. The battle now is in creating a free culture in which the creation and consumption of content are not hindered by stringent copyright laws, Lessig said. He said that while large media and network companies such as Amazon, Apple, AT&T and Comcast may be controlling how people consume content, there is a growing "read-write" culture in which content is modified and shared via the Internet.