P2P is legal, best IT workplaces, outsource everything, and more...

Where Did Our Love Go? sang The Supremes. P2P is legal, sang The Supreme Court, despite reports to the contrary. Frank Hayes called those reports bland blather, and points to the Groklaw discussion, where we find interesting comments such as "Doesn't strike a blow at P2P," "P2P is my radio station," "Musicians get 8¢ per CD." Ken Mingis thinks this will improve iTunes' revenue. Precision Blogger points out that the ruling puts non-US technology companies at an advantage. Derik DeLong says Grokster assisted in the act of piracy and that it, "Wasn't just turning a blind eye." Ex-roadie Dave Stevens studies the decision and thinks it's "Exceptionally vague, well balanced and fair," [huh?] summing up with:

What's happened here is that the market and the distribution paradigm have evolved and the content producers weren't able to exploit it like they have in similar transistions [sic] in the industry. For example, vinyl LP to cassette to CD in the music biz and video cassette to DVD in the movie biz. Instead of changing tactics and trying to drive new business models, content producers chose to litigate and force consumers into models they no longer wished to use.

Layoffs down: morale up notes Mitch Betts. In a separate post, he describes some unusual perks, including Quicken's "In-house rock band to liven up meetings." Ovaltiney Martin Brown recites east, west, home's best. Adam Dyer wonders which companies weren't represented. Check out the full report.

Outsource your entire datacenter: an insightful conversation at Slashdot. Best comments: "If you value your data, insource," "Insourcing isn't as simple as it sounds," "Don't do it!" "minuses outweigh the plusses," "Dump Exchange," "No, outsource your management."

More talk about CardSystems from various quarters: Scott Bradner (quantitatively shows the least regard for consumers), Ed Foster (shouldn't the victims be notified?), Aunty Spam (Lawsuit Filed Against CardSystems), Robin Bloor (A Breach Too Far), and another utterly stunning insight from Gartner (Security concerns are eroding Internet users' confidence).

Buffer overflow:

• The Ten Common Myths of I.T.
• Sergeyvision™
• Tech failing to serve blind-deaf users
• Backups, USB and DAT
• Linux, ISOs and Knoppix 4.0
• Inquira -- baby steps towards useful NLP?!
• Nervous about identity theft, me too!

And finally... Six-legged puppy dumped at Malaysian temple.

Richi Jennings is an independent technology and marketing consultant, specializing in email, blogging, Linux, and computer security. A 20 year, cross-functional IT veteran, he is also an analyst at Ferris Research. Contact Richi at blogwatch@richi.co.uk.