"The nerd version of arguing how many angels fit on the head of a pin"

As I've mentioned before, my favourite web site on the Internet is MetaFilter – a community weblog where any member can post and comment on stories which range from technology to news to pretty much anything else you can think of.  The site has members from around the world who encompass all worldviews but tend to skew leftist/libertarian overall.  The fact that the co-administrator is a well-known librarian adds to the site's appeal for me as well.

MetaFilter has developed a few other “sister sites” including AskMetaFilter where members can post questions on pretty much any topic and as on the “blue” (ie. Metafilter, so named for its background colour), members can respond.  (I think that I've talked about this site as a possible model for the future of library reference in a technology-focused world.) 

I should also mention that as much as I like MetaFilter is exactly how much Shea likes AskMetaFilter.  It's definitely an addictive site once you start checking in to see the new questions which pop up on a fairly fast basis. 

So anyhow, I thought this post in the Administrative section of the site, MetaTalk (aka “the gray”), might be of interest to some people.  The site owner had posted a link to a site where you could play old Commodore-64 games.  Someone else posted a link to bit torrent files of Wagner recordings which was deleted by the site owner due to the copyright infringement issue.  The person whose post was deleted questioned the double-standard of this deletion and a nerd's eye view discussion of copyright ensues. 

[Edit: Here's another semi-related post that just went up today about musicians in the UK pushing to extend copyright.]

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