Websense, an Internet censorship company that I’ve criticized here, has apparently decided to punish me by censoring every podcast I’ve ever made. The files are hosted on the Internet Archive, and consist of me reading non-pornographic, award-winning science fiction stories. It’s hard to believe that someone accidentally mistook these files for “free software download” (the category that Websense has used, one that is selected for blocking by many corporate and school customers); as between that explanation and the notion that Websense has sought petty revenge against its critics, the latter is more credible to me.

I spoke with Cas Purdy, the Websense PR manager, but he was unable to provide any information or comment at this time.

(Thanks, Salim!)

Update: Websense added all of archive.org/download to its “free software download” category after this post was published.

Update 2: Websense has reclassified the Internet Archive and my podcast. This morning, archive.org/download was not classed as “Software Download,” but archive.org/download/ (with trailing slash) was, hence the appearance that my podcasts had been singled out. Websense has since reclassified all of the Internet Archive, including my podcasts, as “Search Engines and Portals.”

(Thanks, Salim!)

This year’s World Science Fiction Convention starts a week Thursday, on August 24th, in LA. I’m doing a bunch of programming this year, as well as dusting off my tuxedo for the Hugo Awards ceremony, where I’m a finalist for my story I, Robot. I’m doing several signings, as well, but if you can’t make it to WorldCon, you can pre-order custom-inscribed signed copies (with free US shipping, too!) from Borderlands Books. Hope to see you at the WorldCon!

Thu, Aug 24

* 11AM: Sign at Asimov’s table, dealers’ room

* 2PM: Sign at Borderlands table, dealers’ room

* 4PM: Podcasting Science Fiction, with Stephen Eley, Paul Fischer and Evo Terra

Fri, Aug 25:

* 1PM: Bloggers as Public Intellectuals, with Kevin Drum, MaryAnn Johanson, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Teresa Nielsen Hayden and Phil Plait

* 3PM: Autographing

* 5:30: Can Science Fiction Change the World? with David Brin, Sean McMullen, Craig Newmark and Cecilia Tan

Sat, Aug 26:

* 1PM: Open Source Software, with Andrew Adams, Loretta McKibben and Eric S. Raymond

* 4PM: The Singularity — What Is It And Why Should You Care? with Todd McCaffrey, David F. McMahon, MD, Mark L. Olson and Toni Weisskopf

Sun, Aug 27:

1PM: Kaffeeklatsch

2PM: Reading

(Thumbnail of Hugo Award from a larger image on an AwardWeb page)

I did a radio interview earlier this week for CBC radio’s Sounds Like Canada, which was just aired — talking about copyright, creativity, blogging and old vs new media. Joey DeVilla thoughtfully captured an MP3 of the show and posted it, along with tons of notes.

I’ll be attending the World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles from 23-27 August, and I’ve made arrangements with one of the book-dealers, San Francisco’s Borderlands Books, to take orders for signed and inscribed copies of my novels and short story collection and cover the cost of shipping them within the US (you still have to pay for the books, though!).

If you’re interested in a signed, inscribed copy of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Eastern Standard Tribe, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town or my collection A Place So Foreign and Eight More, you can call (888.893.4008), fax (415.824.8543), or email your order to the store, and they’ll get me to sign copies with your inscription. There is no charge for media-mail shipping within the continental US.

Priority mail in the US is $6.00 (that’s delivery within three
days or so). International will be Global Priority for $10 to Canada or
$12 elsewhere.

Books will ship after the Worldcon, in late August.

In my latest Information Week column, I discuss the way that loose, single-vendor anti-copying systems like iTunes Music Store DRM are just as bad for the public (and even worse for the music industry) as tight, super-restrictive systems are:

The iPod is the number one music player in the world. iTunes is the number one digital music store in the world. Customers don’t seem to care if there are restrictions on the media Steve Jobs sells them — though you’d be hard pressed to find someone who values those restrictions. No Apple customer woke up this morning wishing for a way to do less with her music.

But there’s one restriction that’s so obvious it never gets mentioned. This restriction does a lot of harm to Apple’s suppliers in the music industry.

That obvious restriction: No one but Apple is allowed to make players for iTunes Music Store songs, and no one but Apple can sell you proprietary file-format music that will play on the iPod.

I recently wrote a column for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on how news-gathering works on blogs:

Wikipedia gets it wrong all the time. So do bloggers. But then, so do newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. The interesting thing about systems isn’t how they perform when they’re working to specification, it’s what happens when they fail.

Blogs, Wikipedia, and other online media fail gracefully indeed. When a newspaper gets a story wrong, it can take 24 hours to get a correction out – if it corrects it at all. There’s no ready way to link criticism of a newspaper article with the article itself. Certainly, you can’t make the edits yourself.

But if you find an error in a Wikipedia entry, you can fix it yourself. You can join the discussion about whether a blogger got it wrong. Automated tools like Technorati link together all the different blogs discussing the same topic, turning them into a conversation.

Two years ago, I spoke at Microsoft Research, giving a talk called “DRM and MSFT: A Product No Customer Wants.” The talk (see the transcript) has become a very widely cited resource on DRM, and has been translated into several languages, repurposed as an audiobook and a PowerPoint presentation, and so on. The video has apparently been one of the most-requested videos on the Microsoft internal network for years.

Now Microsoft has released this video to the public, though you need Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player to see it.