Four short links: 18 June 2009

Weaker Copyright Good, YQL.gov, GeoSPARQL, Happiness

  1. Harvard Study Finds Weaker Copyright Protection Has Benefited Society (Michael Geist) — Given the increase in artistic production along with the greater public access conclude that “weaker copyright protection, it seems, has benefited society.” This is consistent with the authors’ view that weaker copyright is “uambiguously desirable if it does not lessen the incentives of artists and entertainment companies to produce new works.” (read the original paper)
  2. Using Public Data for Good With the Power of YQLThe first part is a new batch of YQL tables providing data on the U.S. government, earthquake data, and the non-profit micro-lender Kiva. The second part is an incredibly easy way to render YQL queries on websites. After all, what good is data that no one can see?
  3. GeoSPARQL — RDF meets geo goodness. SELECT ?s ?p ?o WHERE { ?s gn:name "Dallas" . ?s ?p ?o } (via the geowanking mailing list)
  4. How To Be Happy in Business — this Venn diagram makes me happy. (via Ned Batchedler)

happyinbiz.jpg

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