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If we add that A123 is the sole provider of batteries for the Fisker Karma, would you start to care? That A123 is a provider of MW-scale batteries to AES Corp, for use in windfarm smoothing and grid services?

I would have preferred that the government not gotten in the business of payouts to its campaign contributors, but elections have consequences. Usually corrupt consequences, but what can you do.

Okay, let's see...

Livejournal runs on mySQL (with memcached), and has had 970k users update their LJs in the past week. Assume that on average, each journal gets 10 views in that one week (it's probably higher, as there are some really large communities). That's 9.7 million page views in a week, or ~ 40 million a month. Plus the people who just browse and don't have an account.

Slashdot itself uses mySQL..I have no clue about the pageviews, though I know it's in the millions a month.

Google is a mySQL customer. As is Dow Jones, the people that publish the Wall Street Journal and its online editions. So is the NYSE, NASA, the US Census Bureau, everyone's beloved AOL, the Associated Press, Texas Instruments, among plenty others.

Just because mySQL doesn't work for your project doesn't mean it doesn't for others. Not to mention that it's free and ships with almost every major Linux distro out there.

Umm... Hudson's Bay Company was founded in 1670. That makes it more than twice as old as Canada. In fact, it's older than the United States, the French Republic and (almost) every democracy currently in existence.

I suspect, however, that this is the exception that proves the rule. The only company still in existence from the original Dow Jones is GE. Everything else has been broken up or bought out.

Dowjones has several Australian offices and it markets services there.

What is dangerous though is that it sets some dodgy precedents for reporting of less savoury regimes in, for example, Zimbabwe that like to keep criticism to a minimum. The BBC could certainly be hit in court for their reporting of Mugabe's administration (in earlier times they certainly had a bureau there(. One man's reporting is another's unjustified criticism.

Several Justices Raise Fears
About Copyright Extensions

By RYAN DEZEMBER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WASHINGTON -- Several Supreme Court justices raised concerns about whether overturning a 1998 copyright-extension law would make a mess of the full body of copyright law.

The high court heard arguments in a case involving a law extending copyrights by 20 years to 70 years after the author's death, and to a total of 95 years for corporate works. At stake is how long the rights to such valuable properties as Mickey Mouse and The Great Gatsby, will continue to enrich their owners.

Archivists, libraries, book companies and others that rely on material in the public domain are fighting to have the latest 20-year copyright extension revoked and such future laws banned. Copyright holders, including AOL Time Warner Inc., said they need control of their intellectual property to fund future works.

Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford Law School professor who argued against copyright extensions on behalf of Eric Eldred, an Internet publisher, and others, said the 20-year extension violated the Constitution's limit on the duration of copyright protection. Under questioning from the justices, Mr. Lessig said if the court accepted his argument against the 1998 law, then earlier copyright extensions, including the sweeping 1976 copyright law, which extended protections beyond the life of authors, also could be challenged.

That possibility seemed to worry Justice Stephen Breyer and some of his colleagues. The chaos that would ensue would be horrendous, Justice Breyer said.

Charles D. Ossola, counsel for the Intellectual Property Owners Association, which favors the 1998 extension, agreed. Mr. Ossola said after the oral argument that opening the door to challenges of earlier copyright law would create almost unimaginable consequences for businesses already intact.

Copyright law dates back to 1790 when Congress passed the first law giving authors the exclusive rights to their work for 14 years. The original constitutional intent of this law was to motivate creative works by giving exclusive rights for a limited time.

Chief Justice William Rehnquist said the Constitution had little to say on the matter as it is applied today. What the framers thought is not applicable to many of today's commerce rules, he said. (Eldred et al. v. Ashcroft)

Write to Ryan Dezember at ryan.dezember@dowjones.com

Updated October 10, 2002

For an Australian Court to rule that a message posted upon a website operated in the United States, by an American company, and directed at readers almost exclusively in the U.S., is, merely because it can be read by someone in Australia, now subject to the jurisdiction of Australian Courts, the start of a dangerous precedent.

If someone imports a copy from the U.S. of the Wall Street Journal into Australia, does that make the publisher liable in Australia for alleged libel on a story in the newspaper?

Perhaps there are assets of Dow Jones & Company somewhere in Australia which the plaintiff in this particular case can attach, but, if not, they would have to come to someplace - most likely the U.S. - and then they'd have to convince an American Court (or whatever country they think they can find assets to attach) to accept the judgement as valid, not necessarily all that easy if the defendant fights it claiming that the courts in Australia have overstepped their jurisdiction.

The issue is even stronger if it was someone who had no presence outside the U.S., who decided not to try and defend what to them was a ridiculous lawsuit and the other party were trying to enforce a default judgement where the website operator didn't show up. The party suing might even be held liable for damages if the suit is considered frivolous or unreasonable.

It is this sort of relatively stupid attempt at an overly Draconian long-arm statute law that will eventually destroy respect for the judiciary and could conceivably backfire.

If the Australian Courts can impose in personam jurisdiction upon someone outside of the country merely because they put something up on a website outside of the country but can be read in their country, then those who publish elsewhere could do the same thing to impose in personam jurisdiction upon someone outside of the country who attempts to sue or respond to their content.

The website publisher could include language in their right to use clause of their website, perhaps with a click-thru agreement in order to get to it, possibly even via a law similar to UCITA and using that to require someone who has a complaint to use arbitration in a specific city of their choosing, or to sue them only in a specific court, perhaps tossing it back on them and requiring anyone using the site to submit to in personam jurisdiction in their area and agreeing to accept service by mail, and requiring they not sue the website operator in any other place or agreeing to automatic liquidated damages of three times the amount of the judgement and agreeing to allow the website operator to submit the automatic judgement to the local court in the city where the publisher operates and allow it to be collected anywhere in the world without trial, and, waiving any defenses and any other requirements which might be available elsewhere.

Imposing 'long arm' jurisdiction over the Internet for communications or use where the other party has no physical presence is conceivably a two-edged sword and it cuts both ways.

The Wall Street Journal Contact Page (print edition) says nywireroom@dowjones.com is where to send press releases, and letter.editor@edit.wsj.com is where to send letters to the Editor.

The New York Times contact page says to go here for letters and here for op-ed pieces.

Copyright © 1999 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

I'd be particularly alert for bias in articles put out by this company, and would love to know who owns them. ;^)=

Unfortunately, the corporate fact sheet page on the Dow Jones Web site doesn't seem to say anything about ownership of their shares by other corporations, although the shares are publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

(I.e., if you were just jumping on the "MS" part of "MSNBC", and inferring that this was some Evil Microsoft FUD Plot, note that the article looks as if it might be a re"print" of a Wall Street Journal article, not something put out directly by MSNBC.)