There's a neat little rule in press coverage: three stories makes a "trend" even if there's not much more to it. This works particularly well on stories where you're trying to scare people into worrying about something "bad" happening out there.

Right on the heels of the awful court decision in France saying that eBay can be barred from selling even legitimate products, it appears some companies in England are shooting for a similar ruling. Jon Pyser writes in to let us know that a bunch of baby stroller companies in the UK are pushing hard to stop retailers from selling their legitimately purchased products on eBay.

There are some competing opinion pieces in the LA Times, starting off with one siding with J.R.R.

After reports said that UK broadband ISP Virgin Media would become the recording industry's copyright cop, Virgin came out denying it, saying that kicking users off the internet was draconian. However, it later admitted that it would send warning letters to people, based on the flimsy evidence used by the recording industry.

Mark Cuban has a weird obsession with trying to convince people that YouTube is illegal, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. His latest discussion on the topic is a real stretch.

(Credit: Apple.com)

Are you a .Mac subscriber who's been using the built-in bookmark syncing app? Come Sunday that service will no longer exist as part of the MobileMe transition, so if you want to do one last sync you've got to get it done this weekend.

We've covered the concept of SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suits plenty of times before. These are bogus lawsuits filed to try to bully a critic into shutting up. In one such case, involving an incredibly broad subpoena against a librarian blogger compiling information on the potential link between mercury and autism, a magistrate judge has seriously smacked down the lawyer who filed the subpoena.

If you're at work and your co-workers won't stop chatting, there are two options: either tell them to go talk elsewhere or get a good pair of earplugs and/or headphones.

Two different themes we've discussed here quite often are (1) that movie theaters need to stop worrying about piracy, and focus more on improving the moviegoing experience and (2) that advertising is content -- and it better be good content if you want the advertising to be effective.