Thanks for the link, Gav. I do keep meaning to watch this but its length means that I have to find a distraction-(semi)-free hour to sit in front of YouTube. I’ve seen some videos of Doctorow speaking elsewhere, though, and he is good and I can well believe that this one is well worth seeing.

On the subject of gadgetisation (it may not be a real work, it is a good one), Jonathan Zittrain covered this in The Future of the Internet and How to Stop it. You can download the PDF version for free from http://futureoftheinternet.org/download and it’s certainly a thought-provoking read. I do worry that we, as a society, are increasingly willing to abandon the powerful and flexible general purpose devices that we currently own with deliberately locked down devices that – for intents and purposes – we rent and over which we have no control. Apple are the most obvious case here, but they are not the only one.

I can well believe your comment about the US mainstream media not picking this up as well. It is all over the (UK and US based) tech press that I have seen, but I don’t recall seeing any mention of it on any general news source. I think the problem here is the same as the one with most of the politicians passing legislation like this – most journalists simply don’t understand the technology and can’t comprehend the impact of what is being proposed.

Which sidebar are you referring to? I see one from Rory Cellan-Jones on how to get around the blackout and another one providing a very brief explanation of SOPA and PIPA