Yet, having spent a lot of time with blogs in the past few years, sometimes I miss the (perceived?) social detachment in the old news and feel the blog thing (especially today's copyfight blog thing) is captured by club mentality. Anyone share this sentitment? Perhaps it is just sour grapes of a non-participant -- see, e.g., this classic rant [fawny.org]. Any other links?

Note that I'm posting this as an anonymous coward...

It's hard for me to articulate what my main concern is, other than to say that at times I'm not sure whether to read the numerous blawgs out there as academic debates or simply exposed webs of social relationships. They're a hybrid, of course... and social dynamics are transparent in a lot of blogging (and blogrolling). That's not a bad thing if blogs are read as communities of friends, where one would expect this. But I read the blogs of my friends for different reasons than I read Greplaw. I'm not sure what the point is, but an interest in "fame" (a word which appears (perhaps ironically) in your first post) seems to pervade a lot of copyright blawgs, doesn't it?

Sincerely,
Anonymous Coward

Now if you think blogging is all about virtual schmoozing, then there is nothing to see here, move along.

AC

It appears that the curtness of Professor Fishers article had more than one victim. When reading Derek Slater's posts, I was quickly aware that the original article did not contain anything but a sprinkling of what he was talking about. I will be sure to bring my divining rod on the next occasion as well ;)

For the record, I am still not comfortable with the government collecting the revenues from the sales of ideas. It seems correct that the burden of collecting revenues should fall on the seller and not the state.