The SFWA vs. EFF.

For those who haven't heard of the kerfluffle over Scribd.com, Dr. Pournelle has a column covering the events thus far. For alternate takes, you might try Whatever (John Scalzi's blog), or Craphound (Cory Doctorow's blog). Slashdot also has something to say.

This is, to put it bluntly, a nasty mess. The end result, from what I can see, is that authors and writers can no longer count on organizations like SFWA for help in protecting their copyright. That, in turn, means that there will be less incentive for commercial production of intellectual material--because if there's one inflexible rule of economics, it's this: why should you pay for that which you can get for free?

Update: Craphound appears to be dead; Doctorow has an article up on BoingBoing.