riordan

As a former copyright activist, we used to hold up "Happy Birthday To You" as the quintessential example of everyday activities that were copyright infringements, like when Lawrence Lessig went through the formalities to perform the song at the anniversary of Free Culture [1].

Yet the questionable legitimacy of the "Happy Birthday To You" copyright claim is something I only recently started to hear about, first from Ben Sisto's Ignite NYC talk [2] and then again from several other copyright activist friends.

While even litigating the validity of Warner's copyright over "Happy Birthday" would be a symbolic victory for copyright activists, it likely wouldn't get very far. And let's not forget that Congress could be moved to pass a law granting "Happy Birthday" its own copyright exemption in response to the actions of a court.

[1]: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.07/posts.html?pg=7 [2]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkUFlZ05EiI

Fridge built a really amazing product - Social groupware for people outside of Facebook. I'll be sad to see it go.

I wonder if the team is going to be moved out to Mountain View or stay in NYC?

And here I was thinking this was a post about the MySpace deal.

Sounds a lot like William Gibson's idea of The Ugliest T-shirt in the World from his novel 'Zero History' [See: http://www.viceland.com/blogs/en/2010/09/03/william-gibson/2...].

In it, a certain object triggers all cameras to stop recording normally, but its only implemented by a gentleman's agreement among security equipment manufacturers.

Meanwhile, the FCC's enforcement chief just put out a press release decrying cell/GPS jammers saying they "create safety risks".

http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2011/db0209...

I work for the New York Public Library, and believe me, we wish we could be open all day every day.

Last year, city budget cuts took the libraries in Queens and Brooklyn from 6 day service to 5, and we managed to keep NYPL open 6 days, but with reduced hours.

That said, there's a lot of people who freelance out of our libraries, and as strange as it sounds, one guy launched his hedge fund out of our business library (we have a few free Bloomberg terminals).

As an NYPL staffer and Hacker News junkie, I can't tell you how much I appreciate seeing this listed here.

Before I joined the library, I'd come here all the time just to get work done. Now I come here to work.

Anyway, if you go a few blocks south to the Science, Industry, and Business Library (34th & Madison Ave) there's access to tons of market research databases that have helped fill out many of my friends pitch decks.

It really reminds me of BillMonk (http://billmonk.com - sort of defunct since they haven't renewed their SSL certificate), a project that was the genesis of Obopay back in 2006. It was very similar to split-the-bill and had a strong emphasis on mobile (ahh - remember when having SMS apps was cutting edge). It had notifications, long-term tracking between parties, and several ways to split it for registered users, but also provided easy service for unregistered users. I used it pretty continuously for about a year but ran into two big issues. One - it was difficult enough to SMS in a bill to split evenly, and a pain to itemize the bill even online. I imagine that even as a web app optimized for different mobile devices, this could still be a problem. When you're at the table and trying to figure out the bill, time is key - that means a quick UI and fast latency. The other issue was getting other people to use it. I convinced maybe three friends to use it over the course of that year and none used it for more than two days. It's difficult to get people to use and stick to.

That said, structuring it as a longterm balancing solution for financial "partners" like roommates might be a better model.

Great idea - now to just resubmit it as its own topic so it hits critical mass.

Have there been any invites sent out from HN so far - I've yet to see any replies indicating they have

Brilliant! I've been using Highrise to similarly organize my job search, however your approach is fantastically elegant and will probably begin using the two in tandem.

I've found that the networking aspects of jobseeking are not only critical in breaking past the resume firewall but are also among the hardest parts to manage, particularly trying to balance several open opportunities and inquiries.

The approach of systemizing all open opportunities, though, is brilliant. I'd suggest finding a way to integrate contacts & contact history within the site, almost making it more CRM-like, to make it a jobsearcher's dashboard.

As to a business model, I'm not sure it's immediately robust enough to begin as a subscription service and I'm no longer sold on advertising as a sustainable revenue stream, particularly with niche web apps.

Frankly, partnering with a LinkedIn might be the best outcome, but it's a real longshot. With the market for unemployed jobseekers outnumbering employed jobseekers, it's going to be a tough opportunity to make money on.

That said, best of luck - it's really quite brilliant.

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