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Nancy Scola

Nancy Scola is a writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in Science Progress, Politics Magazine, AlterNet, and the Columbia Journalism Review.

Recent Articles

Confusing Us with Their Technical Mumbo Jumbo.

Nancy ScolaDec 01, 2009

Deputy U.S. CTO Andrew McLaughlin raised hackles just before Thanksgiving by suggesting to an audience at the University of Nebraska law school that moral equivalence exists between an Internet Service Provider blocking what a customer can see and/or do on the Internet and, say, China blacking out Google searches for "Falun Gong." AT&T was understandably a bit miffed at being compared to censorious and repressive regimes, but their response threatens to cloud McLaughlin's otherwise reasonable point. They shade a distinction which is going to hover over the whole net-neutrality debate going forward.

Benedict Tells Leaders Food Insecurity is a Moral Failing.

Nancy ScolaNov 18, 2009

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Supremes Question the Wisdom of Software Patents.

Nancy ScolaNov 12, 2009

Seasoned observers took the wise cracks heard in the Supreme Court this week as a sign that the nine are doubting the wisdom of business methods patents. Sounds bland, but it's really quite provocative stuff. U.S. patent practice has evolved so that inventors win monopolies over ways of doing business, even when there's no tangible invention involved. That's likely to stop in short order. The court practically mocked the very idea of patenting creative ways of making a buck. What's extra intriguing, though, is that the Supreme Court went even further and threw into sharp relief the questionable thinking behind software patents, too.

The Front Line in the War on Pirates.

Nancy ScolaNov 05, 2009

Pirates of the song-ripping, not Somali, variety.

Cory Doctorow passes along word that a draft version of an international agreement on copyright law has leaked, as have earlier documents from the hush-hush negotiations over what's called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

When Sharing Goes Wrong.

Nancy ScolaOct 30, 2009

The upshot of the Washington Post's revelation that a copy of the House's ethics committee's weekly status report was found floating around on a peer-to-peer file-sharing network is that (a) we suddenly know the names of a few more members of Congress on whom Zoe Lofgren's committee has its sights and (b) the prospects for passing legislation restricting file-sharing software have probably just gotten somewhat rosier.

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