Mistaken Identity

Thanks to my colleague, Ted Castronova who forwarded a few links to me and the other faculty in the Department of Telecommunications with an interesting story.

First, a little background:

We all know what Apple Computer's ipods are.
And how the Apple logo appears all over the place now.

Well, apparently Apple Corps.--the folks who own the Beatles' music-- had filed a lawsuit saying that Apple should not be allowed to use the logo. In the past few days the courts ruled against the Corps. This removes a major lega impediment to downloading of music via ipods/istores.

Now, I'm not an expert in copyright law (check out Matt Jackson, a friend of mine on the faculty of Penn State University if that's your interest). But, here's what interests me...
the BBC booked an appearance from Guy Kewney--an expert in the area of file sharing.
Unfortunately, in (perhaps) a rush to get info on the air, nobody in charge of getting Kewney on the set bothered to investigate what he looked like.

Instead, the BBC held an interview with a British cab driver...who supposedly had driven Kewney to the interview. Read the story here.

The cab driver was a GREAT sport. He looked absolutely petrified when introduced as Kewney (to a nation...and now international audience) but then answered all the questions...to the best of his knowledge.

You can see the interview here.