I wrote before about BO.LT, the startup which is seemingly built on a cynical exploitation of the worst aspects of the Digital Miilennium Copyright Act.
BO.LT emailed me today to tell me about the exciting new features they will be launching soon – apparently it will make it easier to “discover interesting things” and “get lost in millions of pages of content that people liked so much that they had to keep a copy”
Don’t worry, all the old functionality is still there, copying fans! (By the way, leaving aside the obvious copyright issues, does their new approach remind you of anything? They sent a picture with their email showing their new interface – I wouldn’t want to infringe their copyright by posting it here but from what I can tell it’s basically the same as Pinterest. Surely they’re not just jumping on another bandwagon?)
They seem to have brought their site down while they reconfigure but I was able to log in and just noticed on their newly blank homepage the box you see below.
Just a reminder about copyright. It means “the right to copy”. Something which bo.lt clearly does not have in a huge proportion of cases – despite the liberal use of the word “copy” as if it’s generally OK.
The good news is that their initial idea seems to have been a failure. The bad news is it looks like they’re staying in the business of showing contempt for copyright. Lets hope it’s no more successful this time…
Dominic Young 
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