Earlier today, the Voice brought you news of pending legislation in Albany that would make New York-based websites, such as blogs and newspapers, "remove any comments posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post."

For state Sen. Thomas F. O'Mara and Assemblyman Dean Murray, the gist of the would-be law is to prevent cyber-bullying.

Murray does not think that this violates free speech or presents constitutional concerns.

"It absolutely in no way infringes on anyone's rights. They are absoltuely free to say whatever they like. However, if the statement is challenged by the target or the victim of those statements, they have two options. They can either identify themselves or put their name to the statement, or the statement will be removed. This is not reinventing the the wheel. This has been the standard letter-to-the-editor policy that has been in place for hundreds of years," Murray told the Voice.

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Just a few weeks after a New York judge decided that an internet protocol address is not enough evidence for lawsuits against accused illegal file-sharers, a California judge has ruled that an IP address can't even pinpoint one's state.

As detailed by CNET, the judge tossed out lawsuits against 15 John Does said to have illegally shared pirated adult movies via BitTorrent. The judge said that the court "lacks jurisdiction because the geolocation tools relied on don't always accurately identify the state in which the IP address is located."

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If you own an open WiFi connection, you might have worried whether you're liable for any copyright infringement taking place on that network -- even if you didn't do it.

In a ruling that has caught the attention of lawmakers and attorneys worldwide, a Finnish court just ruled that owners of open WiFi networks can't be held responsible for others' activity, such as illegal file sharing.

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Esther Zuckerman

Today was I Want Media's vaguely titled panel "The Future of Media: 2011," part of the ongoing Internet Week. While most of the discussion was same old, same old (Times digital subscriptions, Gawker redesign, Daily Beast-Newsweek merger), there was a mostly energetic group of panelists, including the New York Times media columnist David Carr, always good for a one-liner, Gawker Editor Remy Stern, Observer Editor-in-Chief Elizabeth Spiers, Huffington Post Big News Editor Saul Hansell, Newsweek/Daily Beast Executive Editor Edward Felsenthal and Facebook Journalist Program Manager Vadim Lavrusik. Not that these panels ever pinpoint what the future of media will be, but they occasionally offer some small bits of wisdom -- serious and not. We have compiled those for you here. (If you are interested in watching the whole thing it should be posted here at some point.)

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Esther Zuckerman

During a question and answer session at Internet Week New York this morning, Senator Chuck Schumer quipped that he was of "the older generation." And even as Schumer looked forward in his keynote speech, which kicked off IWNY at its headquarters in the Metropolitan Pavilion, he made his age hard to forget.

With an AOL backdrop featuring drawings of donuts behind him, Schumer discussed his goal of boosting New York to the forefront of the nation's high tech centers, one day beating Silicon Valley. He announced the creation of a "working group" with the mayor, the governor and New York industry leaders with the aim of making that technology talking point a reality.

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New York's week long gathering of techies and cyberlebrities known as Internet Week had its biggest event this past Tuesday, NY Tech Meetup, with over 800 attendees. The event allowed eight people to demo their fresh tech product to the tech community, and while a few of them were a little over our heads, there were some great products that even the Average Internet User could get excited about. If that's not enough for you, some dude "demoed" what happens when you mix iPads with sledgehammers. A summary below.

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In case you haven't heard, it's Internet Week here in New York City! One wonderful event that's taken place was a panel yesterday to discuss the "Future of Media," which we writers and bloggers and alt-weeklies are invested in, along with most of the information consuming population. The talking points of the panel were nice -- yes, nice -- but the real message lay in the assemblage of panelists heading the discussion.

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It's almost Internet Week! And for those of you who found this post by misspelling "weak" in a search on "the Google," it means that for one week, June 7-14, the tech-media circlejerk will tear themselves away from backlit screens to take over this city. But don't worry!

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