Companies that offer downloadable movies and music online without licenses from the copyright holders typically wind up answering lawsuits from the Hollywood studios and the major labels. So it was odd to see a news release announcing the impending launch of Zookz, a site that offers unlimited music or movie downloads for about $10 a month (or both for $18). That's a bit like waving a red cape in front of a couple of bulls, isn't it? But Zookz believes it's in the clear, legally, thanks to the World Trade Organization. It's a far-fetched argument, but you've got to give Zookz credit for nerve.

The main differences between Zookz and most online outlets for bootlegged goods are that it's not a file-sharing network and that the content isn't free. Instead, it's just insanely cheap. The company's impossibly low prices reflect the fact that it doesn't pay for most of its inventory or share revenues with  copyright holders. All the proceeds go to Zookz, its 10-person staff in St. Johns, Antigua, and (through taxes) the Antiguan government.

How can it get away with this, you ask? I'm not sure it can, but here's its argument....

As confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor near, my inbox runneth over  with commentary on the nomination from special-interest groups. the latest is a release from the conservative group Committee for Justice (not to be confused with the Committee for Public Safety). Here's the leadoff:

"In a letter released today and attached below, more than two dozen leaders of the Second Amendment community from across the nation urged senators 'not to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the next associate justice of the United States Supreme Court,' citing their 'grave concern' over her Second Amendment record."

This irked me for a reason that has nothing do with the merits of Sotomayor's nomination. I'm not surprised that the gun lobby has "grave concern" about the judge (someday I'd love to receive a press release expressing "mild concern"). It's the use of the term "Second Amendment community," the latest in a long line of psuedo-communities.

I still find the term "intelligence community" bizarre, maybe because it conjures up the image of a suburban cul-de-sac where every father playing basketball with his kids is a spy. But there's also the "gay community," the "disability community" and, of special interest to Angelenos, the "entertainment community." 

This perversion of the word "community" has insinuated itself into dictionaries. Webster's online version offers eight definitions of "community." Fittingly, the first is: "A group of people living in a particular local area." But No. 4, with a bullet, is: "The body of people in a learned occupation." (I suppose firing a gun is a learned occupation if you're a sniper.)

"Community" bothers me not just because it's a cliche; the use of the term in political contexts is freighted with the dubious assumption that "communities" are monolithic. What is the "black community,"  invoked so facilely by activists and politicians? Or the "Latino community"? As the liberal-conservative schism over the policies of the current pope demonstrates, a cohesive "Catholic community" is also an illusion.

Our current president was a community organizer, but the ones the young Barack Obama organized were real communities, not constructs. Maybe Obama's experience will rehabilitate the original connotation of the term -- including in the journalistic community.

Photo: Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times

A would-be Republican challenger is trying to capitalize on Sen. Barbara Boxer's now infamous reprimand of a general for addressing her at a hearing as "Ma'am" instead of "Senator." According to Chuck DeVore, Boxer's dressing down of Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh of the Army Corps of Engineers reflected liberal contempt toward the armed forces and was just what you'd expect from a Vietnam War protester.

But you don't have to be a Republican to be appalled by Boxer's display of pique, which has become must-gag TV on YouTube. "Do me a favor," Boxer told Walsh at a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. "Could you say 'Senator' instead of 'Ma'am?' It's just a thing; I worked so hard to get that title, so I'd appreciate it." To his credit, Walsh didn't reply: "Yeah, you did raise a lot of campaign contributions, Senator." Later, a Boxer aide said she and the general were pals.

Maybe, but Boxer had better forget about a campaign contribution from Miss Manners. As bloggers have pointed out, "Ma'am" is a term of respect comparable to "Sir," which is the way military officers address the president. It's also a contraction of "Madam," as in "Madame Secretary Hillary Clinton." (Walsh began his testimony by addressing Boxer as "Madam Chair.")  If "Ma'am" is good enough for the Queen of England, it ought to be good enough for Boxer. Yet it was the senator, not the monarch, who was not amused.

What's really galling about Boxer's snit is her refusal to give the general the benefit of the doubt. My mother taught her children that if someone knocks you over on a bus, assume it's an accident even if you suspect otherwise. There's no evidence that Walsh was deliberately belittling Boxer, but she flamed him anyway -- before TV cameras. That would be gauche even if Walsh were in the habit of referring to male senators by their proper title but not female senators. But Boxer didn't make that accusation.

Correcting the way someone addresses you almost always makes the other person uncomfortable. Reporters covering the Supreme Court cringed when the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist would correct a nervous lawyer who addressed him as just plain "Justice Rehnquist." Pointing out an error can be awkward even when you're demoting yourself -- which is why I no longer object to being called "Professor" by students who don't realize I'm a lowly adjunct instructor. Cardinal Newman (or maybe it was my mother) said that a gentleman never offends. Neither does a lady senator.

* Photo of Sen. Barbara Boxer by Rich Pedroncelli / AP

I'm a big believer in simulations. For most of my career I have moonlighted (or, as with my current early-morning  gig at George Washington University, mornlighted) as a university journalism instructor. One of my most useful teaching tools, if I do say so myself, is a mock news conference at which a newly appointed "special assistant to the president for youth affairs" (impersonated by a series of glib twentysomethings) answers questions from students about his plans for the job (a "listening tour" of college campuses), his embarrassing past opinions (excavated from a bogus database) and his personal background (including a marijuana rap). I prefer a simulated press conference to a real one with say, a city council member, because it works better pedagogically. Students tend to be tongue-tied in the presence of a real politico, however small-time.

But a journalism class isn't a Supreme Court confirmation, which is why I'm distressed to read that Judge Sonia Sotomayor, like previous nominees, apparently will be put though the mock Senate confirmation hearings by the Obama White House. These rehearsals are known as "murder boards," and Harriet Miers' performance in such simulations reportedly contributed to the demise of her nomination.

It's fine for presidential candidates to engage in role-playing before debates, and allow staffers to shape their answers and critique their deportment. Campaign gurus, like congressional aides, are part of a politician's extended family. The relationship between the White House and a Supreme Court nominee is, or should be, different. Apparently President Obama was scrupulous about not asking Sotomayor about her view of Roe v. Wade, for fear of conditioning her appointment on a promise that she would vote a particular way on a contested issue. Is it any less troublesome from a separation-of-powers perspective for Obama's aides to stage-manage Sotomayor's presentation of what are supposed to be her own views?

Let the woman speak for herself, and leave the role-playing to computer geeks and journalism professors.

Credit: AP Photo / Alex Brandon

You would think that the movie industry, which celebrates documentarians every year at its awards ceremonies, would want to help those filmmakers overcome the hurdles posed by changing technology. But Hollywood's copyright holders don't see things quite that way. In fact, they're trying to make it harder for documentarians to practice their craft, opposing the latter's bid for the freedom to extract short clips directly from DVDs.

This is an arcane topic that's down in the weeds of federal copyright law. But if you'd like to explore it further, hop on over to the Times' Technology blog, where I write about it at length. Click here for the shortcut.

Credit: Spencer Platt / Getty Images

When I was young and not yet 20, I used to mock my elders for their antique vocabularies. My mother called the refrigerator the "ice box." The aged nun who taught me seventh-grade math referred to automobiles as "machines."  One of my grandmothers used the words "authoress," "poetess" and (more offensively) "Jewess" and "Negress."  The other admitted that she was born in the year Nineteen-aught-eight.  Older relatives who grew up in a German neighborhood in Pittsburgh called taverns "beer gardens."

Now middle-aged, I find myself bemused by what I consider ugly neologisms. I'm not talking about computer abbreviations (lol) or teenage lingo. "Proper" English has taken on weird new forms.   In my youth, the word "behavior" was singular, "partner" was not a verb and you "referred to" something. Today, the behaviors of well-educated people include partnering with stakeholders (not the villagers who chased Dracula) and "referencing" an event or article.

I'm especially agitated by the use of "reference" as a verb. I suspect it originated in business English, whereas other atrocities ("behaviors," "role models') have the odor of the sociology classroom. Whatever its origin, the verb  "reference"  has established itself even in The New York Times, or at least on its baseball blog.   The other Times' Josh Robinson noted that the first pitch at the Mets home opener was thrown by Tom Seaver. Robinson continued: "Asked if he was surprised that the Mets had invited him back, Seaver referenced his own special status in Mets history. He is, after all, their only Hall of Famer."

Language changes and crankiness are occupational hazards of growing old (or becoming, ugh, a "senior"). But linguistic behaviors like "referenced" and "behaviors" ought to be put on ice.

The Times editorial board was poised Tuesday to advise Tom Daschle to withdraw as President Obama's nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, but then Daschle mooted the issue by pulling his own ripcord. Undeterred, the board advises Daschle today not to let the door hit him on the way out of the Obama inner sanctum. Distinguishing him from Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, whose payroll-tax problems drew a more forgiving response, the board writes:

The problem with Daschle’s nomination ... went beyond his tax returns. After losing his reelection bid in 2004, Daschle, the former leader of the Senate Democrats, spent four years doing what many former officeholders do: cashing in on his connections.

Tut tut tut. The board also pooh-poohs the latest hostage release by Colombia's FARC rebels ("a stunt") and urges the House of Representatives to approve a Senate bill to create 700,000 acres of new wilderness in California.

Over on the Op-Ed page...

An image from a press release today from AB skincare

Does the glow of November's election still radiate in Michelle Obama's face, or is that just the skin products she uses? A publicist for AB skincare, a line of products peddled by New York dermatologist Dr. Craig Austin, sent me a pitch this morning suggesting the soon-to-be First Lady's "beauty secret for flawless skin" was none other than AB's "10% Glycolic Treatment." The press release included a photo of Mrs. Obama next to a jar of the product, strongly suggesting that she was endorsing it.

Given that I view just about everything through the prism of intellectual property law, I felt compelled to ask said publicist, Krystina Fisher of 5W Public Relations in New York, whether Mrs. Obama had consented to her picture being used on the press release. I mean, even elected officials (and their spouses) have rights of publicity, non?  Her one-line response: "The products were sent over for her to use." Umm, that's not exactly responsive. My guess is that Mrs. Obama doesn't realize she's the new poster girl for AB skincare, and that when she does, the company will be finding other ways to illustrate its claims.

On Monday's Op-Ed page Bob Barr, author of the Defense of Marriage Act, now argues for its repeal. The former Georgia congressman who became a Liberatrian candidate for president says his 12-year-old law isn't working out as planned:

Even more so now than in 1996, I believe we need to reduce federal power over the lives of the citizenry and over the prerogatives of the states. It truly is time to get the federal government out of the marriage business. In law and policy, such decisions should be left to the people themselves.

Meanwhile, in another change of heart, retired political consultants and fundraisers Pamela Finmark and William D. Chalmers come to the Op-Ed confessional with support for a plan to ban their (evil?) fundraising work and instead pay for political campaigns with "patriot dollars" -- a sort of ATM card issued to each American voter.

U.C. San Diego anthropology professor Esra Ozyurek, author of books and studies on 20th century Turkey, argues that an apology to Armenians for the 1915 massacres is an important step in the right direction even though it has been signed by (so far) only 26,000 Turks.

Critics will certainly reply that these modest activities do not compensate for the original crime nor the suffering caused by its denial for almost a century. They will complain that the current signature campaign does not use the word genocide. Yet the significance of this campaign cannot be understated.

And, free Billy. Daphne Sheldrick, who chairs the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya, argues against keeping the Billy the Elephant at the Los Angeles Zoo.

On the Editorial Page, we consider the recent Times story on arsenic in California prisons. We're surprised, but not surprised.

Most residents would prefer to forget about our prisons and the 170,000-odd inmates they hold; it’s only when news emerges about riots or environmental disasters or financial crises that they rise, briefly, to the public consciousness. The trouble is, closing our eyes doesn’t make the prisons go away. So severe have their problems become after years of neglect that they’re about to give us a very painful reminder of their existence.

The page also notes that the late Samuel Huntington was not the first academic whose ideas became policy; and we warn the Screen Actors Guild and the studio chieftains that their current spat over how to share revenue may distract them from new competitors who are planning to take it all away from both sides.

Photo: Getty Images/Win McNamee

Good grammar doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy presidential campaign. But listening to Barack Obama give his stump speech in Indiana on Thursday, I was annoyed anew by his reference to the need for "good paying jobs." Obama's not the only one, of course. "Good paying jobs" is a mantra for politicians from both parties. I don't understand why.

OK, maybe someone -- though not Joe the Plumber, who's pretty articulate-- once said: "This job pays good." But is that any reason for otherwise grammatically scrupulous candidates to talk about "good paying jobs"? Whats next: A claim that George W. Bush presided over a "bad fought" war in Iraq? Or that Sarah Palin "rich deserves" the lampooning she has received from Tina Fey?

Maybe a retired English teacher should be given a well paying job correcting the candidates' grammar.

Photo: Mark Randall, South Florida Sun-Sentinel