Greenpeace has bought a field the size of a football pitch and plans to invite protesters to dig networks of tunnels across it, similar to those built in the ultimately unsuccessful campaign against the Newbury bypass in 1996. The group also plans to divide the field into thousands of tiny plots, each with a separate owner.   BAA, the airport’s owner, would be forced to negotiate with each owner, lengthening the compulsory purchase process.

And TreeHugger.com describes how the “AirPlot” works:

The gist is this: amazingly, and the Heathrow planners must be wondering how this slipped by unnoticed, Greenpeace have been able to buy up a small piece of land, about half the size of a football pitch, in the middle of the proposed third runway site. They are now appealing to the general public to add their names to the ‘Legal Deed of Trust’ as ‘beneficial owners’. All you have to do is go to the Greenpeace website and sign up.

Panasonic, Sony and Philips are spinning off Blu-ray licensing into a single company, which for us, the real people, means we should be seeing Blu-ray prices take another tumble downward.  That’s because the costs of licenses for people to make Blu-ray stuff will drop as much as 40 percent, since manufacturers won’t have to talk to all three companies to get the rights.

“The Columbia University law professor explores how fragmented property ownership—whether in land, intellectual property, or the broadcast spectrum—too often allows people to block each other from optimizing a scarce resource.   Heller’s analysis covers a range of topics, from wireless policy to the control of urban sprawl.”