Agreed. First thing I thought when I read this was that he needed to talk to Cory Doctorow.

However, Doctorow told me when I met him that he'd publicly debated another copyright zealot, Harlan Ellison, and it didn't go well at all. Although that may just have been because of Harlan being his usual Harlan self.

b.

Iridium is very hard and very brittle; I think it'd be difficult to make it into a ring. Maybe it could be alloyed with gold?

At least it's not terribly expensive; about half the cost of gold.

When my spouse and I wanted geeky wedding bands, we ended up getting them from Isabel Jewelry, in Wyoming. Isabel Rucker makes beautiful hammered rings from several colors of 14K gold, as well as silver. The geek cred comes from her being the daughter of SF author Rudy Rucker, of whom we're fans.

Her rings are beautiful, functional, and not terribly expensive, and we're very happy with ours.