Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Friday, March 19th, 2010
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Hollywood (the movie studios, the record labels, etc.) sure does have a knack for causing its own problems. You’ll recall that it’s en vogue to call copyright infringers “pirates,” which is an insult to legitimate pirates like William Kidd and Henry Morgan. Just because you can fire up uTorrent doesn’t mean you can take on a Spanish Armada. But, whatever, it’s simply easier for Hollywood and its acolytes to call you kids “pirates” than it is to have an adult discussion about the subject. The word is nothing but trouble. Using it is akin to calling someone “Hitler” or a “Nazi” in a debate: it’s basically an intellectual shortcut to a ready-made conclusion. Those guys? Bad. Us? We’re good. Or in fancier verbiage: To say that X is a pirate is a metaphoric heuristic, intended to persuade a policymaker that the in-depth analysis can be skipped and the desired result immediately attained… Claims of piracy are rhetorical nonsense. Said by “noted copyright scholar” William Patry. Now, had Hollywood, when the likes of Napster and Kazaa first came out, taken the time to explain the difference between wholesale theft and copyright infringement, rather than rushing to sue everybody, throwing around meaningless terms like “piracy” and “stealing,” well, this is the consequence. Show me one 16-year-old who has a problem with downloading Lady Whatshername and I’ll finish this stupid sentence.
Posted by 010081
Tech
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
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Apparently it’s illegal in Canada to copy music from a CD you bought to an iPod (or whatever). It’s simply not allowed, even if you’re not breaking any DRM in the process. (In the U.S., it’s illegal to copy a DVD to your computer’s hard drive because you have to circumvent the copy protection in the process.) Solution? Some sort of levy, which would ensure that “artists” make money even though you’re not re-buying their music. The deal now is that an MP up there wants to introduce a CAN$75 “iPod levy” that would effectively legalize copying music from a CD you bought to your iPod. The levy has just been proposed, but if the Canadian legislature is anything like its American counterpart it’s going to be a little while before anyone even raises the issue again. The idea of a levy isn’t new, per se—there’s already a levy on blank media (CD-Rs and the like) that supposedly help to make sure that “artists” get paid. (My hunch is that it goes right back to the record label’s coffers, but whatever.) Granted, you could be buying blank media to backup your PowerPoint presentation, so it’s not a 100 percent fool-proof thing, but it neatly solves the problem in a way that prevents people from having to re-think the entire concept of copyright in the 21st century. This so-called iPod levy could also negatively affect people who buy iPod but don’t put any music on them—people like me, for example. I have an iPod touch and I dare you to find one song on there. (I pretty much just use it for like 10 minutes a day to check WoW.com before going to bed.) Why should I have to pay CAN$75, which is like US$4,000 these days, to subsidize other people’s habits? Yes, I understand that the number of people who buy iPods and then don’t put any music on there is quite small, but I needed to fulfill my daily complaint quota. Let’s turn it around, make it local to our fair American readers. Let’s say Congress, for whatever reason, creates and passes a law that says you’re 100 percent allowed to copy DVDs (legally bypassing the DRM) that you own to your hard drive, but that from now own all commercial DVDs come with a $10 tax on them to cover the “losses,” so to speak. Would you go for that? Flickr
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Monday, March 15th, 2010
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Apparently there was some sort of media summit in Abu Dhabi recently, and a big topic of discussion was copyright infringement. (I think we need to reserve the word “piracy” for actual, sea-faring piracy, not kids grabbing the random Sublime song off LimeWire.) Rupert Murdoch called on governments to stop copyright infringers, asking them to punish them as they would shoplifters. I guess Murdoch doesn’t understand the different between theft and copyright infringement. And Ari Emmanuel , Rahm Emmanuel ’s brother (and the inspiration for the Entourage character Ari ), has been lobbying President Obama to implement some sort of three-strikes policy, like they have in France . France! A couple things: one, I’m pretty sure President Obama is a little busy trying to get some sort of healthcare law passed; the concerns of Hollywood bigshots aren’t exactly on his radar right now. Two, we’re beginning to enter the next election cycle, so Congress is going to be on its tippy toes trying not to offend anybody or do much of anything . It’s sorta like laying low come 3pm Friday, so your boss doesn’t saddle you with a last-minute assignment that’ll keep you at the office one longer that you need to be. Congress is busy doing nothing, in other words. As for Murdoch: whatever, dude. I think my government has more important things to do than track down high schoolers who download an episode of 24. At least I hope it does!
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
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Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Cox are busy funding some new, super-duper anti-BitTorrent technology called BitStalker . The difference between it and other anti-BitTorrent systems is that it’s said to be accurate . That’s a huge development, actually. The Man and those sycophant ISPs are sick and tired of punk kids downloading Valley of Neptune , despite the fact that it’s not 2005 anymore, and every kid under the age of 14 already knows how to do so with his eyes closed and while he’s doing his maths homework. To that end, they’ve enlisted the aid of BitStalker, which, unlike older anti-BitTorrent systems, is an active system. It doesn’t just sit back and try to sniff out your packets, but rather goes into there and actively looks. The difference between a “no drugs allowed” sign and a drug-sniffing dog. Worst metaphor ever? I’d say so. The best part is that, even though this new BitStalker business is supposed to be so much more effective at detecting illegal BitTorrent activity, TorrentLeech spoke to a bunch of top BitTrrent sites (not to be confused with topsites ) and found that they’re completely unimpressed with the technology. So while the BitStalker people can claim all sorts of magic claims, the fact is the people who would most likely be affected by it couldn’t give a toss. Back to Real Madrid-Lyon.