copyright
Why DRM drives piracy
Jim Baen explains the connection between DRM & piracy, and why DRM doesn’t stop, but foster piracy:
Electronic copyright infringement is something that can only become an “economic epidemic” under certain conditions. Any one of the following:
1) The product they want—electronic texts—are hard to find, and thus valuable.
2) The products they want are high-priced, so there’s […]
U.S. insurer accepts fair use claims
This is great news: U.S. insurer National Union accepts fair use claims based on the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use - when the claim is backed by an appropriate lawyer’s letter:
This is an extraordinary demonstration of the power of this best-practices approach to making the fair-use option in copyright law useable […]
YouTube pays labels for pirated songs, cuts content deals with BBC
A lot’s been happening around YouTube during the last couple of days. First there were news about YouTube paying labels and content owners a share of the ad revenue generated by pirated unlicensed music:
Google Inc.’s YouTube has announced a deal with Wind-up Entertainment, an independent label, to pay it a share of revenue from advertising […]
re:publica program is online
The conference program for re:publica 07 (April 11-13, 2007, Berlin, upcoming.org link) is online. (Sorry - German only, so far.) If you happen to be in Berlin at the time, I’m sure it’s worth dropping by. Markus and his folks sure got an interesting bunch of speakers together (including, hopefully, Larry Lessig), and it’ll be […]
“Piracy is Progressive Taxation…”
“… and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution” is the title of an essay Tim O’Reilly wrote in 2002. Occasionally I re-read it, and every single time I’m baffled about how he just got it right. I guess that’s exactly what makes a great writer/thinker stand out. Once I had the great opportunity […]
Anti-Lock In Law for web apps?
The more web apps we use, and the better they are, the more we trust them with our data. Apart from all privacy issues: Lock-in is becoming more and more of a problem. What happens to your pictures (and the way you sorted them) when you cancel your flickr account? What about Gmail, Google Calendar […]
Code Monkey like Fritos
The Code Monkey Song. It’s been around for awhile, but it’s awesome:
Code Monkey get up get coffee
Code Monkey go to job
Code Monkey have boring meeting
With boring manager Rob
Rob say Code Monkey very dilligent
But his output stink
His code not “functional” or “elegant”
What do Code Monkey think?
Code Monkey think maybe manager want to write god damned login […]
Oscar torrents
Ha, this is hilarious. Piratebay launched OscarTorrents:
OscarTorrents is the Oscars as it should be — everyone can download the year’s nominations using the popular BitTorrent service, watch the movies, then use our rating system to choose their favourites. Why restrict the voting to a few bought-off jurors when the whole world can have their say?
Now […]
15 principles for web development
Tom Loosemore of BBC New Media put up a list of the 15 web principles the BBC 2.0 project has been applying:
Build web products that meet audience needs: anticipate needs not yet fully articulated by audiences, then meet them with products that set new standards. (nicked from Google)
The very best websites do one thing really, […]
Ode to the R.I.A.A.
David Pogue, tech columnist at the New York Times, comments only indirectly on the arrest of DJ Drama.
DJ Drama, mixtape maker extraordinaire, was arrested when his office was raided. Obviously the R.I.A.A. is suing him for creating mixtapes. No matter that the whole concept of mixtapes is, more or less by definition, a win-win situation…
Mixtapes […]