Star Wars Movie Poster

Today there is only one first run movie theatre chain in the whole of Canada, so even the most successful movies only play for a matter of weeks.

But back in the 1970’s there was still competition among Canadian movie theatres so Star Wars actually played on Canadian movie screens for over a year. When the first Star Wars movie was released I was so caught up in it that I ended up going out to see it in a variety of movie theatres thirteen times during that first year.

I am a huge Star Wars fan.

I bought all the Star Wars merchandise that I could afford. In those days there were no DVDs or downloads. VCRs had just come on the market and they were prohibitively expensive.

So at first those of us who were not indescribably wealthy had to content ourselves with purchasing vinyl record albums that ran at 33 1/3rd rpm on an old fashioned machine called a record player. I bought the music in the form of the John Williams Star Wars soundtrack album, as well as a record called “The Story of Star Wars”, a synopsis of the story narrated by C3PO with audio clips from the film. To this day any time I hear the 20th Century Fox music tag I flash on the “real” Star Wars opening.

And today the George Lucas’s Star Wars empire continues to make money in new ways. I don’t have a problem with that. It is a business after all.

I still love Star Wars, particularly the first one. And this article in no way intends any disrespect. I’m telling you about my connection with Star Wars because the incredible success that Star Wars had makes it a good example. That, and because Star Wars was the very first videotape movie I saw played on a VCR in a private home.

What I really want to do today (besides procrastinate from working on my NaNoWriMo novel) is to look at personal use copying as a copyright infringement issue.

The Copyright Lobby makes no distinction between commercial bootleggers who distribute illegal copies for profit and legal purchasers who seek to make a back-up copy or digital format shift for personal use. Because they insist it is all the same thing, the Copyright Lobby has been pressuring governments the world over in an attempt to criminalize personal use copying.

I think there is a problem with the terminology here because calling both things by the same name is horribly misleading. Both activities involve digital copying, but that is where the similarity ends. Just as apples and oranges are both fruit but they are really not the same at all.

apples and oranges

One thing the Copyright Lobby calls “piracy” would be more accurately called “Bootlegging”. Bootleg music recordings have been around as long as audio recording technology has existed. People have smuggled recording devices into concerts and made copies which they have then sold around the world. There have also been professional bootleggers who have copied recorded music and repackaged it to sell illegally. These activities have resulted in lost revenue for music distributors, and in fact should be illegal.

The other thing the Copyright Lobby calls “piracy” is what I call “Personal use copying”. This covers a much wider range of activities, but the chief defining factor of personal use copying is the fact that this digital copying is not for profit. Rather than resulting in lost revenue for distributors, personal use copying relieves the burden of format shifting from the manufacturer to the consumer. When shared through p2p networks personal use copying serves as a means of promoting these commercial products in the same way that radio and television broadcasts have done under the traditional business model. This type of copying should be legal.

The Copyright Lobby’s effort to criminalize this type of copying simply alienates the customer base. Like DRM or SOC methods, it does absolutely nothing to stem the flow of bootlegging.

When did the idea of ownership change?

It used to be that when you bought something you owned it. You were free to do with it what you liked. Even if it was something covered under copyright law… like a book, you were entitled to read that book as many times as you wanted to.

• You could loan it to a friend.
• You could quote from it in an essay
• You could read it aloud to your blind grandmother.

And at the end of the day it was still your book. Unless you decided you no longer wanted it, at which time you could legally sell it to a used book store.

Now lets look at what’s been happening so far in the information age. Manufacturers of recorded music and movies have their materials covered under copyright. They want us to not make copies for our own personal use, even though we have paid them the price they ask.

Personal use copying is not the same thing as bootlegging for commercial gain.

The Problem

Original Star Wars Betamax videotape

If you purchased Star Wars in the Sony Betamax version back then, you would have found yourself out of luck a few short years later when Sony stopped making Betamax VCRs. When your Betamax machine became inoperable, you could no longer buy a new one, which of course rendered the tape you purchased in good faith unplayable. No one warned the unfortunate consumers that invested in Betamax tapes and Betamax equipment. I never heard of anyone getting refunds from the movie companies. Or the MPAA. Or Sony. Etc.

Star Wars on VHS

But.

Now you can’t. So what do you do if you really loved Star Wars?

You go out and buy it again. This time on VHS.

The rest of your life, eh? I know that’s what I thought. Didn’t you?

Did Twentieth Century Fox ever offer to reimburse you for the useless hunk of plastic and tape (that you have now purchased twice for your own use) that is now deteriorating? And suddenly it’s near impossible to buy a new VHS machine because there is yet another new technology– now movies are on DVD. Even if you can find a new VHS machine, we’ve all learned that a VCR will be lucky to last for five years anyway. And of course the VCRs you can find now are far more expensive than DVD players. So what’s a fan to do. Oh right.

You go out and buy Star Wars again on DVD.

Star Wars on DVD

[Of course, this particular example is extra irritating because George Lucas hasn't stopped tinkering with the thing, and since he's vowed to never release the REAL version (the one that actually played in theatres in 1977) on DVD, so I will never have the version I want no matter how many times I've paid for it. *sigh*]

But you’re a fan.

So you go out and buy the movie AGAIN on DVD.

At least you have it in a form that will last.

Now HD is gone too.

Or not.

Because then along came HD DVD.  The media manufacturers were a little surprised that we didn’t all rush out and buy HD machines.

Replacing our entire video library. AGAIN.

Oh… you were one of those suckers who got conned into converting to bought into HD? Ooooops!  Didn’t anyone tell you that the technology you were supposed to back was Blu-Ray?

I could go through the same process to look at the parallels in the music industry: piano rolls, gramophone cylinders, ’78’s, LPs, 8 track tapes, cassette tapes and CDS… all over the course of a single century.

Funny, I have a working gramophone older than I am which will play ’78’s. Yet our modern day electronic equipment will be doing well to work after a decade.

I don’t know about you but I am tired of buying the same movies over and over again.

Copyright is an agreement between the creator/manufacturer and the consumer.

The media distributors have NOT kept their part of the bargain, expecting consumers to pay for the same material over and over again. It should be legal to be able to watch the movie you have purchased in good faith as many times as we want to, for the rest of our lives.

Consumers have not been given any protection by governments the world over.

At the very minimum customers need to be given the right to copy the products they have purchased onto the piece of technology needed to play it.

We believe we own what we have purchased.
They want us to believe that we don’t.

Fortunately our government representatives are in an excellent position to look out for the Canadian consumer interests as they redraft our copyright law for the benefit of Canadians.

Hi there,

So I was working in a school in York this afternoon and talking to some of the students there about music, copyright, DRM and the debate between record labels and consumers. Something amazing happened, as we were talking he said, quite candidly, “I download all my music illegally though” and then a heated debate ensued about whether that was ok, how the companies that set up peer-to-peer file sharing businesses could get away with it and why record companies didn’t just add a limiting software to the music it was selling.

I then explained that DRM did exist on iTunes but consumers were complaining that they didn’t have enough flexibility with the music they were buying and so it was taken off. He then said something incredibly interesting, he said “I’m sure it can’t be that hard to fix” and “I’m not going to download music illegally anymore”.

It was then that it dawned on me, we can change the issue of illegal downloading and the issue of young people valuing music to the point where they want to or even need to buy it! It will take time, and it comes down to education, for music teachers to educate young people about music as art and the work that goes into it.

It’s my opinion that the generation that use illegal downloading services will be the generation to fix it, to come up with a solution to the DRM debate and to revolutionise the way that music is listened to, valued and paid for!

Speak soon,

Ben M

Salux !

J’ai eu vent de la plate-forme Beezik.com, un site de téléchargement gratuit et légal dit-on. La bonne aubaine ! Plus besoin de P2P, MegaUpload et autres, allons-y soyons fous !

Mais alors, comment ça fonctionne ?

Rendez-vous sur le site http://www.beezik.com/ et cherchez un morceau qui vous plaît (au passage attention les yeux, il y a des pubs flash à outrance). Une fois inscrit, vous pouvez le télécharger. Enfin vous pouvez au moins cliquer sur le bouton Télécharger, car il m’a fallu une dizaine de clics compulsifs pour que le site daigne prendre en compte ma demande (au passage exit Opera, le site n’a daigné répondre qu’avec Firefox). Vient l’instant fatidique où vous devez choisir une publicité. Kesako ? Bah l’équation est pourtant simple : internet + gratuit = publicité ! Les auteurs et les détenteurs du site sont rémunérés par une publicité que vous devez regarder. Pas question de faire autre chose ! Dès que la fenêtre perd le focus, il faut tout recommencer. Je choisis donc la pub pour Vittel d’une manière totalement arbitraire. Une jolie pub bien absurde qui a eu le mérite de me décrocher un sourire. Au bout de la pub, j’ai 6 secondes pour cliquer sur l’image pour que le téléchargement soit validé (ceux qui sont allés faire pipi tant pis pour eux). Et là…

AAAAHHHHHH !!!!!!!!! Du WMA !

Bah ouais, faut pas demander le beurre, l’argent du beurre et la crémière ! J’ai donc le droit à un pauv’ fichier WMA cadencé à 192kbits/s. Pour ceux qui ne connaissent pas, c’est un format de compression audio avec pertes, qui anéantit toute qualité sonore. Comme le MP3, mais en pire. Enfin, pour ceux qui sont déjà sourds à cause de leur baladeur toujours à fond… ça ne change pas grand chose me direz-vous.

Bref, je récupère le fichier et le lance avec vlc. Et là, rien.

DRM inside

Mais oui ! Ces fameux DRMs ! Vous savez, ces petits verrous numériques (Digital Right Management) qui permettent aux détenteurs des droits de jouer à Dieu. Les mêmes qui ont engendré ça. Donc vlc ne veut rien savoir. Super. Je viens de refiler de l’argent à Vittel. Je comprends mieux l’indication “Windows Media Player 11 est conseillé”. Utilisateurs de MacOS et Linux, vous pouvez toujours pleurer !

Moralité

Bah j’ai plus qu’à télécharger l’album sur mon site de torrent préféré. L’artiste a reçu une rémunération (12ct/piste selon Wikipédia) et je peux écouter la musique sur mon Linux (en FLAC qui plus est) ; tout le monde est content ! Seul problème : je risque les foudres d’HADOPI pour ce “Défaut de protection”. C’est donc ça la HADOPI : mettons les vilains pirates-pédophiles-nazis en prison.

Beezik.com, bravo pour l’idée, je vous souhaite bon courage, mais franchement, c’est dommage. Le téléchargement illégal ne pourra être contré que si l’on trouve des systèmes de diffusion (au moins) aussi rapides et pratiques. Le système du gagnant-gagnant que vous proposez est vraiment génial, mais lâchez-donc ces DRMs ! Mettez du MP3 avec un échantillonnage correct ! Par pitié, au moins pour ne pas pondre une génération d’attardés de l’écoute incapables de distinguer le son d’une basse dans un morceau…

Le Manchot Enragé, qui voudrait bien qu’on l’entende lorsqu’il joue de la basse.

Photo by Kris Krug.

The best conferences are like legal drugs.  They change you on a molecular level, you see and feel things that you’ve never experienced before and your body is charged by mysterious energies.

The first TEDxVancouver Conference, held at the sprawling Electronic Arts campus in Burnaby, was one of those experiences.

Cyrus Irani. Photo by Kris Krug.

It wasn’t a perfect day.  There were some flaws in the program but overall the successes of TEDxVancouver vastly outshone any of the problems that occurred during the day.

Cyrus Irani, the rest of the TEDxVan organizing team, the army of volunteers, camera men, technical wizards and whoever it was that made the call on the freshly bagged popcorn all deserve highest praise for putting on the show.

The theatre looked great.  The videos and the personal presentations were all of a very high quality, and a few technical issues aside, came across with a high degree of professionalism.

The location itself possessed a certain fluid feng shui as well as a pool table and lots of arcade style video games.

The crowd of conference-goers was a good mix of people.  On a few occasions I heard people happily comment that ‘it wasn’t another conference populated by the usual suspects’.  I met a bunch of new friends.  I also got to hang out with Monica Hamburg for the better part of the day.  This was great because we’d recently met and hadn’t yet had time to get to know one another.

*

Cris Derksen. Photo by Kris Krug.

The day was broken up into 3 separate but thematically linked sessions containing 3 or 4 speakers each.

The sessions were organized like this: Session 1: Playfully Young – creativity, imagination and expression.  Session 2: Globally Young – environment, ecology, natural world.  Session 3: Emotionally Young – passion, emotion, transformation.

Each speaker was given roughly 20 minutes for their presentations and there were a couple of lengthy breaks that allowed people to meet, mingle and share ideas.

The second and third sessions were accentuated by live musical performances.

Before the second session began the attendees experienced the beautiful and sublime Cris Derksen accompany herself on cello with a digital tape loop and drum machine.  It was pretty amazing and I really hope that I can get an audio file for that.

Human beatboxing machine, Shamik kicked off the third session with an epic organic throwdown that dabbled in aspects of jazz, hip hop, techno and trance.  It was also excellent.

Cris and Shamik performed an impromptu duet at the end of the day that was capped by a standing ovation.  Kris Krug caught the last bit of it with his camera but you’ll want to watch their whole performance for the maximum effect.

*

Terry McBride. Photo by Kris Krug.

Terry McBride was an excellent choice to speak first and set the conceptual framework for the whole day.

Terry introduced context as a theme that would come to permeate the day.  Context impacted almost every talk and several of the speakers actively spoke to it in their presentations.

One of the things that Terry does better than anyone else – and the reason why it was a good idea to give him the floor at the beginning of the day – is that he speaks clearly to the fundamental concepts and ideas behind the commercial aspects of art and music that are often butchered for public consumption by the language of accountants and corporate executives.

Context has deposed content in the kingdom of commodified creativity, according to Terry.  If you’re selling music or movies or books in the digital age you would be wise to step away from the illusion of control, the false promise of DRM and from any plans to litigate the fans of your artist or product.

You need great artists to create compelling content that will provide the unique context that you can capitalize upon.  In this case the context is the enthusiasm and the relationship that the fan has with the artist or work.

Every fan will experience the content in their own way and generate a relationship with the artist and the work that is unpredictable.  The publisher or studio will be in the business of facilitating that relationship and providing high quality opportunities for the fan to embrace that relationship and build upon it.

You cannot prevent behaviors that younger generations have developed by using the technologies that the older generations helped to create any more than puritanical lawmakers could prevent the birth of rock n roll in the 50’s.

And when the technologies of production are easily accessible to any creative person the map for traditional creative content publishers to remain relevant going forward runs right through the land of remaining completely transparent and adaptable to the artist/fan relationship.

*

The best TEDxVancouver talk of the day came via video from Neill Blomkamp, famed graduate of the Vancouver Film School and director of the movie District 9.

Neill’s presentation was  brilliant in many ways.

Two things set it apart from the other TEDx talks that day: 1) Truly visionary subject matter.  2) Next level imaginative story telling technique.

The presentation was essentially a long answer to a short question and was framed like this: a journalist in Chicago had once asked Neill whether the aliens as depicted in his film District 9 were an accurate representation of what he truly believed aliens to look like.

Thus begins a long and fascinating trip through space and time that touches on distant planets that might potentially support life. These potential alien life forms face a struggle against almost impossible odds to develop their cultures and technologies to the point where they can leave their home environments and seek to explore or conquer other worlds.

Kind of like humans.

I won’t even try to approximate the whole story here.  It’s just too mind blowing.  It leaves you with a harrowing picture of our current place in that cosmic evolution.  It touches directly on our current environmental problems and the deepening dangers of our geopolitical nightmare situations all over the world.

It is not a message of hope.

*

Tech dudes. Photo by Kris Krug.

I will leave it for others to discuss at length the session entitled Globally Young since the accurate language needed for those conversations is beyond me.  It’s a highly specific dialogue that is too emotionally charged and contentious for me to want to wade into here.

However, I was most impressed by Bryan Slusarchuk’s presentation on new green ideas in the venture capital space.  I think that he should be applauded for bringing new ideas to the discussion and for showcasing practical ways that people can be involved in investing in innovative environmental projects.

The other three presentations during the Globally Young session – by Guy Dauncey, Patrick Moore and Marc Stoiber – were each very well done in their way.   None of them struck me as particularly visionary or progressive, though.

Two of those presentations were crafted to promote/showcase polar (pun intended) ends of the environmentalism debate, book sales or both.

The other presentation, by Marc Stoiber, while entertaining, was a wickedly honed experiment in viral advertising.  It will be very interesting to see what happens with this particular piece – who responds to it and how – when it is posted on the site.

*

Kevin 'Katalyst' Caroll. Photo by Kris Krug.

The final session, Emotionally Young, was an excellent and fun finale for an energizing day.

All of the presenters were very good and clearly Kevin ‘Katalyst’ Caroll is about as engaging and professional a speaker as is possible for the human race to produce.  His performance skills and message are exceptional.

He brought Terry McBride’s theme of context full circle for the day. He challenged everyone in attendance to find the thing that they’re most passionate about – no matter what it is – and to find a way to carry the message of that passion into the world.

To share it with others and to inspire them by your example.  It is essentially an echo of Mahatma Ghandi’s famous quote, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”

Having said that, though, I am clearly missing some crucial part of the equation that connects a Philly born, Nike-endorsed globe trotter to the emotional spirit of Vancouver.

Don’t get me wrong, Kevin was very funny, very cool and has an incredible sense of timing and rhythm but I don’t really understand why he was there.

Put another way, one has the impression that the organizing committee didn’t spend a whole lot of time selecting young voices native to the Vancouver area.  That could seem to run contrary to what’s implied by the name TEDx Vancouver and the conference’s official theme of Forever Young.

*

Which brings me to the one tragic flaw of TEDxVancouver.

Not tragic in a Shakespearean everyone dies at the end kind of way but tragic in a Stan Smyl missing an open net with a chance to score the goal that wins the game kind of way.

Ideas Worth Spreading. Photo by Shaun Scholtz.

Nicholas Molnar, one of the presenters that I was most looking forward to seeing, was bumped from the first session to the last session of the day. He was then scratched right off the roster all together due to time restrictions and content guidelines specific to the TEDx license.

It was really unfortunate because I thought that Nicolas represented an original, local voice speaking on things – “using the tools of economics, statistics, and game design to make websites and online games more addictive” – that originate or at least resonate with the technology culture of Vancouver.

News of Molnar’s session had been making the rounds on the twitter for a few days prior to TEDx Vancouver.  His friends who had seen his early preparations and auditions of the piece were clearly stoked and spreading the word in anticipation of his presentation.

I think that it’s tragic that a home town voice that may have spoken to new ideas in video gaming, alternate reality game design, digital morality missed the opportunity to participate in the first ever TEDxVancouver.

It represents a significant blemish on an otherwise excellent day and I would suggest that the organizers seek to include more young, original, local presenters in their future programs.

*

In the final analysis, TEDxVancouver was a huge success.  The organizing team must have worked long hours and overcome ridiculous challenges to put the day together and they deserve a lot of respect for doing just that.

They provided a vital and engaging day built around sharing ideas worth spreading and I was lucky to be a part of it.

I can’t wait for the videos to be made available online so that we can continue this conversation and share TEDxVancouver with the rest of the city and the world.

Cris Derksen & Shamik: Impromtu Duet Finale. Photo by Shaun Scholtz.

]]> http://elsoftwarelibre.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/se-viene-se-viene-muy-pronto-nueva-version-del-kernel-de-linux-la-version-2-6-32/ Sun, 22 Nov 2009 03:12:04 +0000 Soft-Libre http://elsoftwarelibre.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/se-viene-se-viene-muy-pronto-nueva-version-del-kernel-de-linux-la-version-2-6-32/ http://marco.damico.ch/2009/11/21/iphone-e-applicazioni-senza-drm/ Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:32:05 +0000 Marco d'Amico http://marco.damico.ch/2009/11/21/iphone-e-applicazioni-senza-drm/

Curiosando tra le novità che giornalmente escono nella galassia dell’iPhone mi è cascato l’occhio su AppSync.

AppSync modifica il file MobileInstallation sugli iPhone e iPod Touch con firmware 3.x permettendo l’installazione di applicazioni prive di drm. Tali applicazioni potrebbero essere quelle che un utente si è creato di suo pugno o quelle craccate e scaricate. Supponendo che coi ve le siate scritte di vostro pugno e considerando il mio astio verso tutti questi nuovi e inutili lucchetti della vita digitale, condivido con voi il piacere di spezzarne uno.

Prerequisiti:

• iPhone o iPod Touch con firmware 3.x;
• jailbreake;
• connessione a internet.

Procedura:

1. aprire Cydia;
2. selezionare Manage;
3. selezionare Sources;
4. selezionare Edit;
5. selezionare Add;
6. aggiungere come source: http://apt.macosmovil.com;
7. premere Add Source;
8. attendere che cydia aggiorni l’elenco dei pacchetti disponibili
9. selezionate search;
10. nel campo per la ricerca scrivete AppSync ed eseguite la ricerca. Scegliete la versione opportuna, a seconda che abbiate 3.0.x o 3.1.x;
11. installate il pacchetto.

A questo punto potete installare da iTunes i programmi senza drm. Per farlo è necessario aggiungere tali programmi a iTunes trascinandoli sulla finestra di iTunes. Fatto ciò nel solito pannello in cui scegliete quale applicazione installare ed eseguite una sincronizzazione.

Buon divertimento!

It’s here.  I got it.  Went out and bought Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 1 just like I said I was gonna.  I am proud to say that I love it.  I love it so much I thought I’d put it on my Ipod.  Unfortunately, getting a protected DVD onto your Ipod ain’t that easy.  First of all, there still seems to be dispute about whether or not it is legal or illegal to copy a commercial DVD as a backup for your own personal use.  From what I can gather it is okay to copy for personal use, provided you don’t override any digital rights management (DRM)copy protection such as the Content Scramble System (CSS).  In other words, you’re not supposed to copy DVDs that are copy protected, and according to one poster even copying unprotected DVD’s and change the file format qualifies as copyright infringement.  Well, you can rest assured that Lucas and company have copy protected their DVDs,  and even though that means it can’t be copied legally, I don’t have a problem with them doing so.  I am all for copyright protection.  I am not in the business of pirating movies or music.  I use to be, but that was before I understood that it takes away from the artists and the creators rather than the multi-million dollar companies that produce them.  That was also before I came to understand how little most artists make, even the good ones.  Unless you’re selling multipaltinum records, you’re barely making a living and paying off what it cost to make your record in the first place.  I other words, I used to pirate music and movies before I realized that I’m taking the money away from the people I’d want to be friends with if I knew them.

Will Hoge: LIVE • 2009 • 04/23/09 • Evening Muse • Charlotte, NC

So, as I was saying, I don’t have problem with Lucas and friends protecting their investments and their creative outlets.  I just wish they’d grant me the rights to put it on my effen Ipod.  I downloaded several DVD backup programs, none of which could copy protected DVD’s.  I can’t even transfer the DVD directly to my harddrive anymore.  I gotta admit, that’s a little upsetting.  On top of that, no conversion program that might even possibly convert a DVD to Ipod format can convert protected DVD’s either.  Consequently, if I want to put this on my Ipod, I’m going to have to resort to using heavy duty pirating software, which I don’t trust or like to be involved with.  Or, I may even have to resort to torrenting, something else I’m not too keen on.  Not into the I’m-sharing-bits-and-pieces-of-my-files-with-a-whole-bunch-of-random-people-thing.  And I don’t like taking from those people and then saying, thanks, but I’m not sharing it back with other people.  Even then, the movie itself is tainted.  I will never really know if it has some kind of tracking or spywhere.  Sure, my internet security software SAYS everything is okay, but is it really?  Is that why my computer slows down, because everything is okay?

I suppose if I wanted to do the completely legal thing, I could go to Itunes and purchase the season all over again for $34.99.  Are you kidding me?  78 bucks just so I can watch the damn thing on TV or my Ipod?  Not only that, but for forty bucks, I don’t even get the featurettes or the production journal that come with the DVD set.

When I bought the Clone Wars movie, it came with a code for downloading the digital copy to my computer.  Only thing is, when I went to download it, the code had expired.  I’d only bought the thing that day.  What kind of a deal is that.  You can have the digital copy for your ipod, but ONLY IF you manage to buy it and register it with the first few weeks of release?  Twenty years from now when my DVDs start to corrode, I’m going to be pissed if I have to buy another set.  What if it’s out of print, or worse, locked up in the vault?

The whole thing is infuriating.  Should I not have the right to at least protect my investments and watch it either in a DVD format or in an Ipod format?  Sure I understand how difficult it may be to police this, but if you can give me a code so I can go online and download it, then why can’t that be available to everyone all the time?

I think, anytime you purchase a DVD, you ought to be able to go somewhere online, Itunes, or whatever, type in a code similar to a UPC code, but not visible on the outside of the packaging, and with that code you acquire one-time rights to a digital copy of the material on the DVD.  Let there even be a choice of the file format you wish, but you only get one copy and maybe put limits on how it is transferable.  Itunes is already pretty solid in how it protects music and other purchses through the Itunes store. I see no reason why this couldn’t be carried over to DVD digital rights.

So those are my thoughts on the issue.  I find it ironic that when I started this article, I didn’t even realize that it was such a hot issue.  I thought I was being original.  Oh well, it just means there’s more of us out ther ready to Fight for your DVD Digital Rights!  Let the war for my Ipod begin!

Apesar desse livro ter sido lançado há quase dois meses, não postei nada sobre ele porque queria lê-lo e depois emitir uma opinião mais sólida a respeito. Livros sobre software livre costumam ser um tanto quanto repeptitivos pois, basicamente, falam das liberdades básicas, da questão dos direitos autorais, das distribuições do GNU/Linux, dos malefícios do software proprietário, das questões de segurança, etc.

No geral, esse livro não foge à regra mas, ainda assim, é inovador na medida que coloca várias abordagens diferentes para o mesmo tema num único livro. Há abordagens para todos os gostos: Filosófica/ideológica, desenvolvimento colaborativo, jurídica, de negócios, técnica, acadêmica, etc.

O livro foi publicado pela Comunidade Sol Software Livre e é composto por artigos de autores renomados e conhecidos no mundo open source brasileiro:

• Alexandre Oliva da Fundação do Software Livre da América Latina – FSFLA;
• Cézar Taurion – Gerente de Novas Tecnologias Aplicadas da IBM Brasil;
• Cristiano Anderson – Colaborador do Projeto GNU e palestrante;
• Jansen Sena – Analista de sistemas;
• Marcelo Ferreira – Professor e analista de sistemas do TCE-AM;
• Paulino Michelazzo – Empresário;
• Pedro Mizukami – Advogado e pesquisador da Fundação Getúlio Vargas;
• Pedro Rezende – Matemático, professor da UnB e ex-funcionário da Apple Computers nos EUA.
• Rubens Queiroz – Responsável pelo site Dicas-l e engenheiro no departamento de computação da Unicamp;

A introdução foi feita por John “Maddog” Hall, presidente da Linux International e a organização do livro foi feita por Tiago Melo da Comunidade Sol.

Abaixo, uma descrição resumida dos assuntos abordados por capítulo:

• Capítulo 1 – Entendendo o Software Livre, de Marcelo Ferreira – nos dá uma ampla visão da história do software e da influência do software livre no mundo de hoje, e esclarece que a maioria dos softwares que utilizamos no dia a dia são, na verdade, livres, ao contrário do que muitos pensam.
• Capítulo 2 – Liberdades, Exclusão e Licenciamento de Software e Outras Obras Culturais, de Alexandre Oliva – Esclarece como o conceito de direito autoral é uma distorção e como é prejudicial à sociedade. Entre suas argumentações, Oliva nosbrinda com uma história de um país fictício onde houve uma luta entre os padeiros e as máquinas de fazer pão automáticas. Muito criativo.
• Capítulo 3 – Creative Commons, Software Livre e Cultura Livre de Pedro Mizukami – Faz uma descrição, sob a ótica jurídica, das diverças licenças de software e de publicações culturais, em especial a GPL e as modalidades da Creative Commons, estabelecendo as compatibilidades e as incompatibilidades entre elas.
• Capítulo 4 – Software Livre e Inovação, de Rubens Queiroz – Demonstra, através do projeto Rau-Tu da Unicamp, como é infundada a afirmação de que o Software Livre inibe a inovação, como querem fazer crer os fabricantes de software proprietário.
• Capítulo 5 – Reflexões sobre Algumas Respostas Psicológicas a Forças de Mercado, de Pedro Rezende – Reflete sobre a falta de moralidade e ética que envolve o software proprietário, com argumentos sólidos e culminado no que ele chamade Síndrome de Estocolmo Digital. Altamente recomendável a leitura.
• Capítulo 6 – Crescimento Econômico com Software Livre – Uma visão para a Micro e Pequena Empresa, de Paulino Michelazzo – Paulino demonstra, com uma liguagem simples, como as micro e pequenas  empresas podem tirar proveito das vantagens dos softwares livres, melhorando a produtividade e a competitividade, sem cair no vício da pirataria.
• Capítulo 7 – Modelos de Negócio em Software Livre: Quem Disse que não se Ganha Dinheiro com Software Livre?, de César Taurion – Descreve como grandes empresas, como IBM, HP e Sun Microsystems mudaram o conceito estabelecido de software como produto para software como serviço e criaram ecossistemas econômicos sustentáveis a partir da liberação de uso e do apoio da comunidade.
• Capítulo 8 – Desenvolvimento Colaborativo, de Cristiano Anderson – Descreve como funciona o desenvolvimento colaborativo, como é organizado, como os projetos são geridos e como eles geram riqueza a partir de voluntariado.
• Capítulo 9 – O Lado Técnico da Liberdade: Soluções, Mitos, Desafios e Alternativas, de Jansen Sena – Mostra a evolução dos softwares livres pós projeto GNU, a epopéia do GNU/Linux a partir dos disquetes e do prompt em modo texto, até os ambientes gráficos e a automatização atuais. Também mostra como o software livre está entranhado na vida dos mortais de maneira insuspeita.
• Capítulo 10 – GNU/Linux e Seus Diversos Sabores, de Tiago Melo – Oferece uma descrição das distribuições GNU/Linux atuais, descrevendo sua história, seus objetivos e situação atual, dando subsídios para que cada um escolha a distribuição que mais se enquadrar às suas espectativas. Ótimo para iniciantes.

Resumindo: um ótimo livro, de leitura recomendável a todos que tenham interesse pelo assunto, independente da vertente, já que os artigos que não forem do interesse específico podem ser deixados em segundo plano.

Meus parabéns à Comunidade Sol.

V’è un articolo di legge, nel nostro ordinamento giuridico, che fa testualmente riferimento ai «DRMS (Digital Rights Management Systems)», intesi come sistemi di gestione dei diritti su opere digitali, al fine di proteggere le stesse contro usi o attività non autorizzati dal titolare dei diritti sulle opere medesime.

La norma in questione è l’art. 12 L.R. 54/2009, emanata dalla Regione Toscana, sulla quale mi sono già pronunciato con altri commenti in questa sede.

In tale articolo, rubricato «Archivio informatico delle misure antielusione», v’è una forte presa di posizione a favore dei sistemi di DRM, tant’è che, sin dal primo comma, la Regione dichiara il proprio favore per le misure tecnologiche di protezione dei diritti sulle opere digitali, a tal punto di promuoverne la ricerca e la sperimentazione.

Nei commi successivi, invece, viene istituito presso la Giunta regionale, con le opportune garanzie di sicurezza e riservatezza, un archivio informatico dei DRM riservato ai soggetti che abbiano nella regione Toscana la propria residenza o la propria sede legale.

Presso tale archivio, il cui funzionamento e la cui organizzazione saranno disciplinati con separato regolamento, i soggetti interessati «possono volontariamente presentare la descrizione in forma digitale delle proprie opere ai fini del loro riconoscimento ed identificazione per l’apposizione di misure antielusione che verranno custodite presso l’archivio stesso».

Dunque, l’archivio consentirà sia il deposito volontario della misura antielusione, la cui integrità (necessaria all’efficacia del DRM) dovrebbe essere assicurata dalle garanzie di sicurezza e riservatezza che il regolamento individuerà, sia il deposito volontario della descrizione in forma digitale dell’opera che si intende proteggere con la misura tecnologica di protezione, per consentire quell’individuazione e l’identificazione necessaria a rivendicarne la tutela.

La norma (che trascrivo di seguito per comodità di chi legge), sembra contrapporsi alla visione politica ispirata all’apertura profonda e radicale all’open source ed ai formati aperti, risultante dall’art. 26 della medesima legge, dedicato ai «Programmi informatici a codice sorgente aperto e formati liberi».

Per un approfondimento sui DRM si mette a disposizione di chi abbia interesse l’e-book n. 2, dal titolo «DRM, contrattazione telematica e contrattazione cibernetica mediante agenti software nella distribuzione B2C» (liberamente scaricabile dalla pagina «e-Book»).

Art. 12 (L.R. 54/2009 – Regione Toscana) 

Archivio informatico delle misure antielusione

1. La Regione promuove la ricerca e la sperimentazione di sistemi avanzati di gestione dei diritti digitali o DRMS (Digital Rights Management Systems) quali strumenti che consentono di provvedere alla protezione dei diritti sulle opere digitali contro usi o attività non consentiti dal titolare o non previsti in via contrattuale, secondo quanto previsto dalla normativa statale.

2. Ai fini di cui al comma 1 e nel pieno rispetto delle normative e competenze statali ed europee, è istituito presso la Giunta regionale, con le opportune garanzie di sicurezza e riservatezza, un archivio informatico, presso il quale soggetti interessati, residenti o con sede legale in Toscana, possono volontariamente presentare la descrizione in forma digitale delle proprie opere ai fini del loro riconoscimento ed identificazione per l’apposizione di misure antielusione che verranno custodite presso l’archivio stesso.

3. Il funzionamento e l’organizzazione dell’archivio sono disciplinati con regolamento, che ne definisce anche modi di accesso ed eventuali oneri a carico dei privati richiedenti.

Fabio Bravo

www.fabiobravo.it

Cory Doctorow Photo by Jonathan Worth.

This interview has it all.  Well, some of it.  In pieces.  Kinda glued together.

Click here to hear the podcast of my interview with Cory.

I called Cory on Thursday November 12th, 2009 from Control Booth B at CJSF.  He was in his hotel room getting started on a day of media publicity for the launch of his new book, Makers, published by Tor Books.

I have no idea whether I was his first interview of the day but I am certain that I wasn’t his last.

He did TVOntario, CBC’s The Hour with George Strombo and countless other interviews throughout the day.

He eventually finished with a talk at the Toronto SF reference library, the Merril Collection, where his old friends at Bakka Phoenix Books (where Cory once worked as a bookseller) sold out of books for him to sign.

His talk the next day at the National Reading Summit was a huge success according to all of my sources in Toronto.

Well, all of my sources except the Globe and Mail’s John Barber, who apparently couldn’t be bothered to actually show up.  Not that a little detail like being physically present prevented him from writing about it.

But back to the interview that you may or may not have already started listening to.

It’s a bit of a reanimated corpse brought together by magic and electricity.  The sound quality is off and my recording software kinda crashed about half way through then came back to life again and then died for good.

So I apologize for the quality and I promise that I’m going to get this whole ’sound’ thing figured out.  I finish the show off with a recording of Cory’s reading from the Makers that night at the the Merril Collection Science Fiction Reference Library in front of his home town audience.  It’s a great piece about Suzanne Church’s first encounter with a few of the Makers. A scene that I allude to earlier in our talk.

I still like the interview, though.  I’m sorry that an infernal machine ate chunks of our conversation about DRM and most of the talk on Google Books and everything about his With a Little Help Project that he’s cataloging for Publisher’s Weekly.

Here’s the video from his excellent talk on TVOntario:

]]> http://cmchoatelaw.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/innovation-breeds-contempt/ Tue, 17 Nov 2009 17:05:04 +0000 C.M. Choate http://cmchoatelaw.wordpress.com/2009/11/17/innovation-breeds-contempt/

Except Viacom might have a little less contempt for you than it might originally be thought.  The General Counsel at Viacom (the entertainment behemoth responsible for Showtime, MTV, Comedy Central, BET, Paramount Pictures, and a slew of other holdings) recently addressed Yale law students, and he let them know that suing infringers felt like terrorism, and that he’s a big fan–really!–of fair use. What he’s most interested in, he says, is copying the entirety of a particular content.  (Source)  (He’s also a fan of DRM–though not in the way it’s been implemented, and of three-strikes laws, which is something’s I’m planning on taking up a little later.)

There’s a video of the talk on YouTube, and it might be worth taking a look-see.

It’s been three months since I fell off the e-book wagon and sold my PRS-505 Sony E-Book Reader.  I haven’t been pining over any new reader in the meantime either.  The Barnes & Noble Nook missed the boat by failing to take real advantage of its LCD touchscreen (Spring Design knows what it’s all about) or its WiFi connection (it would cost them NOTHING to let me connect to my own WiFi and look up Wikipedia entries and do Google Searches based on text in my books… why not offer that feature when the hardware is there to support it).

I had hopes for the Nook, but now that it’s failed me I’m still left with no affordable reader meeting all four of my simple standards:

• E-ink screen (this one’s easy to find)
• The ability to search within the text of a book (yet again, most devices do this)
• The ability to search on-line resources such as Wikipedia and Google over WiFi (this is the killer)
• Support for the ePub format (still, lots of devices doing this)

The Sony PRS-600 would have been perfect for me if they had included a Wi-Fi receiver and a web browser.  The first version of Amazon’s Kindle, and both versions to come out since have offered all of these features but support for the ePub format.  And frankly, the ePub support is the least impacting feature to me.

I hold out for ePub support because ePub is an open standard; anybody can make an ePub supporting device, and any store can generate ePub content.  If I buy a Kindle (which, especially with refurbished prices under $200, I’m tempted to), any DRM’d content I buy must come from Amazon (unless I buy an e-book elswhere and crack the DRM on it, which I’d rather not have to do when I’m already playing nice and being a paying customer), and won’t be able to be read on a non-Amazon device (with the current exception of PC and iPhone).

I expect we’ll eventually start seeing E Ink devices with open WiFi so I can do research while reading a book, and with everybody jumping on the ePub boat, I expect Amazon to eventually support it too (if not drop DRM entirely like Apple eventually convinced music publishers to do).

In the meantime I’m reading paper books, and getting my news from a computer screen, and that’s all working just fine.

gestern abend fand die diskussion zum geplanten leistungsschutzrecht für verlage im ifm statt, zu der axel springer konzerngeschäftsführer christoph keese, irights.info gründer matthias spielkamp und netzpolitik.org betreiber markus beckedahl zum diskutieren eingeladen waren.

da ich mich in den letzten monaten ausführlich mit dem urheberrecht beschäftigt habe, weil ich heute in meiner abschlussprüfung im fach publizistik darüber reden werde, dachte ich mir, was kann es inspirierenderes geben als zu hören, wie die experten über das thema sprechen.

die diskussionsrunde, so mein eindruck, spiegelte dann auch schön die generelle debatte zum thema urheberrechtsnovellierungen wieder, so wie ich sie in der literatur wahrgenommen habe. alle drei interessenvertreter waren im raum: ein paar frei journalisten (unter anderem eben herr spielkamp), vertreter vom axel-springer-verlag und der rest, der im urheberrecht als “nutzer” zusammengefasst und wohl von herrn beckedahl vertreten werden sollte, wie er selbst vermutete. diese drei interessengruppen nehmen in der aktuellen urheberrechtsdebatte aber unterschiedliche machtpositionen ein, was sowohl in der sitzverteilung im saal als auch in den redebeiträgen sichtbar wurde. der gemeine blogger saß in der zweiten reihe, wahrscheinlich ging es den anderen so wie mir – wir fühlten uns dort einfach wohler, auch wenn es saft, cola, wasser und kekse nur für die herren und damen in der ersten reihe am tisch gab. der nachteil dieser sitzverteilung war nur, dass wortmeldungen teilweise übersehen wurden oder es gefühlte 15 minuten dauerte, bis jemand aus der hinteren reihe seine gedanken äußern durfte, unter anderem auch weil ein tischsitzer in der ersten reihe mit einer aussage das wort an sich riss, die in etwa dieser entprach: “ich geb das mikrofon jetzt mal nicht weiter sondern rede selber, weil ich es grad in der hand habe”. ein schwerer fall von mikrofon-gatekeeperitis und eine darstellung der aktuellen urheberrechtsdebatte: der nutzer hat es schwer gehört zu werden, während die verwerter über vergütungsmöglichkeiten debattieren. diese konstellation war wohl auch der grund, warum gegen die forderung, dass urheberrecht müsse ja noch viel mehr ausgeweitet werden, erfasse also noch vielzuwenig nutzungsarten, kaum protestiert werden konnte – außer von herrn spielkamp, der meiner meinung nach sehr souverän denkanstöße geben konnte.

und nun zum inhalt, was habe ich also gelernt aus der gestrigen diskussion?

erst mal fand ich es – entgegen meiner ausführungen oben – gut, dass herr keese als vertreter der verlage ordentlich zeit hatte, zu wort zu kommen. das leistungsschutzrecht befindet sich noch in einem extremen frühstadium der entwicklung – so früh, das eben, wie er selbst auch gesagt hat, noch nicht mal ein konkreter entwurf vorliegt. in diesem stadium macht es sinn, denjenigen, der für ein solches gesetz plädiert, ausführen zu lassen, was genau er sich davon erwartet und was er erreichen möchte. leider ist das wie zu erwarten nicht ganz klar geworden. herr keese sprach davon, dass die gewerbliche nutzung von inhalten unter das leistungsschutzrecht fallen solle, und nannte das beispiel eines zahnarztes, der mit einem artikel, z.b. von welt.de, kunden informieren wolle. mal ganz davon abgesehen, dass das urheberrecht in einem solchen fall genügend möglichkeiten bietet, eine solche handlung zu untersagen, bei genauem nachfragen wurde herr keese unsicher. es stellte sich nämlich die frage, wie genau er gewerbliche nutzung definieren wolle: muss sie einem kommerziellen zweck dienen oder geht es darum, ob sie in einem gewerblichen rahmen stattfindet, also zum beispiel auf einem dienstcomputer. wenn ich mich recht erinnere lautete die nachfrage konkret: wenn ich privat meinem kollegen von meinem arbeitsrechner aus einen link zu einem artikel der welt schicke, und fünf minuten später schickt ein anderer angestellter, dessen aufgabe es ist, arbeitsrelevante links zusammen zu stellen und zu verschicken, den selben link an die kollegen, wie will herr keese dann nachweisen, welche dieser beiden nutzungen gewerblich ist und welche nicht. und ist in diesem fall auch das versenden eines links eine urheberrechtlich relevante handlung?

am anfang der diskussion plädierte nämlich auch herr keese dafür, dass der link frei bleibenmüsse, nach diesr frage war er sich da gar nicht mehr so sicher.

und daran sehen wir den interessenunterschied zwischen verwertern und urhebern und nutzern: der verwerter allgemein, ich möchte hier auf keinen fall herrn keese direkt meinen, hat erstmal ein augenscheinlich begründetes interesse daran, beteiligt zu werden, wenn andere mit seinen inhalten geld verdienen, wie zum beispiel google, das texte (oder textteile) des verlages anzeigt und daneben werbung plaziert. das ärgert den verwerter und er fängt an darüber nachzudenken, wie er von diesen einnahmen etwas abbekommen kann. und da liegt der knackpunkt, denn wenn einmal eine handlung juristisch griffig formuliert ist (“gewerbliche nutzung von texten”), dann ergeben sich auf einmal noch eine menge andere nutzungsmöglichkeiten, die auch darunter fallen könnten. und überall sieht der verwerter geld, geld das ihm in seinen bilanzen fehlt und das er gern verdienen möchte.

und dann geschieht genau das, was auch in einer wortmeldung zur sprache kam: der verwerter – in diesem fall wurde direkt herr keese angesprochen – macht sich unbeliebt, weil er anscheinend nicht selbst an einem bezahlmodell arbeitet sondern scheinbar passiv bleibt und ein neues gesetz fordert, dessen nutzen für die anderen interessengruppen nicht ersichtlich wird. und so kam dann auch mehrfach der vorschlag, springer solle doch seinen content im internet verkaufen anstatt verlorene einnahmen zu beklagen.

der unterschied zwischen leistungsschutzrecht und paid content liegt nämlich in der wahrnehmung dieser beiden systeme. beide machen nichts anderes, als für den zugang zu werken eine vergütung zu verlangen. bei paid content modellen muss jeder zahlen, der den text lesen will. zusätzlich kann man noch drm mit reinpacken und in den agbs nutzungsbedingungen festlegen wie “darf nur dreimal gelesen werden”, “darf nicht ausgedruckt oder verschickt werden”. beim leistungsschutzrecht soll der zugang vordergründig erstmal erhalten bleiben – die vergütung machen dann die firmen unter sich aus – der axel-springer-verlag und der oben genannte zahnarzt beispielsweise. paradox scheint, dass das erste modell die nutzungsmöglichkeiten für den privaten nutzer scheinbar viel stärker einschränkt, jedoch allgemein zustimmung findet. während der private nutzer von zweiten erstmal nicht betroffen zu sein scheint, stößt das modell leistungsschutzrecht dennoch auf (berechtigte) kritik, die von beckedahl und spielkamp auch geäußert wurde: die frage ist, was hat der nutzer davon, und was der journalist? eine frage, die ganz und gar nicht beantwortet wurde. was vorher nur ein diffuser eindruck war, der zu erster kritik am leistungsschutzrecht führte, nämlich dass es keinem anderen zweck diene, als das verlage damit geld verdienen, wurde in der diskussion mehr oder weniger bestätigt oder zugegeben: ja, wir brauchen das leistungsschutzrecht, weil wir gerade verluste einfahren und unsere geschäftsmodelle versagen.

und wo bleibt bei diesem gesetz der nutzer? urheberrechtsnovellierungen, die die position der industrie gegenüber den anderen interessenvertretern stärken, gab es in den letzten jahren schon einige. wer will kann ja die zusammenfassungen auf irights.info nachlesen. ein konsens der novellierungen ist: die rechte der nutzer sind bei der nutzung digitaler werke strengeren regelungen unterworfen als das bei analogen werken der fall ist. das leistungsschutzrecht zielt in die selbe kerbe. und auch bei der diskussion gestern abend war das so: die interessen der nutzer, die symbolisch in der zweiten reihe saßen, konnten einfach nicht genug geäußert werden. die konkrete kritik, die angebracht wurde, wird den verlagsvertretern im endeffekt nur nutzen. herr keese wird sich jetzt gut überlegen, wie er die gegen das leistungsschutzrecht vorgebrachten argumente demnächst entkräften kann. aber ansonsten habe ich nicht das gefühl, dass die debatte uns irgendwie weiter gebracht hat.

The other day my students got an earful from me about the ills and evils of Digital Rights Management, better known as DRM. I loathe most DRM techniques, since as most reasonable people realize, they do nothing to thwart illegal file sharing, but contribute plenty to increased blood pressure and stress levels in legal media users.

Today I encountered yet another bit of DRM absurdity. I was surfing around and noticed that my beloved Steelers were locked in a death match with the Bengals, with about seven minutes to play. Neat, I thought, I will find a radio broadcast of the last few minutes. What I found instead was this:

So much for globalization

Now I sort of get this kind of blocking (even though in the end I still find it protectionist and worthy of derision) when it comes to content that has a clear commercial outlet in Germany, e.g.- studio movie productions. But NFL radio broadcasts? Please. Who is making money on those in Germany? If they are available here somehow, I envision having to go through the seven layers of technical and bureaucratic hell to get access to them.

What I know, of course, is that there are myriad backchannel (read: illegal) ways to get live sports broadcasts from around the world. I used them this summer, often, when my legally paid for Eurosport Web feed crapped out during every single critical moment of the Tour de France because the French firm behind it clearly does not know what “server capacity” and “peak load” mean when used in the same sentence.

In this case, the game is so close to being over it makes no sense to find an illegal site through which to view/hear the game. But I would like to thank all the parties who made the annoying message pictured above possible. You underscored the main point of my lecture last week: DRM sucks, and turns us all into criminals at some point.

I purchased Microsoft Office 2007 via The Ultimate Steal last winter. The software is provided as a download through Digital River – but it is available for only 30 days after making the purchase.

So what happens if you lose your backup?

The order confirmation email reads:

DOWNLOADABLE PRODUCTS
Downloadable products may be accessed by looking up your order. When the order summary appears, click on the Download link next to the product name.

LOOKING UP YOUR ORDER
Go to http://store.digitalriver.com/store/msshus/DisplayHelpPage. You may also find other helpful information on this page.

Sounds promising. After signing in, it even displays a hopeful looking download button:

but clicking it returns the following:

Sorry,

It is too late to download this file. You were allowed to download within 30 days.

If you have any questions, please contact Digital River Customer Service at CustomerServices@digitalriver.com.

Fortunately, you don’t have to use this particular installer. You can use your license key to convert a trial version of Office 2007 to a full version. You can freely download the trial version from here:

http://msft-dnl.digitalrivercontent.net/msoffice/pub/X12-30307/X12-30307.exe

Once installed, the first thing it does is ask you for a product key. Yours is included in your order confirmation email.

If you haven’t kept that email, I think you’re out of luck.

l y tout de même quelques années que je traîne mes Converse Kurt Cobain dans le milieu du livre et que je m’intéresse au livre numérique. J’ai été partant quand Laurent Rabatel m’a proposé l’aventure de RobertNeVeutPAsLire. J’aimais le concept initial de feuilleton, un retour à l’écriture fin XIXe siècle ou aux grands nouvellistes américains, qui correspondait bien, selon nous, au temps découpé que nous vivons. Hélas, à l’époque, les auteurs avaient besoin de leurs écrits pour vivre, dans un modèle bien établi, et livraient les textes avec la régularité d’une Rolex à 10 000 dollars. Aujourd’hui, les distractions sont nombreuses et nos auteurs oublient parfois leurs lecteurs. C’est pourquoi Robert change de cap et publiera désormais des textes complets.
Mais là n’est pas mon propos.
Le livre numérique donc, je m’y intéresse,avec passion, je lis le blogue et les tweets de François Bon, de Clément Laberge et autres gourous de la modernité, je me tape Tim O’Reilly et BookSquare chaque jour. Je vois les éditeurs tenter de reproduire les schémas de distribution existants. Je les vois imaginer des scénarios tous plus compliqués les uns que les autres, DRM à l’os et pas les meilleurs (Adobe, par pitié!), plateformes numériques renvoyant au libraire, support technique plus ou moins efficace.
Je vois aussi les fabricants de e-liseuses, Sony, Amazon(Kindle), Barnes and Nobles(Nook), s’ingénier à compliquer les choses en multipliant les solutions propriétaires. Je vois poindre Apple à l’horizon s’il reste assez de forces à Steve Jobs.

Bref, tout ce beau monde s’agite avec mérite, raison, compétence, sincérité (pour la plupart) pour nous créer le livre de demain. L’objet ultime qui ne vous électrocutera pas quand vous voudrez lire dans votre bain. Et dont les piles ne se déchargeront pas quand vous serez assis depuis une heure sur le bol de toilettes , e-reader en main.
Les journalistes piaffent, twittent, (pléonasme?) , s’agitent, épuisent leurs recherchistes pour ne pas rater le train, ne pas manquer le buzz. Eux le virus, ils le veulent, ils n’iront pas se faire vacciner.

La vapeur monte comme dans un Presto, et ce dernier commence à siffler. C’est bien. Ça alimente les réseaux sociaux et peut-être découvrirons-nous finalement quelque chose qu’on a peine ENCORE à imaginer.

Comme éditeur-réviseur chez RobertNEVeutPasLire, je viens de terminer la révision d’un texte exigeant qui m’a toutefois donné beaucoup de plaisir.
Et une question me vient à l’esprit? Quand, dans tout ce ramdam, parle-t-on de l’auteur? De la matière première de cette “nouvelle industrie”? Quand parle-t-on des textes?
On s’excite sur le contenant, en oubliant que celui-ci n’est pas vide. Le contenu existe aussi. Sans contenu, pas de contenant. Même les éditeurs traditionnels en viennent à oublier cette vérité élémentaire. Nous devons parler des textes, des auteurs, ce sont eux qui feront vendre le support de demain
Beaucoup de bruit pour rien donc.
Car un bon auteur avec un bon texte, publié en livre de poche, en format numérique ou sur du papier de toilettes ultradoux quatre épaisseurs demeurent un bon auteur avec un bon texte.

Attention à Steve Jobs, toutefois…

Jf Chételat

ich beklage mich ja gerne über immer gleiche klischeehafte “nachrichten” wie “in der ddr gab es nichts zu kaufen” – ein hinweis, der anscheinend bei jedem spiegel einestages artikel zur irgendeinem aspekt des ddr-lebens nicht fehlen darf – wahrscheinlich, um das gewissen zu beruhigen, man habe im x-und-y-sten artikel zu “volkeigenenen models/speisen/taschenrechnern/fkk-besuchern” ja kritisch berichtet und die ddr nicht verherrlicht.

daher bin immer auf der suche nach neuen augen-öffnenden ansichten über das leben in der ddr, die nicht dem einestages-einheitsbrei entsprechen. und nun habe ich zufällig diesen film “entdeckt“, in dem es eigentlich um etwas ganz anderes geht: technische schutzmaßnahmen. vom laien auch kopierschutz genannt, können technische schutzmaßnahmen, die allgemein mit drm abgekürzt werden (kurz für digitales rechtemanagment), noch viel mehr als nur das kopieren von digitalen werken verhindern. was firmen sonst noch mit drm so alles beschränken (“schützen”) können, darum gehts in diesem beitrag. und um zu erläutern, warum drm schlecht für den nutzer ist, wird es mit den eingeschränkten freiheitsrechten der ddr verglichen.

wie lässt sich diese analogie erklären? ob da ein redakteur der sendung in den letzten wochen auch zuviel mauerfall-tv gucken musste? auf jeden fall wirft der umkehrschluss, die ddr hätte die menschen eingeschränkt so wie es heute das drm tut, einige interessante facetten auf. mein erster impuls: warum nicht die analogie nutzen, um den vielerwähnten digital natives, die keine ahnung von der ddr haben, weil sie zu jung dafür sind, mal zu erklären, was das eigentlich war, die ddr! man lernt ja angeblich am besten, indem neues wissen an schon vorhandenes angeknüpft wird. fairplay = sowjetpanzer? automatisches update = zwangskollektivierung? steve jobs = stalin? gewagte thesen, aber warum nicht?

Le autorità UK rispediscono al mittente le raccomandazioni della TV pubblica sulle restrizioni alla copia nelle trasmissioni digitali. E chiedono ulteriori spiegazioni sul perché una scelta del genere dovrebbe giovare ai consumatori

Roma – La BBC aveva invocato – per conto terzi – l’implementazione obbligatoria della protezione dei contenuti in broadcasting su rete digitale, ma l’Office of Communication (OfCom) britannico ha ricevuto dai cittadini una risposta decisamente poco positiva sull’argomento: rispedendo al mittente la questione e ritardando – forse fatalmente – la concretizzazione dei sogni di DRM dell’industria dei contenuti che opera in UK.

In questa partita la BBC si è presentata nelle vesti di semplice “portavoce” delle preoccupazioni dei produttori in merito alla pirateria, ma è indubbio che la prima a uscire sconfitta dalla partita sia proprio la TV di stato inglese.

Nella risposta scritta alle raccomandazioni dell’emittente, l’OfCom ha fatto sentire tutto il peso delle reazioni negative dei teleutenti – che hanno bersagliato di critiche la proposta nell’arco delle due settimane di consultazione pubblica decisa dall’autorità – ripassando la palla alla BBC e chiedendo ulteriori spiegazioni in merito.

Ofcom vorrebbe sapere in particolare per quale ipotetico motivo la paventata cifratura-compressione del segnale digitale dovrebbe garantire un beneficio ai consumatori di Sua Maestà, e come la BBC intenda “affrontare i potenziali svantaggi per cittadini e consumatori”.

A questo punto però la partita si gioca su tempi ristretti, perché i produttori di ricevitori e PVR vari hanno fretta di inondare il mercato dei loro prodotti in tempo per la prossima accensione delle trasmissioni a 720p (1280×720 pixel con rapporto dello schermo a 16:9) di Freeview HD: il servizio messo in piedi da BBC, ITV1, Channel 4 e Sky sul digitale terrestre inglese.

Alfonso Maruccia
Fonte: http://punto-informatico.it/2748496/PI/ … otale.aspx
Licenza Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/it/

The new Amazon Kindle DX is found wanting when it come to accessibility for the visually impaired. It has text to speech; but not for the menu options.

When Syracuse employees first heard that Kindles would have a read-aloud feature, “We thought, yay, this is going to be great” for disabled readers, said Eve Hill, senior vice president at the university’s Burton Blatt Institute, which advocates for people with disabilities. But staffers soon realized the device’s menu options were not spoken aloud. “If you’re blind, you won’t be able to turn it on,” Ms. Hill said.

There’s also the matter of some titles being disabled for text to speech because some publishers don’t want their Kindle titles cannibalizing their audiobook sales.

Princeton professor Ed Felten probably disagrees with me on various points, but one point on which I think we do agree is that “good old fashioned incompatibility” (as Felten aptly put it) can be an alternative to encryption-based DRM for controlling usage of content.

As I recently found out, Apple may have given up DRM for music, but in some ways it has replaced DRM with good old fashioned incompatibility for locking users into its iTunes/iPod media platform.

I recently recorded the audio of a personal event that consisted of speeches and performances of public-domain classical music.  I used an iPod Nano 4G with a Belkin TuneTalk microphone attachment.  The mic uses the iPod’s Voice Recorder functionality, which Apple had left unexposed to users until the latest version of the iPod Nano, the 5G, which has a built-in microphone.

It used to be that the iPod Voice Recorder recorded in uncompressed WAV format, which could be converted to MP3 easily within iTunes or by any of a number of music software packages, many of them free.  (I still have a recording of my daughter singing from about three years ago that was made that way on a long-defunct hard disk based iPod.)  But now, iPods record in ALAC, Apple’s lossless MP4 variant.  The files have, confusingly, the same .m4a extensions as files in the MP4 AAC lossy codec used in iTunes.

The resulting ALAC file was half a gigabyte in size — smaller than the roughly 1.5GB that a WAV file would have been, but not exactly convenient for downloading from the Facebook page I am constructing of the personal event.  I needed to compress the file further.   It wasn’t necessary to preserve the pristine audio quality afforded by the lossless compression.

First I found that Apple has removed the format conversion features it used to have in iTunes.  So I had to resort to third-party  conversion programs.  I tried about half a dozen of them on both PC and Mac.  None of them worked; they gave error messages, produced spurious results, or just crashed.  Now that’s what I call good old fashioned incompatibility.

Finally, someone who does professional audio production managed to convert the file to MP3 using an older version of iTunes from back when it still offered format conversion.  Otherwise, the only way to do it was to burn CDs in Redbook audio format from iTunes, and then re-rip them to MP3 in a program such as Windows Media Player or Rhapsody; iTunes doesn’t support this anymore either.  Not only was this a tedious process but it caused the audio to be split across multiple files because it ran longer than the capacity of a single CD.

Apple’s public story of freeing music by throwing off the shackles of DRM gets more and more disingenuous on deeper scrutiny.  It’s unfortunate that the effects of Apple’s restrictions had to manifest themselves on personal, non-copyrighted material rather than the “Big Music” that everyone assumes is the root of all evil.

J’ai toujours pensé que vouloir protéger les droits d’un créateur était légitime (pour le moins). Aussi, de prime abord, des DRM (Digital Right Management) pour protéger une oeuvre, ça ne me gêne pas pourvu que tout soit clair, précis et convivial et que ces DRM soient en fait des RDM (Right Digital Management). Le client sait à quoi s’attendre. C’est un “faire trade”, un commerce équitable.
Libre ensuite aux hackers, crackers, nutters et frostedflakers de relever le défi et aux “pirates” de télécharger l’oeuvre. C’est dans l’ordre des choses et c’est aussi un autre débat.
Mais ce qui me fait fumer le disjoncteur, c’est quand ces DRM sont un parcours d’obstacle qu’aucun cheval dûment vacciné n’oserait entreprendre, tels les ADE (Adobe Digital Edition).
Réjouissez-vous, j’ai un exemple. Vous décidez, un beau matin de novembre, de nourrir votre Sony Reader.
Vous allez sur un site-entrepôt appelé pompeusement plateforme numérique qui vous renverra aussitôt chez un libraire (comme c’est bien pensé!).Vous soulagez votre carte de crédit de 14,90€. La TVA est incluse. Vous êtes au Canada? Vous ne devriez pas payer de TVA ?Désolé, ce problème n’est pas encore résolu! 14,90€ !!!
Vous téléchargez.
Enfin, l’objet(?)précieux est là, hum…un instant, on vous demande aussi de télécharger Adobe Digital Edition. Inscription chez Adobe, nouveau téléchargement, long,long,long et installation du logiciel Adobe. Vous allez pouvoir ouvrir le fichier, ça tourne, ça tourne et hop! le serveur Adobe refuse d’authentifier votre fichier! Vous pouvez tout désinstaller, réinstaller, vous désinscrire, vous réinscrire, niet, nada, kaput.
Supposons maintenant que vous avez réussi — j’en connais, croyez-le ou non — le test de cette fameuse authentification. Le livre est sur votre ordinateur, c’est le temps de le passer sur votre Sony.
Malheur à vous si vous avez un Mac! Il vous faut un PC sous Windows! Car le logiciel de Sony ne marche pas sur Mac. On se croit revenu au temps de la guéguerre Mac/PC! Moi qui pensais vivre dans un monde désormais multiplateforme? Ais-je reculé dans le temps ? Ais-je changé d’univers ? Le Cirque du Soleil m’a-t-il embauché? Suis nommé président de l’ADQ?
Acheter un livre en fichier numérique ressemble, pour l’instant, à un cauchemar de fonctionnaires et de formulaires mauves, verts ou jaunes, un scénario qu’aurait pu écrire Goscinny.
Si j’achète un texte sous forme numérique, je veux, comme consommateur, pouvoir le lire sur un iPod, un Sony, un Nook, un Kindle, ou un Mac . Tant qu’on oubliera celui à qui est destiné le produit et ce qu’il veut pouvoir en faire, tant qu’on ne l’écoutera pas, on condamnera le livre numérique à la confidentialité.
C’est peut-être ce que recherchent certains. Ils n’ont pourtant qu’à penser à leurs taux de retour. Ça devrait les mettre sur la bonne voie.

BBC – Newsbeat – Xbox gamer ‘gutted’ after cut off.

Microsoft has cut access to Xbox Live for thousands of Xbox users who have chipped their consoles, meaning that these owners can no longer play online.

While this raises all sorts of questions about DRM and privacy (and is similar to Amazon’s recent e-book burning), this article is definitely the highlight of the story.