Era da tempo che si vociferava circa un possibile cambio di rotta da parte di MININOVA. Da qualche ora, il celeberrimo sito per la ricerca di Torrent (forte di un miliardo di pagine viste al mese) è stato obbligato dalla giustizia olandese a rimuovere tutti i torrent che non rispettano i diritti d’autore. In poche parole Mininova è finito! Sembrerebbe un duro colpo al P2P se non ci fossero serie alternative.

Da Torrentifreac. com eccone ben dieci:

1. Vertor

2. Torrentzap

3. Fenopy

4. ExtraTorrent

5. KickassTorrents

6. BTjunkie

7. isoHunt

8. yourBitTorrent

9. The Pirate Bay

10. ShareReactor

Victoire pour les détenteurs de copyright: le service Mininova, un des plus populaires de la planète pour les surfers de torrents, met fin à une ère: tous les torrents de fichiers protégés par copyright seront désormais filtrés. On peut déjà deviner que la fréquentation du site dégringolera de manière spectaculaire… les fichiers qui restent n’ayant pas le même attrait, et étant facilement disponibles ailleurs.

Bien sûr, les torrents ne disparaissent pas: les successeurs se bousculent déjà.

According to a recent announcement from Verizon Communications Company, the company will begin issuing “copyright notices” to customers accused of illegally downloading copyrighted material from the Internet. The notices will be sent on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and will be delivered by email or automated voice messaging. The notice, which other ISPs have also forwarded from the RIAA to customers upon the RIAA’s request, is expected to inform customers that they have been accused of illegal music sharing and advise them to delete the music they distribute.

Verizon’s announcement regarding the notices cautions that “customers who receive multiple notices from Verizon risk having their Internet service interrupted or turned off and serious legal consequences if the copyright owner decides to sue over the alleged infringement.” Asking ISPs to forward such notices to users is part of a new strategy to combat music piracy adopted by the RIAA after the organization decided a year ago to stop bringing lawsuits against individuals accused of file sharing.

The prospect of an Internet service provider passing on notices that a user has been accused of illegal file sharing raises the question of whether the customer’s privacy is being violated–either by the RIAA’s investigation itself or the ISP’s involvement in passing on the notice. Verizon’s announcement does not state how the RIAA tracks down an anonymous online activity with a particular Internet user’s account. In the past, Verizon has refused to supply the RIAA with subscriber information, arguing that such actions would give the RIAA “complete access to private subscriber information without the due process protections afforded by the courts,” and challenged the argument that Verizon was required to provide such information under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The D.C. Circuit ruled in Verizon’s favor on this issue in 2003. In a statement issued this week by a Verizon spokesman, the company says it continues to recognize the importance of protecting user privacy, but that without the enforcement of copyright rights, “intellectual property won’t be generated at all.” It is unclear what motivated Verizon, the second-largest phone company in the U.S., to acquiesce to the RIAA’s demands at this time, and it will be interesting to see how Verizon customers react to such notices and whether they choose to challenge Verizon’s actions in court.

– Rachel Friedman

Image Source

There is an interesting article in Wired online concerning current copyright laws and the deadline that the music industry is facing.  Deadline?  Yes, it seems back in the mid 70’s, congress passed the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.  In it, it states that if an artist or author sold a copyright before 1978 (Section 304), they or their heirs can take it back 56 years later. If the artist or author sold the copyright during or after 1978 (Section 203), they can terminate that grant after 35 years. Therefore, the take-back starts, technically, in 2013.

That is, as they say, a lot of music.  It is interesting to see how a law like the copyright act happened back in 1976, because it would never happen today.  So step into the time machine, Sherman and let’s go back…

You see, back in 1976, Rock was bloated, Disco was jaded and Punk was just getting off the ground.  Nobody, besides the Rolling Stones and maybe David Bowie  and Elton John were making huge amounts of money, as the recording business was still in what I call a cowboy phase.  Besides, one can argue that back in 1976, the idea of thirty five years in the future was probably thought of as a realistic period of time for copyright, as looking backward from 1976, grandparents and Bette Midler were the only people listening to music made in the early forties.  Apparently, the record industry also thought that music was a throw away media, a mindset from the disposable 60’s.  I mean, who would have thought that KISS would still be huge today? 

As they say, times change.  You see people at a KISS concert with their children and grandchildren.  The Eagles are still popular.  There has been at least two disco revivals and expect another one in about five years.  The Ramones are venerated and still sell albums, even though the band is long gone.  This is not the thirty five years in the future that people in 1976 thought it would be. 

So what are the record companies to do?  You know they aren’t rolling over on this one.  Too much is at stake.  From the Wired article:

The record labels tried to defuse this bomb in 1999 by sneaking an amendment to the Copyright Act through the House of Representatives that would add sound recordings to the Act’s list of copyrights that were considered “works for hire,” which would make them exceptions to the grant termination clause. According to one source close to the situation, the labels told Congress that the Copyright Act already covered sound recordings as exceptions because albums of music are “compilations” — but that “just to be absolutely clear, [the labels] wanted to put it in so nobody can debate it.”

After musicians, including Carly Simon, reacted negatively, the amendment was withdrawn amid public outcry leaving record labels with precisely two options for fending off notices of termination, neither of which looks promising. The first is to continue to claim that albums are compilations, which doesn’t pass the common-sense test (compilations include songs from different artists), and probably won’t pass legal muster either…

…The second option is to re-record sound recordings in order to create new sound recording copyrights, which would reset the countdown clock at 35 years for copyright grant termination.

For example, when Omega Record Group remastered a 1991 Christmas recording, the basis of its new copyright claim was “New Matter: sound recording remixed and remastered to fully utilize the sonic potential of the compact disc medium.”  What it boils down to is that the record company can look at the artist and say you can have the originals.  The updates are ours.

Sneaky. Suddenly the reasoning behind the Beatles’ hesitancy in releasing their catalog makes sense.  It is the grail of music catalogs and Paul and Yoko want to milk it for everything it is worth. To which I say-good for them.  It is their music, not the record company’s. 

So if the world doesn’t end in 2012, expect there to be major earthquakes in the RIAA in starting in 2013.  The Eagles plan to file grant termination notices by the end of the year. 

Now Playing: David Bowie – Station to Station – Golden Years

Unblutig. Zunächst mal. Der zweitgrösste us-amerikanische Telekomanbieter Verizon will zukünftigt Briefe der RIAA weitergeben, in welchen der jeweilige Empfänger des illegalen Filesharens beschuldigt wird.

Ich finde das gut. Dann werden wir bald zahlreiche Fälle von zu Unrecht beschuldigten “Internetpiraten” haben; aber ohne, dass diese Leute, wie bisher, mit Anwalts- und Gerichtskosten zu kämpfen haben.

Schlechte Stimmung verbreiten solche Gratis-Drohbriefe trotzdem, als immer weiter so. Wenn wir dann auf euren Gräbern tanzen, läuft cc-lizensierte Musik.

( via electronista)

In the news . . .

Google tones down its settlement demands in hopes of keeping agreement alive.

Computer programmers who assisted Madoff in $60 billion fraud arrested; face charges of conspiracy, falsifying books and records of a broker dealer, and falsifying books and records of an investment advisor.

NFL receiver Chad Ochocinco fined $20,000 for $1 bribe to referee.

Verizon sheds reluctance to aid RIAA and launches plan to issue “copyright notices” to those customers accused of illegal downloading.

Sony angers theater owners with its plan to violate sacred four-month window between theatrical and home release with early delivery of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

Swiss government challenges Google Street View for failing to meet its privacy demands.

Credit: Times Labs Blog

Makes for interesting reading doesn’t it? Read the whole thing here. The main point is this: As a percentage of revenues, artist earn more from live acts and gigs rather than from record sales. Hence, if the industry revenue generation breakup (live acts, record sales, PRS revenue – revenue through licenses when the artists’ music is played in public e.g. radio) is skewed towards live acts, it automatically skews against record companies. But definitely, in favor of the artists themselves.
This is what is happening today.

As the blog mentions:

The most immediate revelation, of course, is that at some point next year revenues from gigs payable to artists will for the first time overtake revenues accrued by labels from sales of recorded music.

Why live revenues have grown so stridently is beyond the scope of this article, but our data – compiled from a PRS for Music report and the BPI – make two things clear: one, that the growth in live revenue shows no signs of slowing and two, that live is by far and away the most lucrative section of industry revenue for artists themselves, because they retain such a big percentage of the money from ticket sales.

Further, as the post says, when the RIAA keeps crying about how revenues of the music industry have crashed, it is basically saying that the record companies are the ones bleeding money.

Interesting comment to the post:

While your stats look basically sound, just two points to make.

1. The main reason why record companies take a much bigger cut of record sales than gig promoters take from live revenues is because it is the record companies who traditionally make the initial investment in new talent – allowing new bands to give up the day job, funding the development and recording of their music, and marketing the bands.

While gig promoters do take some financial risk when they sign up to promote a band’s tour, it is generally nothing like the risk a record company takes. And both artist and promoter benefits greatly from the marketing activity entirely funded by the record company.

2. While the live sector is doing very well, it is worth looking at where the serious money is being made – you’ll find it is the likes of Madonna, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Bon Jovi, The Rolling Stones etc who both generate the most live revenues and who command the serious fees. Grass roots musicians often barely cover their costs when they play live.

Verizon (s vz) may be joining the ranks of Internet service providers that send subscribers who illegally download or upload music files notices on behalf of the Recording Industry of America, according to sources who spoke with CNet. Verizon has not responded to my questions on this issue, but the CNet story says the letters will only notify subscribers that they may have erred; it will not threaten them with disconnection. We covered this trend last March when AT&T (s T) began experimenting with these letters:

AT&T reached out today to let me know that it doesn’t issue take-down notices to its subscribers, but merely forwards the notice from the copyright owner along with an AT&T cover letter. The cover letter informs the subscriber without actually accusing them of illegal activity how they might find themselves in the position of receiving such a letter, and reminds them of AT&T’s terms of service that prohibit sharing copyrighted material.

If Verizon does plan to send notices on behalf of the RIAA or other rights organizations, it’s most likely because the ISP wants to get on the good side of content owners that it needs to make deals with in order to offer compelling content via its IPTV and even its broadband products. Is this the beginning of a three-strikes policy, whereby those accused of pirating content may find themselves disconnected, or is this is merely an effort to placate content owners?

The RIAA has never answered questions about the numbers it used to pervert the judicial process and file suits against individuals. This story, written by former colleague Erin James, still holds value today, even though the iTunes Music Store wasn’t launched until June, 2003.

Amid a series of heart-felt cheery tales of rape, pillage, slavery, gay-hating, and godly vengeance, the Bible specifically stipulates that it is the right of every good Christian to pirate music and movies from the Internet, in its own non-specific interpretive fashion.

Jesus feeds the multitudes.

On two occasions in the Bible, the Lord Jesus Christ feeds crowds of thousands from only a few loaves of bread and a few fish. Though he is encouraged by his disciples to turn the crowds away, Jesus demands that they be fed. However, the disciples and Jesus all knew that they could not afford enough bread and fish to feed crowds in the thousands. It was in this dilemma that Jesus developed the first Peer2Peer network. He sent his disciples to buy what bread and fish they could. As the story goes, Jesus “then [...] took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. They all ate and were satisfied.” Jesus purchased the original food and then used his miraculous power to share it with the entire crowd. He did not steal bread or fish from the shopkeeper but simply copied his own and distributed it to the hungry. Had he not done this, no one in the crowd would have eaten, and surely they all would not have had the money to purchase their own food. Had the RIAA existed in biblical times, they would have crucified Christ right then and there, or at least slapped him with millions in fines.

What Jesus did in feeding the multitudes amounts to an early form of file sharing. He purchased original content, duplicated it, and shared it with a crowd of thousands. He did not steal, but used his powers to make copies, just as Internet pirates use their Gates-given powers to copy their files and distribute them over the Internet. Just look at this comparative flow chart:

Click for higher resolution.

It is clear from the comparison of these two events that not only did Jesus commit the Biblical equivalent of file-sharing aka Internet piracy, but also that he would encourage such behavior so that all the world can be happy. In fact, I believe Jesus would offer that it is our moral obligation to download content from the Internet. However, for now, I am a sinner, because Satan’s armies in the RIAA and the MPAA won’t allow me to legally fulfill my Christian obligation.

"FUCK THE RIAA ARGHH"

The ACTA treaty is being negotiated in secret. It stands for “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” but that’s just a cover name: it’s really about clamping down on internet freedom.

It’s said that the USA has the best government money can buy, and that’s true; the US government has been well and truely bought and paid for by corporate vested interests such as the RIAA and MPAA. The ACTA treaty is being pushed by US trade negotiators largely at their behest. This, incidently is why ACTA has carried on just the same under the Bush administration and the Obama one — the frontman may be different, but it’s the same corporate interests inside.

Anyway, recently a document leaked from within the EU stating of the USA’s negotiating position on ACTA. (I’ve copied it here). It’s quite a reavealing read, for example:

USTR [The US negotiators] indicated that these internal discussions were sensitive due to different points of view regarding the internet chapter both within the Administration, with Congress and among stakeholders (content providers on one side, supporters of internet “freedom” on the other).

They know what they are doing would cause a shitstorm if it got out, which is why they want to keep it secret. Oh and don’t you love the way they put freedom in scare-quotes?

But this is the section that really lets the cat out of the bag (my emphases):

On the limitations from 3rd party liability: to benefit from safe-harbours, ISPs need to put in place policies to deter unauthorised storage and transmission of IP infringing content (ex: clauses in customers’ contracts allowing, inter alia, a graduated response). From what we understood, the US will not propose that authorities need to create such systems. Instead they require some self-regulation by ISPs.

Unpicking that:

• graduated response: this is the content industries’ name for 3-strikes, their plan to disconnect alleged filesharers from the internet without due process of law
• clauses in customers’ contracts: the purpose of doing it through an ISP’s contrect with thewir customers is so that the internet user has no recourse to law or a fair hearing
• to benefit from safe-harbours: this means if ISPs don’t comply with what the content industries want, they’ll be bankrupted with crippling lawsuits

Sont présentement réunis des représentants de tous les pays du monde pour négocier, sous forte influenace de corporations géantes productrices de contenu, un traité international sur les activités, la surveillance et la sanction des usagers d’Internet. Il s’agit de l’Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) ou Accord commercial relatif à la contrefaçon (v. site du Canada).

Au menu, entre autres:

• la possibilité de bloquer, pour un an, l’accès internet à un endroit où 3 infractions au copyright ont peut-être été commises (pas besoin de le prouver). — une nouvelle manifestation de la très stupide image base-ballienne du «three strikes and you’re out». Notez qu’il s’agit également d’un endroit, ou d’une connexion géographique: donc tous les membres d’une famille, par exemple, seraient interdits d’accès. Donc, parce qu’on le fait au base-ball, il est logique de le faire ici. Il n’y a aucune raison criminologique, psychologique, sociologique ou juridique derrière le chiffre 3. C’est la loi du sport qui fait loi.
• Renforcement des moyens de protection anti-duplication et anti-transfert par la loi, tout comme le prévoit déjà le DMCA étatsunien. Que les moyens soient techniquement solides ou non, il sera illégal de les contourner.
• La possible réduction des capacités (légales, non pas techniques) de transfert réduira la capacité des consommateurs d’utiliser le contenu acheté (par exemple, pour faire des cd pour l’auto à partir de MP3 téléchargés; pour passer d’un dispositif à l’autre comme d’un lecteur MP3 à un ordinateur à un téléphone à un cdrom)
• la criminalisation généralisée de toute atteinte au copyright, qu’un gain financier soit ou non présent. Ceci signifie la création d’un casier judiciaire pour tout Canadien — en fait, tout habitant de la planète — pour toute infraction relative au lois du copyright, qui seront, de plus, de plus en plus strictes.

Le côté étrange de tout ça est que bien qu’il y soit question de choses fondamentalement importantes pour une société qui conduit de plus en plus de ses affaires sur Internet, les médias canadiens sont pratiquement muets sur les négociations et sur la question du copyright en général — sauf lorsqu’ils font valoir ce copyright pour protéger leur propre contenu. Y aurait-il conflit d’intérêts, les grands médias passant sous silence le développement de nouvelles lois qui les favoriseront en bout de ligne?

À la fois, les médias profitent allègrement de toutes sortes de failles dans les lois en re-publiant eux-mêmes n’importe quoi si ça risque de générer de l’intérêt. À éclaircir.

Une exception: Ottawa Citizen.

Cela dit, il y a de fortes chances pour que ce traité devienne inappliquable aussitôt qu’on tentera de le transformer en droit positif dans chaque pays signataire: il existe déjà plusieurs moyens de télécharger et de diffuser de manière cryptée et/ou anonyme, ce qui rendra toute la question sans objet. Évidemment, comme c’est déjà le cas avec le DMCA étatsunien et les multiples poursuites entreprises par la RIAA (représentente des compagnies de disques) contre les consommateurs échangeurs de fichiers, ce sont toujours les moins actifs et les moins blâmables qui se font attraper. Les «pros» du téléchargement, ceux qui font des copies piratées de cd et de dvd pour ensuite les vendre au marché aux puces locaux, trouveront plus facilement et plus rapidement les moyens de se cacher. Les enfants et les mères de familles, moins rapides et moins conscients de violer une loi, continueront d’utiliser torrents et P2P de manière plus visible et plus identifiable.

Ceci arrive au moment où le Canada en est à discuter de sa loi sur le copyright, en vue d’un rafraîchissement. Ce processus démocratique serait bien sûr complètement court-circuité par l’adoption d’ACTA par le Canada. Un bon moyen de faire plaisir aux transnationales du contenu tout en offrant au citoyen une fin de non-recevoir qu’on justifiera par la présence du traité et le fait qu’il lie les mains du gouvernement qui l’a ratifié.

v . le blogue de Michael Geist pour une analyse en profondeur.

An excellent example of regulatory capture came up just recently. If you’re not aware, there are ongoing negotiations in Korea over an international copyright treaty known as ACTA (The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). ACTA is allegedly an international treaty about preventing counterfeit products, and the Obama administration has defended the treaty’s terms as State Secrets. This treaty will be binding on member states that sign it, serving as a kind of meta-legislation. Thus, while United States consumers and likely Congressmen as well, may not know anything about this treaty, they will be bound to its terms.

Here is the shameful part. While American consumers are claimed to have no right to comment or even view the proposed terms, Techdirt claims that U.S. negotiators “have met with entertainment industry representatives multiple times, and there are indications that those representatives have contributed language and ideas to the treaty.” The language of the treaty itself, which has been recently leaked, appears to confirm these suspicions. EFF notes that the treaty allows for ISP’s to take safe harbor from copyright infringement ONLY IF they enact vicious “three strikes” policies that would kick people off of the internet if they violated copyright.

This is troubling for a number of reasons. First, the ACTA treaty represents an intention to bypass the American voter and the American legislature itself in order to force a legal obligation upon citizens. That the current administration is blocking debate on this treaty by claiming it is a state secret is shameful. The hallmark of American lawmaking has always been the freedom to openly debate the merits of the law. The First Amendment itself protects Americans from government restriction of speech. Branding the treaty as a state secret, the administration has hobbled debate on an important issue of American freedoms and enforced a vacuum of knowledge.

The second troubling aspect of ACTA is that it imposes an inexplicably harsh punishment for violation of copyright laws. As we know, the internet is ever-evolving, and always taking a greater role in the lives of people across the word. The internet functions as bank, as telephone, as stationery, as soap-box, and retailer of the world. Thus, its role as a necessity of modern life is unquestionable. Also, copyright violations are usually decided by civil, not criminal lawsuits. Currently, the outright ban of internet access is debated even in criminal cases, which require a much stronger burden of proof. Such bans, even when they are approved, are reserved for the most heinous of criminals, such as child molesters.

Under the ACTA treaty, the Electronic Frontier foundation notes that “ISPs would be required to automatically terminate a customer upon a rightsholders’ repeat allegation of copyright infringement at a particular IP address.” If we recall, the courts are split as to whether internet access should even be banned for heinous criminals. Even when courts conclude that internet access should be banned for an individual, they require that the person be convicted of a crime with evidence that establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. By contrast, ACTA endorses banning internet access when you are merely alleged to infringe a copyright. No proof, whatsoever, is required.

Time to call your congressman.

I, being a devoted Slayer fan, bought their new CD – World Painted Blood this week. An unreal great album and I will be raving about it on a future post – that’s a Metal guarantee. What makes me laugh, however, is the lame Parental Advisory/Explicit Content sticker that stares at you on the front cover wrapping of this CD. This silly little sticker also reads: strong language, sexual + violent content. If this sticker with it’s various warnings is mandated to be on the new Slayer CD, why then, is there not the same warning, for the following:

Cosmopolitan Magazine - this soft porn magazine is out in the open for toddlers and youngsters to see at every checkout in every major supermarket and retail store everywhere. The words – orgasm and sex are the monthly norm on the front cover and never out of eye sight.

All Network News and Cable News Networks – my God almighty, if there ever was a warning needed, it is for the constant news footage of war, murder, rape, violence and crimes against humanity and society. This stuff is reality and it is constantly available around the clock, every day of the year. NEVER A WARNING or Parental Advisory for when gruesome, morbid, violent and sexual images and or footage is shown by network news, at a split seconds notice… never.

Political Campaign Commercials – backstabbing, hate, lying, rumors and more hate. Those are reasons enough for me to cry out for the Parental Advisory Warning!

All Tabloid Publications - just like Cosmopolitan Magazine, these publications are fully shown, out in the open, at every checkout, at every supermarket, retail store and gasoline quick mart everywhere… for toddlers to see. No warnings to be found. Just 3/4 naked celebrities adorning the front covers with sexual headlines galore.

Day Time Soaps, (Soap Operas) – do I really need to explain why this is on the list? Again, NO WARNINGS or Parental Advisory before any soap opera that I have ever seen, in my ADULT life.

I could go on with a fantastically long list here. It is not my intention to ever censor any of the above, I am against censorship in America – period. The Metal Music and lyrics of Slayer can’t possibly be interpreted as any more offensive, as the list of examples above. My only question is, where is the fairness in placing warning stickers on Heavy Metal CD’s, (or any music genre), when other forms of media are not subject to the same advisory standards? Hypocrisy is the only answer I can find.

This sticker as shown at the bottom, also included more warnings on the Slayer CD as I stated above. Not to sound redundant, yet, if the RIAA, (Recording Industry Association of America), deems it necessary to establish this type of warning on music, why then are other media industries and/or entities exempt from using such a warning? Again, hypocrisy is the only answer I can find.

For those who may have never seen this ridiculous sticker attached onto CD’s that span many music genres, here it is in it’s most gruesome glory. By the way, this annoying little sticker only enhances a CD’s taboo mystique, in turn helping to sell more copies of the CD it’s on. In it’s own morbid way, maybe this sticker has become something of a Pop Culture symbol of cool… that’s just my Metal opinion.

The RIAA’s Seventh Wave!

By basscleff | August 17, 2007

RIAA Sends Seventh Wave of Pre-Litigation Letters
By Susan Butler, N.Y. (original article posted here)

The RIAA has sent a new wave of 503 pre-litigation settlement letters to 58 universities on behalf of its record company members.

The latest round of letters is part of the education and deterrence campaign the RIAA launched earlier this year, which focused on illegal file sharing on college campuses. The program gives students the opportunity to resolve copyright infringement claims against them at a discounted rate before a formal lawsuit is filed. Each letter informs the school of the forthcoming infringement suit against one of its students or personnel who used the school’s computer network, and then requests the university administrators to forward the letter to the appropriate user.

The RIAA sent its seventh wave of letters to: Boston University, University of Tennessee – Knoxville; North Carolina State University; Duke University; University of Maine System; Columbia University; University of California, Los Angeles; University of Texas at Austin; Boston College; Carleton College; Georgetown University; Indiana State University; Marshall University; New York University; Tulane University; University of Virginia; Bethel University; California State University, Fresno; California State University, Sacramento; Colgate University; Emory University; Loyola University Chicago; University of Colorado at Colorado Springs; University of Illinois at Chicago; University of Mississippi; Allegheny College; Gettysburg College; Lehigh University; Seton Hall University; University of Kentucky; Washington University; Bryn Mawr College; Bucknell University; California State University, Chico; Creighton University; Florida Institute of Technology; Indiana University of Pennsylvania; Rice University; Texas A&M University; University of Florida; University of Notre Dame; Bowdoin College; Haverford College; Mt. Saint Mary College; Pepperdine University, San Jose State University, Smith College, Trinity College; University of Minnesota – Duluth; American University; California State University, Stanislaus; San Diego State University; University of Hawaii; Villanova University; Oberlin College; Swarthmore College; Virginia Military Institute; and Wellesley College.

Because of the summer schedule, the RIAA is extending the amount of time that the recipient of a pre-litigation letter has to contact the organization’s legal representatives to work out a settlement.

Since launching the program in February 2007, the RIAA has sent approximately 2,926 pre-litigation settlement letters to universities nationwide. The letters are in addition to the lawsuits that labels continue to file on a rolling basis against those allegedly engaging in music theft via commercial Internet accounts.

I am no lawyer, but this has been bugging me for a bit. So, super long post day!

I don’t care what you think about the MPAA, RIAA, Microsoft, Apple or whoever else. This is the same deal as downloading music, movies or software without paying for it. Copyrights, somebody owns them. Music, Movies, Photos, Software are all property of someone. Time and money was spent to create these things and the owner/creator deserves to be paid for their work. Plan and simple: If you do not want to pay for, you’re not allowed to use it. But copyrights are not the problem, I believe it is business models and patents that are the problem, depending on your industry.

It works this way: I retain the rights of ownership over something I create. My field is photography. The problem lies with if I want a photo to be seen, I have to post it somewhere on the internet. I am also risking unauthorized use of the photo. If I don’t want that risk, I shouldn’t post it, but it won’t be seen. If you use a photo I post, say on Flickr, in an advertisement and make money off it, you’re stealing my property for profit. You can certainly buy the photo from me straight up, and I’ll transfer ownership – that can cost a lot of money. You can also certainly license use of the photo for a specific purpose – that won’t cost as much money. If you want to use a photo for some other purpose, you need a new license.

A license is exactly like a driver’s license. It isn’t a right to drive on the road, its allowed under certain terms – no reckless driving, no DUI, drive on the right, etc. If you break the laws, you are risking losing your license. With out a license, you can drive, but its breaking the laws and can find a more sever punishment.

It works that way with music, movies, photos, and software. This is where I will express my opinion. In the case of music and movies, the cartel – yes, I think they are a cartel – has a business model that was effective and functional maybe 10-20 years ago. Technology has changed and created new avenues of distribution. The business model needs to change too. There is nothing wrong with protecting your property. I think there is everything wrong ethically about fighting change, expecting a business model to last forever, and punishing your customers for adapting to new technology. I’m looking at you RIAA and MPAA. The questions are; Why do I have to wait 8 days to watch the episode of House I missed, because I have things to do Monday Nights at 8? Why do I have to purchase the HBO channel simply to watch one tv series? Why is it impossible to watch a 30s clip of Damon stealing both 2nd and 3rd? I did finally find the Damon video, after MLB had it pulled everywhere else off the internet except their own page, but even still it wasn’t what I was looking for. It was another video elsewhere on their site, way too hard to find. I understand advertising, and pay-per-view/premium channels, but I am watching advertisements on Hulu too! I am willing to watch a couple more, so both Hulu and the network receive some money for me watching. No one has asked me yet. With HBO, why not embrace iTunes or Amazon so I can buy that one show I really want to watch. Frankly, I’m not interested in any other show, so the whole channel isn’t worth the money.

The Apple v Psystar thing is a whole different story. Apple isn’t dictating to hackers – in the proper context of enthusiasts who use their own time to mess with things – what they can and cannot do with their software. Though you are breaking the terms by installing OS X on whatever you want, you’re also most likely not making profit through selling unauthorized creations. This is what the case is all about, Psystar selling unauthorized clones of Apple products. Do not throw in the argument about Apple going after the little guy, because they are not. You know why? Because magically, recent builds of OS X have included support for random, non-Apple hardware, like touchpads, wireless cards, and even processors.  Yes, Apple did allow other companies to sell authorized products that ran Apple OS, but that was in the past, was a mistake, almost killed the company, and Apple learned their lesson. They have developed a stable product under a semi-controlled environment where Apple knows the hardware. In allowing anyone to use any hardware they want to install OS X, requires apple to support any hardware, and thus reduce the stability of their product. Apple also doesn’t want to repeat the mistake of years ago. Let me use part of a discussion on Slashdot about Apple V Psystar. A user responded to something I said:

You are not buying the operating system, you are buying a license to use the operating system as laid out by a contract you sign during installation.

I am buying an authorized copy of the operating sytem. No different than a book or CD. Once I’ve bought that authorized copy. That authorized copy is mine to make USE of as I see fit. Provided I don’t make and distribute additional copies.

Or at least it SHOULD be, and i will defy anyone who attempts to prevent me.

And the copies from installation disk to hard drive to ram to l2 cache to l1 cache, to swap file, that are made in the course of USING it? Those are specifically allowed by copyright law AND common sense. And while apple can argue and perhaps even prevail in a court of law, I don’t consider it wrong, I will continue doing it, and I will work to fix that law.

This person might be a person who would drive with out a license because they feel entitled to use the roads. Analogizing computers to anything else is terrible, but its somewhat of a connection for those who don’t understand. What he thinks is that by buying a copy off the shelf, he is in fact buying a direct copy for him to do as he pleases. It doesn’t work this way. The only way for Apple to be able to develop terms of contract is through an End User License Agreement. There is where they state:

1. General. The Apple software (including Boot ROM code), any third party software, documentation, interfaces, content, fonts and any data accompanying this License whether preinstalled on Apple-branded hardware, on disk, in read only memory, on any other media or in any other form (collectively the “Apple Software”) are licensed, not sold, to you by Apple Inc. (“Apple”) for use only under the terms of this License. Apple and/or Apple’s licensors retain ownership of the Apple Software itself and reserve all rights not expressly granted to you. The terms of this License will govern any software upgrades provided by Apple that replace and/or supplement the original Apple Software product, unless such upgrade is accompanied by a separate license in which case the terms of that license will govern.

It is a contract. You sign contracts quite often, especially for services like TV or Cellphone, pretty much any business transaction. Apparently in some countries, like Germany, the EULA is unenforceable. But it doesn’t make sense to me how a company can’t develop a contract for the customer to agree or disagree. Especially with an owner granting license. Back to my case; A company hires me to photograph their products. I personally like to retain ownership of my work, so I find out the purpose of the photos, Advertising. Cool, so I write up a contract stating I will offer a license of x photos for x price to be used solely for advertising for x period of time. If the company wishes to use the photographs in another way, I want them to come back and request a license for a different use. They have the option to change the contract saying they want ownership of the photos to be used as they please. Im ok with that, but it comes at a higher cost than licensing. I hope that makes sense.

I said earlier that patents are the problem, as I have already discussed business models. I think patents are hurting the computer industry. I don’t have any explicit examples yet of why, but you can find them elsewhere. Companies hoard patents, then get sue crazy over other companies who seem to be infringing on a patent. Companies who don’t have strong products are looking either for money or shared patent portfolios. I think it stifles innovation, because some companies sit on patents without developing anything about it. The tech industry is about 30 years old, I see a problem when Patents cover 2/3 of that time. For how fast the industry has changed over the previous 3 decades, patents are seemingly to get in the way.

I’ll see if I can come up with some examples of patent issues being a core problem.

I wanted to be sure to get an article in today about something, especially since I was really urging to post yesterday but nothing really crossed my desk that I felt was worthy of sharing with all my loyal readers. Today, when I first checked my sources, I found two topics that just popped right off that I had to write about. The third came not too long ago while re-checking my sources and what have you. So without further ado, I give you, Triple Article Wednesday.

            RIAA and the Performance “tax”

This story actually was brought to me by a radio ad telling me I need to know more about the “performance tax”. After some light research on the subject (yeah like I’m really gonna research hard core. Just the facts Ma’am) I found that this bill? (I’m not sure what to call it, its up for discussion on capital hill so in honor of the song… I’ll call it a bill) is to get radio stations to pay a tax, or royalty, or fee for playing copyrighted music. (Writers note: I just spent hours looking deeper into this and ended up writing my rep and senators so pace may change here). This idea is Ludicrous (haha like that, how I used a recording artists name to get my point across). The only thing that this would do aside bring even more money to the RIAA is reduce either the amount of music we hear on the radio (i.e. some radio stations may stop playing music all together) or reduce the amount of other things we hear about (i.e. traffic, sports) to get the most for their money. I myself like to know that I’m about to roll up on the biggest wreck ever known to man so I can make that attempt to avoid that nightmare. Its worked so long for 80 years, why change it now?

Artist’s side/argument: http://musicfirstcoalition.org/

Radio’s side/argument: http://www.noperformancetax.org/

            ATT Sues Verizon

My next story is about the lawsuit that ATT has on Verizon. The “There’s a map for that” commercial seems to have burnt ATT so hard that they felt they need to take it to court to get the ad pulled from the airwaves. ATT argues that this commercial leads to the false impression that outside of the blue area on ATT’s map, there is no coverage what so ever.

Based on what I see.. and the fact that it states 3G coverage.. and they are using the brands color to blot the map.. I would assume that the white areas are non 3G coverage. I mean come on, I’m not going to go on an ad frenzy to show off a map that shows I got areas that don’t have coverage regardless of if its less then the other map or not. Be the judge for yourself though.

            Verizon Early Termination Fees

In my final story, we turn right back to Verizon, who, for contracts beginning or after November 15^th 2009, will be charging up to $350 per line for early contract termination fees on “advanced devices”. Verizon does pro rate the ETF by $10 per month, but if you stay on your contract for 23 months that’s still $120 left to pay (that’s only $55 difference from the previous full charge). All I can say is I’m glad I stopped doing business with this company, even though I’m sure that everyone else is going to follow suit until the FCC steps in.

The 22-year-old soul singer Joss Stone — who recorded her new album ‘Colour Me Free” in her mother’s live music bar ‘Mama Stone’s’ in just a week — believes music should be shared for free whenever possible, while Lily Allen has campaigned vehemently to make internet file sharing a criminal offence.

Joss said about this and of Lily Allen:

‘It’s really about the track and about their personality and their celebrity and that’s how they make their money is selling those records.

‘So the downloads — she’s not going to win that fight.

‘None of us will win that fight.

‘So let’s just accept it and let’s see it as something that can be beautiful and it might change music for the better.

‘It might sort the weeds from the flowers.’

‘She needs to sell records because she’s not a singer, and that’s not an offence to her because I think that she knows that too.’

‘I think she’s a performer and she’s more of a personality than she is a singer.

‘And that’s what we make our money from, from playing live.
And I think it’s probably harder for an artist like Lily and any other pop acts.

Joss added that she makes music purely for enjoyment. She said:

‘Who said that musicians have to be millionaires?

‘Who made this a rule?

‘We don’t need that much money. We just don’t; we only need enough to make music and to eat and to go on tour.”

In recent years, the debate over the topic of internet piracy has been one of much controversy for the world of music. Major music labels report staggering losses in sales due to the the act of internet file sharing each year. These losses have drawn major labels to band together with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) to prosecute offenders of these acts to the largest extent possible in hopes of curbing the practice. This measure, along with the simultaneous legal actions taken against facilitators of the file-sharing movement (see The Pirate Bay) has sparked much discussion, both online and elsewhere, about the legitimacy and effectiveness of this practice. Opponents of the RIAA’s efforts claim that “pirates” still purchase music, and that they use “piracy” to find new types of music that they then will buy. Until recently, these claims were seen to be nothing more than cover up for illegal activity.

Pirates: legitimate customers or online bandits?

A recent study indicates that about 1 in 10 people admit to pirating music online. This number is quite high, though not surprising when noting the music industry’s recent preventative measures and claims of revenue loss. What is surprising, however, is that those who admitted to pirating music reported and average of $126 of yearly music purchases compared to just $72 for those who do not pirate music. This data prompts questions about the RIAA’s recent string of prosecutions, namely the question of whether or not criminally charging one’s most valuable customers is a smart business decision.

In current times of revenue loss at major music labels, and with illegal file sharing running rampant online, the independent music community has found an opportunity to shine. Purchases of independent music are actually up recently relative to their major-label counterparts, but why? One possibility is that increased access to information is allowing musicians without major label backing an opportunity to reach out to listeners in a whole new way. Blogging, interacting with fans, and releasing free songs online are not uncommon practices by today’s indie musicians, and these tactics seem to be translating into eventual purchases by consumers who like what they hear.

Perhaps the RIAA and the entities it represents are taking the right approach, and the results have simply not yet come to fruition, or perhaps they need to rethink their methods. Prosecuting the portion of the market that makes up one of the largest groups of legitimate music purchasers does not seem conducive to the achievement of sales objectives, but then again neither does allowing the world at large a free pass to take your products without paying for them. Regardless of what they choose to do, major music labels and the RIAA must think very carefully about their next course of action if they wish to reverse the current trend. Until then, independent artists and labels will continue to thrive as they employ tactics more in tune with today’s internet savvy population, and major music labels will continue to scratch their heads while wondering where “the glory days” have gone.

A Computerist

Part 1
The other day I got an email from my cousin-in-law Lynn about my Aunt Jeanette’s computer. It had a virus. (Jeanette is the one in the middle.)

Lynn is pretty good with computers, and had already done most of what I suggested. The rest of what I suggested didn’t do any good. Eventually, I gave up, thinking that I could probably fix it pretty easily if that happened on my computer.

Part 2
I was minding my own business on the internet the other day, which is not always the case. I looked at a web site, and it was some kind of strange site. I thought it might be a phishing site or something like that, and I decided to look around. I think those fake sites are interesting, if you can figure out how they work.

At one point, a dialog box popped up. I glanced at it, and just after I clicked the close “x”, I realized that that’s not the normal close “x” I see on my computer. I had actually clicked a command button.

A few minutes later, my firewall told me that a program named something like wjkm.tmp was trying to access the internet. I don’t use an antivirus program because they slow down my computer, so I pay attention to the firewall messages.

I went through the normal routine — kill the process, check the tasks running, delete all the files that were just updated, twirl the power cord of the computer to break loose any electron jams, etc. It was easy. Then I did an mrt scan (Microsoft’s scanner that comes with Windows,) and I updated Firefox to 3.5 so maybe it would keep me out of trouble next time.

A while later, I noticed that when I clicked a Google search result, it went to the wrong site. That caught my attention. There was one strange task running again, system.tmp from the temp folder. I killed it and deleted the file. I went through all the services and each one was legitimate. There was nothing new in the startup folder or in the startup area of the registry.

I ran mrt again. This time it found a virus. I checked the hard drive for new files, and noticed a folder in my Program Files directory called Windows Police. I knew that name. That’s the one that Jeanette had!

No problem. I downloaded 7 antivirus programs, even paying $39 for one (Norton), and scanned my computer with AVG, f-prot, Kaspersy, mbat, Norton, PCTools, and two others I don’t remember right now. I even did a couple of them in safe mode. Then, just for good luck, I checked all the strange locations on the hard drive and got rid of anything that looked funny.

This made absolutely no difference. My computer ran just fine, but some virus was intercepting about 1 in 6 search results and sending me to odd web sites with a bunch of choices to click on, apparently making some money off the clicks. This happened on Bing as well as Google. This happened on Internet Explorer and Firefox.

I scanned and scoured the computer for a few days. I was on the verge of calling Lynn and asking to borrow her hammer. But then I ran across a site called PCHelpForum.com. I knew it was unlikely anybody would tell me what was wrong. If all those antivirus programs couldn’t take care of it, I doubted they could. But I decided to ask anyway on the off chance that someone else had had this problem.

I started to post the situation, and I noticed a set of instructions. I was supposed to run a few programs which produce reports on my computer, its installed software, active tasks, files modified in the past 30 days, and a bunch of other stuff. So I did. The next day, someone on the forum replied that I should run Combofix. I didn’t remember that program from anywhere. How could it do any good?

But since they were taking an interest, I decided to run combofix and see what their next suggestion would be. When I ran Combofix, if said it detected a rootkit problem, and found a virus on atapi.sys. Then it fixed it. That fixed my whole problem!

I reported back to them, and checked out my computer for quite a little while. It was really back to normal. The funny thing is, if Combofix left me a “present,” how would I ever know?

One thing I did figure out — it was NOT so easy to fix Jeanette’s problem when it happened to me!

Phish Fry

Earlier this month the FBI arrested 53 people and charged a few dozen more with financial fraud. Since financial fraud isn’t very exciting, the AP and a few other news outlets decided to call it identity theft. But they didn’t steal anybody’s identity. Every single victim got to keep his or her own name.

The group was among the many that send out spam emails claiming to be from a bank, in this case, Bank of America or Wells Fargo. They referred people to the bank website for some fake reason, threatening to suspend their account if they didn’t reconfirm some information, or something like that. Here’s one I got the day before yesterday.

It asks for this information:

• Name on card:
• Date of Birth:
• Social Security Number:
• Mother’s Maiden Name:
• Phone Number:
• Street Address:
• City:
• State:
• Zip Code:
• Card Number:
• Card Expiration Date:
• Card Verification Value (CVV):

The email is fake, of course. It is just used to collect things like account numbers, passwords, social security numbers, drivers license numbers, mothers maiden names, etc. Then the crooks transfer money our of a victims account into their own.

For quite a while, I was getting messages from eBay saying my account was suspended and I needed to click here to get it taken care of. Of course, I recognized this as a scam. I don’t use eBay very often anyway.

Then one day, I logged onto eBay. Those emails had been real! I owed them two dollars and some cents. So I paid and restored my credit rating, preventing the failure of several major banks.

How can you tell the difference between a scam email or a real one that says you need to take care of your account? It’s not very easy. One way is to look at the html source of the email, search for all the “http”s, and make sure the part of the URL before the last “.” is the company you want. In the case of the email above, it sent the data to http://suntunsmecher.com.

If you go to http://suntunsmecher.com, it looks like a fairly innocuous site, just one of those parking sites that has some search items to generate some Google click money after people arrive there by mistake.

But, if you add /w.php on to the end of that site, you get a fake Bank of America site. It looks real. If you actually try this, you might end up meeting some new friends of questionable character from Egypt, or even California. My guess is that site won’t stay up very long.

A safe way to go to a web site in an email is to type the address in yourself instead of clicking on the link in the web site.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/technology/internet/0…

I thought maybe the FBI closed down at least the Bank of America scams, but I just now got another one. They said I’d get $50 for answering a survey. At the end of the survey, it wanted my number and PIN for the account where I wanted the $50 to be deposited. Of course, I would never give them my information. I gave them my brother Jerry’s instead.

Backups? Who Needs Backups?

A year or two ago, Microsoft bought a company called Danger. They make the Sidekick, a T-Mobile competitor to the iPhone and Blackberry.

This note was issued a few days ago:”Regrettably, based on Microsoft/Danger’s latest recovery assessment of their systems, we must now inform you that personal information stored on your device – such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos – that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger.”

It’s hard to believe that T-Mobile or Danger or Microsoft wouldn’t keep a copy of their users’ data. But a few days later, Microsoft said that it could restore most, if not all, of the missing zeros and ones.

      http://blogs.siliconvalley.com/gmsv/2009/10/so-thats-wh…

      http://www.siliconvalley.com/search/ci_13568709

Terraced Barges

In Operation Viper, the Department of Homeland Security narrowly averted a plot by terrorists to take over barges on the Ohio River and use them to destroy civilization as we know it.

      http://www.wlwt.com/news/21282269/detail.html

Fussing

The White House vs. Fox News vs. MSNBC. This is all about nothing, as near as I can tell, but someone made a pretty funny video about it.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdHzWMPLiow

Health Insurance Companies

I’ll avoid the health reform debate, since nobody believes anything said about it anyway. I do think that everybody in the U.S. should have access to health care, but I would prefer not to pay for it all myself. (Oops. I almost avoided it.)

Among the health care publicity campaigns, I noticed that the insurance business promoted some press articles reassuring us that they were not making too much money. “Health insurers posted a 2.2 percent profit margin last year, placing them 35th on the Fortune 500 list of top industries.”

That made me wonder, so I did a little checking. Cigna is a major health insurer. Cigna Boss Ed was paid a measly $7,790,000 last year. Of course, that’s less than one percent of his total compensation for the year by the time you add in $1,580,000,000 worth of stock options he exercised. Maybe those companies would make some money if they cut their executive compensation back to a couple million dollars a year.

GRB 090510

A few billion years ago, in a galaxy far, far away (7.3 billion light-years, or thereabouts), a couple of neutron starts smashed into each other. This caused a huge explosion, and wiped out everything in the neighborhood, and subatomic particles went flying. Among them weresome photons.

Meanwhile, NASA launched the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope in June 2008.

Some of the photons from the galaxy far, far away arrived last week. They didn’t make it to earth — they ended up at the Fermi space telescope. (A whole lot of other photons from that event did make it to earth, though, along with those from zillions of other events. They were generally absorbed by the outer atmosphere.)

One of the photons that hit the Fermi space telescope had a million times more energy than another, yet they arrived within a couple of seconds of each other after traveling 7.3 billion light years. This is important in the fields of physics, science fiction, and agronomy, because unless someone made a timing error, it wipes a significant portion of quantum gravity theories.

There’s a good chance I won’t ever understand all this, but it’s still pretty interesting.

      http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/first_year.html

      http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/science/space/29light.html

Halloween

Halloween season is here! People in the U.S. spend more on Halloween than any other holiday except Christmas. 15 or 20 years ago, my eldest toddler Brian had a computer costume for Halloween.

I was appalled this year when I learned that these two guys had unabashedly stolen Brian’s idea.

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIjBqFMwM08

Actually, those are pretty good!

Global Terminology

Global Warming has been renamed Global Climate Change. This is because some people claim the earth is not warming, and because local weather patterns make most areas seem extra cool at least some of the year. People just don’t notice a 2 degree change in temperature. But the earth is, in fact, getting a little warmer.

      http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2009/10/talk-of-glo…

I noticed a new term in the area of ecology this week — Carbon Pollution. I don’t like that term. It implies that I should stop breathing. In fact, the U.S. Government has decided that only those people who have exhaled CO2 during the tax year are required to pay income tax.

I won’t believe that people are really serious about reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide until they start building nuclear power plants. We can have essentially an unlimited supply of energy without polluting the atmosphere, even if you consider carbon dioxide a pollutant.

Europe has long surpassed the U.S. in nuclear power plant technology. For example, 90% of French electricity comes from nuclear power. France is the world’s largest exporter of electricity, and its electricity cost is among the lowest in Europe.

There are 64 power plants operating 104 reactors in the U.S. None are less than 10-years-old. 1 is less than 15-years-old. 99 of the 104 reactors are more than 20 years old.

Some people think this is good, and we should stop building nuclear power plants until they are all closed down. Some people think this is bad, and we should build new nuclear power plants to add to and replace the old ones. Some attorneys think that the legal process for building a nuclear power plant is a real money maker. The attorneys are right.

France and Finland are both building EPR nuclear power plants. EPR, or European Pressure Reactor, is a new design of nuclear reactor, more efficient and safer than older designs. In the tradition of nuclear power plant development and construction, these plants are behind schedule and over budget.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Pressurized_Reactor

Nuclear fusion power plants are probably the way to go, eventually. Fusion reactions produce a lot more energy than fission, and the fuel is a lot more readily available — water (with some extra neutrons.) Unfortunately, it is not easy to convert a hydrogen bomb into a controlled fusion reaction.

In 1983 some European countries built the Joint European Torus, a nuclear fusion reactor, in Culham, U.K.

In 1991, the Joint European Torus achieved the world’s first controlled release of fusion power (if you rule out the sun and Jupiter.) However, it will only produce 70% of the power input. That is, it takes 100 watts of power to produce 70 watts of power. This technique is commonly used in corn methanol production.

The ITER Tokamak is now under development in France. It is an experimental reactor that should be able to produce more fusion power than is required to operate the reactor.

      http://www.iter.org/mach/Pages/Tokamak.aspx

ITER is an organization made up of quite a few countries, including China, European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, and the United States.

      http://www.iter.org/SCI/Pages/BeyondITER.aspx

Swine Flu

The CDC says 1,000 people have died from the swine flu this year. This made headlines. The CDC also says an average of 36,171 people die per year from the flu (between 1993 and 2003.) This did not make headlines.

I tried to find out how much worse the flu is this year than last, but I haven’t found any unbiased statistics on it. I believe the flu is somewhat worse, but it’s not the catastrophe that it would seem by reading the news.

      http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_dea…

It’s not easy to find out how many people die from the flu. If I am in the hospital with pneumonia, and then I catch the flu and die, was that from pneumonia or the flu? What if I had the flu first? What if I had the flu, went to the hospital, and died when the nurse whacked me in the head with a bedpan because I was racing a 4-year-old down the hallway on one foot? You can see that this is not a simple problem.

The solution? Wash your hands, don’t rub your eyes or pick your nose after you shake hands with someone, and hold your breath when someone sneezes at you. This also helps cut down on carbon emissions.

RIAA

The RIAA pays companies to hack into P2P users and networks so they can file lawsuits. The RIAA claims you owe them $80,000 every time you share a file on the internet. Of course, if you write them a check right now they’ll offer you a substantial discount. It sounds a little like extortion to me.

The RIAA used to use MediaSentry for their covert intelligence gathering, but MediaSentry was caught doing some illegal hacking. They were using false information to access computer systems.

Now the RIAA has hired DtecNet to do their spying, in addition to some public relations. However, DtecNet seems to be behind the power curve when it comes to P2P public relations. Some of their claims are comical.

      http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-anti-piracy-partner-cluele…

Wireless Security

About a year ago a guy named Erik and some people showed how to crack the WPA encryption on a wireless network.

      http://www.itworld.com/security/57285/once-thought-safe…

Now some people named Finn, Olav, Martin, and Stig have shown how to do it better.

      http://books.google.com/books?id=mSMsqoqufMoC&pg=PA…

Amazon Words

Amazon has just received a patent for this: They change some words in an online book to introduce spelling or grammatical errors. That way they can prove that the online book came from them when they sue an illegal copier.

I don’t like this for two reasons. First, it comes under my “stupid patent” criteria for being too simple and obvious to deserve a patent. Second, I don’t think it’s proper to introduce errors into a book for the sake of copy protection. But Amazon probably doesn’t care what I think.

      http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/10/28/2236235/Amazon-P…

Nuclear Spaceship

The headline: “Russia Develops Spaceship with Nuclear Engine”
The original headline: “Russia develops design for spaceship with nuclear engine”
A slight difference, eh?

Here’s the original article:

      http://en.rian.ru/science/20091028/156623290.html

The old Soviet nuclear spaceship program:

      http://www.astronautix.com/articles/sovermal.htm

Open Source Voting

Sequoia Voting Systems published the source code of its voting machines. I think this is a good thing.

      http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/sequoia/

Coincidentally, 5 days before, the Open Source Digital Voting Foundation released the source code for its prototype election system.

      http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/open-source/

SSD

Solid state drives (SSD) are now available. They are pretty reliable (depending on who you ask) and are REALLY fast. An SSD costs more than a normal hard drive. A 160gb drive from Intel costs a little over $600 at newegg. The price used to be a couple hundred dollars less, but the demand seems higher than the supply at this moment.

I believe the supply problem has to do with the reliability. In addition to normal yield-type supply problems in new semiconductors, the SSDs have had a number of software snags.

For example, Intel released a new version of their firmware this week. People can upgrade the firmware on the drive to make it faster and more reliable. However, some people who upgraded found that the upgrade killed their drive. So Intel pulled their software update one day after they released it. Oops.

      http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9140021/Intel_pu…

There is a fairly long list of stories like this from Intel and the other SSD makers.

      http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news/2009/10/intels-bla…

If you’d like to know more about SSDs, check out these Anandtech articles. The first one is six months old, but it covers the fundamentals very well.

      http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531

      http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631

I had decided to wait until the SSDs are cheaper before I bought one. Then, my c: drive died. Completely. I cannot read a single byte from it. And, in case you are one of many who have heard my backup harassment in the past, I did have a current backup. I bought a new SSD and am now living happily ever after. It’s only 160gb, so I have a d: drive with the files I don’t need fast access to, which is most of my files.

Ares I-X

The NASA Ares I-X rocket is planned to carry people to the space station, after the retirement of the space shuttles. NASA launched one this week, a 150-mile test. The water vapor in the first photo is around the simulated crew capsule.

  hires…

  hires…

      http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/ares/fl…

Open Adobe

Adobe is pushing hard to get the U.S. government to accept .pdf and flash as the standard for the U.S. Open Government initiative. That is very ironic, and more than a little stupid.

      http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/adobe-p…

Pictures of Today!

This photo shows the paths of NASA’s spacecraft over 50 years of space exploration.

  hires…

The Crab Nebula:

  hires…

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap091025.html

Two Indian photos from the early 1900’s, by Edward Curtis.

Mike and I were planning to have the boat hauled out of the water for bottom paint, and it was struck by lightning a few weeks before. So now we get to have the mast repaired.

The End

It is a sad, sad day people and by sad I mean VERY sad.  The weekly album sales are in and Royce Da 5′9″, who is one of the biggest names on the blogs/websites/internet, etc moved about as many units Mack 10.  Wait a minute, does that even make sense?  I’m kinda confused because Lil Boosie dropped an album or mixtape and sold damn near DOUBLE the amount that Royce sold.  Kid Cudi is STILL moving more units than Royce.  I can’t say that I’m surprised but I am more so just disappointed and lost.  Drake is still going strong, Jay sold another 45K and the Black Eyed Peas are still doing the same.  Peep. 

Now check out the top of the list.

4	Jay-Z	Blueprint 3	43,000	1,159,000
6	Black Eyed Peas	The E.N.D.	35,000	1,270,000
14	Mariah Carey	Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel	21,000	275,000
20	Whitney Houston	I Look To You	19,000	750,000
23	Drake	So Far Gone	17,000	197,00

I wish HipHopDx would start lying about these numbesr to make me feel better.  Looks like rappers better be pop or perish.

A rare woodcut of a blogging pioneer carefully drawing a blank.

Sometimes a great idea will slap me upside the head, mostly unbeckoned. Other times, something will inspire me to track that fucker down and slap him around myself.

This collection of misfits fit into neither of those categories. These incomplete posts are the result of my brain deciding to toss out an idea and then head somewhere else for the next several hours, relegating it to a half-empty sheet of paper with no possible function.

I’ve been carrying these around in my notebook for a good six weeks+ at this point, so I’ve decided to dump them on the blog, if for no other reason than I can throw these sheets out and move on.

We’ll call it closure. You can call it whatever you like. Please hold your comments until the end of the post. Thank you. 

Two-thirds of the Jonas Brothers check on their relocated promise rings.

The Disney Channel’s Fall Season Update

• The cast from High School Musical heads to college! Catch the all-new spin-offs: Devry School Musical and Safety School Musical!
• In a 2-hour season premiere, the Jonas Brothers exchange promise rings for cock-rings!
• Keep an eye on Miley Cyrus as her C-list celebrity dad shows up for a variety of “Special Guest” shots in small parts, including Miley Cyrus’ dad, the janitor, a steroid salesman and the sketchy dude who’s always hanging around the parking lot. 

And as you can see from slide #192, there are a hell of a lot of numbers on it...

Quarterly Productivity Report for Associated Electronics Mfg., Inc.

• Staring blankly at productivity reports – +78%
• Employee internet usage – +1,200%
• Average employee BAC – 0.06
• Red wires cut – 8,100
• Blue wires cut – 11,005
• Red wires cut at the last second, after nearly deciding to cut blue wire – 3,412
• Number of failed team-building retreats – 4
• Number of lives lost on said retreats – 2
• Most common workplace injuries:
  Prolapsed rectum
  Misplaced fingers
  Slacker’s elbow
  Suicide attempt
  Toilet seat herpes
  “Attempted to use body as ground wire”
  “Something in my eye”
  “No, I mean something in my good, non-glass eye!” 

I will be shopping the fuck out of this place.

My Post-Lottery Jackpot To Do List

• Top hats, monocles and tuxes with tails. Massive facial reconstruction to achieve that ultimate sign of fuck-you money: looking like the Monopoly guy. Goodbye chin and healthy posture!
• Related: hotel the fuck out of Park Place and Broadway.
• Start series of seminars dealing with how to throw money around responsibly (including which seminars to blow your hard-earned cash on).
• Pretend to read up on the capital gains tax; allow government to “break it off in me” every April.
• Commission a Frank Gehry doghouse. Also, buy a dog.
• Buy my way into the reference book racket so every time I make up a word, it’s now a perfectly legal word. (Hello, “cuntacular!”)
• Build an extensive group of homeless/tax shelters. 

If you'll just give me a moment to speak with my advisor...

Predictions for the Next Decade

• RIAA, ASCAP and the MPAA assume every person is stealing music and movies; move forward with Congress-approved plan to garnish wages from 150 million employed Americans.

Ah. That’s refreshing! I should totally do this again sometime, except without all the wasted effort.

Here’s one last thought: I love the NFL but never discuss it within the hallowed Fancy Plans pages for one simple reason: the possibility of having to use the words “nickel back” in a positive fashion.

-CLT

Illegal file sharing has had a lot of attention in the media, as powerful record companies are undermined by copyright infringement. File sharing is not illegal in and of itself, but sharing proprietary music and films is.

Heave ho, thieves and beggars, hoist the colors high

A BBC article reveals (from an online survey of 1008 British people) that file-sharers spend an average of £77 a year legitimately buying music, compared to the non-pirating £44 ($140 and $80 AUD respectively). It found that 75% of 16-24 year olds were willing to buy MP3s, ideally at the equivalent of $0.82per track, with 2% indicating they would pay more than £1 ($1.82).
A researcher said: “Politicians and music companies need to recognise that the nature of music consumption has changed and consumers are demanding lower prices and easier access to music”

The Australian reports that the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, which promotes recording industry interests worldwide) disagrees with the study rather passionately. The ARIA Chief Executive Stephen Peach identified music as the “canary in the coal-mine”, as small file sizes make it easily distributed. ARIA focuses on moral arguments against piracy – that it’s robbing artists and distributors of income. Importantly, he identifies as a problem a consumer expectation that the internet should be free, and that music acquired online has no inherent value due to it being on a computer.

McAfee, the security technology company, has released its threats report [pdf], detailing the 300% growth in illegal file-sharing sites since torrent-tracking site The Pirate Bay was ordered to close by a Swedish judge 3 months ago. Possible factors in increased use are the economic downturn and faster and cheaper internet connections.

There have been several schemes to punish media pirates (and to frighten others), but these have been unsuccessful. The traditional threat is a huge life-ruining lawsuit and fine. Lord Mandelson in the UK announced his plan to disconnect pirates from the internet based on accusations. As has been pointed out, this in no way encourages people to go out and buy music. Not file-sharing isn’t the same as purchasing music.
Fans need a reason to buy, and some musicians know this. Further, there is a continuous growth in legal options for acquiring media content online – iTunes is immensely popular, and new systems are growing in Europe.

Piracy will go on, but consumers are willing to reward artists through purchases and by attending concerts.
The music and film industries have to adapt.

Picture: George Chambers – Anglo-Dutch Naval Squadron Attacked the Barbary on August 27 1816, http://store.encore-editions.com/Artists/irates.html