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Thursday, March 21, 2002 |
First up in "Deconstructing Fritz" is Cory Doctorow at Boing Boing:
"The CBDTPA (let's call it the Anti-Mammal Dinosaur Protection Act and have done with it) requires technologists to arrive at a trumped-up "consensus" with Hollywood Political Officers before they can bring any new products to market. This "consensus," reached at lawyerpoint, establishes what features every product that can store, trasnmit, display or manipulate digital files must have and which files it must not have: everything not mandatory is verboten.
If Senator Fritz has his way, no new technologies will be brought to market without a one-year review. Open Source will be dead, since there will be no way to ensure that your users don't remove your mandated copy-protection measures.
Now more than ever, it is time to put your money and time and energy behind organizations like the EFF as our technologies' very right to exist is challenged."
I wonder if all of our new Gates machines will have to be retrofitted....
11:49:40 PM Permanent link here
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"The Internet is like a mountain of knowledge. Anyone can start climbing it. It’s so much easier if you have a guide. Librarians are the mountain guides. They know some of the best routes to the top." [via Library Stuff]
10:58:29 PM Permanent link here
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Over at Microcontent News, John Hiler provides a very detailed examination of the current Google versus Scientology controversy, which has the online world watching the search engine's every move. Apparently they've started re-instating Xenu.net links, but John's article catches you up on all of the various aspects of what's going on. He also - rightly - ties the rise of Google to the religious fervor it inspires in information workers, especially librarians.
"If anyone worships at the altar of Google, it is librarians, the high priests of the information world....
Google is almost like a religion of its own, especially for information workers. Ask any techie and they will all swear by Google's search of Microsoft's website. Librarians have an even deeper faith in the power of Google. This belief in Google has spread throughout the world, making Google as much of a faith as it is a brand.
From this perspective, deleting information from the Google Cache would be like stealing holy icons out of the Vatican. Google is well aware of this perception - but of course, needs to balance this with its own fiduciary responsibilities.
In the end, the Church of Scientology™ may have finally come up against the one religion it can't litigate out of existence: Google, the world's favorite search engine."
Can I get an amen!
10:38:35 PM Permanent link here
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BTW, here's something funny. Check out Fritz Hollings' official web site. The "father of technical education in South Carolina" and the man who "believes that if politicians will just present Americans with the truth, the people can decide what is best for them" apparently doesn't think this will affect technical education in SC (not to mention libraries) or that the American people should decide what is best for them on the issue of digital rights management.
In addition, the "progressive" senator doesn't mention anywhere on his web site any of his recent efforts to mandate technological solutions to digital piracy, including in the Issues & Legislation section. Guess he's too busy legislating the computer industry's future....
10:22:21 PM Permanent link here
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Anti-Copy Bill Hits D.C.
"The Democratic senator from South Carolina finally has introduced his copy protection legislation, ending over six months of anticipation and sharpening what has become a heated debate between Hollywood and Silicon Valley....
Translation: Future MP3 players, PCs and handheld computers will no longer let you make all the copies you want....
Once known as the Security Systems Standards and Certification Act, the newly named CBDTPA says that all "digital media devices" sold in the United States or shipped across state lines must include copy-protection mechanisms to be defined by the Federal Communications Commission.
'Digital media device' is defined in a breathtakingly broad way: Any hardware or software that reproduces, displays or "retrieves or accesses" any kind of copyrighted work." [Wired News]
Here's my favorite part, though:
" 'A lack of security has enabled significant copyright piracy, which drains America's content industries to the tune of billions of dollars every year,' Hollings, the powerful chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, said in a statement on Thursday."
I look forward to Hollings' next legislative proposal that will finally address the lack of security on my car. It's unbelievable that auto manufacturers have not done a better job of preventing auto theft and car jackings. As things stand, they are enabling significant vehicly piracy, and they must be stopped. Legislation is our only recourse since they refuse to enact security measures on their own.
Here's the part that should scare librarians:
"The CBDTPA does say the final "encoding rules" should take into account fair-use rights, such as making backup copies or reproducing short excerpts from books, songs or movies. Copies of TV broadcasts made for one-time personal use at home are also permitted.
But the CBDTPA also says that with those two exceptions, owners of digital content can encode their "directions" for use, copying and reproduction.
Anyone intentionally violating the CBDTPA would be subject to civil and criminal penalties, including prison terms."
Fair use for a digital file hardly matters if you don't have access to it or can't circulate it. This is really scary stuff. Isn't Hollings up for re-election this year?
10:10:17 PM Permanent link here
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Shopping Via Cell Phones Loses Interest
"Forty-four percent of those surveyed said they would like to use their phones to purchase small items using m-cash. Pepsi and Coke have both teamed up with mobile phone makers for trials in Japan and Scandinavia that will let people point their phones at a vending machine, press a few buttons and charge a soda to their phone bills. However, less than 2 percent of cell phone users have actually tried this....
Meanwhile, SMS continues to gain satisfied customers. The feature is being used at least once a month by 80 percent of mobile phone users in some European countries, according to the survey. Twenty-five percent of respondents in Europe said they used "texting" more than once a day, as did 24 percent of respondents in Asia.
The United States still lags; 89 percent of U.S. respondents have never sent a text message.
Still, SMS is the most popular in the fastest-growing category of cell phone users: those under 25. Fifty percent of people in that group surveyed globally said they use SMS at least once a day. That should help adoption grow rapidly, according to the report." [News.com]
Does any carrier in the U.S. provide any kind of micro-payment system? I think they're too busy defending the four corners that make their box. Do you have any idea how much money the soda machine vendor at my office would make if I could just point my phone at their machine and get a Coke?
And sitting in my workshop today, I thought about how convenient it would be to have IM or SMS available on my cell phone. Checking in with the office, a quick question about what we were doing for dinner tonight, etc.
9:32:25 PM Permanent link here
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I'll be at an all-day workshop today, so there will be few (if any) posts until tonight. :-
8:18:34 AM Permanent link here
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" 'Terra Lycos has launched a subscription video game service through its Gamesville on Demand section. The offering allows users to play popular PC games such as 'Roller Coaster Tycoon,' 'Slingo' and 'Centipede' at any time without purchasing the software.' A 5 game package costs $7.99 a month." [Business News, via The End of Free]
I know a lot of people believe this kind of service won't work, but I think it has a fighting chance. Already, my kids spend much of their online time playing branded games at corporate sites. I'd rather they played better games that weren't broadcast as vehicles for advertising. Examples of games they are currently playing: Cadet Kelly's Ultimate Obstacle Course and Sticky's Mixmaster (which is actually kind of fun). These are games that they found on their own, mind you.
Of course, I'm not ready to pay for this service yet, but they (or I) might when they are older (they're only six and eight now), especially because the current crop of games are still of such poor quality and are so basic. I think Lycos has set a reasonable price, too.
8:17:42 AM Permanent link here
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"Andreas Heldal-Lund, webmaster of www.xenu.net, got a DMCA notification letter from Google earlier today. In the letter, a long list of URLs were listed as infringing, and Google apparently complied with the DMCA request by removing them. You can see the letter here:
http://xenu.net/news/20020320-google.txt
Of course this opens up a huge can of worms regarding whether or not mere links are infringing." [Deana M. Holmes at Declan McCullagh's Politech, via markpasc.blog]
Gee, I guess the DMCA can be misused after all. Who knew.
7:59:19 AM Permanent link here
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"By the way, the picture above is clipped from Voyager III, an absolutely terrific piece of Software from Carina Software, an independent developer in California's East Bay. You can lock and center on a celestial object, such as the Moon, and move forward and backward through time. You can watch the heavens change over the next 100,000 years. You can watch the Trojan asteroids chase Jupiter around its orbit. You can watch the moons of Jupiter move from any distance or angle, with or without shadows. You can take a trip around the Hyades star cluster and back, or travel anywhere among the 4000 or so nearest stars. It's an incredible piece of work that somehow appears to run the same executables on both Mac and PC. Highly, highly, highly recommended." [Doc Searls Weblog]
7:37:50 AM Permanent link here
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© Copyright 2004 Jenny Levine.
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