Thursday 31 January 2002

NY Times: Record Companies on the Defensive. The major record companies, which two weeks ago surprised analysts by seeking a temporary suspension in their copyright lawsuit against Napster, were about to face potentially damaging inquiries into their own behavior on maintaining copyrights. [Tomalak's Realm] This is an interesting twist on this saga. Of course, connected with all this is the recent announcement by Universal of the release of copy-protected CDs (that is, the public announcement of this move, since such hobbled discs had already been sneaked onto the European market in a deliberate bid to assess user reaction). I was one of those who received what was apparently a stock reply to my expression of concern about the effects of such a move. The reply heavily stresses that all the music companies are doing is protecting the interests of 'artists, songwriters, and copyright holders', conveniently avoiding any reference to concerns about loss of revenue to themselves because of large-scale copying.       This is cynical in the extreme. I cannot see why I should be penalised for the misdeeds of others and suffer reduced functionality because of the copy-protection approach pursued by the record companies. If I buy a CD I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to play it in my CD-ROM drive as well as in my CD player -- and I also fail to understand why I should lose the ability to rip CD tracks to my computer, rearrange them in whatever playing order I wish, and burn them to CD for my own use.       This is a quote from Universal's reply: While the CDs with copy protection may not be playable in a limited number of CD players, UMG is currently working with our technology providers to achieve 100% playability. We also hope to include Macintosh-based playability on copy-protected discs in the future. 11:34:57 PM  Your view

Newly posted to 'About Apple' -- The State of OS X Web Browsers : Ersatz Designs Honor Apple : Apple exec uses weblog for sharing Company updates and tips 5:30:38 PM  Your view

Sharon Regrets Not Killing Arafat. Israel should have killed Yasser Arafat 20 years ago, while he was under Israeli siege in Beirut, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in an interview published Thursday. [AP World News] What can one say? The headline sums up the confrontational attitude of Mr Sharon, doesn't it? So his motto is: 'Let's kill, not talk!' 5:07:06 PM  Your view

Sound Studio 2.0: digital recording app [MacNN] I downloaded this yesterday and took a quick look at it. It seems very intuitive and powerful. I'll try some serious work when I have some time. 4:56:10 PM  Your view

WOW! I've just checked the 'Ranking by Page-Reads' and am very pleasantly surprised to see this little site included at position no. 67 on the daily list -- after only three days using Radio! This is quite a community all right. It's really good to know that people are reading this stuff. Ah well, I got my short moment of excitement anyway. I now realise that most of these hits were from my own frequent updating and checkout visits -- the big head has now got smaller! 7:30:10 AM  Your view

OS Opinion: Apple Doesn't Need Zealots.  [Scripting News] I especially liked this from the article: A couple of years ago, the only Mac people in my workplace were "Mac people." They were identified by their sad eyes and the lack of spring in their step. These days -- and I'm talking about a Fortune 500 company -- the "Mac people" are managers and highflyers telling their colleagues about their digital movies and DVD burning. These people are the decision makers. They aren't zealots -- they just recognize good technology. 7:18:11 AM  Your view

Apple. "In short, there is no technological reason for Apple to worry about .NET." [The Motley Fool] 7:03:17 AM  Your view

What's happened to Radio on my system? Everything was going soooo well, and now it seems my uploads have stopped. All I did was try to add a Category to my navigation panel. It shows up fine locally, as does an extra item which I added last night -- but neither of these appears on my live home page. Trying this addition to see if I'm back in business . . . . . . well, things get curiouser and curiouser (as someone said in Alice in Wonderland). This went through fine, and my navigation addition shows up too: but I still have a local news item which never made it. Also, how do I get a category navigation item to link to HTML-formatted material rather than a directory listing? 6:57:02 AM  Your view

		© Copyright 2002 Jim MacCormaic . Last update: 29/09/2002; 06:01:03 am .