Copyright

I just read the best description of copyright I've seen. It was on a slashdot discussion about drm and copyright law - The quote was from TheRaven64. It's clear, explains why copyright exists and what it allows you to do and not to do. It also says what is wrong with DRM.

I will include an excerpt here assuming I have the a fair use to quote from the post:

If I create something copyrightable (and I'm a writer, so this is not just a gedanken experiment), I have the right to restrict who distributes copies of it. That is the only right I have under copyright law. I don't have the right to say 'blind people are not allowed to feed it through a screen reader.' I don't have the right to say 'you may not read this from a mobile device.' I don't even have the right to say 'you may not photocopy a few pages of this book to read on the train when you don't want to lug the entire book with you.' If you want to tear pages out of a book I've written, or change the font of something I've written for online distribution, then that is entirely up to you; I don't have the legal (or moral) right to tell you not to.

Copyright is a limited monopoly on distribution granted to encourage the production of content. It is not a right, and it is not a privilege; it is a trade. The state awards me limited rights in exchange for my relinquishing others (which I could retain by simply not publishing). We both win; I gain a method of producing income, while others gain access to the material I produce. By exercising copyright, I am agreeing to this; I am saying 'I wish to retain exclusive distribution rights, in exchange for publishing this work and permitting others to purchase it.' DRM alters this balance. If I publish a DRM'd version of something, then I am attempting to retain more control than copyright grants me. This is nothing more and nothing less than vigilanteism.

Most impressive.

Video Cameras on the Cheap

Video Cameras on the Cheap
Originally uploaded by bristley.

We were on the Manly ferry today. I noticed something that is very Sydney government. The ferry system can't afford surveillence cameras so instead they have stickers where the surveillance camera would be if they could afford one.

We went on the ferry from circular quay to Manly and then walked along the beach, sat at a table at a small cove passed the swimming baths where a possum came and sat under us, at some left behind food and ignored us totally - cheeky thing - and then went to the beach and had fish and chips.

We caught the bus back - it was a 7:43pm bus on a Saturday afternoon and standing room only. I think we need some more busses.

Sick

I'm sick. I've got a cold - my ears are blocking - half the time I can't sleep and then I can't stay awake. Life is so unfair. After Friday being a frabjous day the next day I'm sick.

Possibly I was noticing things on Friday morning as the first symptom - vision changes - inability to see large picture details. Colours seeming supersaturated. Or maybe it was a lovely day.

What is of course a waste is being sick on a weekend. Maybe I'll feel perfectly fine tomorrow because it will be Monday morning. That will be something to look forward to.

My Dear Reader is sick too. He's a day ahead of me and says he's starting to feel better.

Oh well - I'll just have to watch Australian Idol and hope that I fall asleep again. Life is so unfair. Woe is meeeeeeeeee.

Just remember I'm delirious which is why this post is filled with self pity. Rambling. Lost in a see of fuzz and continually damp hankies. Sick.

Frabjous Day

It is a loveley day today. I am on the train station again and today I was noticing all the flower buds and the sun bathiing skink on the road and the bees in the flowers.
The wattle on the other platform is just starting to bloom and some people are setting up chairs in the shade of a tree in the park.

All of this was here yesterday but today I'm noticing it.
It must be almost Spring.

Waiting for a Train

I am at the train station right now, writing my first mobile blog post. Next time, I'll be more advanced and email it from my treo as well. I don't have my blogs email address with me. The wonders of technology.

There has been a group of construction workers digging up drains at the station for the last few days. They are using a noisy yellow digging device. I just heard one of the construction workers offer one of his coworkers a go on the yellow machine and the coworker was very clever in refusing the challenge. His response was "It would be on top of somebody in a minute".

It's now this evening and I am about to email my post. A test.

Futurama All the Time

Channel 10 seems to have a slight problem with their TV schedule. Having finished Big Brother and then cancelled poor Jasmin - who may now never marry - it is now filling all of its schedules with Futurama. ALL the time. Continously - never ending. OK - not really - but there are 3 today between 7pm and 9:30 pm. For all I know it could be on randomly during the day aswell.

It's like when I was in Switzerland last year when BBC Prime would show 3 hours of Eastenders repeats on Sunday afternoons. Or ABC 2 with "Stateline Sunday" - all of the different Statelines one after another until your eyes bleed.

I want variety. Showing all the Statelines is good - showing them all one after another in a block is WRONG. Showing 3 Futuramas in a few hours is too much.

Free to Air TV programmers obviously need some help.

Urban Stalactite Closeup

Urban Stalactite Closeup
Originally uploaded by bristley.

We went for a Sunday walk today. A few minutes from home we went through a tunnel under the railway line and found these tiny urban stalactites. These ones were about 10 cm long. The longest ones were about 20 cm. They were actively dropping water which I assume means they were growing.

Sticky Beak

Continuing my self confessional stream of consciousness- I make my guests sleep on uncomfortable beds, I have bad taste in music - I am also a sticky beak.

I was just watching a tv show looking at someone's business. The company shall remain nameless to protect their identity. They mentioned their website - so I went to have a look . On noticing several pages with text that said "link to something" with no links I then had the hide to send them a critique of their web site.

This isn't the first time I've done this. I did it to the Sydney Biennalle who had a flash web site that was using the most recent version of flash and therefore prevented me from viewing their program.

I assumed in both cases that the only way you could have a business website that had these mistakes could be by not understanding much about web sites. So I sent them a critique explaining what was unusual in a bad way about their web site.

My justification is that I've butted in to try to provide them with information which they can use to talk to their web site designer so that their site can be improved. I'm sure that's not the way the recipients of my email feel. They probably feel as though I'm an amateur interior designer who's walked into their lounge room and told them to get new cushions.

Which is worse - to leave them with a commercial website that could deter customers either through accessability issues, broken links or poor design or to sticky beak on their website and send an unsolicited comment.

You can see I'm trying to justify my stickybeaking. I should just admit it - I have a problem.

Social Solecism

We had some mould on the ceiling of our bedroom so on Monday my Dear Reader demoulded the ceililng using a smelly demoulding spray. Since then we've been sleeping elsewhere while we wait for the smell to dissapate.

I was sleeping on the sofa because I'm I really hate the smell but last night I tried the spare bed with my Dear Reader. Now I'm overcome by guilt because it's terribly uncomfortable for two people. I feel bad because we've had visitors and forced them to sleep on this sofa bed. They've all politely said it was quite comfortable - but they LIED.

I felt like I was sleeping on the side of a mountain all night. And it was hard and uncomfortable. We have inflicted this on people. Ignorance is our only excuse.

My Piano Confession

I admit it. I am a closet adult piano learner. I played the 'cello badly when I was at school and did the music thing - school and youth orchestra, choir etc.

This year I got an electronic piano and have been extending my rudimentary keyboard skills. I'm enjoying the standard early intermediate repertoire at the moment.

Today I got a package - containing some music I'd ordered from the USA and that's where the confession comes in. I just got delivered 3 books of music - the Shrek Movie songs, a big book of Musical songs and another of TV themes.

Yes my taste in music at the moment runs from Bach - which I'm very much enjoying to the Muppet theme. I enjoy Schlock. I presume it is all some kind of extended nostalgia or regret or something.

At least looking around the net at what other people play - I'm in the company of a lot of other people who like the same kind of music I do. And I've improved enough to not need to get "easy scores". I don't play them well - but I have headphones for my keyboard which means my Dear Reader doesn't have to listen to all my fumbles.

He swears he doesn't mind but most of the time I'm playing with the headphones on.

Farewell again.

My Piano Confession

I admit it. I am a closet adult piano learner. I played the 'cello badly when I was at school and did the music thing - school and youth orchestra, choir etc.

This year I got an electronic piano and have been extending my rudimentary keyboard skills. I'm enjoying the standard early intermediate repertoire at the moment.

Today I got a package - containing some music I'd ordered from the USA and that's where the confession comes in. I just got delivered 3 books of music - the Shrek Movie songs, a big book of Musical songs and another of TV themes.

Yes my taste in music at the moment runs from Bach - which I'm very much enjoying to the Muppet theme. I enjoy Schlock. I presume it is all some kind of extended nostalgia or regret or something.

At least looking around the net at what other people play - I'm in the company of a lot of other people who like the same kind of music I do. And I've improved enough to not need to get "easy scores". I don't play them well - but I have headphones for my keyboard which means my Dear Reader doesn't have to listen to all my fumbles.

He swears he doesn't mind but most of the time I'm playing with the headphones on.

Farewell again.

Curiosity

The yellow jersey
Originally uploaded by bristley.

I believe that like Philip Adams I have an audience of one. But due to curiousity I have installed a hit counter. I am assuming that every now and again someone will accidentally find a post and I shall jump up and down because someone has read my blog - other than my "Dear Reader".

It's really because of how excited I was about this photo on my flickr site - 2700 people have looked at it now. Or generally on my flickr site where I put up a photograph and 8 people look at it - 8 people look at my photo.

I think this will be much more - someone read my blog post - WOW. Maybe one day. And this way I'll find out :-)

ads are getting worse

I just watched an episode of Criminal Minds. It's the second episode here and I'm quite enjoying the series so far.

What I thought was astounding was the ads.

At the end of the show channel 7 saw fit to tell us that "Criminal Minds" was the new "smash hit" based on it being on one showing on the night before with not very much competition.

I thought that was fairly excessive hyperbole but the ad I was even more impressed with was the one for mascara that told me "the more you wear the sexier you are". Wow - that 's excellent fashion advice. I can just see the 14 year old girls with eyelashes too heavy to lift because of this ad. Wondeful.

I am now peacfully watching "Planet Earth" which I recorded yesterday. Amazing pictures and no one telling me to wear mascara, buy a car so I can have sex in it or that a once off preview of a show makes a "smash hit".

Intros on Podcasts and Videos

I'm starting to listen to more podcasts and watch more video blogs. I'm thinking of starting a campaign called "Keep my Interested - Cut the Opening Credits".

If I've downloaded something on to my computer or I'm playing a stream - I've selected it and I know what it is. I don't need 45 seconds of my 3 minutes listening to be taken up by a song repeating the title of the program in various ways. 5 seconds is acceptable - I'll stretch to 10 seconds - but I'm listening to this on my walk from the train station or I'm watching this while I'm having my breakfast because it's new and unique - that's why I downloaded it. I don't want to listen to something I've heard before.

I don't need to listen to the same promo track - or the same "You are listening to" announcement repeated everying 1 minute - I know what I'm listening to - I pressed the button to start it. I don't have temporary amnesia unless it's caused by my falling and hitting my head after having passed out due to intense boredom from listening to your repetitive theme track.

Listeners of the world unite - help the producers of content on the net realise that they are not producing radio and television shows and they are not constrained by a limited random format - they don't need to attract attention at the beginning of the show with a promo - they already have our attention because we've downloaded their show - they need to keep it. Start the show already.

There are a lot of web content like The Show with zefrank - http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/ (which I really enjoy) that don't fall into this boredom inducing trap. It's more the ones being produced by traditional media companies or shows trying to act like traditional media companies that do this.

They just need to STOP. Ok I'll stop ranting now.

Poll

I just saw a poll on Yahoo Australia - will John Howard beat Menzie's 16 years in Office.

I wonder if the options are -
Yes - 10 %
No - 13 %
Not if I can help it - 77 %

I read an article where Camilla from Big Brother was surprised that John Howard had called Big Brother stupid - I presume like everyone else she was more surprised that he was commenting on a television show rather than on something important in industrial relations or foreign affairs.

I enjoyed the final episode of Big Brother yesterday. I enjoy watching Gretel change her interviewing style to make the different people she's with comfortable in front of a very large crowd.

The other Big Brother issue I thought interesting was the Sydney Morning Herald not mentioning David meeting his boyfriend after he was evicted in any easily findable articles on the website. They mentioned Jamie and Katie but didn't mention David and Sherif (I just had to go hunting on Google to find out how to spell his name). It could be a form of self censorship or maybe the journalist writing the articles didn't actually watch the show. They also had two or three different articles over 2 days with the same paragraphs about Camilla, John and Ashley at the bottom. Maybe they've paid a teenage relative to sms them who gets evicted so they can have a quiet weekend :-)

I've been at home today with a cold - I'm rambling - maybe it's time for another nap.