Kelly's Tech Nexus

For those of you who are more comfortable using web forums instead of a blog-style environment, I’ve installed bbPress and set up some forums for you to ask your questions. I haven’t found a template yet that I like, but that’s minor stuff. bbPress is kind of new so there aren’t as many templates or plugins as there are for WordPress, but it’ll get there eventually.

Hopefully this will allow for more of a conversation to take place when you ask your questions. Just click the Forum tab at the top of the page, and away you go!

Members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) have found themselves in hot water over doing what they accuse file sharers of doing- distributing music without obtaining permission from the artist. They are accused of abusing something known as the “pending list”; this allows them to use copyrighted material, publish it in the form of “Best Of”-type compilation albums, and secure permission for it at a later date. The problem is, they have added thousands of songs to the “pending list” without ever gaining rights to do so from the songwriters. This should be interesting, to say the least! Note that I am not endorsing illegal file sharing by posting this; it is merely to show that duplicity exists on the business end of the equation. After all, if the industry is going after private individuals for illegally distributing music, wouldn’t you hope they would follow their own rules? Apparently not, if they think they can get away with it.

An excerpt from the article on Ars Technica:

As you can imagine, the business didn’t quite work that way. Instead of keeping up with its tab on the pending list, the recording industry just kept adding songs—without obtaining any rights. The pending list among the lawsuits’ defendants has topped 300,000 songs from both large and small artists alike—300,000 songs that the labels are openly admitting that they have not secured the rights for. In the complaint, the plaintiffs claim that the record companies have been unjustly enriched by the use of their unauthorized music (they have, after all, been selling the music without permission and not paying out).

The plaintiffs also show that they are painfully aware of the hypocritical stance the industry has taken in regard to copyright abuse. One part of the complaint says the companies have shown “reckless, high-handed and arrogant conduct aggravated by their clandestine disregard for the copyright interests of the class members in contrast to their strict compliance enforcement policy and unremitting approach to consumers in the protection of their corporate copyright interests.” Ouch.

via Artists’ lawsuit: major record labels are the real pirates.

In the past few days, a US Judge has agreed that the First Sale Doctrine applies (specifically) to Autodesk’s software and thus they cannot stop the second-hand sale of copies.

via iTWire – Autodesk cannot stop you re-selling your copy.

This is interesting in that the person re-selling the copy of AutoCAD on eBay did not alter nor install the package, it was still in the original shrinkwrap, and it was obtained legally (not via peer to peer networks then burned to disk then sold, which is piracy and is illegal). The seller did not keep a copy for his own use. It is assumed in many countries that the original purchaser retains the right to resell the product at their discretion. This is the principle of “First Sale” where the copyright owner only has control over the initial sale of an item and their control ends there.

-Kelly

In June of this year, as part of auditing our network at my job, I noticed a machine on the shelf that I didn’t have any info for. I knew one was a Linux XEN host that held our file server (a little overkill but I understand why our former network admin did it) and the other was our fire-and-forget server. We use it to hold files for our customers, simply upload a file to the server, and e-mail the link to the customer. This third machine was a mystery. Continue reading »

Every time I leave someone a voice message, I wonder about this- why are we required to sit there and be told how to leave a voice message? Well, on to the story. David Pogue tells it better than I.

In 2007, I spoke at an international cellular conference in Italy. The big buzzword was ARPU–Average Revenue Per User. The seminars all had titles like, “Maximizing ARPU In a Digital Age.” And yes, several attendees (cell executives) admitted to me, point-blank, that the voicemail instructions exist primarily to make you use up airtime, thereby maximizing ARPU.

Right now, the carriers continue to enjoy their billion-dollar scam only because we’re not organized enough to do anything about it. But it doesn’t have to be this way. You don’t have to sit there, waiting to leave your message, listening to a speech recorded by a third-grade teacher on Ambien.

via ‘Take Back the Beep’ Campaign – Pogue’s Posts Blog – NYTimes.com.

My view: I reject the view that copyright owners and their licensees should have perpetual access to consumers’ pocketbooks, and that they think they’re entitled to such. It’s ludicrous for Big Media to think that consumers will purchase digital media from them when they display this flippant, cavalier attitude, and give no recourse for the consumer to protect their investment. To them, consumers are nothing more than cash cows fit only to be milked when the profit margins get a little uncomfortable. Welcome to the new reality, guys.

In truth, they need us more than we need them.

———-

“We reject the view,” he writes in a letter to the top legal advisor at the Copyright Office, “that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works. No other product or service providers are held to such lofty standards. No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity, and there is no reason that any particular mode of distributing copyrighted works should be required to do so.”

via Big Content: ludicrous to expect DRMed music to work forever – Ars Technica.