Archive for the 'Ripped' category

ILA

by T. Colin Dodd

You know, not all of this IP and copyright news bums me out.

From an official press release from Bush’s press secretary:

Question: Mr. President, music is one of our largest exports the country has. Currently, every country in the world — except China, Iran, North Korea, Rwanda and the United States — pay a statutory royalty to the performing artists for radio and television air play. Would your administration consider changing our laws to align it with the rest of the world?

The President: Help. (Laughter.) Maybe you’ve never had a President say this — I have, like, no earthly idea what you’re talking about. (Laughter and applause.) Sounds like we’re keeping interesting company, you know? (Laughter.) Look, I’ll give you the old classic: contact my office, will you? (Laughter.) I really don’t — I’m totally out of my lane. I like listening to country music, if that helps. (Laughter.)

Country music! No kidding?

ILA

(I laugh aloud)

Hat tip to Wired:

Listening Post - Wired Blogs

Filed under Truth, Ripped, I Laugh Aloud. (ILA) on July 26th, 2007 | No comments »

Poison Pill Poppers

by T. Colin Dodd

Despite stumbling on the way to winning approval for ISO standardization of its closed-standard ooxml document format, Micro$oft isn’t deviating from trying to position itself as a peacemaker, appearing to offer an olive branch in the ongoing document format wars by offering to support (or at least stop blocking) adoption of the Open Document Format so long as it “doesn’t restrict choice in formats.”

Restricting choice, as it is used here, can be roughly translated to mean something like, “eroding our stanglehold.” The way they spin it, adoption of the Open Document Format, based on open standards and completely free to use by anyone, will somehow limit users’ choice. So Microsoft is totally cool with ODF, so along as their closed-standard OOXML format somehow wins equivalent standing as an International standard, even though it is not an open standard.

Confused? Mission accomplished.

A similar, but better played anvil disguised as an olive branch maneuver was shown to internet radio operators last week as SoundExchange granted a “reprieve” from enforcement of the onerous royalty ruling handed down by the Copyright Royalty Board. It seems that even the music industry didn’t want internet radio to die.

In a dramatic, last-minute reversal Sound Exchange offered to negotiate more favorable royalty rates for webcasters if they agreed to implement Digital Rights Management technology to prevent “streamripping.”

That’s probably not a deal-breaker for most internet radio operators, but it further restricts a presently-held right of fair use (taping off the radio) for most listeners, and consolidates the music industry’s power online.

Bargaining from a position of strength is good PR, it seems, whether that strength is real or artifice.

Filed under Truth, The shame of downloading., Democratizing Content, The Law, Copyright as a weapon, The shame of sharing, Ripped, The horror of streamripping on July 18th, 2007 | 2 comments »

The Pirate Twins

by T. Colin Dodd

Not since they tried to book Kid Rock for an Inaugural “youth concert” have the Bush Twins (aka: Jenna and Barbara) put their beleagured father in such jeopardy. (Um, except maybe for that time they got caught smoking and drinking backstage at another Kid Rock concert…)

According to reports scorching the world wide webosphere, the latest blow to the faltering Bush presidency came in the form of a sweet fathers day gift. On a rainy day in Crawford, the ebullient twins gave the President “a CD they had made for him to listen to while exercising.”

Hollywood, Florida attorney Mitchell L. Silverman took notice and fired off a letter to the RIAA asking them to take notice, encouraging the Recording Industry group to pursue the twins as aggressively as they do other offenders, pointing out that, by his calculations, damages could exceed $1,000,000.

On his blog, The Scrivener, Silverman’s first commenter points out that copying music for family members is probably fair use, but that didn’t stop anyone from having a good laugh.

Boing Boing: Lawyer to RIAA: Sue the First Twins for copyright violations!

Filed under Truth, The Law, The shame of sharing, Ripped on June 22nd, 2007 | 1 comment »