copyright

No money for all these things!

Source: FIXED: Xbox One losing TV signal error message with DirectTV – Scott Hanselman

This is why piracy wins. You buy all the expensive toys, then you run into issues that require you to buy even more crap that consumes more power that then you have to remember to manage.

You know what doesn’t fail? Some HD or 4K torrent that you can just push to any display over any physical media. Plug and play, as it were. Funciona aqui, en China, y en la chingada.

No additional devices required. No matter where you are.

You cannot beat that.

No money for all these things! Read More »

A new mythology

These characters no longer truly belong to the writers who are writing their stories. They exist independent of their individual fictions. In our minds, many of their traits are already set in stone.

Source: Captain America Isn’t Bi or a Nazi, He’s Just God | Myths RETOLD

Fandom lets us ignore the shitty decisions made by ‘owners’ of our contemporary myths at the bottleneck of IP law.

Source: Captain America (Updated): On the heroic epic, the nature of story, the implied contract with the reader, the dumpster fire that is Marvel Comics’ choice to pursue this storyline, and why indefinite copyright is harmful to contemporary myth: a cranky Twitter rant.

The corporate behemoths that now own all of these characters have no idea how to plan for the long term. They keep wanting to bring stories of the past into the present, but what about stories of the present taken into the future?

No amount of copyright law will change the fact a character’s mythos are an organic thing that grows, changes, mutates, evolves, as time goes on and more people are made aware of it.

A new mythology Read More »

Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously. | vellumatlanta

What Amber explained was exactly what I’d feared: through the Apple Music subscription, which I had, Apple now deletes files from its users’ computers. When I signed up for Apple Music, iTunes evaluated my massive collection of Mp3s and WAV files, scanned Apple’s database for what it considered matches, then removed the original files from my internal hard drive. REMOVED them. Deleted. If Apple Music saw a file it didn’t recognize—which came up often, since I’m a freelance composer and have many music files

Source: Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously. | vellumatlanta

Back to the torrents.

Apple Stole My Music. No, Seriously. | vellumatlanta Read More »

So my kid got his own phone

Don’t ask if it’s proper or right or whatever — it’s a done deal and now we (his parents) have to deal with the fact he is not an active participant of the Internet.

Since I’m using Google Apps, we got him a managed account in one of my domains. This will allow us to recover the account quickly if he ever gets his devices or his credentials compromised. This account qualifies as a full google account, which is both a plus and a minus. But mostly a plus.

A more immediate problem is how to get his device loaded with content. Since I’m in the US I get access to a lot of content for what is a very low price. He’s in Mexico and access to legal content is still very costly. I would very much like for him not to have to look for stuff on the torrents or cyberlockers.

I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, I’ve already hit a snag trying to get him access to music. I’ll just have to ignore the age requirement for a while…

So my kid got his own phone Read More »

Before the blackout

I keep reading about entities in favor of SOPA/PIPA as “copyright proponents” when they are nothing of the sort. Once upon a time the term described entities — people, companies, governments, organizations — that valued a balance between the copyright and the public domains. That is if the term ever really did describe such an entity.

The term cannot be used to properly describe entities in favor of these laws. I think a more apt term to describe them would be “copyright extremists”, in that they will not brook any dissenting opinion on intellectual property law; they refuse to discuss anything else other than their views; they exclude agencies that might seek a more balanced conversation of law.

Their strong-arm tactics and insistent double-speak share more in common with entities that are globally recognized as intolerant of discussion like dictatorial governments, political parties, or religious organizations.

Copyright proponents want a world where creators have control of their works to benefit themselves and their families. To ensure this benefit balances against the need of future generations to benefit themselves. A world where this balance enriches all people in it.

Copyright extremists want nothing more than to benefit themselves for as long as they can, then to disallow the world to benefit itself. They would make themselves judge, jury and executioner regarding issues of intellectual property law, and tremble those who might disagree.

Half a century after the Summer of Love, itself the peak of a decade of revolutionary change, we are now again in the midst of changes brought about by the rise of the Internet. Copyright extremists themselves have obtained gain from this although they grudgingly admit it. People from all walks of life cherish and welcome these changes even if they sometimes are hard to comprehend.

The current revolution will continue regardless of the efforts spent by extremist entities of any class to stop it. This not only goes for intellectual property, but for all aspects of life itself.

Before the blackout Read More »