Tag: blockheaded

The end of blogging as we know it in the UK?

In perhaps the most daft attack on blogging as free speech, the High Court in London (UK) has ruled bloggers have no right to anonymity, as reported by Yahoo! News UK.

The basis of the ruling comes under the assertion that “blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity.” I am horrified at the implication made here, as many things one does that would nominally qualify as public activities, one would still expect some degree of anonymity.

Granted, the case here involves a public official and is far from an ideal test case. But it’s a chilling effect, and sadly, I would expect no better from certain US courts. (This is par for the course in e.g. China and maybe even Iran under the current administration there.)

There are and will always be peer-to-peer anonymity-friendly networks like Freenet, though the chilling effect is still present because moving content such as a blog-like journal to such a network reduces the audience substantially. However, it is my stance now, and has been for some time, that true free speech comes only with anonymity, in light of the fact that most censorship comes “after the fact.” Thomas Paine originally published the pamphlet “Common Sense” anonymously during the American Revolution–and for good reason (as shown in this Wikipedia illustration).

Today, Paine would probably write a blog, and/or post to an online Web-based forum. In much the same way that “crimes of the high seas” has been re-interpreted to include air travel, freedom of the press and freedom of speech include publishing via the Internet and similar electronic media.

In summary, the authoring of a pamphlet such as Paine’s is no more a public activity than writing a blog accessible via the Internet, and the latter is in fact the modern day equivalent of the former. I think it is unfortunate that the High Court in London has found nearly the exact opposite to be true.

Yet more iPhone monkey business from Apple

A Techcrunch article (which references this prior article as well) slams Apple yet again for more iPhone App Store idiocy, this time centered around the Hottest Girls app.

It completely confuses me what Apple is thinking here: add parental controls to the 3.0 version of the iPhone OS, then when an application adds nudity to take advantage of this, pull the app from the App Store. Huh?

The addition of a nudity category and then pulling an app that has nudity is at best confusing. At worst, it looks like Apple is entrapping developers, or being selective on what apps get to stay in the store.

I’m not sure I can recommend anyone trust Apple at all for anything anymore.

A backdoor attack on net neutrality

Wired.com reports on Apple’s arbitrary iPhone application approval/rejection process, and how some believe it to be a de facto attack on net neutrality.

A group called Free Press calls out the inconsistent decisions Apple has when deciding which iPhone applications to approve or reject and why. In particular, an application called SlingPlayer was rejected by Apple in its original form. After Sling crippled it to only work on Wi-Fi and not the 3G or EDGE cellular connections, Apple was more than willing to approve it. Another Wired.com story says an anonymous source says Apple rejected the application in its original state at AT&T’s request, due to network congestion concerns.

This sounds reasonable, but there’s another half to this story. Apple approved the Major League Baseball application as-is, allowing it to stream live sports events over 3G and EDGE as well as Wi-Fi.

Another curious rejection is Ben Kahle’s “Me So Holy” app, the premise of which was to allow users to make Jesus-like portraits of themselves. Apple rejected it to “protect the sensitivity of the customers” in its “worldwide market.”

This is exactly why OpenMoko came about. The Neo FreeRunner (and/or its successor) is the smartphone I’m saving up for. Granted, they aren’t cheap (if they appear much less expensive than an iPhone and you’re reading this before 2009-07-15 or so, that’s a clearance deal for the previous hardware revision). But I would honestly rather take a price hit than voluntarily limit myself to what some giant corporation decides is suitable to have on my phone.

Yet another Kindle DRM oddity

A recent Gizmodo article reports on Kindle users being left in the dark with regard to knowing how many times they can download a purchased book, and on how many different devices they can read said book.

The limits vary by publisher, but obviously Amazon has to maintain them on the servers responsible for the digital restrictions management (DRM). Yet, somehow, it’s beneath Amazon to actually tell the users. This excerpt detailing a tech support call to Amazon says it all:

“How I find out (sic) how many times I can download any given book?” I asked. He replied, “I don’t think you can. That’s entirely up to the publisher and I don’t think we always know.”

I pressed – “You mean when you go to buy the book it doesn’t say `this book can be downloaded this number of times’ even though that limitation is there?” To which he replied, “No, I’m very sorry it doesn’t.”

Jack Loftus, who wrote the article for Gizmodo, opines:

With certain books, you could be limited in such a way that your reading material does not follow your gadget’s natural upgrade cycle.

Such is the pitfall of DRM. My take? It’s time to give DRM the burial it deserves. Everywhere.

ASCAP vs. Mobile Phone Users – The money song

It’s a bit out of character for me to take AT&T’s side anywhere. Yet when the
EFF reported on ASCAP’s lawsuit against the telecom behemoth, this is exactly what I wound up doing.

This is the same ASCAP that tried to extort the Girl Scouts for singing
songs around campfires. Some of you may be less familiar with that story so I’ll post an excerpt of the Web site linked above:

After reportedly opening its negotiations with the American Camping Association with an offer of $1,200 per season per camp, ASCAP eventually settled on an average annual fee of $257. But once ASCAP’s plan went public, and people learned that the Girl Scouts were among the 288 camps being dunned, the group beat a hasty and embarrassed retreat.

This story does not mention the number of camps that would have had to pay this amount. Still, $257 times hundreds or thousands of camps across the US adds up to a huge chunk of change for someone.

Fred von Lehmann, who is credited for writing the EFF’s blog post, takes a no-nonsense approach towards blasting ASCAP for the lawsuit, citing a lesser-known part of the copyright act, 17 USC 110(4), and continuing with an excellent explanation of why ASCAP’s arguments are completely out of tune.

I can understand representing the interests of the composers, who have expenses just like the rest of us. However, there is a line between fair compensation and greed. ASCAP’s proposal crosses way over the line.

A lot of this could be avoided if copyright restrictions were capped to a sensible length of time. The original 28 years of US copyright law is much more reasonable than today’ length which is effectively forever (life of the author plus 75 years, and that’s if it doesn’t get extended yet again, which is always possible given the history of copyright law). Had we stuck with 28-year copyright, here’s a small sampling of what would be public domain today:

  • Any surviving recordings of sporting events held during or before 1980, including Super Bowls I through XIV and the World Series staged in those years
  • Any recordings of the Olympic games up to and including the XXII Summer Olympiad and XIII Winter Olympiad (both in 1980, held in Moscow and Lake Placid, respectively), which would include the original game tape of the 1980 Miracle on Ice
  • Every movie copyrighted in 1980 or earlier, including: Rollerball, The Godfather trilogy, the first two Star Wars movies (episodes IV and V), American Graffiti, and any film which predates these (a very long list indeed)

Of course, the list goes on and on far beyond what I could hope to include here. While I don’t realistically see us going back to 28-year copyrights, I do think the pendulum has swung way too far towards “copyright it now, it’s yours forever” and ASCAP’s greedy grab is only a symptom of the disease.