Archive for November, 2006

Who is Ray Beckerman? He’s a lawyer attempting to defend people against the blanket, John Doe style lawsuits the RIAA is perpetrating all over the place. I’ve only kept up with this information in a general sense (compared to some others I know) but haven’t seen any information on the lawsuit side as detailed as what he provided in an interview he did with DefectiveByDesign.org.

Probably about 10 minutes of reading that will enlighten you to some pretty interesting stuff:

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/node/404

In what can only be described as unsurprising the U.S. Government has released a document which outlines a new relationship with the Russian government that will rule how the two interact based on intellectual property.

I didn’t provide a link, because the one I found was a PDF. Check here if you would like to read it.

I’ll summarize as best I can without causing an unnecessary loss in interest to those who are barely hanging on anyway, but nothing beats reading the original for yourself if you are someone who is interested.

The gist of the document is that Russia has agreed to begin to more aggressively chase down and penalize the people who would allow others to gain what the U.S. government would consider “intellectual property.” The most interesting thing about the document, of course, is that on page two, the first bullet point specifically names allofmp3.com as a target. Among other interesting, valid and needed points it seems questionable that allofmp3.com would be specifically targeted. Anyone who has ever been to Russian can tell you about the rampant illegal CD sales that go on, surely there were factories making these illegal CD’s which could be named as well? Instead, those points are glossed over and vague enough to actually allow continued violations while allofmp3.com takes the brunt of a direct reference, assuring that they will be specifically targeted and made an example of.

While I would be hesitant to say that the negotiations are in direct response to RIAA’s repeated demands even in the face of Allofmp3′s repeated justification it is hard to ignore the constant crowing the RIAA does about the site. Why would the U.S. government have any interest in specifically naming allofmp3.com as an enemy unless it is because of the constant complaints from the RIAA?

Now don’t get me wrong. While I like the idea behind allofmp3 much better than the blatant ripoff (I’ll write an article about that soon enough) that is our DRM overlords, I think the idea has been taken to an extreme and as such doesn’t compensate artists properly (or at all, actually). As such, it isn’t an acceptable solution to everyone and some changes should be in order.

I guess this is just another case, building on the suing of minors and people who don’t even own computers, which points out the complete and utter failure which is the RIAA. At some point artists are going to realize that they can make much, much more money by selling the bandwidth to download their songs rather than paying the RIAA and its minions to market the songs for them. I, for one, will be glad when the money I spend on music goes directly to the artist who created it instead of the executives who greedily mark up the prices to distribute the music.

Do the math… the DRM controlled music you buy is a ripoff.

Today I came across an article on CNN where Kofi Annan presented a proposal to the U.N. Climate Change Conference that indicates a possible solution to global warming is to create more polution in the air, thereby creating a sort of “shade” around the planet which would filter the sun’s rays.

I’ve seen the idea referred to as the “global haze proposal.”

To be sure the article doesn’t escape (CNN has a habit of moving their articles after a while) I’ll include the full, quoted text here:

More >

So not too long ago I came across this article on the New York Times’ site. It started off as an interesting read and eventually evolved into what I would consider borderline panic that the world was about to end. OK, so I knew the world wasn’t going to end, but still… Go read the article. I’ll wait here with my opinions on hold until you’re done.

…

So now that you’ve read it you’ll agree that: A) Anyone with enough nerdness to reconstruct a virus extracted from DNA has seen many, if not all, science fiction movies and; B) They didn’t learn a thing from these movies.

So how, on Earth, does someone consider it progressive science to reintroduce viruses, possibly some which culled the population to nearly nothing, into society? With our immune system dependencies on medicine do we really think it’s a good idea to just start introducing old viruses all willy nilly?

I mean… Aren’t there enough new viruses for you guys to work on?

Recently I came across a blogger’s post of a painting meant to depict, from the blogger’s comments, a World of Warcraft player in 30 years. The original post was really nothing more than a link to a painting and some very brief, seemingly tongue in cheek commentary.

The most interesting thing about the post, however, is that once it hit Digg comments began to flood in. The comments, mostly anonymous, formed up to draw a distinct line between people who played World of Warcraft and people who didn’t. After reading through these comments you almost felt as if you had been involved in a debate between two opposing factions.

Now obviously, the artist who created this painting wanted it to stir emotions and intended for discussion to be prompted surrounding their work. However, it strikes me as odd that there have been such lines drawn around World of Warcraft and, more broadly, around the MMORPG genre of games.

Why is it that this genre is seen as the ultimate evil of gaming?

Why is it that with all of the game formats available to be criticized, all carrying their own group of addicts, the MMORPG is seen as the one genre which is the monster?

More importantly, why do so many people who are obviously not involved with the games in any way feel such a strong desire to “save” those who enjoy playing them? I mean, obviously the people who are playing the games aren’t somehow being forced to play them. By their very definition, a game is meant to be a fun event… a hobby… a break from the daily grind. So why is it that people, going about their business enjoying theire hobby, have become such a target for “saving” that those not involved in their hobby feel the need to use the strongest possible motivating factor available to them to attempt to stop these gamers from playing their games?

I figured I would offer a little editorial content here on Finalint to try and provide a little perspective on this issue. Namely my perspective…

More >