Liam Lynch: DRM enforced 6 years of Silence

Liam Lynch: DRM-enforced 6 years of Silence

In 2003 someone gave me a CD by Liam Lynch called “fake songs”.  The next day, I popped it in the CD player of my car.  It didn’t play.  On the back: “This disc incorporates Copy Control Technology”.   I cursed and threw it in a pile, where it lay for about 6 years.  Until today, when I saw it and decided to try it on another CD player.  It was inspired enough to listen to.  Such a shame I couldn’t do this 6 years ago.  Maybe I would have “gotten into” him more?  What a hurtful a technology.   Yet our legislators see it as a road to some sort of monopolistic nirvana.

Tch.

Copyright sense: iiNet wins in Federal Court

Copyright sense: iiNet wins in Federal Court

Good news on the wires this morning is that iiNet have won their case in the Federal Court.  It has got high ranking press on the SMH site and ABC – an indication of how important copyright is becoming to the general public.   This is likely a propaganda blow to the AFACT – the doublethink “Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft“.  Especially because, based on media reports (I haven’t had a chance to read the judgment), the court has downed AFACT on the key issue of authorising infringement.   Moreover, the court has said even if iiNet was authorising, it would have the benefit of the safe harbour provisions in the Act.

Given media reports on the drubbing AFACT has received, I suspect an appeal will not be favourable.   It will come, of course, because it is always worth it for holders of statutory exclusive rights to  squeeze for every last inch from them, because every inch means many times more money that they can squeeze from the public.  However, we can now expect to see the Australian Parliament swamped by lobbyists and the Copyright Act changed to suit the content industry.   I expect to see the ACTA modified to knock this fit of reasonableness on the head.  Telecommunications interests made a dire mistake in the 90s and noughties by sucking up the “content is king” rhetoric.  They have sat by while the Copyright Act has been extended greatly against their interests.

It is nice to see some sensible decisions on copyright enjoying a renaissance in Australian courts – particularly Stevens v Sony, and iiNet (and, to some extent, Kazaa) – after a long drought (ie since the Apple case in ‘86).

How Copyright Ideology Costs the Country

How Copyright Ideology Costs the Country

Booktopia price for Beginning Game Development with Python and Pygame: From Novice to Professional (Paperback):  $67.50 + $6.50 shipping = AU$74 delivered

Amazon price US$21.12+US$9.98 = US$31.10 ~ AU$35.34 delivered (@AU$1=US$0.88)

US list price: US$39.99 (ie ~AU$45.44)

Heavens!

A-G’s Copyright Fact Sheet Misleading?

A-G’s Copyright Fact Sheet Misleading?

This started out as a post about the unjustifiably high cost of cartoon episodes on iTunes…

We received an iPod touch as a gift last year.  We decided to have a look at downloading loading some episodes of SpongeBob onto it from iTunes.  The price? US$3 per episode (about AU$3.30). Incidentally we could only find two episodes available (but that may be because we’re iTunes illiterate).  Compare that to the price per episode on a (much higher quality) DVD – about AU$2/episode (AU$20 for 10 episodes, or, in some cases such as older season DVDs, even more episodes).

So, where does the AG’s Department come into it?   What annoyed me was that way that the A-G’s department,  in its explanations of the 2006 amendments seem to go out of their way to avoid mentioning the bad aspects of the law on three things:

Can I still sing Happy Birthday in a public place?

Yes. Even if the words or lyrics to Happy Birthday were still in copyright in Australia, simply singing it in public would not be enough to attract criminal liability. There are no on-the-spot fines for this conduct.

If Happy Birthday is out of copyright, then singing it is not a problem, but the impression this gives is that it is legal to sing in-copyright material in a public place.  There is a public performance right which prohibits this and it gives rise to civil (not criminal) penalties.  So the activity is still illegal.

Rating: poor

Is it an offence for a 14 year old to record himself or herself lip-synching a pop song and post it on the Internet?

Recording yourself lip-synching a pop song may mean that you are making an unauthorised copy of the sound recording. However, posting the recording on the Internet will not in itself constitute a criminal offence.

If the recording is posted for the purposes of trade, it may amount to a criminal offence and be subject to an on-the-spot fine.

What it doesn’t say is that it is an offence for a person to “engage in conduct” which “results in one or more infringements” of a work and “the infringements have a substantial prejudicial impact on the owner of the copyright” and the “infringements occur on a commercial scale“.   Unlike normal criminal law where you have to intend your action (the main exceptions being drug possession and negligent illegal homicides – ie manslaughter) all you have to be is negligent as to these facts.   In fact, you apparently don’t even need to intend that the conduct will result in the infringements (so if you walk down the street and it gives rise to these consequences you’re apparently caught).   Given that courts have been somewhat… generous… when entertaining what comprises damage to a copyright owner even the substantial prejudicial impact point seems not difficult to satisfy.  There must be at least a non trivial risk that that lip-syncing 14 year old would end up in jail for up to 2 years (5 years if they have the requisite criminal intent).

Rating: dangerous

Will I be able to format-shift other kinds of copyright material as well as sound recordings?

Yes. You will also be able to format-shift copy some other copyright material such as books, newspapers, magazines, video tapes and photographs. You will not be able to format-shift a computer game.

The elephant in the room here is DVDs.   Computer games are specifically mentioned, but for DVDs it’s All Quiet on the Western Front.  While I’m sure that there are some people who are interested in format shifting ‘books, newspapers, magazines, video tapes and photographs’ I suspect that what the vast majority of people want to do is format shift DVDs onto their home media servers.

This is where format shifting comes into it. The relevant section is  section 110AA.   It permits people to format shift a “videotape” (not defined as far as I can tell) in “analog format”.   Maybe section 110AA permits format shifting from DVD to iPod, but if so, it would benefit from clearer wording.  If shifting a DVD to iPod is illegal, then the Australian Parliament ought to answer to the Australian consumer for the price gouging it is encouraging.  Ironically, in so doing it’s shifting tax revenue overseas if people are forced to buy from a foreign service on line rather than supporting local DVD store shopfronts.

Rating: disappointing

Foxtel Flash Fail

Foxtel Flash Fail

Another website which doesn’t want your business if you don’t have flash installed – Foxtel.  As far as I can tell, if you click on (eg) their get foxtel link you don’t get foxtel, you get a generic page with a blank box asking you to install flash (above a large list of menu items, all? of which appear to head back (by redirection) to exactly the same page).  Similarly with other links.

Tch, Losers  (I googled them then clicked their ad word by way of retribution.)

If anybody knows, what would the cheapest package which includes nickoldeon cost per month? (I want to compare it against the cost of buying the dvd box sets which they rerun continually)

update: According to Telstra the basic package includes nick and cartoon network at $42/month (ie about 2 x season boxed set of cartoons dvds per month).

R18+ Games and Internet Censorship

R18+ Games and Internet Censorship

The Federal Government has decided to go ahead with Internet Censorship in Australia. At much the same time, the Government has also announced an intention to consult on whether an R18+ classification should be introduced for video games.  I would guess that these two are related, because the absence of an R18+ classification means that (to quote from the AG’s discussion paper on the R18+ classification):

Computer games that are unsuitable for a minor to see must be classified Refused Classification (RC).

Which would mean that a non trivial number of computer games available overseas would be classified RC in Australia (anything which would exceed an MA 15+ rating), so accessing them (or to websites selling them) will presumably become illegal (?)

It seems like an R18+ classification for games is already a done deal because its absence would cause terrible trouble for the proposed internet censorship regime.  Or maybe this is just co-incidence and access to your overseas computer game store might be suddenly cut off just before the next election.

Rene comments on a mailing list (click link for full email):

However, I don't agree with your conclusion that:
	"It seems like an R18+ classification for games is already a done deal
because its absence would cause terrible trouble for the proposed internet
censorship regime." 

Imo, it is not a done deal because there is no way SA A-G Atkinson is going
to agree to R18+ for games just because the Cth wants to introduce
mandatory blocking.

More Busybox Suits

More Busybox Suits

Received an email from the SFLC today.  It seems that Best Buy, Samsung, Westinghouse, JVC and Western Digital are all defendants to a busybox based lawsuit initiated through the SFLC.  Complaint is here.

Probably buying another MiniDV Camcorder

Probably buying another MiniDV Camcorder

A while ago I wrote about the death of my last camcorder, and that I was wondering what to replace it with.  With Christmas impending I am going out and getting a replacement – most likely the Canon HV 40.  This is a high definition camcorder which uses MiniDV as its media.  MiniDV is now extremely rare in consumer level camcorders.  However, MiniDV seem to be standard in high end video recording, so there is likely a fair degree of life left in the medium yet.   It seemed the most likely to be appropriate for long term storage of the original medium – with some people suggesting unused Flash memory may go “off” after comparatively short (36 months) periods of non-use.

There is another factor, which is that the compression used for other formats (AHCHD – an implementation of H.264)  is much more aggressive (albeit smarter).  It is also apparently much more closed, with editing tools only having become available in the last year or so.  Aggressive, closed compression makes me nervous that if anything goes wrong with part of the file/medium, a disproportionate amount of the recording may be lost.   I am also concerned that the recording format may be unreadable after a time (eg 10 years, and that I won’t realise until after it’s too late).

Unfortunately, HDV also uses compression (MPEG-2).  However, this is much more well known and more widely implemented, being used for DVDs.   Further, the camcorder outputs through a hardware interface, and I have more faith in that interface being continued to be supported long term – compare HDD and flash drive storage in which raw data is transferred over USB, or potentially by the flash drive being inserted into the computer.  My point being that the data transfer in these later cases is abstracted as a generic data transfer over a generic interface, rather than an output of audio/video over an interface designed for it.

I guess finally there is also the issue of failure modes.  In some cases compressed files and/or filesystems can fail catastrophically, with the whole, or a large part of the medium being rendered unreadable.  I felt Mini-DVs were not likely to suffer this failure mode (although I have had a tape not record because a problem with the transport…)

I am leaning towards HD rather than SD, on the assumption that more definition is by definition better and that  processing HD will only be painful for the immediate future.  I may end up investing in lots of HDD storage though…

Westpac = Bananas?

Westpac = Bananas?

Apparently scarred by recent criticism of its decision to lift its interest rates by more than the Reserve Bank has, Westpac has apparently sent a video to its customers by email. This seems to me to be bananas from a security perspective.  Surely you don’t want to condition your customers to open videos sent to you by email from someone purporting to  be you?

Record Company Piracy = $6bn Losses

Record Company Piracy = $6bn Losses

How ironic.  Major record companies in Canada are facing a lawsuit for copyright infringement.  Apparently, these companies have a long standing practice of including songs on compilation CDs without paying the authors for doing so.  So, Michael Geist is helping them sue CRIA in Canada.   The record companies have successfully lobbied for excessive copyright damages to be enshrined in legislation.  Now they are potentially on the receiving end of them – at $20,000 per song for 300,000 songs, gives $6e9 (ie $6 billion Canadian dollars).  To use their (incorrect) rhetoric, they have ’stolen’ this money from artists.   Presumably the cut and thrust of this sort of action would result in the parties reaching a settlement for a sum substantially less than this.  It will be interesting to see whether record companies argue that the full amount of such penalty damages should only be awarded for individual file sharers who do not profit from their infringement and not in the case of the organised infringement for profit that they have apparently been engaging in.   That would qualify them as unethical, as the essence of ethics is to not make an exception of yourself.

Further, of course, if there were any justice, then the Attorney General should be bringing criminal actions against them, since commercial infringement for profit typically brings with it criminal sanctions.  I suspect this won’t happen either.  Should the State pursue individuals at the record company’s behest, but fail to prosecute them in worse circumstances, that would be corruption.   What happens in Canada will determine whether or not widespread cynicism about copyright is justified.