How do you kill a blog you love? By forcing it’s owner to hire an attorney, because you decided to sue someone who posted a comment for slander. That’s pretty much what’s happening here, with the popular blog ShoeMoney.
I hope to God that this is a small part of a much larger picture: a multi-faceted slander case.
‘Twas fun. After seeing four bands perform, we headed to the Honest Lawyer. You can see all the photos here.
 
So it’s 3PM, and I have a massive University report due the day after. What do I do? Well anything but, of course! This is specifically the period when I’m most productive in all my other projects – when I’m procrastinating about doing homework.
My victim this last Wednesday was recording a TWAT Episode on GIS & Remote Sensing. It’s basically a quick fifteen minute introduction to the world of Geographic Information Systems and satellite data. You can preview the show here. It should officially be released over the next month or so.
TWAT is, according to the website:
T.W.A.T. is a hardcore tech daily internet radio show that has multiple hosts, guest, and topics. There are 1000’s of internet radio shows that talk about what the hosts had for breakfast. This one is going to be HARDCORE TECH. The mortals wont understand it, but then again, it isn’t for them, its for us. The shows only have to be five minutes long, but the hosts are welcome and encouraged to go over that limit.
After a year’s worth of promises, I’ve finally completed the *new* *dynamic* Ottawa 2600 website. This beats the old website (here), which was static. You had to edit the HTML pages manually to update news and meeting info on the website. While that manual-labour aspect could of been handled by a Bash script, this new PHP-based system is just easier. Editors can write new entries, which are updated throughout the menus of the site automatically.
Apparently FOX sent a letter to Cineplex’ top levels of management, warning them that if they can’t get the camcording issue under control, that they may delay movie releases in Canada. Sort of like they already do to all non-North-American markets.
Multiple figures within the article complained that the laws, which require a substantial evidence base, were without teeth. A case was alluded to whereby a man in the United-States was given an 8 year sentence and a $250,000 fine. (He might as well have “accidentally” run over those that witnessed his criminal act – he would of probably received less jail time.)
The article then goes on about the stereotypical talk of Canada being on a “watch list”, that the rate of piracy in the US fell dramatically when new more tough laws were enacted, implying links of this kind of piracy with the mafia, and making claims that we are a cesspool for pirated imports of DVDs from China/Pakistan/Russia.
These are tough words, and I can’t help but to bear an extreme sense of cynicism of the whole matter. FOX would not actually go through with this; the sheer hypocrisies and questionable lack of effectiveness of such measures ensures it so. No, these are words to scare people into action.
Either way, I hope that FOX does actually go beyond the “pressure tactic” level, and implement such a delay. Perhaps then, they’ll have one less thing to blame Canada for. And perhaps then as well, seeing how we’re second rate to Americans, Canadians will ponder the previously unfathomable idea of investing in their own film industry.