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Over the last few years, FOX News has become known as being a de facto mouthpiece of the Republican party. The transparent extent to which its commentators are polarized, and the continual basis on which they violate all principles of journalistic integrity, have rightfully earned it that reputation. There’s even been documentaries exploring the issue.

Bill Clinton was invited for an interview with FOX the other day. When it was clear that his interview was to be misconstrued into something else, he reacted quite adversely. The exchange was quite livid, and the resulting transcript has just been released online.

The reporter’s ensuing questions only made it that much more clear that this was always intended to be an interview to get Clinton in a bind.

Update: See the video here. FOX seemed to have edited the video to obfuscate the part where Clinton highlights that this interview was done under false pretext. They reordered Clinton’s remarks, cleverly sidelining his objections. This was not done to make the conversation more cohesive to the audience. It was done to manipulate the audience’s perceptions of FOX.

How do you deal with a youth population that’s watching your music videos illegally? Do you try to shut the sites hosting the materials illegally down? If so, how do you deal with where those youths will go next?

In a move I could never have forseen, Warner Music has decided to capitalize on the MySpace generation by going into a joint venture with YouTube. Instead of trying to bring the ever popular YouTube to financial ruin, they’ll capitalize on the userbase and allow their IP to be displayed as long as they get a share of the revenue profits. I see this as being a win-win situation for all parties involved. It is a slap in the face for Universal, however, and it will be interesting to see how they deal with these news.

Universal had engaged in discussions with YouTube, but the talks broke apart. One can only assume that the propositions put forth by Universal was not as favourable as the deal brokered with Warner Music. That said, the breakdown could of had something to do with Universal’s assertions that YouTube owed them tens of millions of dollars in royalties. Who knows.

I predict that Universal will shift its tune and try to make ammends with YouTube. Universal’s deal with the unknown SpiralFrog to distribute its videos can only spell failure; for the pure reason that it ain’t YouTube. YouTube is where the audience is, and threats of lawsuits won’t change that. Shutting down YouTube will not encourage its userbase to shift to Spiralfrog.

There’s an old Irish story about a pot of gold being underneath a pile of horse dung:

Long ago, on top of a hill nearby a small Irish village, was this pot of gold. In it were riches said to be greater than that of all villagers combined. The localmen all knew of this great pot of gold, but none dared go near it for it lay underneath a great pile of dung. Then one day, a traveller came by. He heard of the great pile of gold, said “what the feck”, and went to the hill. There he saw the great pile of dung. He dug and dug. Eventually, he found the pot. It was full of the most beautiful gold coins ever to beset any Irishman. Needless to say, he got the gold, bought the girl, and lived happily ever after.

If the labels manage to get over YouTube’s questionnable beginnings, they will have the pot of gold that lies underneath. To ignore it on the basis of that horse dung, is to ignore all the gold. They can go make another pot, they can put dung on it, but there won’t be that gold waiting for them. That’s my two cents.

PS. Yes, I did make up that story about the Irish dung.

15. Until the contemplated new legislation has been introduced and passed, SONY BMG is of the opinion that there is a legal vacuum around TPMs in Canada.

Excerpt from Sony BMG et. al. vs. Vladimir Louis Jaques et. al.; a document deleneating Sony canada’s reasoning as to why Canadians should not be compensated for the Sony Rootkit fiasco.

The document then goes on to say that for the actions in the US to apply to Canada, this country would have had to ratify the WIPO treaty of 1996, which mandated anti-circumvention legislation of TPMs. While this does seem like a rather weak substantiation, I’m not a legal expert, and so I am not in a position to question these findings. That said, I do wonder about the necessity of inserting such comments given the other, arguably more solid, reasoning listed in the document. This seems more a politicization of the document as a means to wedge the government into action.

Because of the other reasons delineated in the document, it is highly unlikely that BMG would of compensated Canadians even if such legislation were in place. This brings further the idea that this point was a subversive attempt to pressure the government, perhaps as means to highlight its dissaproval of the current silence on the state of copyright reforms.

While my stance is on the side of Sony at this point, in I agree that they are not entitled to compensate Canadians for the outcome of legal proceedings in the US, I remain cautious of comments such as argument no. 15.

You can download the full document from here.

PS. It’s not that I oppose the said legislation, I simply oppose using false claims to further a political goal. This applies to any party, whether they be a major label or M.A.D.D.

Oh Rogers Inc., how thy must love me.

My latest cellphone bill was $173.51!

The guilty party? Roaming calls. This cellphone bill included my trips to California and part of New York City. I made 69 minutes worth of phone calls in the USA. Those added up to over $120 (Rogers charges up to $2/minute.) And I thought my last month’s bill was steep at $90! They also charged me $10 for using 500kb of data. Given how few calls I actually do make, I’m debating whether I should spend the $220 to cancel my contract with Rogers and go for a pay-as-you-go solution.

Should I? Should I not? There’s still about a year left in my contract with Rogers.

I’ve just completed work on Black&White v0.5, a skin for [the free and fantastic] Quintessential Media Player. I’ve been wanting to design a new minimalistic skin for a while now, but never invested the time. Then finally, last week, I just went ahead and started on the basics of the skin. Then, yesterday, I made it functional. The result is the compact little bugger you see here:

…And with its playlist extended:

You can download Black&White v0.5 from here. [116kb]

Quinnware’s official page for the skin can be accessed here.