Blog

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.

Well, long time no update!

This month has been extremely crazy for me. A co-worker of mine quit with 0-day notice, forcing me to take alot of additional hours. It’s really impaired my ability to get any other work done. Things have only now slowed down, giving me the chance to write this update.

San Jose was absolutely fantastic. I was there three days, attending the ISEA/Zero One conference. I was there to do participate in a panel along with Steve Cisler, Mike Ward, Paul White and Eduardo Villanueva. These were all absolutely fantastic people, each with incredibly interesting viewpoints in their own right. I had never before witnesses such elaborate and well spoken thoughts on the issues surrounding piracy.

As for the talk itself, it went quite alright. Unfortunately, I felt like I let down the others there; using my time to go in a very shallow tangent about issues of new media and IP violations. It was almost a rehash of what someone had said the day earlier. I should of discussed filesharing and youth, or something more appropriate to the topic at hand.

San Jose itself was a unique experience. So different than Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal & NYC. Beautiful vistas, palm trees, and some of the most distinct architecture I had ever seen. Whereas each house here is somewhat brick & mortar, the ones there had a sort of Spanish feel. Speaking of which: the Mexican influence took me a-back. One could easily find advertisements for prominent products uniquely in spanish, and sights of illegal Mexican workers waiting by the corner of a road for work. ‘Twas almost surreal.

Then there’s also the tech-hub aspect of San Jose. Streets were named after tech pioneers (ie. “Woz Ave.”), and it seemed like everyone I met down on my way overthere had some position or other in a tech-related enterprise. I was also surprised by how much of the tech crash was still evident in the city.

Anywho, great place, great people. Absolutely fantastic people.

On another note, I’ve released the unofficial version of HackTV: Underground Episode 4. In this, I interview Johannes Ullrich, Chief Research Officer for the SANS Institute. You can download the show it from here (104MB). The official release is expected to come out soon, and will feature the standard HackTV intro and end credits.

Apart from that, I’m volunteering to work in an advanced Geographical Information Systems (GIS) project with the University. I’m not doing this for credits/marks, as I’ll get neither. However, why not do something like this? I really like the kind of work they’re doing, and in a year from now I’ll be expected to do a project along the same line anyways. It’ll be a great experience, I’ll gain valuable knowledge, so its a win-win situation.

Finally, I did get to write the PCWorld article. Here’s hoping it makes the cut. Oh, and before I forget: I’m temporarily putting the H4CK3R5 film on hold. With the Piracy Documentary still snatching up alot of my time, in addition to everything else (university, job, moving out, etc.), I just cannot manage it right now. Post Christmas is when I’ll likely have more time to take a look at it.

Leaders in both the music and film industry fear the repercusssions of mainstream piracy taking hold. However, I really do wonder about the validity of some of their decisions.

Case and point: HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. In addition to an encryption scheme more advanced than that found on common DVDs, these discs have the additional artificial requirement of specialized encryption hardware. I say “artificial”, because the discs will work reguardless of whether that hardware is in place. The catch is, that without that hardware, the discs will refuse to play their movies at high-resolutions. They’ll instead be bumped down to DVD quality, or not play at all.

The problem arises from the fact that alot of people (youths especially), will watch those HD-DVD/Blu-Ray movies on their computers. However, no computer on the market today has that encryption hardware. It’s not just the PCs themselves either: they’ll need to buy specialized (read: expensive) monitors. Current monitors will play high-end resolution material just fine as is, but they don’t have that specialized encryption module the industry wants them to have. Now whereas it may take three-four years for computers the eventually carry that equipment, it will take far longer for the monitors themselves to be replaced due to their exhorbitant cost.

So ultimately, that means that all legitimate customers wanting to play the movies on their computers will be blocked from doing so in high-resolution. So one has to wonder, what’s the point? Why not just go for DVDs, which are *alot* cheaper to boot instead? In its quest to minimize piracy, the industry has defeated the very reason why anyone would adopt to this new format. This is like the owner of a stable shooting all their horses so that no one will steal them.

But what of the pirates that plan on making copies? They don’t even deal with the encryption problems to begin with. They get their stuff from plants over in China and so forth. In the Internet Age, all it takes is for one copy in the world to surface. Once that’s done, all the bootleggers jump on it and distribute it. Whether these new medias have heavy encryption or not won’t change that, nor the amount of time it gets for illegitimate copies to surface.

I suppose that I’m getting riled up about this because I’m one of those legitimate customers that watch movies on their computer. What I see here is something that will impair me, in the name of something it won’t even hinder. I do understand the need to have checks in place to hamper expanding piracy, but is this really the way we want things to be?

The answer is that it doesn’t matter. Because ultimately, consumers won’t ever know the difference. Of those who do, fewer will even care. It’s only the techies like me that get upset at the artificial constraints being placed upon us. The fact is that in a few years, whether they’re worth it or not, HD-DVDs and/or Blu-Ray optical drives will be installed in computers. Then, a few years later, everyone will have the necessary hardware. It’s at that point things will work according to the imaginary plan. However, that wait of five years, for myself, is absurd. But if I’m the only one that will ever care… well, then it doesn’t matter what the industry pulls off.

PS. I keep saying “industry” because there’s not just one player in this. It isn’t just the MPAA, it isn’t just the hardware manufacturers, it isn’t just the likes of Sen. Orrin Hatch. It’s the combination of the whole.