Category: Life

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.

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.