Wednesday, December 11, 2013

This is how you run a language

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Norway is digitizing all their books: http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/11/5199472/norway-is-digitizing-all-its-books-and-making-them-free-t...
Monday, November 18, 2013

The big downside of the "cloud"

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The "cloud" is essentially "someone else's computer".  Basically, the positive is that you don't have to install...
Friday, October 11, 2013

Amazon irritation

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So I wanted to read the new book by one of my favorite authors, who shall remain nameless. The book was "published" in September...

Obviously not okay

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http://www.chron.com/news/article/Viral-video-we-ve-all-seen-gets-taken-down-over-4887861.php?cmpid=hpts Above is a story that is obviousl...
Thursday, August 15, 2013

What is new?

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I came across this video on facebook today: Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make it appear the characters of Sesame Street were ja...
Friday, June 28, 2013

It's all about free speech

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So it's been a while since I rapped at ya... This blog has always been about free speech.  My thesis is that toleration of piracy is r...
Monday, April 15, 2013

What is it you own again?

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This isn't a new theme in this space--indeed, I think I've covered all the available themes a few times over.  But when you purchase...
Thursday, April 4, 2013

reselling mp3's (part 2)

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So a court has ruled that "reselling mp3's" is copyright infringement .  We talked about this not too long ago here on this bl...
Tuesday, April 2, 2013

HBO preternaturally calm

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I read an interesting article today about HBO's Game of Thrones--everyone's favorite piracy topic. In it, a rep from HBO says the...
Wednesday, March 20, 2013

hacking is good

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It's official, America is technically fucked. Check out this post on Slashdot: http://it.slashdot.org/story/13/03/20/1520218/botnet-...
Saturday, March 9, 2013

Encouragement

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So it's been along time since I rapped at ya... I think what it is is that Facebook has been sucking away my "chatter on the inte...
Saturday, February 16, 2013

Boy, Canada is just begging to be liberated

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News today that the IIPA, kinda the global MPAA/RIAA body, is harassing Canada about their new copyright laws.  You can read more detail abo...
Monday, February 11, 2013

Canada needs to practice critical thinking, too

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One characteristic of people that I've noticed over the years is that most folks simply don't even try to see beneath the surface of...
Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Injecting into your internet

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I'm sorry I haven't been blogging on a daily basis.  I'm not going to kid you--I'm finding it to be a challenge to write abo...
Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Patenting sucking

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Amazon has apparently patented the artificial scarcity of digital goods .  Very nice. So instead of allowing computers and the internet to...
Monday, February 4, 2013

Mega money mega problems

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If you haven't yet seen the footage of the Kim Dotcom copyright raid treat yourself to the beginning of this video.  And keep saying to...
Friday, February 1, 2013

Owning vs. renting

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A consumer organization in Germany is suing Valve software over the right of resell of digital products.  The issue is that customers who ...
Thursday, January 31, 2013

Facebook can be depressing

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So I've finally been dragged kicking and screaming on to Facebook (thereby rendering it instantly uncool, by the way), and one thing tha...
Tuesday, January 29, 2013

If at first you don't succeed, try adding fines

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So in France now they've had a "three strikes" type rule for a few years now.  Apparently it isn't working, so the music i...
Monday, January 28, 2013

Apparently we're going to invade Antigua, next

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Torrentfreak reports that Antigua is moving ahead with its plans to officially dis-respect U.S. copyright laws and allow the setup of strai...
Sunday, January 27, 2013

Porn biz as a model

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Almost every time I discuss the dramatic expansion of fair use to encompass all non-commercial use with someone who is a skeptic, I always g...

I want to join the militia

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"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall n...
Friday, January 25, 2013

harassing people

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So I've gotten on Facebook, finally.  Sigh.  Feel free to join me there: http://www.facebook.com/lee.latham.507 The number one reaso...
Thursday, January 24, 2013

Aaron Swartz and illegal data

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I'd like to talk today a little more about the Aaron Swartz case . This brilliant young man--who was a professional academic--was accu...
Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Uphill battles

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I was reading this piece about Johnny Cash's efforts to spur prison reform.  Today, the United States imprisons more people per capita ...
Tuesday, January 22, 2013

And lies don't help either

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Just to rub it in a bit further, lies have become an all too important part of our national (and world-wide) discourse.  For example, Micros...

Too many laws

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One of the main problems with the current copyright regime is our legal system itself.  Wealthy individuals and corporations have an outsize...
Sunday, January 20, 2013

Legalized corruption in government

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I understand why Lawrence Lessig decided to quit championing changes to copyright laws and such per se, and decided to become more focused o...
Friday, January 18, 2013

Aaron's Law

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In a slight resumption of sanity, a Harvard law professor is proposing Aaron's Law , which would repeal parts of the Computer Fraud law....
Thursday, January 17, 2013

We are really good at making lists

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Here you can read Michael Geist reveal how Canadian authorities actually colluded with the U.S.A. to get Canada included on a list of count...
Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Guns and copyright

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I think it's informative to look to the current gun debate to understand the nature of discourse in our society.  And when I say "d...
Tuesday, January 15, 2013

This is not fair use

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Just thought I'd offer up an example of not fair use.  Check out this article: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/goog...
Monday, January 14, 2013

The hydra of the internet

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Finally, a study shows that censorship simply doesn't work.  Not that this is a shock to anyone who understands the network. Shouldn...

A bittorrent box

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A bittorrent box has hit the market.  It is perfectly legal. However, it is the first time that I know of of a box dedicated to bittorren...

And so it begins...

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Sorry, I'm falling behind a bit...I promise I'll catch up! Norway is the latest country to consider site blocking measures to sto...
Friday, January 11, 2013

Zen and copyright

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I watched the Dude on Jon Stewart's show the other night, and he's really into Zen Buddhism.  One like I liked was "we're a...
Thursday, January 10, 2013

Pirate Bay immortalized

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It's interesting that one of the original Pirate Bay servers is in a museum in Sweden, the same country that has been persecuting the f...
Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Aereo actually expanding

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So back to the exact theme of expanding fair use! I pondered the implications of Aereo before .  Today I was surprised to see that they ar...
Tuesday, January 8, 2013

it just is!

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I had my usual argument with anti-piracy friends the other day.  It sucked.  I've written literally 200+ blog entries, each with a uniqu...
Monday, January 7, 2013

Over-response of the police

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One thing that disturbs me lately is how the police seem to think that they need to use paramilitary tactics...all the time.   This Wired st...
Sunday, January 6, 2013

What is the European plan?

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I can't get over how Europe seems determined to utterly destroy itself.  They've got their own movement going on to fight back agai...
Saturday, January 5, 2013

Who would use copyright as an excuse for censorship?

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Who would use copyright as an excuse for censorship?  Oh, you know...everybody. As an aside on this article about a Brazilian teenager au...
Friday, January 4, 2013

Who are the unemployed

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I had a lovely chat with Comcast over the last couple days via online chat--because there was no getting through on the phone.  The customer...
Thursday, January 3, 2013

The Curt Schilling .38 Studios story hurts me

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I was a big fan of Curt Schilling as a baseball player after the 2004 baseball season, when he pitched with a safety pin holding a tendon in...
Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Movie theater subscriptions?

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This Slashdot post was mildly interesting--somebody wants to try to make a subscription based movie theater. Problem is--according to the...
Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Happy New Year

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Pirate your ass off!
Monday, December 31, 2012

Assault weapons

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I like guns.  I have more than one. I dread the thought of ever having to use one.  That being said, I hope that if I need one I have one....
1 comment:
Sunday, December 30, 2012

A gillion more reasons file sharing is good

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To complete my Torrentfreak link-fest today, here is a very fine article about the benefits to society of file sharing. We've talked ...

What are people torrenting for?

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So I guess I've been dropping the ball a bit lately here over the holidays--something I swore I would never do...so that's not good....
Friday, December 28, 2012

UK now has fair use!

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Apparently, the UK will for the first time introduce a fair use for copyright law . You'll note that the content industry is not happ...
Thursday, December 27, 2012

Sigh, too many pussies

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It looks like many sites are caving in to legal threats and not even talking about piracy. Obviously, they don't have the courage of ...
Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Amusing pirates

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Happy Boxing Day! I just did my Xmas day post, so here is just an amusing link to info on hypocritical pirates from the fabulous Torrentf...

Bad bosses

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I've been compiling a list of traits of the bad bosses I've had over the past few years. I was lucky to work at a tiny company whe...
Monday, December 24, 2012

Money makes the world go 'round

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Everyone knows how MasterCard, Visa, etc. stopped accepting payments for Wikileaks.   http://torrentfreak.com/paypal-bans-bittorrent-friendl...
Sunday, December 23, 2012

Oh God

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Look--when you find yourself agreeing to cooperate with the Russians , you really need to consider rethinking your point of view.
Saturday, December 22, 2012

Confidence and Faith

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The difference between confidence and faith: Meteorologists take many, many measurements and do a lot of mathematics to determine the chance...
Friday, December 21, 2012

Europe rejects ACTA

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ACTA is an international treaty in progress--signed by our President, but not yet ratified by Congress--designed as an end run around all n...
Thursday, December 20, 2012

China tightens the Great Firewall, lessons for Hollywood

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It's interesting that China is apparently using machine learning algorithms to detect and destroy VPN connections .  Soon they'll be...
Wednesday, December 19, 2012

UK Pirate Party rolls over

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This depressing news just in--the UK Pirate Party has rolled over without a fight and taken down their proxy to the Pirate Bay. Blah. I...
Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Australian ISP iiNet tells Hollywood to fuck off

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It was pleasant to read today about a major ISP in Australia telling the media industry to fuck off and refuse to spy on their users for th...
Monday, December 17, 2012

Peace is essential for our lifestyle

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A lot of people harbor fantasies of violent revolution. This is madness. It has always been madness, but I can't deny it has sometim...
Sunday, December 16, 2012

Doing IT right is hard

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Being very good at computer security is extremely difficult.  It is entirely hopeless for normal people to do it right-- let alone most larg...
Saturday, December 15, 2012

Anger

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I think the root cause of any mass shooting is unrestrained anger.  The anger builds up so much to the point that the person feels like it...
Friday, December 14, 2012

When it's not so great to be a gun nut

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Actually I'm not so much a gun nut...any more.  I still believe in the ability of people to defend themselves, and I even think it's...
Thursday, December 13, 2012

Copyright enforcement is protectionism

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It occurred to me today that copyright enforcement is, quite literally, protectionism. I really kinda feel like it would be a natural fit ...
Wednesday, December 12, 2012

DRM fails over and over the exact same way

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I was amused today to read about Microsoft's new app store being ridiculously easy to hack .  Basically, if you get a trial version of a...
Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Free online news on the way out? No.

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This idiot thinks that free online news is on the way out.  No, it's not. Have you met the internet? What's weird is that most ...
Monday, December 10, 2012

The fourth amendment doesn't cover domain names

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It appears that Hollywood is more than happy to extort your domain from you as part of an agreement not to be sued.  This follows a year of...
Sunday, December 9, 2012

The lead fight may be in Britain

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It should be noted that in the UK they are actually trying to block websites --specifically the Pirate Bay --that promote copyright infringe...
Saturday, December 8, 2012

Why are cellphones not Stalin's dream?

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Richard Stallman, the guru of the open source software movement, once called cell phones Stalin's dream . Why is he wrong?
Friday, December 7, 2012

What's better than being a U.S. Sentator?

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Apparently, being the chief of a large lobbyist group is more compelling--and powerful-- than being a United States Senator . Mind you, th...
Thursday, December 6, 2012

Republican fired for suggesting Copyright is too strong

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You may recall only a few days ago a Republican think tank suggesting that perhaps Copyright is too strong .  Well, the guy who did that has...
Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Apple doesn't want to control you

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It is fairly appalling to me how many techs like Apple products.  Even though they tend to be highly locked down , and often less functional...
Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Conform to your EULAS

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When you click through a EULA (End User License Agreement), do you actually read it?   Of course not . How can it possibly mean anything w...
Monday, December 3, 2012

I win? Again?

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The other day Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) reinstated it's bullshit copyright claim on the music I used in a video promoting my gam...
Sunday, December 2, 2012

Palestine and Israel

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I just wanted to draw attention to this Guardian article about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It's a simple rule.  If you're r...

Books beginning with H

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Another perspective post today.  A while back I posted a link to a torrent where you could download 4,687 ebooks in three minutes .  I just ...
Friday, November 30, 2012

Libertarian insanity

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I friend of mine is an ardent Libertarian.  I am highly sympathetic, but he doesn't believe me. Mainly, I believe in Liberty whenever ...
Thursday, November 29, 2012

Government controlled non-competition

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The PBS NewsHour last night had an excellent piece about how industries like telecom and internet service have become essentially governmen...
Wednesday, November 28, 2012

INSANITY REIGNS IN CANADA

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Michael Geist gives Canadians some advice about file sharing--if you get caught, you could be faced with fines up to $5000, but more likely...
Tuesday, November 27, 2012

More mediocre

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Yesterday I mused about living in a world where most things are done, frankly, in a fairly mediocre fashion.  I, of course, am above such th...