Darknet – an interesting read re Intellectual Property rights

I’m nearly done reading Darknet – Hollywood’s War against the Digital Generation by J.D. Lasica.  It is a discussion of digital media and the attempts by media publishers, especially record and movie companies, to control how you use them.  I’ve found much of the information to be rather disturbing, mostly because the concept of fair use seems to be being dismantled by these publishers.  The publishers are working together with Congress and the courts to restrict how you are able to use CD’s, DVD’s, TV recordings, books, the Internet – anything that they deem as Intellectual Property that they own, and they are trying to force hardware and software companies (this means computers AND consumer electronics like TV and DVD) to build locked technology to obey rules and restrictions that they determine.  In many cases this amounts to no rights for you.  It seems that the end-goal of the publishers is to force pay-per-use of all media.

Did you know that the media companies have tried to kill nearly every media innovation because they couldn’t control it?  This includes FM radio, photocopiers, cassette recorders, VCRs, portable music players, digital video recorders, and now almost all forms of downloading.  Before they accepted HDTV, they got a “broadcast flag” requirement (which was recently struck down by the Supreme Court only because the court said the FCC didn’t have the power to require it).  This flag would have allowed them to say you can or cannot record a program, what quality recording you could make, and even how long you could keep the recording.  Now they are trying to force manufacturers to eliminate analog outputs on all devices, so that people cannot simply make an analog recording and digitize that.

Do you remember DIVX, the ill-fated scheme created by Circuit City and the studios to create special DVDs that you essentially rented?  The idea was that when you used one of these discs, the player would have to contact an authorization system to run a timer on your usage.  After a few days, you’d have to pay to use it again, or to use it “forever” on your player.  If you brought the disc to another DIVX player, you’d have to pay again.  The disc wouldn’t work on regular DVD players or in your computer.  Disney was one of the companies that thought this was a great idea, and they dragged their feet on releasing regular DVDs.  DIVX crashed and burned in less than a year, so if you paid for one of these discs and the right to use it forever, you are SOL now.  For people like me that jumped on the DVD bandwagon as soon as they came out, it was an infuriating technology.  Recently, they tried to market DVDs that self destruct after a couple days.  The problem is, now they’re trying to do the same things with the new technologies.

If you think it’s a good idea to backup discs because your kids destroy them, forget it.  The publishers want you to buy a new copy.  Since virtually every DVD and videotape is copy protected, it is a federal crime under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 to circumvent the copy protection and make a copy.  It is similarly a crime to copy any part of such a disc onto your computer.  No big deal, you say?  Many of the machines treat all video as copy protected – even things you create!

Why should you care?  The publishing industry is deep into development for replacements of CD, DVD, books, magazines, even newspapers.  It’s all bits to the publishers.  Since CD’s can be easily ripped, they are developing copy protected versions, which may not work on older players (in the electronics business, older = yesterday!)  Since DVD’s can be easily ripped, despite being a crime, they are developing newer versions that will have much stronger copy protection systems.  They’ll sell these to you as High Definition versions, and try to eliminate the older versions.  They’ll also try to eliminate any way of using these media that they can’t control.  Think about having to ask permission every time you use a paragraph from a book, even for private use.  Never happen, you say?  Think again.

You can read a mini version of this book online, at http://www.darknet.com/minibook/index.html.  I hope you find it as disturbing as I have!

 -JFS

A lawmaker makes sense about intellectual property

One of the things I follow is the debate over Intellectual Property rights.  This is all about copyright and fair-use and has huge ties in with digital media.  For years, I’ve been trying to adopt and use various digital versions of books, newspapers, magazines, music, TV and movies, but have been consistently frustrated by publishers’ reluctance to make the content available at a reasonable price.  When they do, they usually do so with Digital Rights Management (DRM) software that makes it difficult to use the content on more than one device, or even on the one that you purchased it for if you need to reinstall your software.  And most of the time, they just don’t make it available at all.

Rep. Dick Boucher, (D-VA), makes the case for fair-use in this Wired article:  "Lawmaker Revs Up Fair-Use Campaign" In it, he actually makes sense:

"First of all, while the arrival of the internet creates a potential hazard and peril for content creators, it also invests in them broadening abilities. It becomes another distribution medium that they can use and they need to do that. I have been saying (that) to the recording industry every time they have come crying to us (saying), "Oh piracy is costing us this, that and the other and we need to do something about it."

I would spend my time as a committee member when I was addressing them saying, "OK, why don’t you do something about it yourself? Why don’t you put your entire inventory up on the web and make it available in a user-friendly format for a reasonable price per track and get away from clinging to this old, outdated business model of selling the whole CD?" [emphasis added]

Do I have sympathy for them? Not when they’re clinging to a relic and when that’s getting in the way of making good current business decisions…. They can make a fortune if they do that.

It’s a pity I can’t vote for this guy. 

39, wait, 40 …

Laura tackled the kitchen on Saturday, and found 40, count-em, 40 boxes (and boxless bags) of open cereal!  Some of this stuff was old, maybe pre-2002.  This doesn’t count unopened boxes, which are both in the kitchen and in the garage.  How did this happen?  Children … (and their parents …)  No wonder we haven’t had room in the cabinets for legitimate food.

Computer Hygiene suggestions

I’m frequently asked about software to eliminate spyware, spam and virus infections.  Here’s what I currently recommend:

If you are running Windows XP, make sure it is updated with _all_ of the updates available on Windows Update, especially SP2.  If you haven’t gotten SP2 and are still running dial-up, improve your life and get the cheapest broadband you can, then get SP2, or look at microsoft.com/windowsxp and look for a way to get a CD of it.  If you aren’t running XP, shame on you.  Ditch the old hack of a computer and upgrade.  XP SP2 has a fair amount of security enhancements in it.  Also, make sure that Windows Update is setup to automatically download and install updates at 3 or 4 a.m., and leave your computer on all the time to let it do the job.  Make sure you have Pop-up blocking turned on (Tools-PopUpBlocker).

Spyware control:  Make sure you have the latest versions of Ad-Aware (1.06), SpyBot Search & Destroy (1.4), and Microsoft AntiSpyware.  You can get the first 2 free from www.download.com, but you have to manually run and update them.  MS AntiSpyware is free from Microsoft.com, and is linked right on their homepage.  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=321cd7a2-6a57-4c57-a8bd-dbf62eda9671&displaylang=en.  This one sets itself up the first time you run it to automatically update and scan.  I run this one continuously, and the other 2 every few weeks.  Note that Ad-Aware is a little confusing when you run it – it will give you a list of critical threats, but you must select each or all of them (right click-select all) and then click next to actually remove them; otherwise it just leaves them alone.  Ad-Aware finds stuff that SpyBot doesn’t and vice-versa.  Always download the latest definition updates with bot Ad-Aware and Spybot, and make sure you choose ‘Immunize’ with Spybot, which will silently block some of the bad stuff from getting loaded in the first place.  The MS product is Giant software’s product, and is considered best of breed, but isn’t available for Win9x/Me.

Antivirus:  Everybody needs a subscription to an antivirus program.  I still recommend Symantec’s products, although they’ve tightened up their licensing and it makes it tougher to get it onto cheap customer’s computers.  At the minimum, make sure you are running Norton Antivirus, and ensure that the virus definitions are less than 1 week old and that it has done a full scan in the last week.  If the Auto-Protect icon isn’t on down near the system time, get help, because it usually indicates trouble.  Norton Internet Security 2005 has AntiVirus, Internet Firewall and Antispam in one box for about $65 (1 year).  Note that the Antispam piece only works if you use Outlook or Outlook Express, although I think they might have added some extensions for Yahoo mail and the like.  AOL’s antispam is respectable at this point, but that’s the only nice thing I’ll say about AOL J.

If you’ve got P2P software like Kazaa on your system, you _will_ receive lots of infected stuff.  Move over to Azureus, a really good BitTorrent download manager instead.  You’ll have to find tracker sites, but the content is generally cleaner.  I’ve had a number of client systems that I’ve had to clean repeatedly because of Kazaa.

Phishing scams are a form of SPAM, and can only be controlled by AntiSpam products and common sense.  No reputable organization will ask you to reverify your information by emailing you a link to a form.  You can tell it’s a scam just by hovering your mouse pointer over the link – the actual like information will pop-up and will probably not match.  Most of the links will start with http://xxx.yyy.zzz.aaa (a bunch of numbers), instead of matching up with the text displayed. 

Schroeder family trip to L.A.

My brother Mark sent pictures from the family’s recent trek to see my brother Steve in Los Angeles, CA, over the Memorial Day weekend.  Mom & Dad went for the first time (he’s only been there about 10 years!).  I couldn’t make it due to fiscal constraints and concert performances scheduled (since canceled due to another trip), and my brother David also couldn’t come out.  Still, it was a great trip for them.  I’ve attached a few for your perusal.

BTW, the thin connection with Mr. Cruise is that Tom Mapother graduated from my alma mater, Glen Ridge High School, Glen Ridge NJ in my brother Mark’s class of 1980.  My wife worked out in the school weight room with him occasionally.  He may have even played roller hockey on our tennis court at some point.  I doubt he would recognize any of us now, but Steve frequently cites Tom’s story as his inspiration for his acting career.

“Killer Whale”

Over time, we each develop a vocabulary with our family and friends which may include words that are familiar yet nonsense in context, or words that are unfamiliar.  My wife has been asking what the time is for years with the French "quel hor e’tiel" (sp?), which to me sounds sort of like "Killer Whale".  So sometimes she just says "Killer Whale".  We’ve also come to understand that "honchus" are her childhood term for sandwhiches, and "Porterism" is a gross exageration.

Is Marketing the way?

Two ideas struck together today – one in a TV related column in the Charleston Post & Courier, and the other in a Wired magazine story from October called The Long Tail.  (The Blog that got me to that was http://longtail.typepad.com/)  Both are talking about the mismatch between marketing induced popular demand and actual product sales.  In the case of the TV column, the idea is this – even though shows like Cosby were ratings bonanzas for the networks, they are invisible on DVD, apparently because there isn’t much demand by DVD buyers to see the series there.  Instead, you see programs that had short runs and were cancelled on DVD – again, apparently because they have a fanbase or following that wanted to see them again.  The Long Tail is talking about how markets are increasingly niche based, and the idea of making money from the hit is maybe not the way to go.

I’ve been buying TV series on DVD for awhile – starting with the original Star Trek, which came out on 40 $15 discs released 2 discs at a time.  Insane?  Well, not if you’re a Trekkie!  Now they’ve re-released the series on 3 multi-disc season sets, which take lots less shelf-space and probably have 30 minutes of new content.  But I digress … I’ve been looking for series that in my mind are classic and should live in my world forever, and I don’t want to depend on some TV station or network to feed them to me on their schedule.  If there were a truly deep (not philosophically) on-demand service that would give me DVD quality instant gratification when I want to watch that particular episode, I wouldn’t need the DVD, but then again I might not have the money either (I hate pay-per-view).  A lot of TV series life is one-time pablum, and should be shat out into the broadcast sewer never to be seen again.  I mean, really, who wants to see the first season of Fear Factor again?  The geniuses that own Fear Factor may have identified a market for that DVD – it certainly isn’t me.

Of the stuff you want or believe, how much is because some marketing company told you to?  I’ve read stuff recently to suggest that the Bush administration is using a marketing company to push their agenda on Social Security using highly engineered "town meetings".  Lots of people believe Iraq was behind 9/11 – it can’t be because they’ve researched the matter.  And lots of people espouse absolute belief in religious ideas because they’ve always been told that the ideas are true – really not much different from marketing.  Why bother to think for yourself?  My wife accuses me of having no opinions of my own, just those of critics.  That’s not true – the critics hated everything I hate, and loved everything I love!  Or did I?

Hello!

You found me!  Welcome to my little corner of the web on MSN’s new Spaces blog feature.  This is an augmentation to my website, http://jfschroeder.com, which I’ve struggled with for years trying to determine purpose and whatnot.  I’ve simply found that it’s tough to keep a website up to date and relevant, and it’s not terribly dynamic.  Plus, I’ve been trying to figure out if the website is for my ideas, my history, my business, or whatever.  And despite what Microsoft might want you to believe, it’s not easy to add things like blogging, unarguably the hottest Internet communication technology out there, to a website using their own tools like FrontPage, which I use exclusively for web publishing.

I have strong opinions about many things, even though my wife thinks I simply believe what the latest critic has said about a subject.  As I’ve gotten older, I find that I don’t know nearly as much as I’d like to know, nor do I have the time to learn as much as I’d like, but my years and experiences have given me perspective to reason through things.

I’d probably best be described as a liberal, Democratic northern-born Episcopalian living in an arch-conservative state.  I am straight, married only once and for almost 19 years to my social conscience, Laura.  I have three beautiful children:  Alexander is 14, big for his age, smart and a gifted singer; Benjamin is 12, autistic, a handful, occasionally a joy, and also smart in his own ways; Bethany is 8 going on 18, social, pretty, smart, and also a singer.  Laura sings also!

I’ve watched my religious denomination and my political party get torn apart recently by nearly unresolvable issues like homosexuality and war.  Our president seems bent on destabilization of the Middle East in the name of preserving us from terrorism, while seeming to be blind to the incentive that his efforts give to increasing terrorism.  We are constantly being preached to about morality and values, frequently by people who have been married multiple times.

My family has experienced tremendous challenges, and has been helped by a wide variety of family, friends, church and even governmental generousity.  We understand the meaning of charity, and have been repeatedly humbled by people willing to give without expecting to receive.  We’ve lived without health insurance for years at a time, and have seen the devastation of lengthy unemployment and disability first-hand.  Our kids challenge our time and the meager resources of our educational system, particularly in special education.

I’ll expand on much of this in future posts.  Thanks for stopping by!

 -JFS