Richard Giles Blog

A new music format is released to protect the music from piracy. Not even a felt tip pen can break the protection. Read about the format nicknamed the Record.

Linked from David Gagne.

After my post two days ago, “How Business Has Gone Mad“, I decided to support the Electronic Frontier Foundation by placing the CAFE (Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression) Logo and link on my Blog.

If anyone feels the same way I do, they should spend some time reading their site. Of interest is their recent Blog article about the Motion Picture Association of America’s (MPAA) “Content Protection Status Report”.

To boil this article down, it explains how the MPAA’s report suggests the U.S. Government make it a requirement that all electronic devices are unable to record copyright material (music, images, movies, etc.). However, this requirement will impact the most basic functionality of those devices. Examples they use range from a mobile phone failing if your in ear shot of copyright music, like that playing on the radio in the background. To missing the ability to record your baby’s first steps because he/she walks in front of the TV.

I’d like to again point out that this type of activity hinders innovation. Some of the most exciting technologies today, such as the Internet, DVD, Digital Video Cameras, Mobile Phones, Digital Video Recorders (e.g. : TiVo), P2P, etc. will all be effected. How marvelous would it be to video a special moment, connect to a P2P network via a mobile phone and share the event with friends and family in real time. This is a basic example of the type of feature that is discouraged by this report because it frowns on the ability to share digital content. There are limitless examples if business could open its minds to future possiblities.

EFF believe :

1. Piracy of an artist’s work is illegal. Fair use is not.
2. We have the right to hear, speak, learn, sing, think, watch, and be heard.
3. No one should assume by default that we’re criminals, and the technology we use shouldn’t do so either.
4. We have a right to use technology to shift time & space.

Who Are The Real Pirates? MediaGuardian have a similar article to my last post. Alan Cox points out that although the Motion Picture Association of America claim they are losing billions due to piracy, the evidence, such as the recent success of Spider Man, suggests they are doing just fine.

Courtney Love (lead singer of Hole) points out at her site that Record Labels are also doing fine. “Today I want to talk about piracy and music. What is piracy? Piracy is the act of stealing an artist’s work without any intention of paying for it. I’m not talking about Napster-type software. I’m talking about major label recording contracts.”.

If your interested, here are two more links to similar articles. Business 2.0 and NewsForge.

Today’s business thinking has finally gone off the rails, with companies so heavily laden with fat corporate suits that their wheels have lost all traction. In a mad scramble to protect industries from change, organisations are about to abuse infant sections of the law. Instead of promoting innovation to move forward, some of the worlds largest and most influential companies are stifling the progress of the world by going to court. Granted I’m not talking about solving starvation or curing cancer. If these were the issues the worlds Governments wouldn’t be so blind to assist (I hope). What I am talking about is digital content (music, movies, news, etc.).

Before we had the Phonograph, music was distributed in real time. Artists would preform for a paying public. Before the Phonograph the world wasn’t ‘blessed’ with massive marketing machines that pumped out plastic pop icons on mass until new fads hit the wire. Before the Phonograph it wasn’t as easy to find a way to listen to music.

Before we had the Television, moving images were distributed live. You had to be there to see the action. If it was sport or entertainment, you probably paid for a ticket, if it was news you happened to be there or hear from a friend. Before the Television we didn’t have mass advertising organisations that brainstormed on how best to exploit sex to sell a can of brown sugar water. Before the Television, images of wars were static on the front of a local newspaper, and a soap opera would have meant an actor sat in a bath on stage.

Before any innovative technology the world was at least a little different. Business would go about its work in completely different ways than it does today. It did not mean that the new technology would mean the end of business, just the way in which it was conducted. Of course there was always the potential that it could mean the demise of companies, we are faced with that every day (see dictionary meaning for Enron), but it also meant that their was a possibility of everyones lives being enriched just a little bit more. Thats what progress is all about. Or have we lost sight of that. It would seem that megalomaniac companies have.

Instead of Theater owners suing Phonograph companies for copyright, or newspaper companies claiming patent infringement by MCI or RCA, the march of progress continued, and the world was blessed with the rich communications that we now have. Sounds outlandish that they would consider such legal action. Why not, both technologies threatened their livelihood as a business.

Why isn’t it bizarre that an innovative company who developed a way to share digital content in an easy way is sued for copyright infringement. Why isn’t it crazy that legal action is threatened when someone links directly to a piece of relevant news on the web instead of only to the sites front page.

Is it because we are so use to “innovative” legal action. Has it become so ridiculous we are now immune to how outrageous it is. Or is it because we are use to how business conducts itself today that
we can’t see that there is the potential for life to be enriched by different ways of doing business in the future.

Looking beyond how business works today to how it will work tomorrow is not easy. If it were we’d be there already. But what me must not do is obstruct our progress made by innovation. Unfortunately this is exactly what we are doing. The battles that rage in the world courts today will dictate what we can and can not do tomorrow.

File swapping technology should be viewed as just that. There are other means to recoup costs that can be explored. Jim Griffin has provided one solution, a pool model where “for the industry to succeed in online music, it needs to create a pool of money and work out a fair method of distributing that money — a model, Griffin says, that works for radio, restaurateurs, and television.” (Business 2.0).

This is only one example. The human mind has the ability to achieve unbelievable feats when it is required. Just look at some lawyers use of the law for examples of quick thinking innovation. Too many companies are resting on their laurels and wallowing in pits of muddy comfort. What better way to kick start the economy with a new injection of creativity.

Please everyone, don’t lose sight of what progress is all about. Don’t let big business keep us in the 20th Century because that is where they feel most comfortable. I’m sure there is much that you can do. Speak to your local government representative, email them, post a comment here, boycott a copy protected CD, buy a felt tip pen. Every little bit helps.

This post, inspired by this article, and this book.

Copyright law was created “to encourage the creation and broad dissemination of original works.” (Jim Griffin).

“The best way to predict the future is invent it.” (Alan Kay).

Microsoft never fail to amaze me. At a conference that they presented their mobile phone strategy to, Juha Christensen, vice president of Microsoft’s mobile device division threw a swing at Nokia by saying, “I think it’s hilarious that the word ‘open’ is used in selling its platform, I don’t think it’s hugely credible to say it’s open when it’s based on patents belonging to Nokia.”.

Can I just remind everyone about Microsoft’s own patents in some “open” Web Services protocols. Here and here.

Eat Fish.

Oh yeah, there is more.

A British explorer trying to be the first to walk to the North Pole solo, used his sledge to mark out a 320m runway in the ice, took a digital photograph of it and e-mailed the image via his mobile phone to a rescue team in Canada.

Now that is what I call being wired!

Here is the article.

By using what turns out to be an incredibly brilliant form of online marketing, a $US3 PDF file is quickly becoming Amazon’s number 1 bestseller. See Kuro5hin for more details.

It looks like we are on the verge of a true “Jurassic Park” moment. In an endevor to make as much money out of genetics as one can, the President of a BioTech company explains, “Genetics represent the boundary of what an animal can ultimately become,” Wanner said. “Producers will be able to go into a processing plant after the meat is graded, select the best beef on the line and use those genetics to develop and improve their herd.” (MIT Technology Review). This statement comes after scientists produced the first calf ever cloned from cells of a slaughtered cow.

I believe that reproductive cloning is something man is in no way ready to explore for one simple reason. Nature is far too complex, and as such, chaos theory would suggest that the repercussions could potentially be disastrous.

An article at MIT Technology Review explains how Rudolf Jaenisch, an MIT biology professor, believes that due to our biology, reproductive cloning can not happen.

With normal fertilization, the egg and sperm go through a long process of maturation, resulting in two genomes poised to activate the early embryonic genes. But cloning shortcuts that by trying to reprogram one nucleus’s whole genome in minutes or hours. And according to Jaenisch, this process is not faithful. He believes that there isn’t a single reproductive-cloning case in which the entire genome has been thoroughly reactivated. What has been achieved, he says, is everything from gross physical malformations to subtle neurological disturbances.

I’m sure Dr. Ian Malcolm, the mathematician in Jurassic Park, would have something profound to say about all this. “The complete lack of humility for nature that’s being displayed here is staggering.”.

Others believe that they may have found the gene responsible for the reactivation.

And now back to our main program.