Juha has found a "special mention" notice from the International Intellectual Property Alliance about our new Copyright Amendment Bill, which is apparently not strict enough by half. It's notable for both its naked hostility to the public good of New Zealanders and its apparent urging of the use of trade policy as a weapon. It does demonstrate the kind of lobbying our lawmakers are up against.
In a related vein, some of the presentations from this week's Internet NZ Copyright workshops are now online.
I found a couple of interesting reports relevant to this week's unfortunate Unicef findings on New Zealand's child safety record. It would be easy to believe that things were so much better 10 or 20 years ago. Actually, they weren't - they were a lot worse. The problem is that the rest of the developed world has improved faster than we have. No Right Turn has a bit to say about the ranking of liberal economies and The cost of capitalism.
Aaron offers a link to a rather jolly cartoon about Wikipedia, and his own musings on New Zealand children's author Amy Brooke laying into her peers, including Margaret Mahy, in the pages of Investigate magazine. Amy Brooke is in fact mad old Agnes-Mary Brooke under a different name, which basically explains everything.
Some music clips on the internet in flagrant breach of copyright: The Abyssinians in 1977.
Gregory Isaacs doing 'Night Nurse', Sunsplash, 1983. I saw him play live once. He hypnotised everyone in the place.
A very good video of Lee Scratch Perry at the controls, with Jamaican narration.
A clip of Tenor Saw performing (what else?) 'Ring the Alarm' that makes me wish I was there.
And one of your more unusual YouTube contributions: guy has a collection of classic reggae sides - and he videos each record while it's playing.
This is wonderfully weird: Patti Smith singing 'You Light Up My Life', a la Debbie Boone, on a kids' TV show. WTF?
And Motorhead playing 'Ace of Spades' live in 1980. Just because.
PS: The Cakekitchen, featuring Graeme Jefferies and Robert Key, have reassembled and are playing Bacio (which is clearly no longer a cheesy dance vene) at 309 K Road, tonight.
PPS: Also, I'm among the fine minds set to tell dirty jokes and abuse the opposition in the Great Auckland Central Hero Debate on Monday evening. I also participated in last year's even, and it was really good fun. Tickets and details are available from the website.