Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Land-grab in the Magic Kingdom

Lyndon Hood

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 11:12:58 +1300

Microsoft confirms Vista Speech Recognition remote execution flaw

I have verified that I can create a sound file that can wake Vista speech recognition, open Windows Explorer, delete the documents folder, and then empty the trash.

slarty

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 10:03:57 +1300

The whole IP lobby is getting out of hand – personally I think it's a sign of the death throes... but I might be dreaming.

When the phonograph started becoming popular, the sheet music industry got all hysterical. What we're seeing now is very similar.

I think there's something deeply…

samuel walker

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 21:03:08 +1300

http://www.tcj.com/journalista/

the always brilliant Dirk Deppy:

"Is Disney trying to trademark public-domain characters in New Zealand? According to Russell Brown, the company petitioned the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand for marks to such characters as Snow White and Peter Pan, despite not having created them. Thankfully, IPONZ seems to…

Andrew Paul Wood

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 14:42:18 +1300

Returning to an earlier conversation, here is another neglected Ariel. You'd have thought the Brits could have sued.

Lyndon Hood

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:46:39 +1300

Actually that last bit was rhetorical. Not really a native PC person and wouldn't get vista by choice. Would prefer it if hardware prices didn't go up, tho.

Do we think Ubuntu will get a boost out of this?

Lyndon Hood

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:35:11 +1300

Seen while looking you up on BoingBoing...

It appears Vista's DRM has been well and truly cracked. Can we have our functionality back now?

Russell Brown

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 08:04:40 +1300

But... probably due to the fact they reproduced a decent portion of RB's post, PA received fewer than 500 visits directly from Boing Boing yesterday it seems.

Yep, with maybe several hundred more from the likes of Netviibes (which has a feed froom BoingBoing as a default). So Star Wars…

matthewbuchanan

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 07:39:57 +1300

Actually PA got BoingBoinged way back in 2005, after Russell linked to the Starlords movie.

RB didn't link to Starlords from memory: Boing Boing linked directly to it, the two sites (Starlords and PA) just happened to be hosted on the same server, and it was bandwidth issues that clogged…

Hamboy

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 02:20:02 +1300

I think you're right – although "liberate" isn't the word I would choose ...

Perhaps he was using Bushes definition of the word.

Sam F

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:01:23 +1300

You had two out of the three surefire Boing Boing flags (Disney: check. Corporate takeover of culture: check. All you needed to work in there was unicorns...). And it worked – you got boing boinged.
Is that the first mention of Public Address on the worlds most read blog?
Hope…

Graeme Edgeler

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:49:01 +1300

Steamboat Willie wasn't the first Mickey Mouse cartoon.

The first Mickey short was six month's earlier – Plane Crazy.

Steamboat Willie was the first major cartoon with synchronised sound, but the second of Mickey's shorts (and the third of Mickey's shorts to be produced).

Tony Judd

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:24:47 +1300

You had two out of the three surefire Boing Boing flags (Disney: check. Corporate takeover of culture: check. All you needed to work in there was unicorns...). And it worked – you got boing boinged.
Is that the first mention of Public Address on the worlds most read blog?
Hope…

izogi

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 19:01:52 +1300

Thanks for the article, Russell.

Without being an IP lawyer, I have trouble believing that Disney would get this. What concerns me most is that they probably asked for a lot with the expectation of getting a moderate amount, and a moderate amount could still be ridiculous.

Leopold

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:34:06 +1300

Oy vey,
Ariel (meaning originally 'Lion of God') is one of the names for the Tribe of Judah in the Tanakh –

Disney IS getting ambitious in its copyright wars...

Sandra Simpson

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:23:31 +1300

And which gang of characters earns most for Disney each year? No, not Mickey and Co, not Snow White ... Winnie-the-Pooh & friends. The quintessential English characters have not only been Disneyfied in their looks (poor old EH Shepherd), but are now controlled by Disney completely – movies, toys, every piece…

Lyndon Hood

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:17:09 +1300

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariel

* Ariel, a former alias of the Marvel Comics character Kitty Pryde
Ariel, the original name of the Transformers character Elita One
Ariel (comics), a fictional character in the Marvel Comics Universe
Ariel (Legacy of Kain), a character in the Legacy of Kain video game series…

JP Hansen

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:06:38 +1300

Have you guys seen any of those really shoddy Looney Tunes DVDs out there, all using really old cartoons which I assume have become public domain? My kids have been given a few in the last couple of years. Some of them look like the transfer process was simply videotaping…

Jake Pollock

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:49:13 +1300

double post: oh yeah, The Tempest. D'oh.

Jake Pollock

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:47:53 +1300

I think Hermes was the greek messenger god. The original Hans Christian Anderson story, The Little Mermaid, doesn't have the name Ariel, so it may well appear first in the Disney movie, in which case it's theirs.

I imagine there's a large grey area where what we think of as…

Leopold

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 13:37:24 +1300

Puleeze!

Ariel was the elemental sprite in `The Tempest'

So Disney is taking over poor old Shakespeare...

Wait until the entire MacBeth Clan finds their name owned by Disney!

Rogan Polkinghorne

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 12:43:05 +1300

Ariel was the name of The Little Mermaid...apparently. So I've been told.

kerry w

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 12:39:36 +1300

I wanted to use the word "Ariel" as a trademark for a possible creative business idea, to identify anything I made and sold. Alas, Disney has done just what RB has described and their appplication to use that name/word covers absolutely everything including art. I don't even know where "Ariel"…

Benjamin Franzmayr

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 11:16:23 +1300

Well I think it's a great idea. As soon as they get their trademarks I'll do a few short films about, say, coca cola, apple ipods, MacDonalds etc and then claim my rightful trademark over these brands.

Benjamin

Russell Brown

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:58:56 +1300

It's a foray into occupy territory trying to see how far they can liberate. And we know how well hearts and minds are won with that.

I think you're right – although "liberate" isn't the word I would choose ...

Tim Michie

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:48:47 +1300

I wouldn't have thought they had a whelk's chance in a supernova. Look at what happened when Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie attempted to bring classic girl characters sexuality to the fore in The Lost Girls.

And whatever you think them, Shrek 2 on the box Sunday had a Pinocchio…

Lucy Stewart

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:42:39 +1300

I think the word "creepy" is definitely the right one to describe Disney's actions. However, shouldn't the sheer longevity and breadth of works surrounding these stories prevent Disney from copyrighting them? I don't know a lot – okay, anything – about copyright law, but I'd think that for most of…

Public Address

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 10:42:39 +1300

Discussion from blog post.