Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: You can't always get what you want

70 Responses

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  • BenWilson,

    Ah copyright. The desperate, hopeless and pointless fight against piracy continues...

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    For reasons that aren't clear to me, the name of the bill was also changed, from the windier Copyright (New Technologies and Performers' Rights) Amendment Bill.

    Ironic that the bit that came out was performers rights, the bit that public support is more on. What's left in is new technologies, which is more the corporate rights bit, which people care less about.

    Short version: you have the right to format-shift music you have purchased to another device for personal use -- but if a music company has borked the CD so you can't rip it, you can take the CD to a librarian or a teacher who, providing she has been authorised by an Order in Council from the Governor General, will use a TPM circumvention device to rip it for you. But only after you have written to the copyright owner and received either a refusal to help or no reply within a reasonable time. But the copyright owner can still contract out of format-shifting on a basis that remains untested and hazy. Got that?

    Wait. The governor-general is going to rip our CDs for us? That's going to keep him busy.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Robeson,

    hey Russ whats the chance of getting Media 7 (and any of that ondemand stuff actually) outside NZ? I suppose that we sell some shows overseas. Is this why TVNZ can't release eating media lunch etc etc and it always comes up for NZ viewers only?

    Since Feb 2008 • 87 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Further on the fibre fo' yo' mama tip...

    I thought yo' mama couldn't even hook up her Freeview box. Come on, did you expect me to resist a set up like that? :)

    it's perhaps the inevitable fate of copyright law that it will neither fully deliver on the expectations of copyright owners or tally with the real-world experience of users.

    Sure -- and I think there's always going to be question around whether copyright law is still, on some level, still Gutenberg minds still struggling to deal with cyberspace.

    Anyway, copyright owners might care to consider this. Yesterday, I wasted a couple of hours watching the first episodes of the new series of Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica on-line. Doesn't mean Prime is going to be deprived of my eyeballs for the former, and I'll continue the fiscally irresonsible tradition of buying BSG (at full list) the day it hits the shelves.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    I thought yo' mama couldn't even hook up her Freeview box. Come on, did you expect me to resist a set up like that? :)

    She had a chap in to do it. She may actually be the first Freeview HD user on the Kapiti Coast.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Che Tibby,

    Ah copyright. The desperate, hopeless and pointless fight against piracy continues...

    i refer you to radiohead's latest album.

    how many of you would have actually purchased the album at $35 to "give it a chance"? especially after the last two conceptual pieces...

    but put it on the web for free/cheap? the thing's now on my high-rotation list, and i'm thinking of buying the artwork to go with it. and more importantly i'm telling everyone how much i like it.

    tell me that's a model your copyright/DRM fanatics would support.

    the back of an envelope • Since Nov 2006 • 2042 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Withers,

    Looks like another law the vast majority of people will be blissfully unaware of as they go about their business moving songs from CDs.wherever to MP3 players and/or including bits and pieces of them in their own compilations, videos and mash-ups.

    Am I the only one to notice the chilling effect on YouTube of requiring the "partners" to not use copyrighted music? The "partners" now either use Creative Commons tunes or no tunes at all or they attempt to write them themselves.

    The effect of removing the shared aspect of popular music as a component is interesting. I didn't realise the extent to which the known songs and song fragments previously employed also communicated meaning as part of the whole.

    It's an interesting aside in the ongoing story of living in an era of "owned" popular culture.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 312 posts Report Reply

  • FletcherB,

    I won't be able to help you though. I think …

    (3) A person (A) must not publish information enabling or assisting another person to circumvent a technological protection measure if A intends that the information will be used to infringe copyright in a TPM work.

    Well, I'm not a lawyer but that appears to have a loop-hole big enough to drive a truck through... Publish the information with some other intent....

    You could share it, intending to prove that its possible, or, intending to prove that you have that knowledge, or intending that it will turn the sky green....

    Knowledge that the information may be used for some other purpose than the one you intended does not in itself constitute intent that it be used that way... surely?

    West Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 893 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    She had a chap in to do it

    I shouldn't mock - getting the broadband hooked up was enough drama, so we're probably going to do the same. And I hope we're not going to have better luck than the last go round with the plumber who came to come around to fix the hash the last one made.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • FletcherB,

    BTW.... how do the special authorized TPM breakers learn how to do it if no-one's allowed to tell them how?

    What if its as simple as holding down a key when the disk is inserted in a computer? Will Dell/Apple/Microsoft et-al be prosecuted for issuing user manuals for their products?

    West Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 893 posts Report Reply

  • InternationalObserver,

    I thought yo' mama couldn't even hook up her Freeview box. Come on, did you expect me to resist a set up like that? :)

    She had a chap in to do it. She may actually be the first Freeview HD user on the Kapiti Coast.

    She had to get someone in to do it? OMG what kind of son are you? She's probably the talk of Kapiti alright: "her son's in IT, even has his __own TV show, and yet he couldn't even find the time to pop down and plug in her Freeview box. Oh, if my Kevin ever treated me like that ..."__

    you can take the CD to a librarian or a teacher who, providing she has been authorised by...

    That's a slap in the face to this nation's two dozen male teachers if ever I saw one ...

    Since Jun 2007 • 909 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Campbell,

    On the other hand any linux distribution with a DVD player in it is probably now illegal in NZ

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report Reply

  • Paul Campbell,

    Or more properly anyone who hosts a Linux distro mirror (like Ubuntu) that contains a DVD player is probably now breaking the law

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    What if its as simple as holding down a key when the disk is inserted in a computer?

    The copyright police will be around to seize your stuff later today.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    And I hope we're not going to have better luck than the last go round with the plumber who came to come around to fix the hash the last one made.

    Plumbers who make hash? The North Shore is such a crazy place.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • Robyn Gallagher,

    you can take the CD to a librarian or a teacher who ... will use a TPM circumvention device to rip it for you

    Somewhere, in a school in New Zealand...

    "Miss! Miss! Can you rip this CD for me, Miss? My brother wanted to do it, but the Governor-General won't let him. So could you do it for me, Miss?"

    Also, the Media 7 promo on the front page of tvnz.co.nz describes its host as the "king of the blogosphere". Does that make us his loyal servants?

    Since Nov 2006 • 1946 posts Report Reply

  • Jim Cathcart,

    I agree with Paul Robeson in that we can't watch Media 7 from overseas. I'm very interested to see what Bernard Hickey has to say.

    Since Nov 2006 • 228 posts Report Reply

  • Bob Munro,

    Does that make us his loyal servants?

    Serfs?

    Christchurch • Since Aug 2007 • 418 posts Report Reply

  • Craig Ranapia,

    Plumbers who make hash? The North Shore is such a crazy place.

    Should have made the incompetent numpty cook lunch, now you mention it. He sure couldn't install a hot water heater worth a twopenny toss.

    North Shore, Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 12370 posts Report Reply

  • Tom Semmens,

    For some reason an image of an anime Yamato, crewed by a Japanese looking RIANZ crew, cruising the blogsphere looking for mirrors with a Linux/DVD's combo popped into my head.



    Weird.

    Sevilla, Espana • Since Nov 2006 • 2217 posts Report Reply

  • InternationalObserver,

    Does that make us his loyal servants?

    Well, for some time now I've seen myself as the PAS Fool.
    As you do.
    (But having just wiki'd The Fool perhaps I'm just The Village Idiot)

    Since Jun 2007 • 909 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    I shouldn't mock - getting the broadband hooked up was enough drama, so we're probably going to do the same. And I hope we're not going to have better luck than the last go round with the plumber who came to come around to fix the hash the last one made.

    If you're getting your plumber to install your broadband then I'm surprised you made it online. You're probably surfing by some sort of complicated water reticulation system.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Lyndon Hood,

    For some reason an image of an anime Yamato, crewed by a Japanese looking RIANZ crew, cruising the blogsphere looking for mirrors with a Linux/DVD's combo popped into my head.

    If it helps, the "king of the blogsphere" talk made me think of an animated R Brown kitted out with crown and robe with a running gag of chowing his way through improbable piles of information.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 1115 posts Report Reply

  • Gareth Ward,

    On FibreCo, my first response was "not another uncompetitive no-incentive-to-invest network company!" But on review, there seems to be no unregulated model that is going to get us that investment - if we don't create a national fibre backbone entity, I can't see any private firm that is going to, let alone 2 or 3 different ones to make it competitive. It does seem to have "aggregated public good" to it that makes it a sensible national investment where it's not sensible as a private one.

    So long as their was planning in there to compel it to continuously innovate and push the investment along in line with world standards, I think it's our best bet. And we have a fairly good set of public-commercial-network businesspeople from our electricity (particularly), water and roading companies that could make it happen. They're all about prioritised investment, balancing risk/uptime/cost, long term asset plans and working under a regulated delivery model.

    Auckland, NZ • Since Mar 2007 • 1727 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson,

    Well, for some time now I've seen myself as the PAS Fool.
    As you do.

    Rubbish, you ain't no Fool, fool. Fight u for it!

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

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