Posts by Russell Brown
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Cracker: Send in the Clowns, in reply to 3410,
Then you’ll be thrilled to see that “information” copy-pasted into today’s Listener editorial.
I'm going to make an effort to stay civil about this ... copy-pasting a statistic straight from another publication's editorial column is poor. When the statistic itself is a non-sequitir, it's just embarrassing.
The rest of the editorial isn't much better. Monte Holcroft is whirring in his grave.
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Hard News: Friday Visions, in reply to uroskin,
Kids liking the same music as their parents. That's just..... wrong, no?
Lolz. In my house, I'm the one who gets told "that's not even music!".
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Hard News: Friday Visions, in reply to Paul Williams,
I love the Friday thread; it's perfect Autumn day in Sydney, ideal for Buzzin fly (Ben Watt). His weekly radio show is here for those that like a little UK house (now if that's the wrong lable, cut me some slack).
Ah! I was a big fan of the Lazy Dog album, didn't know he was doing this, so thanks.
I used to see Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn around quite a bit when I worked in the West End. They always looked to me like people I'd get on with. Tracey's last album, Love and Its Opposite is a gloriously bleak and witty exploration of middle-aged unease.
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to Sean Murgatroyd,
Careful disclaimers on Youtube’s part shift liability to the end user, but at the end of the day I can search for any video on google, use a stream capture plugin and create a .flv on my machine of that video, should I want to do that.
I’ve done so not through a shadowy underground network, but by simply clicking on a page that has not yet been subject to a takedown notice and using a legal tool for an illegal purpose.
We all watch infringing material on YouTube, even the copyright crusaders.
And yes, now you mention it, I have an excellent Safari extension that allows me to capture material for use under the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright Act 1994.
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Hard News: Friday Visions, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
a lined refill,
The team got a special thrill from that one. We love the stationery cupboard at Top Shelf.
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Hard News: Friday Visions, in reply to Tom Ackroyd,
Is good.
It is!
Should have written about it this week -- never mind: it'll still be good next week ...
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to Grant McDougall,
However, unless there’s a surveillance camera in every home, it’ll be impossible to tell who actually clicks and d/loads stuff. Even if you live alone you could probably just say it was a friend mucking around on the computer while they were visiting.
I’d be a bit pissed off if my friend was running down my data cap by launching a bunch of torrents and letting them seed while he visited, so that I got a warning letter. And then doing it again. And then a third time inside three months without me twigging what was going on despite the warnings. That’s just rude.
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to BenWilson,
Sometimes I idly wonder if the end goal of certain groups is just to get P2P and similar activity banned altogether,
That would be a wet dream for a lot of companies that have been hurt by file sharing. Can’t see it ever happening, though.
I think so. Apart from anything else, that is plenty of legitimately-shared content on P2P networks, Blizzard and other game companies use the same protocols to legitimately serve their updates, etc. OTOH, the ignorant blatherings of Lee,Shanks and Young are hardly cause for confidence.
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to Jason Kemp,
4. The Labour party is missing in action
I think that's unfair. Even if you think they should have voted simply against the bill -- which would have passed anyway -- rather than doing the deal to require specific enactment before termination is available, Clare Curran has been highly engaged with all this.
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National MP Melissa Lee spoke out strongly against illegal file-sharing this week, but does she practise what she preaches?
As the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment bill passed its third reading, Ms Lee told the House: "Breaking a law, whether it is actually assault on a person or an assault on a copyright, should be punished, not actually excused."
But earlier in the week, she said via Twitter that she was going to listen to a "compilation a friend did for me of K Pop" - South Korean pop music.
This was replied to by @christopherbull: "I really hope that compilation was all copyright cleared. Otherwise, you know, you'd be a glaring hypocrite."
Ms Lee said last night the compilation was made of songs that were legally downloaded and paid for.
"I'm not a pirate. I have never downloaded anything illegally in my life." Earlier she had told the House she did not even know how file-sharing through peer-to-peer systems worked.
She really has no clue.