Corey Doctorow

-Companies just want to Sell people STUFF'

-Fight about control over life- and what you can do

Privacy, liberty, etc

-IT companies aren't necessarily on our side

-Who gets to copy their stuff? 

-Bits designed to be copied

**-Open Source Stuff**

-Alchemy before science

-They didn't share their stuff - so not much science really happened

-Then they started publishing findings

-Called Enlightenment

-DRM restricting copying

-made secret and not supposed too be modifiable or comprehensible to users

-licensing restrictions

-DRM non-science

-Doesn't stand up to rigorous examination

-give everything you need - but you still can't do anything with it

-Exceptions to copyright

"keep honest user honest" - oh lol

-DRM is NOT copyright

-DRM is about expanding the copyrighted monopolies

-"Authorized domain" digital TV-copy restrictions - flag content so it can only be used by a households worth of devices

-Haven't considered all cases of family setups

-family spread out, or child of separated parents going back and forth - called corner cases- not important, etc

- DRM is not a contract

- even after clicking the I agree button on a Eula, the manufacturer can change the terms

- TiVo update

Why do people make products that mimic other products?

- If your apple you can sue people. They will put a price tag on their music if you want to move your music to another supplier. Apple know that people have invested so much money into their music on ITunes.

- Other music suppliers are trying to compete with apple

- Doctorow talks about how he no longer works for the company EFF. They work to keep DRM out of our computer

- There is no future in which bits will be harder to copy than they are today. This moment in time has the most copy proof bits

- Talks about how he writes books, and puts them on a website for people to view for free

- Believes artists should share music and ask their fans to buy their music, not force them to.

- Blu-ray vs HD

- region coding (Blu-ray)

- industry tries to squeeze as much money as possible out of the honest customers

-compares this strategy to a urinary tract infection

- claims that if the industry wants to survive it must abandon its doomed business model.

- Finally, the biggest problem for an artist is obscurity not piracy.

Anti-piracy tune rules at three-day music industry meet

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/music/news/article_1435687.php/Anti-piracy_tune_rules_at_three-day_music_industry_meet
Popkomm, an annual festival in Berlin, allowed the music industry to convey their frustrations and anger to the public about illegal copying. Robin Gibb, from the Bee Gees, was one of the artists who were upset about illegal copying. Gibb is now suing the European Commission; he criticized the European Union for making unfair rules on the music industry’s operations. The music industry accused the pirates who caused this spiral downfall of digital music. The revenues from the music industry have dropped close to 40% from illegal copying. However, Ali Riza Binboga of Turkey, which is the partner country for the annual Popkomm, believes that even though the revenues have dropped, the government has come up with new solutions to protect copyright laws. Binboga from the agency MESAM thinks that even though there has been a deficit in revenues from the music industry, at least copyright laws are reassured. During the three-day festival, nearly 400 acts will perform in different Berlin clubs both big and small names. The festival has pulled in several “recording companies, music publishers, online distributors, and technology companies.”

Wipeout Is Sued For Copyright Infringement

Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS) has accused ABC for copyright infringement. TBS believes that ABC’s show “Wipeout” is exactly like several Japanese competition series. However, this has happened before. Success of a series usually results in lawsuits from other parties claiming to have stolen their TV show. TBS owns the Japanese copyright of several obstacle course series like “Takeshi’s Castle” or “Sasauke.” TBS’s lawsuit against ABC states that the show “Wipeout” has unlawfully copied the same type of “premise, format, sequence of events, introductory segment, tone, scene setups, narration, and dialogue” as several of other Japanese competition series. TBS has filed their lawsuit against ABC with the help of Larry Stein, a litigation attorney who has experience with “high-profile profit participation cases.” This is not Stein’s first lawsuit against ABC. Twice in the past Stein has filed lawsuits, one for “Home Improvement” and the other for “Who wants to be a Millionaire.”

Foo Fighters tell McCain to stop using song

Several bands have complained about McCain using their songs as music to promote his campaign. The latest band that has criticized McCain for using their song has been the Foo Fighters. The Foo Fighters sent out a letter to McCain telling him to stop using their song, “My Hero.” The band was infuriated that the song was being used with out their consent, and in a way that “tarnished the song.” The band continues to explain what the song’s original meaning stood for and how the McCain campaign doesn’t convey it’s true meaning. The Foo Fighters commented on how McCain has used other artist’s songs in his campaign; to the point, that Jackson Browne has filed a lawsuit. It is not just McCain, but Obama has done it, too. Sam Moore has asked Obama to stop using “Soul Man” in his campaign. Brian Rogers, spokesman for the McCain-Palin campaign, stated that the McCain-Palin campaign has respected all the copyright laws by paying for licensing from performing rights organizations, allowing them to use “My Hero” as well as other songs in their campaign.

Cory Doctorow in Helsinki

Corey Doctorow talks about his point of view on the future, and his main point is on what he sees as the big picture, which is self determination.  He sees self determination as a good thing, which i completely agree with.  A perfect example is of the rat in a cage, which is given a shock at a regular interval, and how it can be perfectly normal, but if the rat is shocked at random times, it can go crazy.  This is a perfect analysis of human beings, and what the future will bring.  People in the future will be so self determined, and in self control, but if you take away the regularity of something in someone's life it will leave them with no hope or desire to go on.

But with the lack of self determination that is able to be used today (because of things like copyright's and stuff), it is similar to us being like an inmate or like a child, he points out.  He goes on to talk about the capabilities of cell phones, and computers, however, there are many restrictions that programers make for these that limit us.  He talks about how the technology of today is built to limit the self determination of its users.  We are not able to do anything "of use" on our phones without the permission of the phone companies.  The best thing about technology is that we can communicate easier with other people, and interact with them, not just using what is given to us by the companies, but by being self determined and being able to use the tools without limits.  Self determination is why people like wikipedia so much, because they can fix or add anything that they want on it, its not just some set information that is not able to be messed with, however it is something that people can be involved with.

Creativity today is very limited because of things like anti-features that companies use, and the restriction of being able to copy will eventually lead to the downfall of mankind he believes.  The best thing that you could have is total determination over your tools, and have the ability to make them do whatever it is that you want them to do.

Corey Doctorow hopes that in the future we will essentially destroy the carriers and reform the companies.  As of right now, he feels like the companies act like they are kings, slaying their users, and treating them as they wish.  However, he believes that if we inject some type of genuine competition, and make them actually compete with their customers to deliver to them the service that they actually want, then and only then will we truly have the freedom we need for self determination.

Team 1

Review -- "Cory Doctorow in Helsinki"

For direct link to video, click entry title.

Cory Doctorow's ideas about the future depending on the concept of self-determination hits head on. THis concept explains why things like copyright restriction software and certain logistics hold us back. In his lecture, Doctorow explains how new technology is in many ways disabling us by depriving consumers of things we could otherwise supply for ourselves and even create. He compares the lack of self0determination as being on the same basis as a child/inmate. By exploiting the power of self-determination, we can make a difference by overcoming challenges simple geography slows us with today. A big point brought up about determination was the power of the computer. Today, we can manipulate things using our own ideas to make something even greater. Taking the computer for example, we use it as a tool to communicate, create commerce, and be our own controllers. With self-determination comes self reliance and ingenuity.

Even with all the functions the modern computer has, however, there's so much more that it can do that it's not giving us access to. It's understandable that computer designers know what they're doing more than the average person, but most of us either are competent enough with computeres to avoid catastrophe, or realize that it would be a bad idea to take things into our own hands at all. Currently, computers have arrays and arrays of defense mechanisms, against even their users. Currently, the only way to acheive complete and undisputed power over your computer's functions is by learning command-line and installing Linux. This should not be the case. Doctorow makes another convincinv argument when he describes how the advertisement industry hold a giurative fun to the heads of the "carriers". In his talk in Helsinki, he's referring to cell phones. I'm not sure how he moved from computers to cell phones, but his argument stands up just as well when he applies it to computers. He says that the real power that the carriers have is not media, but connections. The best thing that a netowrking company can do is make better network. In computers, the average person does not see data storage, or mathematical calculation, but rather the Internet. And that's exactly what the Internet is: a huge network.

I think Cory Doctorow's analogies, quips, general points, and overall lecture leave something to be desired. Perhaps it is coherency that I seek.
What I took from the video:
1) Self-determination is what matters to everyone.
2) Self-determination is good.
3) Without self determination, we are nothing, we have no hope, no fulfillment, and "no desire to go on".
4) Self-determination is the foundation of everything we fight for, live for, and depend on.
5) Self-determination is the cases of the Enlightenment, democracy, progress, and capitalism.
6) Geography and gravity are bitches.
7) People like Wikipedia, because they get to edit the articles.
8) Children, inmates, prisoners, and slaves have no self-determination.
9) Moore's Law is the outcome of self-determination.
10) Computers are built by people.
11) Faster computers are also built by people.
12) Dogs that bark the "Star-Spangled Banner" are what's really the driving force behind all of our technological advances.
13) Technology today is created to restrict our self-determination and to control us.
14) You can't do anything useful with phones these days without permission.
15) The field of creativity is very limited today.
16) Anti-features.
17) We want to remember the mp3 that we lost it to, rather than the mp3 we lost our computer to via rootkit.
18) Copy restriction will essentially be the downfall of mankind.
"Romanticist" is the word that comes to mind after watching the Cory Doctorow video. Can romanticists be correlated to activists? Did I mention he writes Sci-Fi and blogs for a living? Should anyone really be taking this man seriously?
I think Doctorow is getting a little mixed up between the whole idea of "self-determination" with concepts such as: independence, applied convenience, life... everything he could possibly think of.. I understand where he's going with this, but he's ridiculous. Detailed points will be delved into during Thursday discussion. (I'm sorry my part of the entry is so discordant with my team member's)

This is what Cory Doctorow wears.

YouTube teams with iTunes, Amazon to offer e-commerce feature

Youtube is partnering with Amazon and Itunes to allow users to buy any music, books or other content related to the YouTube video that is being viewed. Over time, a viariety of industries will be making money off the content purchased through YouTube. As of right now, it is only available in the US. While it is a popular site, YouTube has not really gained alot of revenue over the last not-quite-two years that it has existed. The only real form of revenue is the ads that are on the site. The idea is that someone may not be as likely to search for something on Amazon or Itunes, but if they are on YouTube watching the video, chances are they will want to make those purchases.