Category: Copyrights

I’ve Never Met A Blacklist I’ve Completely Agreed With

I’m a paid Shaw subscriber – they give me my daily Internet smack and so far I’ve been very happy with their services — except for their Internet phone service, but that’s another story. I was surprised to read an article the other day about how Shaw will now be blocking access to a list of sites without letting me know they’re doing it, why, or which sites.

This is, quite simply, censorship – and it is certainly for a good cause. They will be using a blacklist of sites provided by a government-funded operation called Cybertip.ca. They are aiming to reduce (eliminate?) child exploitation on the Internet, and I am 100% behind their goal. Child porn and pornography in general are not aspects of the Internet that should be ignored until they go away – they need to be addressed as the real problems they are.

But this initiative makes me a little uneasy, frankly. I have a few questions that I can’t find answers to:

  1. Was Shaw intending on telling me about this initiative? I’m paying them for access to the Internet and now, unannounced, they’ll be silently blocking parts of it
  2. What sites are on this blacklist? As a person affected by it I feel uncomfortable not being able to see what sites are included on it. My experience with blacklists is that inevitably some site ends up blacklisted that shouldn’t have been. How is the site operator to know why their traffic dropped overnight? Email blacklists like this exist in an attempt to stem the flow of Spam emails in the world – another initiative I can get behind. However they are publicly searchable for this very reason – people are put on it accidentally and as a website operator I need to be able to find out if I am listed on any of those lists to take corrective action.
  3. Who works for Cybertips, and what qualifications are required to become a person who decides whether or not my site is available to 80% of Canadian Internet visitors?
  4. Since Cybertips can only do this because it is explicitly against the law to consume this trash, what can we expect from the future? What is stopping politicians from deciding to enforce other laws in Canada this way? For example politicians are not known to stand up to powerful lobbying bodies like the Copyright Cartel in Canada (CRIA). This is giving the government a certain degree of control over what sites I can visit on the Internet – where is the guarantee that this will not become a standard practice for enforcing any other laws, whether or not I agree with them?
  5. Why is the user not given some kind of message as to why the site is not available? It sounds like anyone who tries to access a blacklisted site will simply be pushed off into some kind of DNS dead-end. No special webpage explaining the situation, or giving the person resources to report a problem or miscategorized site. Is this really the best way to handle the problem?

These are just some questions I haven’t been able to find answers to. It’s a frightening article frankly because it feels like the tip of the proverbial iceberg – we’re giving the government of Canada a new level of control over the Canadian experience of the Internet and I don’t think it is being done the right way, assuming it should be done at all.

More DRM In Your Pocket

I read an interestingly positioned take on DRM (Digitial Rights Management) today and thought it might be interesting to some of you as I know you are currently buying music and such from online stores. Online stores almost unilaterally use DRM on those files you’re buying, in case you were wondering. Apple’s ITunes store is right there at the top of the guilty list. It is interesting because it takes a look at how DRM actually hurts the consumer and offers nothing in return.

If you’re curious, its a simple 2-page article – its worth a quick read even to just gain awareness of some of the issues going on with DRM and electronic consumption.

Article title and link: “The big DRM mistake” by Scott Granneman

DRM – Sony’s Stupidity

A court ruling today in a class action lawsuit filed in Ontario confirms it – I’m not the only one who thinks Sony’s most recent DRM attempts were stupid to the point of being negligent.

The discussion around the ruling also points out some interesting things:

  1. Sony still plans on using and deploying DRM, but doesn’t want the consumer to know about it at the point of purchase
  2. Sony doesn’t want to allow the user to know what Sony’s software is doing to their computer when they’re installing

“Sony refused to agree to put in the more specific protections that we wanted them to put in that do exist in the U.S.,” said Lawson, such as putting labels on CDs that contain copy protection and requiring a plain-language user licence agreement that is displayed before any software is installed.

This ruling excludes Quebec and BC, but if anyone else outside of these provinces bought an afflicted CD – you’re able to get compensation.

An Ontario court approved a settlement deal Thursday that has the music giant offering $8.40, a replacement CD and free downloads of selected CDs to hundreds of thousands of customers who bought the affected discs.

Those of us in BC or Quebec have to wait until our own class action lawsuits go through a settlement approval hearing (Sept. 28 in Montreal and Sept. 29 in Victoria).

Of course, Sony is only promising to do these things until December next year – after that they’re free to be stupid once again. Maybe we as consumers need to do our part here and avoid buying a product from a company that is so obviously unconcerned with their customer’s needs and interests? If we ask Sony’s plans, we can see the following in their FAQ:

17. What is SONY BMG doing about its future content protection initiatives?

We are reviewing all aspects of our content protection initiatives to be sure that they are secure and user-friendly for consumers. The consumer experience is our primary concern, and our goal is to help bring our artists’ music to as broad an audience as possible. As we develop new initiatives, we will continue identifying new ways to meet consumers’ demands for flexibility in how they listen to music, while protecting intellectual property rights.

So seriously, who exactly wants the DRM? Have you asked the artists involved what their opinion of this fiasco is? My guess is that if you really are so concerned with being “user-friendly” you’d look back at those old days when CDs weren’t a threat to the user at all. DRM does nothing but reduce user-friendliness.

Want To Speak With Someone At The CRIA?

Defective By Design, a rallying site for people opposed to DRM, is having a one-day “call the big wig” event they’re calling “Freedom Rings” today. When you sign up they give you the contact information for some of the big names in the recording industry associations in various countries.

The idea is that you can then call this person and speak to them directly to let them know that DRM is simply not a good idea. It’s an interesting approach to ‘protesting’. Many people think you should just stop buying CDs labelled “Copy Protected” as a means of protesting, but it has been shown that the recording executives are perceiving any drop in record sales as attributable to piracy. This is an opportunity for those of us who really oppose DRM to simply tell someone that should be interested in hearing from us.

If you sign up there is a number for a fellow at the CRIA – Canada’s version of the RIAA, so we can all call Graham Henderson, apparently the president of the CRIA.

Sony vs. The Geeks – Fight!

I’ve written earlier about DRM and music purchases – but this news story has reached epic proportions so I just wanted to write a little bit about it.

The story is all about how Sony decided to include a fairly nasty means of DRM on their latest CD releases. Specifically a ‘rootkit‘ is installed simply by inserting the CD into your computer. It quietly inserts itself as a layer in the very kernel of the operating system, forcing any access to the CD drive to be passed through it. It also changes the way the filesystem is seen by the user, hiding any files that start and end with a particular string. Hence it’s label as a rootkit. It opens up a backdoor wherein any virus written to take advantage of these ‘features’ can do so and infect a person’s computer without them knowing. Once the virus infects the computer via the SONY rootkit, well, game over man.
Continue reading Sony vs. The Geeks – Fight!

DRM and You – A Consumer’s Introduction

DRM – What the heck is it? Digitial Rights Management is becoming much more prevalent today as consumers are beginning to purchase digital media online rather than analogue or consumable versions from brick and mortar stores.

In plain English? People are really starting to buy online music. iTunes is the most well-known name in online music right now, but there are a myriad of other companies out to try to lure you out of your expendable income.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation have published an introductory guide to the various DRM that today’s most popular online music stores are using. In effect, they outline what restrictions the files have on them once you purchase your mp3’s from the stores. What kind of restrictions? How often can you burn playlists, how many different computers can you play the file on, etc.

Note that the guide also lists a few online resellers that do not use any DRM in the sold files. This means you have total control over what you can do with those files. They list the following:

emusic
Audio Lunchbox
Bleep
Live Downloads

Of those, I have only ever used emusic, and I was impressed with their services at the time (several years ago).

In addition, you should check out your favorite artist’s website, as they may be selling their albums themselves. Some record labels are also doing the right thing, and offering their new releases online as well. I recently purchased a song from Nettwerk and it came without any DRM that I am aware of.

I’ve also found a few sites that offer Live recordings of shows as well as uncompressed songs for purchase or free download. Check out my Music page for more details.

So don’t limit yourself to just using what everyone else is using. This industry is in a state of flux – don’t accept anything less than you are willing to, and try to find products that give you the most for your dollar.

Michael Moore on Sharing His Movies

For anyone who’s still willing to listen to Michael Moore (creator of Fahrenheit 9/11, Roger and Me, etc) and not roll their eyes (yes, I’m one of them), I found a small video clip of him talking briefly about what he thinks of people sharing his movies for free over peer-to-peer networks.

I like the quote “I do OK”. I’ve always respected his ability to maintain his own perspective even in the face of fame and fortune. Of course I see him as an active critic of many of our society’s foibles, which I respect. So naturally I think he’s on to something here.

We hear a lot of how the recording industry and movie industry are trying to protect the artist’s rights by suing anyone they can find that downloads movies illegally. Here’s an artist speaking directly to the issue, and the story is not quite the same as the corporate bigwigs’.

Here’s the video (1:40 minutes – 5.4MB)

Canadian Copyright Laws To Change

It has come to my attention that the Canadian government is working on amendments to the copyright laws. After reading their announcement (available here) I have a few concerns about how they’re going about this.

From the interpretation provided by a Canadian Law Professor (available here) I’m concerned when I read things like we’ll continue to pay levies on blank media, but be unable to use that media for making personal copies of music. Reading the gov’s announcement also makes me wonder what kind of crack they’re smoking – they surveyed how many people in what year? The data they collected and used to form the basis of the needs of Canadian copyright law reform was acquired in 2001 and comprised a whopping 700 submissions? (This was found in their FAQ.) Let’s see – what was the state of technology in 2001, and who could fortell what the needs would be in 4 years, when the changes would be examined?

So naturally the laws they are going to create MUST be wishy-washy, such that they can apply to future technology while sticking to the comments made by some 700 Canadians 4 years ago. Just typing that makes me shake my head. Of course interpretation of these laws will be difficult, and will require many lawyers many hours. I guess that’s not a surprise to anyone.

But they are obviously trying to make it easier to enforce copyright law without explicitly following the U.S. and its DMCA. In the meantime they are removing some of our current rights as consumers of copyrighted material. The legislation will allow ISP (Internet Service Providers) to be forced to provide details of what their subscribers do and how often, enabling the copyright holders to pursue perople in court for breaking their copyrights.

I’m all for supporting copyrights – provided they do not stifle innovation or the creative process. But this does not seem to focus on maintaining status quo. It sounds to me like they are setting up a legal framework that can be used to actively hunt down and kill people who break copyright laws. Yes, kill.