Knitwit BBC Goes After Dr Who Fans

Here's a fascinating UK legal analysis of an incident we see occurring all over the world: an over-eager rightsholder undermining Internet goodwill by pursuing their own fans for supposed IP infringements.

Andre Guadamuz, is a lecturer at the Edinburgh University school of law, and organizes the fantastic British conference on "geek law", Gikii. He was recently put in contact by the Open Rights Group with Mazzmatazz, a Dr Who fansite which posts knitting patterns of the current batch of Dr Who monsters, including those obedient servants of man, the Ood (see above).

BBC Worldwide, the commercial wing of the public service BBC, sent the site a demand to remove "any designs connected with DR WHO" -- even though the site was offering them free to anyone who wants to knit their own loveable Who-related terrors.

Guadamuz covers the legal ground, and suggests that, like many rightsholders, the BBC has less power to stop fans from creating their own transformative works than they might think. Sadly, that's not enough to save the woolly Ood designs which were taken down out of concern for just the threat of legal action.

As Guadamuz notes, the BBC and Dr Who production staff should know better than to pursue a campaign of online threats against their own fans. These are the people that kept the BBC's now-lucrative Who franchise going during years of neglect by its owners; these are the people who actively promote the current series; and, in the UK at least, these are the people who pay the bulk of BBC's salaries.

Like Dr Who's Ood, fans are happy to serve their favorite franchises when treated well. But if the BBC starts treating them like this, they can all too easily rise up and attack the very brand value the BBC is overzealously seeking to protect.

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Properties used to manufacture and sell improperly labeled recordings and audiovisual works a nuisance in Los Angeles County

As reported through the Wired Blog Network the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has declared that using property within the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles for for the manufacturing, distributing, selling, or possessing for sale of counterfeit goods. or recordinqs or audiovisual works which are improperlv labeled a public nuisance. Though this does implicate some forms of piracy it is limited to actions that violate California Penal Code Section 653w.

From the site:

A copy of the ordinance is available through David Kravets' Blog "Los Angeles says piracy 'detrimental to the public health, safety'


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Al Capp's "Fearless Fosdick" inspiration for Kurtzman's Mad?

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Mike Fontanelli wrote a great introduction to cartoon great and unrepentant hippy hater Al Capp and his Dick Tracy parody, Fearless Fosdick. The post includes the first 20 pages (scanned in high res) of the first Fearless Fosdick story, "The Poisoned Bean Case."

"The Poisoned Bean Case" is, simply put, one of Capp's masterpieces. It seems to be a special favorite with fans too, both for its astronomical body count and its sheer outrageousness. Believe it or not, this blood-drenched parody ran in family newspapers in the fifties, in Eisenhower's America, on Sundays, no less!

In the following brilliantly demented pages, no one is spared Capp's merciless needle. From the venality of the justice system to the crookedness of the media; from the corruption of big business to the fickleness and stupidity of a complacent populace. The diabolical plot, which concerns product tampering, presages the 1982 Tylenol case by some 30 years.

As a cautionary note to readers encountering this story for the first time: you are hereby warned. It's impossible not to get swept up in the maelstrom of fury that's about to be unleashed. "The Poisoned Bean Case" doesn't so much unfold, as simply detonate! For comics fans who like their irony dark, raw and relentless- we proudly present Al Capp at or near the peak of his powers...

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MSN Music Debacle Highlights EULA Dangers

When Microsoft announced that it will no longer support former MSN Music customers who want to play their DRM disabled music on new computers, DRM-hating consumer advocates justifiably cried out, “I told you so!” But this debacle is not just another example of the dangers of DRM: its also a reminder of the danger of overreaching end user license agreements, or EULAs

Just as DRM allows unprecedented corporate control over music and movies, the EULAs that Microsoft and other content vendors force users to click through before downloading songs, shows or films help enforce and expand that control. For example, EULAs usually claim that whatever happens, you can't sue the company--even for problems that are entirely of the company’s own making. And EULAs are often used to try to limit a company’s obligation to live up to its apparent promises.

What this means is that buying music (or software) on line is quite different from making your purchase at the store. When you buy a regular CD, you own it. You're allowed to do anything with it you like, so long as you don't violate one of the exclusive rights reserved to the copyright owner. So you can play the CD at your next dinner party (copyright owners get no rights over private performances), you can loan it to a friend or make a copy for use on your iPod. Every use that falls outside the limited exclusive rights of the copyright owner belongs to you, the owner of the CD. And if it won’t play, you get to bring it back and get a refund. Both technology and custom give vendors a lot more power when selling digital goods. Unlike the CD purchase, when I download from Microsoft Music, I don't just get the music, I get the “Service Agreement” as well. And if the Service Agreement tells me that there just might not be any Service, then I could be stuck with the digital version of an empty jewel box.

MSN Music’s EULA is a case in point. When active, MSN Music's webpage touted that customers could “choose their device and know its going to work”.

Windows DRM 'Plays for Sure'

But when customers went to purchase songs, they were shown legalese that stated the download service and the content provided were sold without warrantee. In other words, Microsoft doesn't promise you that the service or the music will work, or that you will always have access to music you bought. The flashy advertising promised your music, your way, but the fine print said, our way or the highway.

Microsoft isn't alone. Many other DRMed music services also make false promises to customers including Apple iTunes, RealNetworks and Napster 2.0.

Which applies, the marketing promises or the fine print?

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Future of Making map from Institute for the Future

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I'm a research director at Institute for the Future, a 40-year-old non-profit thinktank that helps companies, governments, and foundations think about long-term future trends to make better decisions today. For the last six months, we've been researching the "future of making," exploring how the stuff of our world may be researched, invented, designed, manufactured, and distributed in the next ten years. We held an expert workshop where we brought in a terrific group of makers, conducted interviews, and did a ton of reading on the history of DIY culture. At last weekend's Maker Faire, we released the results of our research in the form of a visual knowledge map, summarizing drivers, trends, and implications. Almost all of our research at IFTF becomes free and public after a year, but this map was made public right away and is Creative Commons-licensed. We hope you enjoy it! From the introduction to the Future of Making Map:
THE FUTURE OF MAKING IS BEING REMADE

 Files Images Sticker Small Two future forces, one mostly social, one mostly technological, are intersecting to transform how goods, services, and experiences—the “stuff” of our world—will be designed, manufactured, and distributed over the next decade. An emerging do-it-yourself culture of “makers” is boldly voiding warranties to tweak, hack, and customize the products they buy. And what they can’t purchase, they build from scratch. Meanwhile, flexible manufacturing technologies on the horizon will change fabrication from massive and centralized to lightweight and ad hoc. These trends sit atop a platform of grassroots economics—new market structures developing online that embody a shift from stores and sales to communities and connections.

Inspired by the hackers, crafters, artisans, and tinkerers who embody this “maker mindset,” we set out to reverse engineer the future forces behind this transformation. Many of us were already immersed in the DIY culture, hacking code, soldering circuits, creating media, and even tending farms. So to learn more, we reached out to our own communities, brought together innovators at an expert workshop, scoured blogs and magazines, and attended numerous informal gatherings where makers talk shop. It turns out that “do it yourself” may be a misnomer for this decidedly social movement; “do it ourselves” is a more apt phrase. Individual makers are amplified by social technologies that connect ideas, designs, techniques, and, of course, people, to revolutionize the process of innovation and production.

There is much to be learned from the maker mindset of collaboration, creativity, and open access. Yet the maker culture will not replace traditional industry. In the future, traditional manufacturers and maverick makers will be closely linked— sometimes cooperating, sometimes competing, but frequently blurring the boundaries that separate them. Success will occur when the two cultures are woven together in new and interesting ways. We hope that our map will help guide you in those experiments as you engage with the Future of Making.
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Apture

This service is a really impressive, innovative way to enhance your website/blog/etc to add contextual, overlaid "buckets" of media, links, and news wherever you want on your site. It integrates well with an open source CMS like Drupal (we're tried it a bit here on newmediarights.org) or open source blog software like wordpress . Simply make sure the small bit of embed code shows up on any pages you want to use it, then customize your contextual frameworks or "bucket" using an overlay in your browser. Perhaps most impressively uses pop-ups without being annoying.

From the site:

Apture provides the first rich communication platform that allows people to intuitively experience the web.

With just one line of code, publishers and bloggers can quickly and easily turn flat pages of text into a compelling multimedia experience. Apture gives content creators the power to find and incorporate relevant multimedia items directly into their pages. Readers can then access these items without ever leaving the page, providing them with a deeper and more meaningful web experience.

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Full episodes for free of the PBS series Carrier

PBS has its entire series about the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz deployment free and viewable online, along with additional multimedia on its website.

From the Site:

"Making the film CARRIER required 17 filmmakers to take a six-month journey aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz during its deployment to the Gulf in support of the Iraq War. They disembarked from Coronado, California on May 7, 2005 and returned there November 8, 2005 with stops at Pearl Harbor, Hong Kong, Guam, Kuala Lumpur, Bahrain and Perth, Australia.

The trip proved an evolution for the film crew who spent the early weeks trying to find their place while the 5,000 sailors and Marines around them were too busy to take notice. Eventually, the film crew discerned the ebb and flow of life on a carrier, and began to feel more at home on board. The ship's crew not only accepted them but also took a vested interest in the project, making suggestions on the best places to film and providing access to missions that helped capture the full experience of the deployment.

Jammed into their own staterooms, the crew that once felt apart now felt kinship as they shared both trepidation and jubliation awaiting the safe return of the carrier's jet fighters. When the huge emotional surge of seeing home hit in November, the filmmakers knew how the Nimitz crew must feel. But back on land, their own mission of editing and production continued for nearly three more years before the film CARRIER docked at PBS on April 27, 2008."


 

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Looking for Walt Whitman

While channel surfing a few weeks ago I stumbled across a PBS American Experience program about Walt Whitman. It touched me and took me back to my first experience of his poetry.

As a teenager I precociously chose part of “I Sing the Body Electric” for a junior high recitation. The nuns were a bit conflicted. The literal way to interpret this piece from Whitman’s famous Leaves of Grass as a celebration of the sensual, physical human body had them worried. But I, in my youthful beneficence and eagerness to embrace humanity, went for the big metaphor. I loved the image of a body made up all people, connected and charged. I could see sparks leaping tiny gaps of space between ganglia and bone, igniting each other, lighting up and giving life and spirit to a body politic. I was particularly intrigued with the second line—to be surrounded and surround at the same time, to be an individual and yet be part of something else. Here is the first stanza from the 1887 edition of Leaves of Grass:

I SING the Body electric;
The armies of those I love engirth me, and I engirth
them;
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond
to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the
charge of the Soul.

Whitman saw himself as the national poet and set out to repair great divisions and moral tensions in a time of unrest just before the Civil War. He thought he could inspire Americans to put right the great experiment of democracy.

In this PBS program they used the phrase “urban affection” to describe Whitman’s fascination, appreciation, wonderment, even love for the immigrant citizenry of a young nation. His unabashed, expansive, free flowing poems illuminated the multitudes in intimate detail in hopes of uniting the nation.

Whitman did not see the country unite—in fact he witnessed the deepest sadness and misery of war. But his work continued and the poetry written over the course of his lifetime is timeless and magnificent.

cc license by guckstdu, nc, nd, from Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/guckstdu/148870435/

I can’t help but wonder if we are at another critical point in history. My On the Commons colleague Harriet Barlow speaks of this as a time of “unraveling,” and that is how it feels to me. What has happened to our affection for each other? Affection is different than compassion and more than pity. It surpasses tolerance. It is fondness and tender feeling. Why do we no longer have this fondness for or even recognize the body we are part of? We are literally coming apart. Our connections to nature, to sprit, and to opportunities to develop fondness for each other are eroded. How can the heart know the head or the hand? How can the “I” recognize the “we” when everyday life numbs us and separates us into economic classes, political factions and target markets? The American Dream in this era is to possess for oneself and withdraw.

In one of his last writings Whitman spoke to us, the future generations of Americans:

If you want me again look for me under your boot soles…Missing me one place search another. I stop somewhere waiting for you.

I am looking for you Mr. Whitman. We need poets of the commons and we need them now—to introduce us to each other and restore tender feelings for ourselves. We need poets to knit the bones and stitch the tissue of our body back together, then charge it with the charge of the soul.

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BarCamp San Diego

Visit BarCamp Sandiego's website

What

BarCamp San Diego is an unconference made up of of technical professionals, Internet enthusiasts, and other clever people in the Southern California area who wish to share and learn in an open environment.

Attendees don't just watch a set list of speakers. They give their own talks. Podcasting. Web standards. Microformats. Gum stick computers. Physical security. Robotics. Evolutionary algorithms. . It can be anything. This event is not just for stuffy developer types - one of the best barcamp presentations ever given was about sandwiches. Barcamp is what you make of it.

When

May 3 - 4, 2008
10am Saturday through 5pm Sunday, and we mean it. Although barcamps are typically an overnight event, in San Diego we don't take the "camp" part lightly. Even though we'll be spending the night locked in the depths of Microsoft, feel free to bring tents, sleeping bags, and other cozy camp gear (no fire, plz). You don't have to stay if you don't want to, but the most interesting parts of barcamp tend to happen at night. Alcohol will also be liberally supplied starting at dinner, and we want you coming back for Sunday's talks in one piece. wino kredyt mieszkaniowy sprzedam mieszkanie sprzedam bilet

Where

Microsoft
9255 Towne Centre Dr # 400
San Diego, CA map

Registration

Add your name to the list below so that 1) we know how many bodies to prepare for, 2)other people can see what kind of talks to expect, and 3) let your fellow barcampers know what you'd be interested in hearing more about. Here are the men's and women's American Apparel sizing charts if you need them.

If you're not familiar with wiki markup, click edit and then look for the line that says REGISTRATION LIST ENDS HERE and follow the directions. Email Lisa if you have any problems.

Don't forget to proclaim your attendance in typical Web 2.0 fashion on Eventful, Upcoming, and Facebook, too!

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