along a link to an interesting paper today, “The Challenges of Integrating the Unix and Mac OS Environments” by Wilfredo Sanchez of Apple. I must say I’m getting excited about OS X, the public betas of which are expected this summer. The friend who passed this along is a serious software and network engineer, so his vetting of things carries a lot of weight with me.
Joel Spolsky has
a weblog called Joel on Software. He wrote a really good analysis of the Microsoft .NET stuff the other day entitled Microsoft Goes Bonkers. He’s right too – there’s no there there with dotNET. I would only add that the big problem is not a technological one, it’s cultural. That’s why I like Deepleap and sites like it. Companies like Deepleap are addressing the central question of how people will use the web in a more fundamental way than most others – it’s not about information, it’s about relationships. [link via calebos.org]
What if it were
illegal to buy a copyright, if they could only be assigned for a limited time? What if, unless you were a salaried employee (hence making your work a product of the company paying you), you owned your work, period? If you were permitted to lease it, but not sell it outright?
I’m always torn in a discussion of Napster and the other digital music schemes. I have, from time to time, made my living (or an important part of it) as a writer. My brother’s a musician. Many, if not most, of my friends are writers or artists of some sort or another. These people work hard at what they do. But when I look at a particular acquaintance of mine’s CD, she doesn’t own the copyright, the record company does. When I write an article, I own the copyright – the newspaper or magazine it is published in only owns certain rights; usually the right to first publication.
I think a clearheaded study of how copyright works and a legal expression of how that system should function would go a long way to solving a lot of the current issues. It’s one of those situations, I think, when the road ahead in terms of the specifics will only be apparent when the first principles are reiterated and strengthened.
Trouble is, the pattern is clearly in the other direction – away from privileging the rights of individual copyright holders, towards rights of corporate copyright holders and other businesses involved in such matters. I have personally been involved with a number of publications that have asserted that their purchase of first publication rights includes, with no further compensation, the right to place the work in databases that, essentially, exist in perpetuity. And the DCMA points in that direction pretty clearly as well.
For the moment, I don’t have a huge problem squaring my deep belief in copyright – the right I have over my creative and intellectual work with the free distribution of songs on the net, but that’s only because of the total belligerance and seeming cluelessness of the recording industry, and it won’t hold indefinitely. At some point, I believe that copyrights should be inviolate. So my conclusion, for now, is that the whole concept of copyright must be strengthened and affirmed. Trouble is – I doubt it would be by those with the deepest pockets in this ongoing dialogue.
OK, before I get going
to work this morning, I just came across the strangest thing on the Macwarehouse Canada site. A little deconstruction is in order.
- Apple Canada’s current e-commerce regulations prohibit any Apple authorized reseller to sell Apple product on-line through the Internet. As a strategic partner of Apple Canada, we support that position and will continue to follow their strategy.
This might as well read, “OK, Apple just fucked us, but we’re gonna suck up anyhow cause we’re getting rich off catalog sales.” - Micro Warehouse has decided that this restriction should not be a factor in collecting important information from our customers.
“We still want to invade your privacy though kids, so we’re going to datamine you for all you’re worth, which frankly might not be much but hey, this is e-commerce, baby!” - We have developed the following program that supports Apple Canada’s e-commerce strategy and benefits the customer.
“We have developed the following BS so we can nominally support their screwed-up policy while selling you, dear customer, down the river.” - A value add feature has been added to all Apple product on our website.
“Look at how great we are at using pass buzzwords like ‘value add’! Boy are we ever smart! We can suck up to Apple AND trash their policies in one fell swoop!”
This is hilarious:
Star Wars in animated ASCII. The whole movie, rendered in ASCII text. [link via Prolific]
