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o-blog an i.p. blog
02-01
©¦
To the great consternation of the entertainment industry, the European Commission is inching towards a moderate and
commonsense approach
to the issue of music copying: it’s illegal if commercial; legal if personal.
tech¦
We’ve covered disk rot on this site before as it relates to CDs. It appears that
DVDs are likely to be
susceptible,
too.
02-03
©¦
The EFF today posted a TAKE ACTION! alert concerning
a new bill before Congress, the
Digital Media Consumers’ Rights Act.
It’s a good cause, so take a minute to click the link before continuing. We’ll wait for you.
©¦
In the mean time, motherjones.com has an
interview
with John Perry Barlow, one of the founders of the EFF.
©¦
Finally today, salon.com has run a lengthy commentary about the state of the music industry entitled
Embrace file-sharing, or die.
02-04
©¦
The cartoon Tom the Dancing Bug’s latest offering deals with the perils of the
public domain
in a suitably out-of-kilter manner.
02-05
©¦
Follow up 1. The man who holds a trademark on the phrase “Freedom of Expression”, Kembrew McLeod, is
interviewed
on NPR’s On the Media program.
©¦
Follow up 2. The man who was sued by the estate of John Cage, Mike Batt, for pilfering the completely
silent composition 4'33"
has settled
out of court for a six-figure sum.
02-06
music¦
John Cage again. The composition “As Slow As Possible”, which, if played as intended, lasts 639 years,
is now being played,
in Halberstadt, Germany. The first three notes of the piece will last a year and a half.
02-07
conspiracy¦
Kill an afternoon.
Was the US project to put a man on the moon a great human adventure, proof of our technological prowess, and a
triumph of the human spirit?
Or was
it something
very, very
different? (real.req, in 4 parts)
02-08
©¦
Eweek.com has an opinion piece that points out something interesting and telling about the framers’ intent
when they put a copyright clause into the Constitution: it’s the only clause therein that
states a reason
for its being there. This piece was in response to
a lawsuit
brought by the record labels against Verizon, an
ISP that refuses to divulge the name of one of its customers accused of illegal file sharing.
music¦
This is
kinda funny. Let Clippy help you make
your own hit single — effortlessly!
02-10
©¦
Here’s a timely and sobering article about a crisis in the US Patents system, which, among other things,
maintains that patent laws are
being misused
to (gasp!) stifle competition. [reg.req]
war¦
Paragon of Euphemism.
Declan McCullough’s current column at news.com reveals the Justice Department’s Arrogant Power Grab, Part 2, in
its proposed legislation, the
Domestic Security Enhancement Act.
music¦
Old Link. It seems that NewMusicBox.org, in its November 2000 issue, had
an IP theme going on their
front page,
with an interview with Carl Stone, a general call for opinions about current IP
law, and a “HyperHistory” of IP in America.
02-11
©¦
The EU has adopted a middle-of-the-road approach to enforcing copyright on the internet,
seeking a balance between the rights of content owners and the public. Not surprisingly, the music
industry, apparently uninterested in fairness, wants them to
be tougher.
< archived items >
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Film Clubs Welcome “Good Times”
Two Nights Running
2003-02-01
Here at the Glassed-in Labs, East, your Tape-beatles spend their days in the solid work-ethic drudgery of maintaining
our world presence and preening our public persona. And, as if our lives weren’t exciting enough,
last weekend we loaded up the car of John’s
mother-in-law and set off on a pair of gigs, presenting our expanded cinema work “Good Times” before
Central European film clubs. Two days, two cities, two countries!
Filmový Klub Fleda, Brno. Never really knowing what to expect is one of the hallmarks of our existence. And
Brno’s “Film Club Fleda” did not disappoint. Rather than the usual configuration of seats
and screen in a high-ceilinged,
perhaps slightly trapezoidal hall, we were slated to appear in a large room filled with comfy couches. A carefully
measured-off space in the middle was the perfect place for our projectors. Soon the couches were filled with local
asses, the people attached to which seemed thoroughly to be enjoying the show.
This was confirmed by the fact that most stuck around for the heady discussion of our work afterwards, which spilled
out into the café next door and lasted into the wee hours.
Thank you, all at Fleda, and Jennifer DeFelice.
Buryzone, Bratislava. A bleary-eyed morning drive sped us from Brno to Bratislava, along highway D2
through the rolling hills of South Moravia. After the typical street-wrangling that always seems to take
place in cities that ring cores that date
from the Middle Ages, we arrived at the offices of Buryzone, the arts organization sponsoring our show.
Our program transpired in a university lecture auditorium, regularly used by the “Film Club 901” as the venue
for their screenings. The turnout was good, and the program came off without serious hitch. Again, Q & A followed as
the assembly probed us for why-we-do-what-we-do kinds of answers.
We then adjourned to the Buryzone offices for a party, where we met local artists, and got to know our friendly and
dedicated hosts a little better. We can honestly count this show among our more satisfying successes.
Thank you, Mária Rišková, Buryzone and Filmový Klub 901.
Intrepid Tape-beatles Explore
Bold New Realm
Digital Vistas Opened
2003-02-26
It’s been a while since our last update, but don’t think for a moment we haven’t been utterly immersed in the
age-old task set before us: that of achieving artistic perfection! Well, we will never make it to this goal, but the
glory is in the attempt, as the man said. (Which man, we haven’t the energy left over to google. Google is a verb!
So sue us.)
For (suffice it to say) your endlessly curious Tape-beatles have been busy twiddling the knobs, ogling the dials, and
kicking the tires of possibility
brought to them by their recent adoption of a UNIX-based operating system. Remarkable stuff! UNIX has been around for a
long time, and actually has a culture, fer chris’sake. And whenever we hear the word “culture,” we reach for
our microscopes.
The back-story to this saga swirls around our elongated proposition of turning Good Times into a definitive
DVD version. The source material is, shall we say, less than perfect, having been assembled from cultural discards which,
not surprisingly, have not always been pristinely cared for. Far be it from us to want to erase these inadvertent traces
of their history — at the same time, with the more egregious blots and tears, if they went away, we might be silently
thankful.
Open Source to the Rescue.
Enter UNIX and the vaunted Open Source movement (for which we have deeply felt warm feelings). There is a product called
Film Gimp, which is freely available and runs on UNIX, and is made to order for the retouching of individual frames
of blemished motion pictures. We read up, and started downloading things with names that
read like code words in spy novel, such as “Fink” and “X11”. Following their instructions
(which leave some things to the imagining!) we ran the installer and watched mesmerized as several kilometers of monospaced text
flowed up through the top of our Terminal program, far, far past our monitor’s upper delimiter, while we wondered,
should we be taking notes? Obviously it was trying to tell us something! But the pace was too fast, and the undecipherable
blabble far beyond our ken.
The upshot of this tiresome parable is that, after several afternoons tweaking and reading up and trying different things
— the full array of tools within our limited UNIX skillset, in fact — we finally got it to work and now have a
functioning Film Gimp running on our machine. Vive Good Times! Vive The Tape-beatles!
If you’re running Mac OS X, you owe it to yourself to check out:
• Fink, for “…the full world of Unix Open Source software.”
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