Guilty Until Proven Innocent

The Luddites at the MPAA are at it again. The same people who fought to stop the commercialization of the VCR are trying to convince a judge that they should be able to sure the users of peer-to-peer networks WITHOUT proof that any wrongdoing was committed.

Check out the original article from Wired.

The MPAA argument is that is is "technologically infeasible" to prove that infringement took place, so they shouldn't have to. They should be able to assume that because someone has a movie in a folder capable of being shared, they have infringed a copyright. As a writer, I'm a big fan of copyright protection. I believe wholeheartedly that people who create books, music, movies, television shows, etc. should be fairly compensated for their work and not have it stolen. But this?

You can't sue someone for what they might have done. They actually have to commit the offense they are being held responsible for. Furthermore, the response that it is technologically infeasible tells me the MPAA is just lazy. It used by technologically infeasible to record a movie to a DVD. It used to be technologically infeasible to broadcast television signals in high-definition. It used to be technologically infeasible to create computer generated special effects in summer blockbusters. Somehow all these things happened.

Instead of fighting emerging technologies, which has been the MPAA's modus operandi since the days of Betamax, learn about them. That VCR the MPAA wanted banned turned into a huge revenue stream for them. How do they know peer-to-peer networks won't? Or maybe some hot-shot computer programmer will develop a way to tell when a file has been illegally shared. But you never know what will happen until you try.

I'd Like To Serve Dinner But My Table Just Crashed

This week, the Wall Street Journal's All Things Digital conference featured announcements from Palm, Apple, Microsoft, Google and more. The announcement that seems to have captured the imagination in Microsoft's "Surface." For those of you who missed the news, Surface is a table that you interact with the surface of like a giant touch screen. Only it isn't really a touch screen, it's a series of cameras that capture your movements from underneath a translucent surface. It can also interact with cameras, phones, and more.

There's no keyboard, and nothing that people actually use has been shown on the platform. Word processing, e-mail, web browsing have all failed to materialize in any demonstration. You can dump all your pictures into the table and stretch them. You can send the photos to friends, but apparently can't include a note. You can digitally finger paint. And you can get information on items that the table scans, which sounds like an invitation to identity theft if you put your wallet or purse on the table.

All in all, it sounds like gee-whiz technology that looks great in a showcase, but seems pretty useless in real life.

The Greener Apple

Much ado is being made about Steve Jobs' message about Apple's environmental policies, but I found the coverage on the Greenpeace site even more interesting. The first thing I noticed is that apparently, Greenpeace can't read.

Steve Jobs used the phrase "So today we're changing our policy." According to the mangled quote on Greenpeace's website, this means Apple is changing it's polluting ways and Greenpeace is more than happy to take credit for forcing this change in policy.

Read the statement.

It doesn't say that Apple is changing it's environmental policy. It says it is changing its policy about not talking about future plans. Steve Jobs then goes on to talk about what Apple has already done. Apple has been green for years, its just that the idiots at Greenpeace weren't aware of it.

Of course, Greenpeace isn't about the environment. They don't care about the environment, they care about power. "Basically, they are using sensation, misinformation and scare tactics." Who said this? Patrick Moore, founder and past president of Greenpeace. Patrick Moore is someone who actually cares about ecology, which is why he left Greenpeace.

"The environmental movement was basically hijacked by political and social activists who came in and very cleverly learned how to use green rhetoric or green language to cloak agendas that actually had more to do anti-corporatism, anti-globalization, anti-business and very little to do with science and ecology," he stated on Penn and Teller's Bullshit.

Greenpeace targeted Apple because it's a high profile, trendy company. Not because there was any real environmental issue there.