<\/a>
\nProps to Alex<\/a> (whose blog looks pretty but has no posts) for pointing me at this Ars Techica article<\/a> on more damn silliness going on in D.C. Once again the Media Mogul Puppet Masters (seen here napping) are trying to get our Congress Creatures (or is it them<\/em> napping?) to dance to their tune, and once again we have to try to stop them. I quite agree with this new piece and this earlier Ars piece<\/a> that the real issue is about Fair Use and Consumer Rights and not this damn fool piracy argument. There’s no question that (some) large scale piracy exists, is illegal, and should be stopped.<\/p>\n

But that’s not what these proposals address. They make it so that I can’t pause the Tivo in mid-program to take a phone call or go make some nachos (why aren’t the snack food companies on our side on this one?!?). They make it so I have to watch all the damn commercials, and at the time when they’re initially aired. They make it so I can’t re-watch a program (and its commercials) over and over until my brain melts, unless, of course, I’m willing to pay for every re-viewing.<\/p>\n

Take all that and replace “viewing TV” with “reading a book or magazine” and it becomes painfully obvious what a dramatic<\/em> change this would make to the (very old) status quo. And it’s a change that hurts consumers and small media producers and lines the pockets and increases the control of Big Media. This is not a Good Thing.<\/p>\n

It majorly ticks me off when these So-Called Capitalists put all this effort into protecting themselves from the horrors of trade that’s actually free. Yes, we fast forward over many commercials. But not all<\/em> commercials. There are even ads that we go out of our way to watch. We watched the recent iPod\/iTunes commercial featuring Eminem<\/a> about a zillion times and then went and bought the song from iTunes<\/em>. Shock! Horror! Advertising that worked! WeatherGirl<\/a> and Sub-Evil Boy<\/a> watch darn near every movie ad that airs. We probably pay more attention to the ads at the Super Bowl than we do to the game. Some advertising can be interesting and effective. Some advertising is boring or annoying. Giving the consumer the ability to choose where to invest their neurons and their dollars is part of the game, and that should hold for TV (as a proxy for digital) just as much as it holds for print (as a proxy for analog).<\/p>\n

But in the silver lining department, what wonderful timing for the honors course Arne and I are teaching next semester on exactly this topic :-). (Actually it’s about open source and network economics, but it all comes down to the same intellectual property issues.) Nothing like having a hot, active topic to motivate the discussion! Maybe we’ll have them read up on this over the holidays …<\/evil><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Props to Alex (whose blog looks pretty but has no posts) for pointing me at this Ars Techica article on more damn silliness going on in D.C. Once again the Media Mogul Puppet Masters (seen here napping) are trying to get our Congress Creatures (or is it them napping?) to dance to their tune, and … Continue reading “Timeshifting is not piracy!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,4,2,20,13,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-computing","category-music","category-photography","category-politics","category-radio"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-4m","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":308,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2006\/01\/27\/random-bits-on-intellectual-property\/","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":0},"title":"Random bits on intellectual property","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"27 Jan 06","format":false,"excerpt":"A few interesting bits on the intersection of tech and intellectual property have popped up on my radar in the last day or two: Courtesy of Alex Jarvis, this article on the MPAA being caught pirating a DVD. Their defense is apparently because it was important for their employees to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Creative Commons License","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/creativecommons.org\/images\/public\/somerights20.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":176,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/06\/12\/weathergirl-is-a-hidden-woman-of-science\/","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":1},"title":"WeatherGirl is a “Hidden woman of science”","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"12 Jun 05","format":false,"excerpt":"Michelle Francl (via Geeky Mom via New Kid on the Hallway) has an interesting short piece on \"Hidden women of science\", namely the stay-at-home wives that are crucial to the success of so many of the Men Of Science. A recent look at Princeton's cadre of science faculty ... reveals\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":33,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/01\/18\/reminder-not-a-damn-dime-this-thursday\/","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":2},"title":"Reminder: Not One Damn Dime this Thursday","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"18 Jan 05","format":false,"excerpt":"Day after tomorrow is Not One Damn Dime day, and it seems like a good day to not spend any money. I think the family is going to participate - need to make sure we have enough milk tomorrow.","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":737,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/12\/03\/damn-scheduled-entries-are-broken\/","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":3},"title":"Damn – scheduled entries are broken","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"3 Dec 07","format":false,"excerpt":"Our recent upgrade of WordPress has brought with it many bits of nifty goodness. The one (and so far only) downside is that scheduled entries are broken. I can schedule them fine, but they never show up. The \"count down\" just goes right on by and then starts counting back\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":108,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/04\/08\/damn-im-a-liberal\/","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":4},"title":"Damn … I’m a liberal","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"8 Apr 05","format":false,"excerpt":"Looking at the last few posts (e.g., here, there, and elsewhere), I guess I can't deny it any longer: I'm a liberal. Or a radical wacko. Or something. Hey, I believe that schools and education (and free speech) are crucial for the social, political, and economic life of the nation,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":513,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/03\/13\/high-speed-internet-under-half-a-mile-of-ocean\/","url_meta":{"origin":270,"position":5},"title":"High speed internet under half a mile of ocean!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"13 Mar 07","format":false,"excerpt":"It is truly remarkable how little we know about the deep oceans, and having the ability to constantly monitor and report, even if in only a few areas, would be an enormous step forward! The piece below also talks about a permanently tethered ocean floor rover, but the possibility exists\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Computing"","block_context":{"text":"Computing","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/computing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/clipmarks.com\/images\/clip-icon.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}