Posts by Clarke
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Bushco has spent billions trying to "protect Americans from terrorist attack on American soil", and yet the simple truth is that if Al Quaeda really wanted to they could just send out a dozen martyrs armed with legally purchased and constitutionally protected weapons to inflict a dozen VT's.
Alternatively, they could dispense with all the cost and complexity of martyr's training camps, buying AK47s and recruiting suicide bombers, and simply buy shares in Kraft and General Foods and wait for America to eat itself to death. Americans seem to have made a good start on their own - think how much more they could do with some terrorist encouragement!
The size of some of the cops responding to the shootings was simply astounding - "Hey, check out the TV, honey - there's me and my enormous gut waddling in the direction of the gunfire ...."
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Aside from the American penchant for televised melodrama, I'm not sure why this is such a "tragedy" .... surely it's the natural consequence of the idea that allowing everyone to have a gun specifically designed to kill fellow citizens is an inalienable human right.
It's exactly the same as lamenting the fate of people who are thrown through their windshields because putting on a seatbelt is an infingement on their civil liberties. It's the Gun Toll, rather than the Road Toll. So this has all the cultural significance of a particularly bad bus crash - sad for the people concerned and their families, but yesterday's news already. Give it a week, and there'll be another shooting just as there'll be another bus crash.
America didn't learn a single thing from Columbine, and it's not about to learn anything from V-Tech either.
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Ars Technica is covering the no-DRM-from-EMI on iTunes story - all the tracks are DRM free, encoded as 256KB AACs .... it almost inspires me to spend some money with the iTunes store.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070402-emi-to-announced-drm-free-plans-tomorrow-reports.html
Sales start in May, and prices go from US 99 cents -> $1.29.
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The big fly in the RIANZ ointment is that the academic studies on file sharing simply don't support their contention that it hurts musicians - the study from The Journal of Political Economy noted that "the effect of P2P on legitimate music sales is not statistically distinguishable from zero".
An overview of the study can be found here: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070212-8813.html
The problem with the RIANZ position is that they have completely failed to prove any harm to their industry.
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From the 2003 version of the Strategy:
Mission
By June 2004 the Internet will be the dominant means of enabling ready access to government information, services and processes.
By June 2007, networks and Internet technologies will be integral to the delivery of government information, services and processes.
By June 2010, the operation of government will have been transformed through its use of the Internet.You're right, I did get the date wrong - it was meant to be 2010, not the 2012 I mistakenly remembered. But I still contend that "By 2020, people's engagement with the government will have been transformed" is functionally identical to "By June 2010, the operation of government will have been transformed" ... with a decade missing, of course.
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We''ve also got a fairly long timeframe. One of the main guiding policy documents for us is the E-Government Strategy. The target we're working toward is our 2020 milestone: "By 2020, people's engagement with the government will have been transformed, as increasing and innovative use is made of the opportunities offered by network technologies."
In the previous version of the e-government strategy, that same goal was meant to be delivered in 2012. What happened that derailed it by 8 years?
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New Zealand already has CGT, in the form of the rating system.
In our area of Wellington, the rumour is that the council will raise the rates by double the CPI, due to the capital gains in the neighborhood. This will be charged irrespective of whether the ratepayers have the income to pay the increased costs - the tax is levied on the capital value of the house.
So the retired bloke down the road from me will be paying around $6,100 per annum, despite the fact that he's on National Super. (it would be $6,600 per annum but he gets $500 back in rates rebates. Woo hoo.) So that's something around $120 per week to live in his own place.
If that's not a capital gains tax, I don't know what is.
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I am told the MySKy boxes have significantly changed many Sky viewers habits, so imagine that rolled out across the country combined with the ability to have much more control of the stuff you have on the PVR.
The thing to remember is that the MySky box is not owned by the consumer, which means Sky can push software updates into the market any time they like. This means (for instance) they can require all high definition content to pass through a HDMI connector which is fully copy-protected, and they can switch on the broadcast flags that would not allow you to record content, or would impose other limits.
Look at it from Sky's point of view; why should they allow you to record that All Blacks match and play it back any time you like, when they could charge you for the same thing via pay per view?
Having a personal PVR is a fine thing ... but having a corporate-controlled PVR may not bring the level of control everyone assumes.
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And while I'm feeling creative ...
Principle 5: Truth in advertising and promotion is required. If, by applying a TPM, the use of content is restricted by the content owner, these restrictions must be clearly stated on the packaging of material sold in NZ in a form easily understood by a typical 12-year-old. For example, if a CD contains TPMs and WMA files, it must say "won't work with an iPod"; if a DVD is encoded for other regions, it must say "won't work with NZ DVD players"; if a plasma TV doesn't have an HDMI input it must say "won't work with Sky high-definition programmes". In the event that the item protected by a TPM doesn't work in the manner expected, consumers are entitled to a full refund. The manufacturer or producer of the item is also liable for prosecution for deceptive and misleading conduct under the provisions of the Fair Trading Act.
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Clarke - while I agree with your points there's a reason why the criminal clauses for DRM and RMI interference are there - its called TRIPS
Ah yes, I had forgotten TRIPS and its WIPO bastard-child. (As an aside, it would be lovely to get somebody in MED who wasn't a complete muppet intent on trading away our rights at the drop of a hat, but that is a problem for another day ...)
So how about we amend Principle 4 as follows:
Principle 4: TPMs have special protection under the law only when they are circumvented to allow illegal commercial distribution. Companies are free to add them as they see fit, but consumers are free to remove them as they see fit to restore their personal Fair Use rights. For the avoidance of doubt, this means that personal Fair Use trumps TPMs. There are no penalties or otherwise associated with TPM circumvention for personal use, on the basis that this area should be decided by the market and there should be equal power under the law for both producers and consumers. However the same penalties that apply to copying for commercial gain equally apply for circumvention for commercial gain - 5 years in jail/$150K fine.
Thoughts?