Andre Molnar

Canadian Copyright (revisited)

The latest recomendations for amending the Canadian copyright /IP act(s) came out a year ago - and were as clear as MUD. The idea is to bring Canada's copyright law in line with the WCT (WIPO (world intelectual property) organization) copyright treaty)

Section 2 sub-Section J - pagagraphs 34-37 are troublesome - ISPs may or may not be held liable for facilitating the illegal distribution of copyrighted materials... If anything they should be exempt (see paragraph 35)

Section 2 sub-Section H - pagagraphs 29-30 - BAD IDEA! as paragraph 30 points out protection is theoretically extendable to 99 years... guess what - if given the right to extend copyright protection to 99 years copyright holders will exercise that right.

Section 2 sub-Section B + C - DRM (digital rights management)- or what they call Protection of Technology Measures (which somehow gets TLA'd to TPM) and RMI (rights management information). This is big brother stuff... and also the stuff that would make personal copying almost impossible without breaking a law (because in order to make a personal copy you would have to break the DRM or RMI).

And speaking of personal copying -

Section 2 Sub-Section I - paragraphs 31-33 "i. Private Copying: Implications for Ratification". This is the really bad part of the proposed changes. Essentially the private reporoductions allowed under current canadian copyright law would be revoked. BAD BAD BAD. The good news - the language used in paragraphs 31-33 seem to say "we think the current law is fine as is since we compensate artists with levys on recording media - and we aren't sure if we actually have to change anything to conform with the treaty - not right now anyway" - BUT - "we might want to change it a bit later." Its not a "we are 100% going to change the current law" - but its not "we are 100% NOT going to change the law either". Very iffy.

Even more recently an announcement was made that the government is soon ready to act on the recomendations.

I am very surprised by this. a) Nobody thought this would get a priority in the minority government - but it has. b) given the instability of the current government why try to table this legislation with many much more pressing matters at hand.

Good news bad news. The government may fall and the whole piece of legislation will have to wait. Bad news is that if the Conservatives come in - they are much more likely to cave into the recording industry's demands for MUCH TOUGHER restrictions on copyright. Remember the Conservatives are all about making the rich super rich and the super rich Monarch like in their wealth - and record and movie companies fall in both those categories.

Just one more reason to not vote conservative if there is an up-coming election.

andre

Conservatives Tied to Sponsorship Scandle

It comes as no surprise to me that the sponsorship scandle has less to do with party alegance as it does with greedy people.

Today Coffin's testomony at the Gomery inquirey was released almost in its entirety... and guess what - Coffin a long time conservative supporter was in on the action too - faking invoices - taking public money - being a greedy person.

From today's Globe and Mail:

While the beneficiaries of the sponsorship program tend to be labelled as Liberal-friendly firms, Mr. Coffin is proof that ad executives were ecumenical when it came to making money.

He said he became a staunch Conservative because he opposed Pierre Trudeau's national energy program.

But after a decade of supporting the Tories, once they were out of power, he only gave them $400. Instead, between 1999 and 2002, he donated $29,300 at Liberal fundraisers.

”Why the conversion? Did you have an epiphany like St. Paul on the road to Damascus?” Judge Gomery asked.

”It would appear that you were getting substantial business from the government . . . so you thought it was good business to show up at (Liberal) functions and it wasn't going to get you any business to show up at poorly-attended Conservative functions.”

”That's true,” Mr. Coffin conceded.

This isn't exclusively a Liberal Party of Canada problem - its a problem with people and corrupt ethics.

More Reading

andre

Slime Mould Beetle

I'm Ganking word lab again. You just can't make this stuff up. 3 species of Slime-Mould Beetles are now named after Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfled.

How fitting ;-)

andre

Tax Time

I hate taxes.

Sorry, that's not quite true. I don't mind paying taxes - I hate preparing taxes!

Many Canadians and our American cousins have got this idea in their head that taxes are a bad thing.

"Why can't I keep more of my money?" they say. To which I answer, "its not your money to begin with. Its everyone's money that everyone benefits from."

"Well then, I want more of everyone's money for me... AND I'd like the government to spend more money on [insert your favorite publicly funded thing here]" To which I respond, "you're a selfish moron."

No, I'm quite alright with putting in my fair share for things like healthcare, education, roads, environmental protection, courts and a million other things that we take for granted that government and public servants provide for us. As far as I am concerned what I earn is the money I deposit into savings AFTER taxes have been deducted. For me the part on a paystub that says "taxes" should be renamed "what you have contributed to the common good."

But, what I really dislike is actually having to prepare my taxes. You know... find all of my receipts - find all of my T1-T9999 forms - find all of my statements - find all of my financial dealings - add them up and fill out form after form after form and click send. Yup - it actually makes me sick to think about it. Classic procrastination takes over... I work myself up to the point where the task seems so overwhelming that I don't ever want to start because I feel that I am doomed and it will take far more effort than I am willing to put forth.

So I put it off. And put it off. And put it off some more until finally - its the last week of April and there is no more putting it off. I have to do it. No matter how sick the thought of it makes me - I am going to have to get it done.

But not before one more blog post on the topic - so that I can put it off for an extra ten minutes.

andre

Canteatit.net

Over the last couple of weeks I have been working on a project. And after many hours of sweat and tears the site has been launched.

The site is called Can't eat it. It is a site dedicated to information about digestive problems - and more specifically digestive problems related to candidiasis, leaky gut and IBS (irritable bowel syndrome). FUN STUFF!

The site can be found at Canteatit.net

The site is running Drupal as its back end CMS. For the site I developed a custom theme called "Dan the Avenger" - named after the mascot and site admin. If approved, the theme may be included in the Drupal Theme Garden .

It is a pure CSS design with only 4 images used on the entire site (two of which are background images in the banner - and one that is the background of the site itself).

Check it out. Let me know what you think.

andre

Traffic down

There is no doubt about it. If you don't update your site often - you site traffic takes a beating.

I was just looking over my logs and i've seen a drop in readership. Not that I mind.

I am completely aware of the correlation between how much you write and how many people stop by to read. And, I am very aware of how little I have written in the past month or so.

So in the interest of keeping things 'fresh' around here I have decided to write this very uninteresting and unwitty post.

andre - I know how to wow my audience ;-)

Internet Explorer licks monkey balls

I think that I and every other internet developer should have the right to send Redmond an invoice for wasted productivity time spent working around bugs in their software.

Once again, I am going to bitch about the lousy CSS implementation in IE. Without a bit of exageration I would estimate that at least 25% of my development time is spent fixing rendering bugs that Internet Explorer produces. Some are so common that I don't spend any time at all any more (BTW that doesn't make it any better) - but every so often a new rendering problem bogs my development down.

You often hear reports in the news that say "sick days cost the economy 20 billion dollars" or "spam costs the economy 5 billion." I would be willing to guess that if a study was done - Internet Explorer bugs cost the web development industry half a billion dollars a year in lost productivity... not to mention the social impact of web developers that have been driven to drink because Internet Explorer f*^cks up all of their sites.

The IE team says they are going to do something about the problems, but I am not holding my breath.

andre (if boiling blood could be harnessed as an energy source I could light a city the size of Toronto for a month)

Things I want to be when I grow up

A little while ago I was blogging about things that I am - (professionally speaking). The list is long - almost laughably so.

Today I was catching up on my blog reading (note when I don't write, I typically am not reading either)... and Derek was talking about all the things that he wants to be when he grows up.

Its weird how alike derek and I are. I mean we are totally different - but we are very much the same:

You start to get the picture.

So what do I want to be when *I* grow up.
Comic book writer/artist
Rock star
Bridge designer
Architect
Sound engineer
Political Advisor
Intellectualy Property Lawyer (working towards less restrictive IP)
Professional Golfer
Dish washer
Club DJ
Radio Programming Director
Author
A bird

But the cool thing about my approach to life (and I would bet Derek's) is that while we dream about doing all sorts of crazy things - our constant dabbling and zen learning in all of our interest areas is contstantly moving us towards all of our goals/dreams at once. We may not do any one of them - but we might do a combination of some or all at once or at different times.

andre

A new post?

Well it has been a million years since my last post.

In my defense my buddy has been visiting from taiwan over the past 11 days or so - and entertaining him and others during that period has left me with little spare time. And, unless you blog for a living - spare time is all you have.

So what is new.

I promised a more detailed review of Sin City - here it is.

I mentioned that the dialogue in the film didn't translate well from the pages of the graphic novel. I stand by that. What comes off as cool, dark and bold on the pages of a comic book comes off as forced, campy and utterly immature on the big screen.

Its hard to judge the performances in the film. Did I mention the dialogue is often painful to watch. But, given the material coming out of their mouths I do have to give them credit for playing it so straight. In that respect everyone involved did a fine job to help me suspend my disbelief.

Thank goodness for the visuals though.

I can't wait till this baby comes out on DVD so I can do some screen captures and print them out. Every frame in the film is like a work of art... scratch that.. IS A work of art - seing as the original graphic novel was almost a frame by frame story board of the film.

Pope:

The pope passed away last week. Unless you were living under a rock I guess you heard about that.

I'm not a Catholic - and I certainly don't believe that anyone is the mouthpiece of god on earth - so I don't have any real respect for the title of "Pope." Still, there is no doubt that JPII, in his own way, did dedicate his life to making the world a better place. It always saddens me when good people die even if I don't agree with everything they stand for.

Liberal Sponsership Scandle:

So let me get this straight. In inquiery is set up to find out who was responsible for mis-spent tax payer money. So far we have a bunch of crooked ad execs - a hand full of non-elected officials that are a part of the liberal party - and accusations against past and present MPs. The point is to figure out who did what and when - and then (I would assume) punish the wrong-doers. The program at the root of this inquiry has already been closed down. The inquirey iteself was called. And now we are waiting for the official report.

And we should topple the government and elect steven harper's right wing nut-bars why? Because he says "Paul Martin and the liberal government don't have the moral authority to govern." Last time I checked nobody has the moral authority to govern. The only people allowed to govern are those that were elected - regardless of any morality.

So here's what I propose happens. Wait for the final report. Lock up the crooks. Then, call an election and have a campaign run on issues.

And please Stop using the word moral. It is such a fucking loaded word. Use the word ethic instead. As far as I am concerned I would much sooner have an ethical leader vs. a moral one. Not that 'moral' is a bad thing to be if we were to use a dictionary to define it - but in modern politcal talk 'moral' means 'conservative family values' - and that means 'conservative Christian values' above all others - which means 'faggots and fetus murdering whores to the back of the bus'. I'm sure you wouldn't exactly hear those words come out of a politicians mouth - but you do hear it come out of their 'moral' supporters.

More on this in my next post.

andre

Sin City

Just went out to see Frank Miller's Sin City on the big screen.

I will write a more detailed review - but here's my initial take.

This movie is visually the most interesting thing I have ever seen - especially after a youth spent with my nose stuck in a comic book.

Sadly - comic book dialogue doesn't translate to the big screen very well. This movie would have been much better as a 'silent' film - leave all the sound effects and music - just replace the spoken dialogue with comic book style dialogue boxes.

andre