By Jason Kottke, kottke.org – December 14, 2010 at 11:13AM
Some gloriously crazy person took clips from 270 films that were out in 2010 and mixed them together into a coherent narrative:
This year’s movies have legitimately transformed my idea of what is creatively possible. To commemorate, I’ve remixed 270 of them into one giant ass video.
Wonderful. Here’s a list of all the films used. (thx, aaron)
By Mike Masnick, Techdirt. – December 14, 2010 at 04:50AM
It’s amusing to see defenders of current copyright law often making final declarations about how copyright is a “right” for artists, and thus protecting those rights absolutely makes sense. What they never seem to talk about is how, at the same time, copyright quite frequently is removing rights from the public. Julian Sanchez points us to a fascinating new paper from law professor John Tehranian, which tries to bring user rights back into the discussion of copyright. Here’s the abstract:
This Article challenges copyright’s prevailing narrative on personhood, which has typically focused on the identity interests that authors enjoy in their creative output. Instead, the analysis explores the personhood interests that consumers possess in copyrighted works. Drawing on a wide range of examples — from flag burning as copyright infringement, the Kookaburra controversy and the crowd-sourced origins of the Serenity Prayer to the reported innumeracy of the enigmatic Piraha Amazonians, the apocryphal source of ancient Alexandria’s Royal Library and the unusually fragile nature of digital media — the Article advances a Hegelian refutation to intellectual property maximalism and a theory of copyright that recognizes the crucial link between identity politics and the legal regime governing the monopolization and control of cultural symbols and creative works.
The paper is a bit long, but it’s a good read, as it effectively highlights how copyright really quite frequently takes away the rights that people would have in analogous situations. For those who insist that copyright is just like “real property” this particular paragraph (after a whole section describing how, in popular culture, we often define and identify ourselves by modifying the physical things we own) suggests one of the many ways in which “intellectual property” isn’t like “real property” at all:
Intellectual property laws directly mediate the vindication of formative and expressive identity interests. The modern copyright and trademark regimes do not allow individuals to manipulate and utilize intellectual property in the same way that they can customize and contextualize their experience with physical property. Simply put, most customizations or contextualizations of intellectual property are considered potential violations of a copyright owner’s exclusive rights under the Copyright Act or a trademark owner’s rights under the Lanham Act. So, for example, by performing the equivalent of ripping holes in one’s jeans (e.g., remixing a song or altering a brand name), a consumer of intellectual property runs afoul of a copyright holder’s exclusive right to create derivative works or a trademark holder’s right to prevent dilution. One can contextualize and communicate one’s relationship with one’s jeans by wearing them in public, but the equivalent act of publicly utilizing a copyrighted work would impinge on an author’s exclusive right to control public displays and performances. In twenty-first century America, our relationship with intellectual property is an essential part of defining ourselves. And in an increasingly digital and virtual world, the semiotic value of intellectual property is just as significant as physical property, if not more so.Our identity interests therefore can become intermingled with and wrapped up in a form of property to which we technically, and legally, possess no ownership rights.
The article also explains how the famed Library in Alexandria, which — to this day — is held up as an example of a wonderful scenario of aggregating and sharing the world’s knowledge, was effectively built via “piracy.” Everyone visiting Alexandria was required to deposit any reading materials they had with the Library, where it would be copied and stored.
It was this act of infringement — the wholesale reproduction of a work without permission of the author or publisher, sanctioned (and even dictated) by law–that allowed the creation of one of the great Meccas of education in the ancient world. The private use of these unauthorized copies fostered learning and the dissemination of knowledge so critical to both personal development and artistic and scientific progress. Indeed, without the extensive collection of learning housed at the Library, the scholarship that emerged from the institution would not have been possible.
There’s also a great section on the massive expansion of secondary liability, which does not appear to be supported by federal copyright law, and which is quite frequently used as a back door to remove or limit user rights. While there may not be all that much “new” here for regular readers, the whole paper is definitely a worthwhile read.
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By Brian Barrett, Gizmodo – December 13, 2010 at 08:00PM
You could get the budding lumberjack in your life an axe for the holidays, but what’s the fun in that? If he’s going to chop down his own Christmas tree, he should do it with an axe he made himself. More »
By Kat Hannaford, Gizmodo – December 13, 2010 at 04:00PM
As we’ve seen Angry Birds in pretty much every possible form (Halloween costumes, cake, paper stop-motion animation, ornithological documentation) it figures an 8-bit version would happen along at some time. More »
By Sebastian Anthony, Download Squad – December 13, 2010 at 04:00PM
Let’s be honest: if you’re reading Download Squad, you’re in the 99th percentile when it comes to computer technology. You probably know how to touch type, or send a file across the world at the speed of light, and in all likelihood you own one of the big three video game consoles. Like all things that you’ve grown up with and come to rely on, though, you don’t realize just how lucky you are to have high-tech gadgets in your life.
Don’t worry, I’m not going to go on about the malnourished kids in Sub-Saharan Africa and how you ought to feel thankful for food and good health this Christmas. Instead, just take a moment and think about what life would be like without a computer, without an Internet connection — without LOLCATS.
The sad truth is, only the last couple of generations have attained computer mastery. Your parents might use computers, but as a means to an end, not as a tool. I don’t think I’ve ever heard my mother say she likes Microsoft Word, but it gets the job done. You and I both know that technology can be so much more than that. It can become an extension of our everyday life — and there’s no reason your older relatives should miss out on the fun!
I’ve compiled a list of five items that can all massively improve a nascent computer user’s enjoyment of technology. Some are cheap, and some are expensive — but do your parents a favor and buy them something from this list this Christmas.
Continue reading 5 perfect computery Christmas gifts for your mother, father or family elder
5 perfect computery Christmas gifts for your mother, father or family elder originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
By Becky Stern, MAKE – December 13, 2010 at 02:00PM
Zach Lieberman writes:
The EyeWriter is a low-cost eye-tracking apparatus + custom software that allows graffiti writers and artists with paralysis resulting from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis to draw using only their eyes.
The original design featured a pair of glasses as the basis for the eyewriter design.
Since that first video, we’ve been hacking on and developing the project, and we have a new design, which we’ve called “eyewriter 2.0” which improves the accuracy of the device, and allow for people who’s heads are moving slightly to also use an eye tracker. The original eyewriter, designed for a paralyzed Graffiti artist TEMPT1, is designed to be worn on a completely motionless head. The 2.0 design, which uses a camera and LED system mounted away from the head, can be used by people whose heads are moving slightly, such as MS patients, and people who wear glasses, etc.
This eyewriter system is cheap, and completely open source. At the moment, it costs about 200$ in parts. Traditional commercial eye trackers costs between $9000-$20,000, so this is a magnitude of order cheaper, and is designed to help anyone who wants or needs an eyetracker.
This fall, we’ve been showing off and demoing the 2.0 device — check out the eyewriter 2.0 in action — we even hooked it up to a robotic arm, to draw the artwork people make with their eyes.
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By Kevin Purdy, Lifehacker – December 13, 2010 at 01:30PM
If you get frustrated explaining computer basics, but also cringe at the thought of family members paying for rip-off “PC Optimization,” just let Google do it. Or, more accurately, tell Google which really helpful tech support videos to send to your family.
We all get frustrated, believe me—even if you mean well, and the questions are straight-ahead, the disconnect between what you know, and how your intended recipient needs to hear it, is often substantial. Google’s Teach Parents Tech webapp asks you to pick a few videos from a really good collection explaining the basics. Changing desktop backgrounds, upgrading browsers, canceling newsletter subscriptions, and some good photo editing and attachment basics that will, in turn, make your own inbox a nicer place to live. When you’ve got your picks, Google sends along an email with links and thumbnails:
And here’s an example video, explaining how to create a strong password (seemed apropos today, no?):
It’s a free service to use, and perfectly timed to get some basic tech out of the way so your holidays aren’t laced with angry-worded exhortations of “Right-click! No, on the icon! Choose Properties! No, don’t right-click Properties!”
By Brian Barrett, Gizmodo – December 13, 2010 at 01:00PM
What were the ten most-watched YouTube videos of 2010? If I had my way it would just be the Bed Intruder song on repeat. But! Here’s how it actually played out. More »
By Alexia Tsotsis, TechCrunch – December 13, 2010 at 12:00PM
You remember Facebook Disconnect, the browser extension that allowed you to remove Facebook Connect functionality from websites? After 50K active users in two weeks and hitting the top 10 Google Chrome extensions, creator Brian Kennish has left his job at Google to focus on building Disconnect, a browser extension for Chrome and Rockmelt that disables multiple third party data tracking while browsing. In the same vein as Facebook Disconnect, Disconnect prevents major third parties like Digg, Facebook, Google, Twitter and Yahoo from gathering information (cookies) about the pages you go to and the searches you do.
Says Kennish:
“I called it quits at Google three weeks ago so I could help web users better understand the data they’re unintentionally sharing and develop tools that make it simple for them to control this data (I’ve been referring to this effort as Web 2.1, a privacy patch for the web).”
As people get more and more paranoid about the usage of their search and browsing data, we will begin to see more and more “Web 2.1″ offerings like Disconnect. Disconnect is easier to use than conventional ad blockers and does not impair web functionality, i.e. you can still access services like Gmail while your searches remain anonymous. Disconnect also conveniently allows you to see blocked requests as well easily unblock services from your browser toolbar.
Kennish has a Disconnect for Firefox and Safari in the works. In the meantime you can take the Chrome and Rockmelt versions for a spin here.
By Thomas Ricker, Engadget RSS Feed – December 13, 2010 at 01:44AM
It happens every December. You head home for the holidays only to be accosted by parents who need help fixing their computers. This year, it looks like Google will be lending a hand with its unannounced Teach Parents Tech series of public service videos. The Google-registered website teachparentstech.org still shows a “coming soon…” graphic and the videos remain unlisted on YouTube, but that shouldn’t stop you from sending the source link below to your parents right now. At the moment, we’re counting 54 cross-platform how-to videos hosted by real live Google employees. The videos are brief (less than a minute) covering topics as simple as “how to copy and paste” and “how to attach a file to an email” to more advanced sessions covering “how to setup an email autoresponder” and even “how to find cheap flights.” Unfortunately, even Google can’t explain to parents how to create a FAT32 hard drive partition. See what we mean after the break.
Update: And it’s live. Might as well get in the gift-giving spirit, eh?
[Thanks, Nathan G.]
Google’s Teach Parents Tech site to help mom and dad find the ‘any’ key this Christmas originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Dec 2010 02:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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