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Archives for January 2008

The Decline of Fair Use

January 14, 2008 by Kassia Krozser

As a writer, I am keenly interested in protecting my ownership rights for my work. It is no small irony that pretty much everything I’ve written in the past several years is freely available on various websites, easily copied by anyone who chooses to do so. And, yes, I have been plagiarized (rather crudely, if you want my opinion). I thank fair use every day for my personal success. Fair use extends the discussion beyond my limited corner of the universe.

Copyright is a Constitutionally-protected right(Article I, Section 8, Clause 8). This means, of course, that the government is entrusted with the responsibility to balance the rights of the content owner with the rights of the public. The fact that copyrights are to be protected for a “limited time” indicates that this balance was considered long before Mickey Mouse edged up to entering the public domain. I still shake my head at the idea that the company that made so much money off the public domain refuses to give back to that community.
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Filed Under: Mediacratic

The Daily Loper – January 11, 2008

January 11, 2008 by Lopy

Musically Inclined Hootchies Edition

Todays links of interest:

  • Macworld leads tech out of the desert
    A topic that probably won’t be discussed at Macworld: how Amazon’s DRM-free download service is totally and utterly going to hand iTunes its ass in the next year.
  • Millions Lose Homes, He Still Gets Rich; Countrywide CEO Gets M
    Boy, talk about failing upwards. It makes you wonder what all the people who got laid off at Countrywide ended up getting.
  • HD DVDs Fall Like Dominoes
    Except that dominoes will still be useful five years from now.
  • [Read more…] about The Daily Loper – January 11, 2008

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

That’s What I Like Under the Christmas Tree

January 11, 2008 by Tory Peña

I think most of us can remember a Christmas morning like this. You wake up, sleepy but excited and head downstairs to the living room. And there it is. Red. Shiny. Everything you ever dreamed of. You can hardly believe your eyes. Santa has brought you a Kitchen Aid Artisan Mixer.

So, perhaps this doesn’t apply to everyone. But there are those of you out there who wait in breathless anticipation for the new Williams-Sonoma catalog and when it comes, leave it not so subtly highlighted and circled in case your significant other happens upon it. You know who you are. You, the one with

your plans drawn up for dream kitchen. Forget the living room, the dining room and even the bedroom. This is your space. I say, kitchen junkies unite.

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Filed Under: That's What I Like

The Daily Loper – January 10, 2008

January 10, 2008 by Lopy

Running to Stand Still Edition

Todays links of interest:

  • FBI wiretaps dropped due to unpaid bills
    See, the telcos have no problem with the government wiretapping their customers. That is, until the bills go unpaid. You gotta draw the line somewhere.
  • My Year of Flops Case File # 101 Graffiti Bridge
    We are in the final two weeks of Nathan Rabin’s utterly awesome My Year of Flops series, and it will be missed when it is gone, not the least for awesome jokes like this:
    "I suspect that anytime (Carmen) Electra visited Paisley Park, it took Prince’s army of manservants, each cloned from Jerome Benton’s DNA, months to get rid of the overwhelming stench of K-Y jelly, cheap perfume, Boone’s Farm, and desperation."
  • Amazon Completes DRM-Free Roster With Sony-BMG
    As predicted. Now if we can only figure out where our local Amazon store is located, we’ll drive over and buy some download cards.
  • [Read more…] about The Daily Loper – January 10, 2008

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

The Daily Loper – January 9, 2008

January 9, 2008 by Lopy

Down, Down to the Marketplace Edition

Todays links of interest:

  • Pre-taped People’s Choice Awards bombs on TV
    Good.
  • Radiohead debuts at No. 1 despite digital giveaway, announces U.S. tour
    So lets review: despite allowing totally and utterly FREE downloads, the CD version of "In Rainbows" debuts at #1. Why? Because it was pretty great, and the fact that it was passed around with impunity helped it, as opposed to hurt it. Conclusions: free downloads aren’t killing the music industry; the music industry’s own continual opposition to how digital music lets artists be heard by uncounted new people is killing it.
  • Hillary Clinton 1, Chris Matthews 0
    Why you may have been surprised that Hillary won New Hampshire last night. The sudden declaration over the weekend that Hillary wuz dead never made much sense. A highly unscientific (margin of error = +/- 98%) poll taken by one of your ‘lopers of his staunch Dem family over Xmas showed all three major candidates running neck and neck and neck with 33% of vote each. Even the ‘loper who knows for damn sure that he’s voting for Obama knows that we’d all do best to heed Yogi Berra’s advice on when it’s over, not Chris Matthews’ or Bill Kristol’s.
  • [Read more…] about The Daily Loper – January 9, 2008

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

Writers Strike Deathwatch: The Golden Globes

January 9, 2008 by Jim Connelly

The Writers Strike has been a bit underground in the past month or so, since there is a normal holiday downtime for new original TV shows anyway. This week, however, it took down what might be its biggest casualty yet: The Golden Globes.

With the Screen Actors Guild boycotting the event, The Globes’ massive pointlessness ramped up past the usual level, and so NBC has reduced it from a major telecast to a um, er, press conference.

Ladies and Gents, while the Golden Globes is the first major awards show (I don’t really count the People’s Choice Awards as anything but more money for Dick Clark) that the WGA strike is going to affect, it is by no means the last.

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Filed Under: Mediacratic, Movies, Television, Writers Strike

The Daily Loper – January 8, 2008

January 8, 2008 by Lopy

All Down The Line Edition

Todays links of interest:

  • David Lynch on iPhone
    Pretty much what you might expect. Which doesn’t make it any less great.
  • Critics Wallop Wikia
    Still trying to see what the point of all this is, exactly.
  • Popless Week One: Bye-eye-eye My Albums
    Noel Murray of the AV Club starts his experiment of spending an entire year analyzing his current music collection — at the expense of hearing any 2008 music whatsoever.
  • [Read more…] about The Daily Loper – January 8, 2008

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

How to Screw Up DRM-Free Music — Lesson One: Trading Cards

January 8, 2008 by Kirk Biglione

Just when it looks like the major labels have finally decided to give consumers what they really want by selling DRM-free music, Sony BMG comes along with a totally innovative harebrained scheme that could have only be hatched by the minds that brought you spyware infected audio CDs.

Sony BMG is the last of the major labels still clinging to DRM as a means of protecting digital content. However, it’s now being widely reported that Sony will begin selling DRM-free album downloads later this month. More precisely, the label will begin selling trading cards that include a PIN that can be used to download music. Oh, and the cards will only be available through traditional retail outlets.

That’s right, to download one of Sony BMG’s new DRM free albums, you’ll need to log off your computer, leave your house, find a retailer that’s actually selling the cards, find a parking spot, buy the damn thing, then drive home to download the album (note the use of the world ‘album’, Sony apparently won’t be selling individual tracks).

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Filed Under: DRM

The Daily Loper – January 7, 2008

January 7, 2008 by Lopy

Weak-ass Mayor of a Broke-ass City Edition

Todays links of interest:

  • Obama Misses Wire Premiere; Could Hurt Him In N.H.
    I think that if I was running for President, I’d have to suspend campaigning for one hour every Sunday night for the next 2 1/2 months. Even if I’d just won Iowa. Of course, that’s why I’m not running for President. Well, that, and 678,098,065 other reason.
  • io9. Strung out on science fiction.
    Annalee Newitz’s long-awaited sci-fi blog on Gawker finally goes live. Tip: enter "sherilyn connelly" into the search box for surprisingly brief (but funny) bits of content by the notoriously long-winded ‘Loper.
  • Paste President: Radiohead Experiment ?A Huge Success?
    In keeping with the tradition of applying multiple meanings to a single word, in this case, "success" is defined narrowly: lots of subscribers, increase to mailing list, less so on the financial break-even. Still, it shows what happens when people are asked to pay for entertainment media.
  • Noontime Web Video Revitalizes Lunch at Desk
    And will give rise to the phenomenon known as the Bored at Work network.
  • [Read more…] about The Daily Loper – January 7, 2008

Filed Under: The Daily Loper

Funeral Dirge For HD DVD

January 7, 2008 by Kassia Krozser

If I were a consumer who’d invested in the HD DVD format, I’d be fighting, suing mad right now. If I were a studio head who’d placed my company’s future in HD DVD, I’d be panicking right now. And if I were a shareholder in a motion picture company that “chose” the HD DVD format, I’d be starting a management ouster.

As announced on Friday (word spread through the motion picture industry — or at least my little part of it — much faster than the rain we were told was coming), Warner Brothers has decided to go all Blu-Ray all the time. Since only two majors — NBC Universal and Paramount (plus Dreamworks Animation) — remain in the HD DVD camp, industry wisdom has declared that format dead.

[By the way, those of you who truly want to understand why the newspaper industry is dying? When I searched for “dvd format war” on the latimes.com site, the number of search results returned? Zero. The headline of the article is “DVD format war appears to be over”. Luckily, Google came through.]
[Read more…] about Funeral Dirge For HD DVD

Filed Under: Mediacratic

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Previously on Medialoper

  • Certain Songs #2013: The Rolling Stones – “Empty Heart”
  • Certain Songs #2012: The Rolling Stones – “Around and Around”
  • Certain Songs #2011: The Rolling Stones – “Time Is On My Side”
  • Certain Songs #2010: The Rolling Stones – “It’s All Over Now”
  • Certain Songs #2009: The Rolling Stones – “Not Fade Away”

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