All the content from my old GReviews blog can now be found here. It seemed like a good idea to merge the content into just one blog, less administration to deal with, etc.
GReviews Content Merged into GBlog
January 11th, 2010[GNote] Gus & Steve Cabaret Reminder!
October 20th, 2009Hey all,
I’m back from an awesome rehearsal with Steve, and we’ve got the band back together! So, I just wanted to send a quick reminder that our show is on 7pm tonight (Tuesday!) at the Halifax Feast, corner of Barrington & Salter (in the Maritime Center attached to the giant Aliant building), only $10! Be there or be square! (The kids still say that, right?)
Excelsior,
Gus
gnote.ca
Gus & Steve! Photo by Peter Ferguson
Canadian Copyright
September 13th, 2009The government has been soliciting submissions on the direction copyright law should take in Canada. (For more information on this, I suggest reading the information at http://faircopy.ca/ )
The following is my submission to them:
I am both a consumer and producer of copyrighted media. I believe that copyright needs to carefully balance the rights of the artists and producers with the rights of the consumer. The concept of ‘fair use’ for personal and educational uses needs to be evolved for digital devices.
There are a lot of large companies that are only looking out for themselves, not the artists, not the producers, not the consumers. The Record Industry Association of America uses bullying tactics to stay rich, and isn’t particularly helping the artists in the process. It does not serve anyone for corporations to be suing grandmothers and children for listening to a few songs they acquired from the internet.
The idea that music sharing hurts CD sales, aggressively pushed by the record industry, is overly simplistic. John C. Dvorak suggested years ago that Napster, a program used to share music from personal, digital libraries between users, actually helped cd sales. When consumers looked for digital copies of songs they liked (and likely already owned), they found other songs they liked, thus discovering new music they never would have heard otherwise – which they could then buy on CD. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,1537393,00.asp
It should be remembered that just because people download a file for free, it does not mean that a company is losing money. That person may not have paid for the product anyway. But by viewing and possibly sharing a free file, there is at least a gain for the company by exposure – free publicity.
In another article, http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,34048,00.asp , Dvorak suggests that Napster could have become a new distribution medium, where people would pay a monthly fee to use the service without limit, the profits from which could be split amongst the media companies to both the corporation and the consumers’ mutual benefit. Yet, the music companies have not readily embraced such a model, preferring to look to the past.
I believe the onus should be on the private sector to provide services that are simple and convenient for the consumer. There will always be piracy, but it should be up to the private sector to utilize and develop technologies and systems that will inspire consumer loyalty in the majority. The technology exists for companies to distribute their content digitally, without limit. No packaging or physical distribution, which is great for the environment. Peer-to-peer and torrent networks allow for the decentralization of server and bandwidth resources, in effect making it cheaper for content to be distributed than the companies can hosting the content themselves. All the media companies would have to do is be willing to bring full legitimacy and backing to versions of these services, and hook in a payment system (ideally by monthly fee, so that the items a user has purchased don’t even need to be kept track of). This would result in low cost for both distributor and consumer.
All music and video files should also be free of Digital Rights Management. DRM is always flawed – there are always ways to circumvent it, and they often penalize legitimate users by making it hard for them to keep track of licenses, or even introducing instabilities to their computers or causing equipment to malfunction. Honest users will treat the music and video files they purchase appropriately, others will circumvent it anyway.
Companies are embracing digital forms to some extent. iTunes is a popular service, though it charges a relatively high fee for an ephemeral computer file. Many tv shows are being streamed online, though this requires more computer power than distributing files through a peer-to-peer network, where the end result is simply playing on a consumer’s device with little chance of skipping or stalling.
The world is quickly changing. It has been said that Canada can be a leader in technology and green innovations. Fair Copyright can be a part of this strategy. The CBC has already delved into this brave new world by sharing its show Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister via bittorrent. http://www.cbc.ca/nextprimeminister/blog/2008/03/download_canadas_next_great_pr.html Hopefully Canada will continue to be innovative as it looks to the future.
G. Webb
Lunenburg, NS
Blackberry Browsing – An Open Letter to CTV News Channel
September 30th, 2009The September 29th technology segment on CTV News Channel suggested an email browsing practice which has security implications. No mention of any potential security implications was mentioned on the segment, so I’ve written the following email to them.
Dear CTV News Channel,
I am writing about the tech segment with Marcia MacMillan interviewing Marc Saltzman. He suggested that it is more efficient to navigate Blackberry emails using the previous and next hotkeys, however, he did not say anything about the security implications of this practice.
Opening an email can automatically activate content contained within it. Spam can include tracking code or pictures that confirm a user has opened an email, leading to more spam going to that now known address. Emails that are opened can automatically activate viruses. Although Blackberry viruses are purported to be rare, they are not impossible, and it is better to have good security habits now in case they become more prevalent in the future.
Also, good or bad security habits on a Blackberry could transfer to a user’s computer habits. If someone gets used to just skimming through emails with the previous and next hotkeys, opening the email without examining the subject, they might start doing the same on a Windows PC. An email that might not affect a Blackberry could do far more damage to a computer.
Efficiency and security can be at odds, and sometimes there is a fine line between practical and paranoid, but I believe technology segments such as this should include an examination of pertinent security issues, so that the public has some information with which to make their choice between efficiency and security, and to realize that they are making such a choice.
Regards,
Gus Webb
gnote.ca
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