The Manic Mechanic

The US Copyright Office has made some "adjustments" to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, that heinous piece of ill-conceived legislature that favors increasing the bottom-line of the big corporate interests that had too much of a hand in helping write the law, against the the end users of various content. The Library of Congress, which oversees the Copyright Office, reviews and authorizes exemptions every three years to ensure that the law does not prevent certain non-infringing use of copyright-protected material.


This has the potential to be huge. And you better believe that those aforementioned big corporate interests are going to fight it tooth and nail. Among other things, the revisions allow end users to:

• "Jailbreak" their smartphones to allow code and apps obtained from any legal source (third party apps in iPhone, for example, not obtained through the iTunes store, for example),



• Let researchers, educators and the like to circumvent the copy controls on digital media such as DVDs to include fair-use short clips of content for educational and other uses,



• Allows opening up digital media for alternative delivery means, i.e., allows another wise locked-in e-book title to me used by services and applications that allow reading by visually impaired people, or to allow text-to-speech on otherwise read-only titles,



• Allows people to break the usage and copy controls placed on software that use a dongle or other means to restrict copying and allows operation only on the dongle-equipped computer if the software is obsolete and the dongle cannot be replaced.

These points have been a sore spot among users of digital content ever since the incorporation of the DCMA, and easing these restrictions go a long way toward allowing the use of content on legally owned devices, without constantly re-paying for the same content or running afoul of laws when trying to use tools and applications otherwise abandoned by their creators. These exemptions should have been in place at the beginning, and hopefully this will lead to an ability to use digital content the same way we've been able to use their respective physical versions.

Finally, some help for the little guys. More info can be found here.

Are you being annoyed by someone on the internet? By someone not using their real name to identify themselves? Take solace in the knowledge that the person is now committing a federal crime, thanks to actions of Sen. Arlen Specter (R. PA) and others, and signed into law this past Thursday. I am surprised this has not been more widely reported on. This law has serious consequences for free speech and privacy on the internet, but does that surprise anyone given the totalitarian regime controlling this country now? Have a read, and spread the word. You might want to mirror the text too. Just, you know, in case, you know...

Returning to work today I find that the articles I had in a rough draft form were not on the PC. My fault, saving something else and overwriting the previous using the same file name. That's what I get for mixing work and op-ed pieces I suppose. Kinda put me out of mind and mood to start from scratch. It was a crazy day anyhow, so I would not have gotten much done. Too late to get much done at the moment either, so it will have to wait. Some recent events in the news regarding the same things I have been writing about as well. It's beginning to catch the ears of the general populace, rather than those techie sorts like me.

More blarg @ LJ for random 'database unavailable' and technical problem errors lately. The F5 key is your friend, especially if you wrote out a long post and it looks in danger of being eaten alive when you hit "Update Journal" and you get hit with an error page and going back nets you a blank screen (usually not a problem in Firefox). On the error page, hit F6, OK the 'POSTDATA' dialog and you should be fine.

Speaking of Firefox, I've been having issues with it ever since a Microsoft automatic update and moving to v.1.5. Some of my favorite extensions are broken, most noteably Adblock, even though it's compatible with the newer version. Also, FF will begin slowing down after extended use and eventually crashing. Not making me a very happy camper.

Speaking of blargh, why is it that I can do a couple thousand bux worth of business with a company (Newegg) without issues, and my last order gets put on hold due to billing/shipping address issues? And it did not make me any happier to find this out in an email sent a half hour before their closing time, and my call back to them with 20 minutes to spare nets me a bubbly 'we are closed now' automated message? Jumpin' Jesus on a rocket-powered pogo stick. I am half tempted to cancel the order if I get any sort of 'tude from their staff.

It looks like someone has a case of the Mundays.